Edit: I spent so long replying I didn't even make a post.
I'm ordering a series of reusable pads and a diva cup today. I plan to try using them as soon as I'm back from Uganda. Reasons are following:
- Reusable means that with proper maintenance I will never have an embarrassing situation where I've run out and had to run to the store. It also means no more buying these sort of things in the eyes of men--and when I work with men day in and out and use a buddy system, EVERYONE knows when I'm on it or when I need products for it. It's a bit embarrassing and something a bit more private for me.
- Cost. If it works out well enough, the cost of these items with laundry and proper soaps and sterilization means that it'll pay for itself in three years. Since I figure this will be the life span of the products, it means that they cost no more or less than disposables. Just a bit more of my time, something I don't mind.
- The diva cup offers something I cannot stress the importance of enough being a woman in the military--Not taking a bathroom break every 3 hours. It's just not feasible to change a tampon every 3-5 hours for a female.. Even if you WANT to, situations arise where you can't. There have also been situations where I've had to keep a dirty tampon in a snack-bag ziploc in my pocket for hours before I can properly dispose of it because of field exercises. Talk about disgusting. Not NEEDING a latrine every few hours is really important to completing missions without worries.. Nothing distracts you like being worried about if you're bleeding through your uniform and the potential embarrassment of everyone seeing it.
I've emailed the diva cup website to look into alternatives for satisfactory sterilization other than boiling water, but I think it will come down to a bleach solution and allowing it air dry and then rinsing it with hot water and allowing it to air dry once more.
Anyways, I'll write reviews on the pads and the cup once I receive them and let ya'll know how gross or awesome they are. Keep in mind, blood doesn't gross me out.. never has. Never understood how people can cut their arm and not worry about it, but freak out at the sight of period blood.
Sure it does.
Context: [The Lady Cup requires you to reach up inside of yourself using your fingers. Your tampon and crap examples do not require you to do that. With that simple understanding of the reality of the surrounding facts, one can have good hygiene in the bathroom with TP and thorough washing of their hands. Throw in a Lady Cup and because of the REUSABLE invasive nature of it, installed using your fingers to go in deep to pop it in, you can easily introduce bacteria/disease into your body AND spread your body fluids around the bathroom.]
It is true that this CAN be very gross very quickly if people are not clean about it. The website for Diva Cup, the leading reusable brand, states you not only should wash your hands before you utilize the latrine and after, but also to use a mild detergent and water to wash it (with a specific technique to ensure all residues are removed, even the tiny breathing holes) with each removal, a particular way to remove it so that no spillage occurs (no blood will get on your hands this way, since it is all in the cup and above the areas you are touching) and you should boil the entire thing for 10 minutes in rolling boiling water to sterilize it after each cycle, and also to ensure you keep it in a clean breathable bag to allow for the device to stay safe between uses. These are all very effective measures for keeping the gross factor out of the cup. They also state the life of the cup is only 2 years, and that it should be replaced by then.. so you're not using the same cup for years on end either.
And to be honest, this is about a sterile as anything can get. all of those measures create an effective and clean reusable cycle.
Have you ever considered why this cup concept is not popular in the western world after being around since the early 1930's? because no matter how the poor/lazy/hippies try to spin it, this product reeks of poor hygiene and the spread of disease.
I'd say what stores make available, what is advertised, and what is educated on is what makes all the difference. People like convenience. Americans like to throw things away, and think it magically disappears when the garbage man takes it away. But that isn't really the reality of the situation. you pay for convenience, so it isn't cheaper in the long run (though the short run--definitely.) People are socially susceptible to thinking that things like periods are gross and disgusting rather than a fairly normal thing (Most people I know don't even shudder at getting a scratch that bleeds.. but seeing period blood will make them sick to their stomach. socialization has a lot to do with that. It isn't really a rational thing.) People would rather pay for something that they can use right away and forget about, than to take a few moments to do something like sterilize a cup properly. It's just the society we live in.
