by Tyra Banks
Carolyn: And then, we danced! All the girls formed a circle, and Tyra got in the middle and shook her booty (even though there wasn’t much of it at the time) while we all clapped and sang around her. It was her moment, her day. She was a woman now, and she felt good about it. All the girls left wanting a period party, even if they’d already started, and I started throwing them for all my nieces. Before we even knew what popularity on the Internet was (heck, there was no Internet back then), my period parties went viral (within our ten-block radius).
Tyra: I stayed true to my word, and for about a year after I started my period, I said, “Oh, hell no!” to tampons. When I was on my period, my purse was like a diaper bag, half-full of cottony, superthick maxi pads. But one day, I was at school in class when I ran out of them.
Damn.
None of my friends used pads, so no one had any.
Damn again.
One girl slipped a tampon in my hand, and I immediately dropped it and was like—you guessed it—“Oh, hell no!”
In the bathroom, I decided to risk scent, dent, and accident (see below) and just balled up a bunch of toilet paper that resembled a baseball and stuck it in my underwear. Needless to say, it didn’t work and started to slide around and break down into a mess. I went back to my friend and whispered, “OK, gimme that tampon. I’m going to do it.”
She came with me to the bathroom and stood outside the stall, trying to coach me through it. “You got this, Ty.” But, goodness gracious, I couldn’t do it. The tampon just wouldn’t budge. Not a bit. My friend then transformed from coach to cheerleader. “You can do it. I know you can. Relax and think that tampon’s a man.”
Her rhyming was ridiculous. Even more so because I was a virgin.
And to make matters worse, the clock was ticking. This bathroom stall period party was not taking place during lunch—we had snuck out of class, saying we both had to go to the bathroom, and I realized that even if we both had a case of violent food poisoning, we would still be taking too long. So, I finally gave up. More toilet paper was gonna have to do it for the rest of the day, this time folded in layers and not like something Derek Jeter or Jennie Finch would catch in their mitts. Fortunately, I still had my tampon bouquet from Mama, so once I got home, I could practice until I finally got the hang of it.
It took about five years.
And thank God—even it if had had real wings, there was no way a bulky pad would’ve flown on the Victoria’s Secret runway.
SCENT, DENT, AND ACCIDENT: THE THREE WAYS PEOPLE CAN TELL YOU’RE ON YOUR PERIOD (AND THE THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO AVOID)
Scent:
Carolyn: When I was in junior high school, you could always tell some girls were on their periods because you could smell it. In some cultures, girls are not supposed to bathe when they are on their periods—and I respect that, but at the same time, it breaks my heart! It’s hard to describe the smell of a period gone wrong, but you know it! Tyra has a term for it, but I don’t want to say it. I’ll let her crazy butt share it on TV someday. Knowing her, she probably already has. But in short, I told the girls at Tyra’s period party that if they didn’t want the world to know they were on their periods, they had to make sure to change their pads frequently and bathe every single darn day. Skipping showers while menstruating was out of the question. And I don’t care how late you are to school or work. Get your booty in some water or else.
Dent:
Tyra: I’m sure I had this issue all the time with those ginormous pads back in the day. To me, the pads seemed as long and thick as the bread on a foot-long Subway sandwich. So I think you’re kind of understanding what dent means now, right? It means that the pad is kind of sticking out and you can see it through your clothes. Especially when someone is wearing tight pants and the pad is just too long, it can look a hot mess. The situation is not as serious these days because some pads are as thin as those micro-shaved slices of turkey they have at Subway. Don’t know why I keep referring to Subway. They are not paying me. Not that they would pay me to compare their sandwiches to obsolete maxi pads.
Anyway, now I’m hungry.
