Tampon Tim Backfires Bigly

Providing Free Period Products is Not Controversial

Tim Walz is an Aaron Sorkin character: a Democrat’s dream candidate who we’re pretty sure doesn’t exist in real life, or at least couldn’t get elected. He’s Jed Bartlett, Arnie Vinnick, Matt Santos, and Roberto Mendoza rolled into one (IYKYK). He’s a 20-year public school teacher who served in the military, sponsored the Gay Straight Alliance, coached the football team, won the Congressional sharp-shooting contest, relied on IVF to build a family, passed aggressive green energy laws, has less than a million dollars of net worth, wrote his master’s thesis on Holocaust education, and seems to be the talking points wizard the Democrats have needed for years.  (“Mind your own damn business.”)

Not surprisingly, the Right is having a hard time attacking him. They’ve tried to go after his military service by suggesting he abandoned his unit as soon as he heard they were going to a war zone, but the dates don’t line up to support that story. Trump has tried to go after him as being too supportive of trans rights, but he’s having a hard time articulating the message. In his press conference he said that Walz was “heavy into the transgender world.”  What does that even mean? My favorite attack, however, is when they tried to make Tampon Tim into an insult. (Remember when Obamacare was meant as an insult?)

As governor, Walz signed a large education bill that included a mandate for schools to provide free menstrual products. The Right jumped on this as a form of woke liberal indoctrination. Megyn Kelly tweeted her support for the Tampon Tim nickname and added “Are you aware he forced 4th grade boys to have tampons in their school bathrooms? You’re good with that? Totally norms?”

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News took it up a notch saying, “As a woman there is no greater threat to a woman’s health than leaders... who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools. Those are radical policies Tim Walz supports.”  (Let’s pause for a moment to consider all of the actual threats to women’s health like maybe breast cancer, cervical cancer, heart disease, a lack of abortion care, and the highest maternal mortality rate of any high-income nation.)  

There’s nothing radical about providing period products to school kids. Studies have found that one in four menstruating kids has trouble paying for period supplies. Kids who don’t have the pads and tampons they need don’t come to school when they have their periods. Kids who don’t come to school for a few days each month fall behind. It’s a real problem, and the solution is so obvious that 28 states—including some run by Republicans—have mandated that schools provide period supplies.  

The law Walz signed doesn’t actually require said tampons to be in the boy’s bathroom—it just says they have to be readily accessible to students—but the fact that Kelly and Leavitt latched onto to the sex and gender issue is telling. Clearly, they want to use this as proof that Walz is “heavy into trans,” but all it really does is remind us that Republicans have never gotten out of the genital phase of psychological development (which is supposed to end by age 6 according to Dr. Freud). They’re scared of vaginas and obsessed with who is doing what in the bathroom.   

I’m a little surprised that Megyn Kelly of all people became the champion of the Tampon Tim nickname. We’ve had almost a decade of Trump spewing misogyny so it might be hard for some of us to remember that time he turned on Megyn Kelly by suggesting she had “blood spewing from her whatever,” but it’s hard to imagine she forgot. She was doing her job and had reached a high point in her career by moderating a presidential debate, and he made it about her vagina. She can’t afford to hold a grudge given how badly her foray into a mainstream network went, but does she have to join the anti-menstruation chorus?

The Tampon Tim thing backfired bigly (to use an old Trump fave). It’s actually drawn much-needed attention to period poverty, and no one other than J.D. Vance’s friends see any controversy here. Those of us not scared of the vadge realize that free tampons are not a threat to anyone. In fact, if fourth grade boys across the country see tampons in school bathrooms, we might manage to raise a generation of men who are perfectly comfortable buying period supplies for their wives and daughters. Now that would be totally norms.

CDC Recommends Pain Relief for IUD Insertion

IUDs are a great form of birth control. They are over 99% effective for three to eight years without any effort on the part of the user. This makes them the ultimate “set it and forget it” method. Except for one thing: setting it can hurt like a mofo. Young IUD users took to TikTok earlier this year to complain about how much their IUD insertion hurt and how little sympathy they got from their doctors. Now, the CDC is recommending that health care providers discuss pain and pain relief with their patients ahead of insertion.  