[*]They leave it in for 12-hours. Gross and lazy! (Should be replaced every 3-5.)
I'd argue keeping an overnight pad on and sleeping in is just as lazy and gross. The pad doesn't dry, or breathe, holds moisture and the blood right up to the vagina all night.
A tampon left in overnight is 6-8 hours, which isn't too much better. Even if you're diligent during the day, you have to sleep sometime. Also, it dries out the vagina, keeping it from cleaning itself (which is what the vagina does. It isn't a sterile area by any means, but it does clean itself.. and it needs its own fluids to do that. The tampons absorb everything, not just fluid.)
nothing is really 100% not 'gross' about the whole process.. But I don't think a cup is less hygienic.
I'd also argue that worrying about bacteria on things like showers and sinks is nonsense. Flushing a toilet without closing the lid (something most people do) throws bacteria all OVER the bathroom, studies again and again have shown it. So why don't you die from typhoid and dysentery the next time you brush your teeth? The amount is so minute, and you've lived around it all your life, that it won't hurt you. your body has defenses that keep things like traces of bad bacteria from messing you up every time and forcing you to live in a bubble.
Also, using a pan to boil it means that the water won't allow bacteria to grow. Have you never boiled your hairbrushes and combs? You boil those to kill germs and bacteria and sterilize them every so often.. But boiling means the pan doesn't get all messy and gross and unusable in the process. I think that the socialized "periods are gross" thought process creates these germaphobe mentalities. The danger of touching someone else's period blood just isn't there. At least, no more than with disposables.
Users warned it's very slimey when they reach in with their fingers and fish/pop out the cup and it's messy. (One girl said she was on vacation and it slipped out of her bloody fingers and fell in the hotel toilet. She said she just rinsed it in hot water and reinserted.) GROSS AND STUPID!
Knowing how to properly use it means it popping out and 'splashing' will never happen. The website also states that the cup being exposed to any unsanitary conditions like a toilet should just be replaced to be on the safe side. What people actually do is their business.
Is blood involved? Do penises stay in for 12-hours? I don't use vibrators/dildos. My eating utensils are washed in a dishwasher. I carry hand sanitizer with me everywhere. I have this little keychain with sanitizer from Bath and Body Works.
Any contact, no matter the length of time, can spread bacteria. A penis in for 12 seconds has just as much time to spread germs as one in for 12 hours, though God knows why anyone would have one in that long. I'd argue masturbation of the hands is less sterile than with a dildo/vibrator as well. those can easily be sanitized with boiling water--your hands cannot. Hand sanitizer helps some, but it isn't the save-all for germs. If it were, people would never wash their hands with soap.. they'd just use sanitizer and rinse off any dirt and debris with water. But it isn't recommended to do that for a good reason.
BTW, I was reading about how Softcup is a disposable product and is not intended for reuse like the Lady Cup. Sounds like a much better option for the cup lovers.
It also defeats the purpose of the cups in the first place--which is to find a simpler, more environmentally suitable menstrual catch system. Toxic Shock Syndrome is the only reason why tampons aren't left in until they fill up.. well, that and the fact that the vagina needs a break from all that dryness to clean itself.. Dry vaginas will cause a whole slew of other problems. Either of which are effects of the Cups, so leaving them in longer is NOT an unsafe option. What is unsafe is allowing them to overflow (again, these are not a convenience factor), and not properly cleaning them when they are taken and re-inserted. Again, I think the fact that this part is NOT convenient for people is what keeps them from being popular and/or from being used in a half-assed way..
I think the disposable cup is suitable for sex since the cup is made of soft, flexible material and the cup sits in a certain way that allows for the penis to move by, but I've also heard stories of it slipping since its positioning is different than the Diva Cup, which suctions on the lower half of the vagina and goes no where near the cervix. If you're going to have sex on your period, you might as well just stop being squeamish and do the dirty in the shower like everyone else*.
*and by everyone else, I mean everyone who does that in the first place.