Accident:
Carolyn: We all know what this one is—you bleed through your pad or tampon and it gets on your clothes. This is a junior high girl’s worst nightmare, so I told the girls to change out whatever fluid catcher they were using before it filled up, and to always make sure they had plenty of pads and tampons on hand. Not every bathroom has vending machines (the lack of them should be a crime), and a lot of times when they do, they don’t work, or the pads are as thick as (see Tyra’s previous sandwich bread references). You should even have enough pads and tampons to share so that when that random, panicked woman on her first date with her future life partner comes running into the restroom exclaiming, “Does anyone have an extra tampon?!” you can save the day and maybe make a new friend. Even if you never see her again, you’ll be her knight in shining tampon, and she’ll tell the story at her anniversary parties forever.
IN ALL SERIOUSNESS: WHY PERIOD PARTIES ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS
Tyra: I’m lucky to have my mom for so many reasons (I know this, and she knows this, and she knows I know this), and the period party was just one of them. When I was younger, I thought of ye olde PP as something silly that she’d done to keep me from being embarrassed about my body and to make me and my friends giggle. It wasn’t until I got older that I fully realized the cultural significance of what she’d done. For so many women around the world, having a period is nothing to giggle about. They’re not even embarrassed about it; they’re downright shamed!
Thanks to my mom’s gift basket, when I started my period, I had a whole smorgasbord of feminine products at my disposal, so if my virgin vagina and I opted for a pads-only lifestyle, that was on us. For many girls in developing countries, though, there’s no choice about it. They’ll use what’s available—leaves, socks, et cetera—if anything’s available at all. Many, especially displaced women living in refugee camps, don’t even have access to private bathrooms where they can manage their periods in peace.
Just like my mom when she started, if girls don’t have the right information about what is happening to them, they might not even know periods exist until they get theirs and—again, just like Mom—they find blood in their underwear and think they’re dying or seriously ill.
Over the past few years, many activists and relief organizations have worked to bring some of these issues out of the girls’ room (or lack thereof) and turned menstruation awareness into a global campaign (once again, my mama was ahead of her time). We can all start making things better for women around the world by breaking the taboo at home. Just talk about your period (or your daughter’s/sister’s/niece’s/granddaughter’s/et al.) like it’s not a big, bad friggin’ deal.
’Cause really, it’s bloody not.
WAYS TO BREAK THE BLOODY TABOO
START EARLY: If your daughter finds your pads or tampons and asks about them, don’t start stuttering and say they’re for getting the bathtub grout extra clean. Tell her for real what the heck they’re for.
DON’T TREAT PERIODS AS A “GIRLS ONLY” ISSUE: If your son finds your pads or tampons and asks about them, do the same damn thing and tell him what the heck they’re for. “Well, Timmy . . .”
PUT TAMPONS ON THE GROCERY LIST: Don’t be embarrassed to ask your husband or boyfriend to buy your supplies. Households need toilet paper and dish soap. Households with women need pads and tampons (or menstrual cups if you’re brave), and there’s no shame in that game.
YOUR PERIOD IS NOT JUST “YOUR PROBLEM”: One, a period is natural and is not a problem, though it can cause problems. Two, if you’re having sex with a man, then your period is something that affects both of you. If you’re trying for a baby, he’ll need to know about your period cycle; if you’re not, he should be wrapping his friend up and also thanking the Crimson Wave gods every time y
our flow, well . . . flows!
THERE IS ONE MAJOR PERIOD TABOO: Never, ever make fun of anyone who has an accident. There is definitely a special place in “hell no, now that was not nice and you know it” for people who see someone bleeding through her pants and decide to point, laugh, or not tell her she is a-leakin’.
5
8 WORDS TO WATCH OUT FOR
Tyra: Oh gosh, you haven’t experienced a sex talk until you’ve had one from my mama. She is more raw than a dripping, bloody, grass-fed, ruby red rib eye in the kitchen at Outback Steakhouse. Body parts, body secretions, and body gyrations—she’s gonna cover it all. She gave me the talk—the real talk—when I was thirteen, and at the time, I felt like she was being gross for grossness’ sake. I gotta admit, though, the rawness worked: While many of my buddies were squirming in the sheets doing all kinds of uncensored lip-and-hip play with boys they weren’t sure they even liked, I was only squirming in my seat from embarrassment at my mama’s lack of lip censorship.