Getting an IUD requires a provider to first insert a speculum—which looks like a cross between a cute little duck bill and a medieval implement of torture—into the vagina to hold it open. Then they use a tenaculum—which looks like a cross between a scissor and a dentist’s pick and clearly was a medieval implement of torture—to open the cervix. They then add an instrument called a sound—which looks like a really long swizzle stick with a slight curve—to figure out the size and position of the uterus. Finally, they insert the T-shaped piece of plastic that will stay in the uterus for years. It takes about 15 minutes, and it hurts.

One look at these instruments—followed by realization that they’re all in the vagina at the same time—would make anyone go ouch. Yet most people are told that insertion won’t hurt or that they’ll just feel a little pinch. Some patients are warned of menstrual-like cramping after insertion and told take a little Advil when they get home. Few patients are offered anything stronger during or after the procedure.

After the outrage on social media, some Planned Parenthood affiliates announced they would offer IV sedation to patients who wanted it. This kind of sedation, sometimes called “twilighting,” is used for other medical and dentistry procedures to help relax patients and inhibit pain. Though they’re not totally out, patients who have had IV sedation also often can’t remember the procedure, which is an added benefit especially for those who might consider another IUD when this one needs to come out.

Other clinicians offer nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas. Similar to IV sedation, nitrous oxide has “analgesic, anesthetic, and amnestic effects.” (You know I love me some alliteration.) I’ve never had nitrous oxide, but our pediatric dentist uses the “baby elephant nose” when he does fillings or pulls teeth, and my kids always look like they’re having a good time. (“Mommy, my toes are vibrating.”) More importantly, neither of them has the crippling fear of the dentist that I do.

The CDC did not go as far as to suggest either of these options but did call out pain management during IUD insertion in the updated contraception guidance for clinicians released last week. The guidance specifically points to the use of lidocaine either topically to numb the cervix itself or as paracervical injection (in the skin near the cervix) to numb the whole area. The agency also recommended that clinicians take a “person-centered” approach to pain management and “recognize that the experience of pain is individualized and might be influenced by previous experiences including trauma and mental health conditions, such as depression or anxiety.”

I suppose this is a good start in a world where women’s pain is routinely ignored or dismissed, but I’m not sure it’s enough. I also fear this language veers toward blaming things other than the speculum, tenaculum, and sound for the pain. Yes, some people may be more anxious, and anxiety can worsen pain physically (we tense up) and mentally (we panic). But jamming a foreign object into your uterus using a series of other foreign objects is going to hurt whether you’re anxious or not.

I didn’t like my IUD. I got very crampy after it went in and felt like the cramps never went away. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I swear I could feel my IUD in my uterus. (What can I say? I’m very sensitive. I’ve also never been able to wear contacts because I can feel them in my eyes and am pretty sure I would feel that pea under those 20 mattresses.) My gynecologist offered no pain relief during the procedure, and I didn’t know to ask. When I told her it still hurt a few months later, she offered no encouragement that the discomfort might subside nor any advice on how to manage it. She just said she’d be happy to take it out for me. After a few more months of permanent low-grade cramps later, I let her.

My experience was uncommon; most people I talk to love their IUDs (of course, many of them also manage to wear contact lenses). I continue to recommend this method because it’s reliable and easy for most people. I do suggest people ask for as much pain relief as they think they’ll need and find a different provider if theirs tries to insist it’s not necessary. Personally, I would need at least vibrating toes if I were to ever go through that again.

I’m the Scary Mommy Talking About Orgasms

A new study highlighting the orgasm gap between men and women in heterosexual relationships got some press attention last week. Jamie Kenney of Scary Mommy, who shares my love of snark and is really funny, turned to yours truly for help deciphering the study and advice for those facing a pleasure gap in their own home. Check out what I said, then picture my mother reading it out loud in the car while my children were in the back seat. As I said, I’m the scary mommy.

End of Summer Note

It’s a crazy time in my house. I am about see my parents off to their new home in Florida (yes, they are registering to vote as soon as they get there) and take my oldest daughter off to her freshman year of college in Pennsylvania (yes, she’s already registered to vote there). Then my younger daughter will start high school. Between the packing, school shopping, and weeping there might not be a lot of time for writing in the next few weeks, but I will be back with more Sex in September.