TRANSCRIPT
Alright ladies, I’ve decided to do a quick demo on how to use a menstrual cup because quick demos are easier to watch. Wouldn’t you agree?
Text: Well, much shorter than the first one anyway, which I think I will rename “trouble shooting”
First you’re gonna want to know what a menstrual cup is. It’s basically this, a flexible rubbery cup made out of medical grade silicone and it’s a reusable alternative to tampons; and because it’s made out of medical grade silicone it has natural anti-bacterial properties and it doesn’t absorb anything so it has not been associated with Toxic Shock Syndrome.
Text: Depending on the company you buy from, it can be reused for 1-10 years. More environmentally friendly, with less health risks.
Ok now on to how to use it. We’re gonna be using this glass as a demonstration and I know it’s wider and longer than an actual vagina but it was the only good example I could find. So to insert it there’s two folds: You can either fold it in half lengthwise and then fold it in half again so that the rim forms a c shape; or you can do a punch down fold where you just press in the edge of the cup down into the centre and the other edge will come to a slight point as you pinch it in that position.
So you’re inserting it, say you’re looking at this from a side view where this here is your back (left of inverted glass), and this here is your stomach (right of inverted glass.) A lot of people think the vagina goes straight up and down but actually it goes back like this towards your rectum. Ok so to insert it you fold the way I demonstrated and you insert it inside the vagina, again angling back, and then you let go of it. It will naturally open on its own, then it forms a seal inside of you and catches all the menstrual fluid or the “blood” if you will. The stem down here, that’s basically just like a tampon string. It’s so that you can find your cup and grab it to remove it. You can trim it as short as you need it to be comfortable. When the cup is full the easiest way to remove it is to pinch the bottom and you tilt it from side to side like this – left right left right – and then you just ease out one edge of the rim and you hold it in an upright position like that.
Afterwards you empty it in the toilet, wash it and then fold it and reinsert it. It’ll be nice and clean after you wash it, the blood comes off so it’s not like you’re putting old stuff back inside of you or anything.
And because that glass is so big I decided to use a demonstration item that’s a little more realistic in terms of how your body lays around a cup inside you. This is just a regular shower sponge; I bought it at the dollar store. So again we’ve got it slanted back the way the natural angle goes. We’ve got our cup folded and say that this here on the end is the entrance to the vagina, you would insert the cup like this and then you would release it, and that is how it would sit inside. You can see from these angles that it may or may not be perfectly round when it’s inside you, it just depends on your own natural shape, but your cervix would be right about up here and that’s basically the tiny hole that blood or the flow comes out of. So it basically would drain straight down into your cup.
Text: Thank you all for watching!