Crazy Sexy Tampons (and Pads!)

Since the 1930’s or so, menstrual product manufacturers such as the makers of Kotex have sponsored pamphlets (unintentionally hilarious as they are condescending: see ‘Mothers Don’t Wait!’ http://mum.org/mmay235.htm) and filmstrips (Disney http://www.feministing.com/archives/002524.html).
Clearly this type of education has always been a self-interested service, and the “femcare” industry has been accused of shifting the focus of menarche from a developmental milestone to a hygiene issue, with puberty running as a secondary theme to cleanliness (and secrecy) and fertility running a far third.
During my middle school ‘sex-ed’ I vaguely remember getting some product samples but I don’t remember what they were. Mostly, I remembered feeling gypped that boys got wet dreams (were pleasurable & lets face it, they weren’t doing their laundry) and all I got was bleeding and this mess of fallopian tubes. Also it was never suggested that girls could have erotic dreams… but that’s a gripe for a different day.
I certainly thought of menstruation as a hygiene issue, and in fact, the first time I got my period I used one of my mom’s jumbo tampax and didn’t tell her till much later because I didn’t want her to make me late to meeting people at the mall.
I didn’t stay with tampax forever though. Generally, I used whatever cheaper store brand had a cardboard applicator, since I didn’t like the plastic ones (so cold going in!).
Eventually, I switched to the Keeper which I loved primarily because it paid for itself, was more convenient for camping and hiking, and made less waste. After about a year and a half, a cute puppy ate it (tearing through several different containers to do so), and I started using birth control, and lite tampons- usually those tampax compacts because they have in for free where Itake a class and they stay together better in the mess of my bags.
I am working on my women’s studies senior capstone as we speak, and I was wondering if any of you remember learning about menstruation with a “femcare industry” curriculum? Also, if you did, was that brand the same that your mother used? Why do you use the brand of menstrual products you use now and have you ever switched brands? Why?
PS: I just had to share this with you all- In the ’40s, with the prevalence of tampons and rise of youth culture etc. there was they fear that tampons could destroy the hymen and send girls on a downward spiral of masturbation and premarital sex. In 1940 one gynecologist, Dr. Robert Dickinson, stepped in to say that not only would NOT tampons do this, it was actually pads that were the defiler of innocents because a pad is inserted between the legs into a “cleft so narrow there is not room for it[it] produc[ed] some degree of triple surface rubbing [with] every jounce when sitting producing upward pressing,” & “Any external menstrual guard, in addition to applying some degree of heat within a confined space, is responsible for the rhythmic play of pressure against surfaces uniquely alert to erotic feeling.”
Just. Wow.