I was on the bus the other day and as I reached into my backpack to pull out my book, a tampon almost fell out of my bag. In that moment I quickly looked around to make sure no one saw and embarrassment washed over me, then I stopped and thought “what the hell am I embarrassed about? It’s just a tampon.” As someone who is 17 I have had my period for around four years so I began to think back, looking for times where I felt I needed to hide the fact that I was embarrassed, sadly there were many times I could think of, one that distinctly stuck out was something that happened in 8th grade. In 8th grade, my locker was in between all of the guys lockers that were in my block class and when I was on my period, I would put both my arms in my locker to try and stealthly grab a tampon out of my bag and then quickly shove it up my sleeve in hopes that no guy would find out my “secret”, because god forbid a guy knew I was on my period. How come from the day I got my period when I was 13 I was taught to hide it?

Why was I taught to be ashamed of it? Around the world and the country you see articles pop up with headlines similar to “I was period shamed…” or “periods the most embarrassing thing ever” and so on and so on. All of these headlines keep reinforcing the idea that periods are something to be ashamed of and it needs to stop. It is affecting young girls everywhere, teaching them that something about their body is gross and needs to be hidden. But it’s not! The human body needs to be celebrated, without women having the reproductive system we do, human life would cease to exist. I know periods are anything but luxurious but it is time to stop hiding them and start accepting them in our society. Whether that free bleeding, refusing to apologize for being on your period, not hiding your period products, or educating someone on periods. I refuse to keep being embarrassed and you should too, buy your period products with pride and stop shoving tampons up your sleeve, because your period is natural, your body is beautiful and you aresuper fucking rad.