When I finally did decide to get down and dirty a few (more than a few!) years later, I remembered everything that my mama had said. Even if I didn’t follow her advice 100 percent my first time, at least I knew what I was supposed to be doing (or more like not doing), and she was in my head the whole time.
Sounds weird, right? But it wasn’t as creepy as it sounds. It was actually kind of ummmm . . . comforting.
Carolyn: When Tyra turned eleven, we flew and buzzed through the birds-and-bees talk. That was easy. Simple. It wasn’t much more than my baby girl had already heard from sex ed anyway, so it didn’t take much longer than fifteen minutes. This goes there. That goes here. Then there’s some action and all that makes a baby.
Easy. Done. Moving on.
As a mama, I was happy to check that box. I had done my duty.
Cut to the eve of Tyra’s thirteenth birthday, and I start to think we might need to revisit this little biology lesson. We are fighting over the last slice of barbecue chicken pizza at California Pizza Kitchen. Tyra has an extra side of barbecue sauce she’s dipping every bite in, and I have ranch dressing and am doing the same. One too many times, I overheard Tyra, her best bud Kenya, and her other friends talking quite colorfully about um . . . “relations.” The sheer stupidity that these little girls and boys would spout about love, sex, and lovemaking was making me cringe. “You can tell if a guy has VD because he has a crazy look in his face.”
What?
“I hear that if you stand on your head after sex, you won’t get pregnant.”
Oh, no.
“You can’t get pregnant on your period anyway. That’s impossible.”
Oh, hell no.
You would have thought they were a bunch of sex-ed teachers and gynecologists from the way they were so sure of themselves, even though they were wrong about every damn thing. If my baby was hearing all of this nonsense and believing every bit of it, I knew I had to do an intervention stat.
But how?
Tyra: When I was in elementary school, Ma got me one of those Where Did I Come From? books. It was my favorite book, full of cartoons about what Mommy and Daddy had (yeah, down there) and what they did to make a baby. It was pretty edgy for its time. Shoot, most parents of today would blush about that darn book now, but Ma was always ten steps ahead. Then, when I got a little bit older, she got me one of those teenage body books that talk about everything from pubic hair sprouting to stinky armpits and crotch sweat. None of my friends had moms who even pretended to talk to them about sex, so whenever a group of them came over to my house, first thing they’d want to do was get out the body book. It’d be open on the floor, everyone poring over it like it was nothing they’d ever seen before (even though they had all the parts), and as soon as Ma would open the door or stick her head in, someone would squeal and throw the book under the bed.
Carolyn: “You don’t have to do that,” I’d always tell them. “I bought the damn thing. And I saw what page you’re on. Interesting, ain’t it?”
Tyra: She loved making them squirm.
Carolyn: Yep, I was real. Yeah, I was raw. I wanted to make sure my daughter didn’t have to move forward blindly like I did. I wanted to have a talk with her, but her being a teenager, I knew she wouldn’t want to have a talk with me.
I had to figure out how I could have this conversation without Tyra running away with a homework/friends-coming-over/time-to-go-to-bed/Mama-we-ate-all-the-barbecue-pizza-so-we-have-to-leave-now excuse. How could I get her in a place where she couldn’t run and couldn’t hide from all the rawness I was desperate to spout? I needed to take her as a hostage of sorts. A legal kidnapping of my own child. The “choo-choo” sound outside the restaurant window caught my ear and gave me my answer.
I’d put her on a train.
