Uterus- and vagina-owners have always been the special target of medical and technological advances designed and advertised to help overcome the “embarrassments” inherently tied to our bodies, offering to solve problems we didn’t know we really had through the purchase of things we didn’t really know we needed.
In the realm of menstruation, these “innovations” are nothing new. In fact, they practically drive sales within the industry, as menstrual product companies introduce an assortment of upgrades devised to make you a better, more-discreet menstruator, from scented products (to mask those “pungent, putrid, and musky smells”), to quiet, crinkle-proof pads (so no embarrassing sounds are emitted from your public bathroom stall), to “smart tampons” that inform menstruators when it’s time to remove their tampon (it’s a real thing!). These products, marketed as crucial aid to the hassles of everyday life, usually create more problems than they actually solve, exploiting insecurities and reinforcing ideas that certain natural processes – and, by extension, the bodies attached to them – must be changed, hidden, or passed over to some external or technological control (because they’re just too gross for you to deal with them yourself, dammit).