Vanessa Meyer's master's thesis is a short film, titled Cup U. It is fifteen minutes of women — who are not, in her words, "granola eating hippies" — discussing menstrual cups.

What's interesting about this whole menstrual cup business is that the concept — collecting menstrual blood while it's still in the body and then disposing of it — is fairly simple. But since you never see commercials for cups, and because they're rarely available in drug stores, they've taken on some kind of secretive, cult status. Menstruation is already wrought with clandestine behavior — we don't want anyone to see us carrying a tampon to the office ladies' room; we don't want anyone to hear us opening a pad in the stall. Everything is supposed to be hush-hush, clean, sanitized and swept under the rug (no pun intended). And yet… There's this lady-to-lady whisper campaign about how to deal with your period, and the message is: Cups!


CUP U. from vanessa tolkin meyer on Vimeo.

Earlier: My Bloody Initiation Into The Diva Cup Cult