Tyra: Why the heck is my mom telling me we are going to take a train ride? She didn’t even give me any notice. I want to spend my thirteenth birthday with my friends in L.A. at the Beverly Center mall window-shopping at Contempo Casuals and checking out boys who I know will never want my skinny butt (but heck, it doesn’t hurt to look at them). But now I’m going to be on a darn choo-choo train with my mom to San Diego. Like I’m a child. Sexy.
What the heck is in San Diego anyway, besides the zoo? Does my mom really think I wanna look at monkeys, alligators, and preschoolers all day? I think San Diego is a port for the navy or something, so that means there are a lot of sailors out there and they wear those cute sailor suits. I’m gonna rock a white outfit head to toe so I can look like them. Yeah, I’m skinny and awkward, but they probably have been stuck on a submarine with no chicks for six months. Maybe they’ll think I’m cute.
Carolyn: I’ll never forget Tyra dressed in all white from head to toe. It was as if she had some sixth sense that her mama was gonna spill all the dirty, and she needed to be as saintly as possible to be able to survive the uninhibited truth attack that was approaching. Tyra was not thrilled with the idea of a train trip with her mama for her birthday. I knew she’d rather stay home and eat ice cream with her friends.
“San Diego? To the zoo? Ma, I’m about to be a teenager. You know the zoo is for babies.” I wanted to tell her that this trip was to prep her for a different kind of wild animal: horny boys, the feral kind she was about to encounter in high school. And speaking of babies, the trip was also to protect her from birthing any too soon. But I held my tongue. I had to get her on that train and needed to make sure we were choo-choo-chooing away before I started my lesson. That way, she couldn’t jump off.
Tyra: It is so obvious my mom wants to talk about sex. Like, duh. I don’t know why she is hemming and hawing because usually she just starts spitting out all kinds of stuff other parents never would and with no shame whatsoever. Nervous she is not. Not ever.
I bet she wants to ask me if I’ve done it. Like, it it. I haven’t even kissed yet, except my full-length mirror, which I French-kiss about once a week in preparation for the first time I kiss a boy. I gotta admit I look kinda sexy when I’m making out with my mirror. I keep my eyes slightly open so I can see myself, and I turn my head left and right like I see them do in the movies. I kinda make soft breathing noises, too. Nothing too freaky, just supersoft breaths to make it seem real. My mirror, on the other hand, looks like a teething baby got ahold of it and never let go, slobber running down the glass until it soaks my carpet.
Ma’s still not broaching the real subject, so as the train rumbles down the tracks, I look out the window. We’re sitting across from each other, and all of a sudden, she starts to snort. It’s like this half laugh, half sneeze, like she knows something I don’t and she’s tryna keep it in. I start craning my neck. What is she laughing at?
Carolyn: The train is picking up speed, along with my pulse. How the hell am I gonna start this talk off? Where do I begin? It’s like a freezing cold swimming pool, I guess—all you can do is hold your nose and jump right in. Still, I can’t stop beating around the b
ush, making things uncomfortable by talking about how they’re gonna get uncomfortable.
“Mama, I don’t know what you’re saying. You’re not making any sense.” She’s right. I’m not making a damn bit of sense. I don’t know where to begin. This kind of talk would have made my own mama jump off the Golden Gate Bridge into a pit of tarantulas on fire.
She rolls her eyes at me, then looks out the window. Right as we rumble by, some horses are going at it and having some very horsey sex. The whole train is watching, some passengers standing up and crossing to one side to catch a glimpse of the farm action.
Before I know it, I’m laughing at the irony and spraying ginger ale straight out my nose and all over Tyra. Her eyes go wide with disgust, probably half over the fact that her pristine white jeans are now covered with my soda snot, and half over the horsin’ around that’s taking place right outside my window.
I guess this is my cue, so I take a deep breath and start in. “So, Ty,” I say, “we have talked about the birds and the bees—”
“Yeah, Ma. I read Where Did I Come From? a trillion times. This goes there. That goes here. Then there’s some action and all that makes a baby. Blah, blah, blah.”
Oh, she’s an expert now, huh?
