Would you like better control over your periods?
Then ask a man who knows nothing of female physiology and doesn’t bother to test his solution. He’s a man, he must be right. Rebecca tears down this product for ‘feminine hygiene’, called Mensez, and which is simply a stick of glue to…glue…your vagina…shut. No, seriously. That’s how he proposes to control your periods.
I’m thinking it might be useful to men, too, who need to control explosive diarrhea. Or to shut their mouths when they’re talking too much.
Anyway, the inventor’s own brother showed up in comments to say what he thinks.
He hasn’t tested it, but he’s put together a website with stock photos to sell it. No product, and it would be nice to say he must be marketing genius, except that calling it “men-sez”, and promoting it as “lip-stick”, with a logo that looks like a pair of testicles, kinda shoots that idea down.
must be satire (of the most misogynistic type)
Try to find signs of satire in the guy’s website. I looked. I’m sure Rebecca thought to check, too.
Have you forgotten? This is the age of Trump. Satire is dead.
Soooo….
Not sure if this is OT or TMI (PZ pls delete this if so), but this is kind of timely because my period is getting right on my wick at the moment.
Oral contraceptives have stopped working because of my antibiotics (Nooooooo! Not my cerazette!) and for the same reason the arm implant did nothing. The depression I get before hand is scary intense, so my gyny is pushing the Mirena quite hard as an option.
Anyone here had any experience with it? I’m really undecided about the whole thing. Gyny says they’ll knock me out for fitting it, but it would be helpful to know what to expect afterwards.
Cheers for any help!
But does it work for twitter?
Nelliebly, I have no experience with the Mirena, but a hundred years ago, had a Copper-7. Nothing done prior to insertion, went fine, but I don’t know about differences, so there’s probably a reason for the knock out, I guess. Mine worked great, was very happy with it for years.
The Copper-7 did not contain hormones of any kind, and it was rather known for potential sterilization, which happened in my case, but that’s what I wanted, so you might want to ask a few pertinent questions.
re PZ@2:
@1 was my simplistic first impression from the adolescent naming and the upside-down heart logo.
shit
you’re correct i should have popped into the site before posting @1. The site looks like a serious site. With very sparse descriptions of the product and looking to make the sales pitch with glitz alone.
I was trying to beat him to him giving the excuse of “it was only satire you fools, gotcha”. (as 45 tried to do).
—
still if he’s really serious, is he really saying menses will be released in the urine if the vagina is blocked? new to me.
Glue the laptop lid shut (or variations on the theme).
To be on the safe side, also fill the microphone with the stuff (in addition to using it on the mouth).
Caine. That’s good to know, thank you. Sterilisation definitely isn’t something I’d worry about, in fact I asked for it – but apparently they won’t offer it in case I change my mind later. You’d think that after 33 years I might be allowed to be the expert on what I want, buuuuuuut apparently not.
To be fair, gyny recognised that this was bullshit, but I guess they’ve stuck with these rules too.
Good to hear about a positive experience though!
The the asshole author’s lips and fingers shut would be good variation.
According to Forbes (A Male Chiropractor Wants Women To Use Controversial Methods To Contain Menstrual Flow) this loon is, as per the title, a chiropractor (read: woo-woo quack). And rather astonishingly, there is a patent for the stuff!
The Forbes reporter apparently talked to the quack (Forbes edits in {curly braces}):
I haven’t read the patent yet. Nonetheless, I’m sure it’s going to be amusing!
Dang, #9, meant it be *Glue* the asshole…..
…has this man ever seen the female reproductive tract before? Ladybits do not work that way! Uuuuugh, this gives me such a “creepy basement-dwelling manchild” vibe. Is he looking for a boyfriend-free girl too? *retch*
Just thanking my lucky stars mine are usually fairly light. Possibly-irrational fear of toxic shock syndrome got me off tampons at 17, so it’s been nothing but pads since.
Ok, as I read the patent (see @10), the labia minora are glued together. I’ll let biologists and others more conversant with the anatomy in question comment on that… Both the gluing-together, and releasing, are, in typical patent-legal-gobbledygook-style written to cover every method the quack and his lawyers — and yes, lawyers were involved — could think of, such as fingers or the lady adjusting how far apart her legs are.
.. also cures mansplaining.
Jebus, haematocolpos is serious medical condition. It usually requires surgery and makes the life of any poor girl afflicted with a misery.
nelliebly: my sweetheart has one, she loves it (and so do I). Other friends have raved. None have complained, whereas I’ve heard lots of complaints about the copper IUDs even though they’re pretty uncommon nowadays.
Pain of insertion varies widely apparently. My sweetheart complains about every minor (or major) medical pain, but the mirena didn’t rate a mention. Another friend mentioned she was glad she’d popped out two kids beforehand so she’d be prepared for the searing pain when it went in. No sedation in either case.
A patent application costs several thousand dollars. This dude is putting real money into his insanity.
@10, blf
Don’t be too astonished, that’s what quacks want you to think. In actual fact, it isn’t amazing at all to get patents for any nonsense you can dream up, including perpetual motion free energy scam devices. And the believers go “but it’s got a PATENT! that means it must be Legit!”. Nope. Don’t fall for it. That’s exactly what quacks and scam artists want people to think.
You’ll see a lot of “alt-medicine” people trying to claim legitimacy by citing those few doctors that they managed to planted in hospitals, too.
TMI for ladythings
nelliebly – I’m halfway through my 3rd Mirena, and planning for a 4th. I got one almost as soon as they were approved and available in the US, so my subsequent gyns have been shocked at the longevity of my devotion. :) For me it is by far the best birth control I’ve ever had. I was on combo pills for years but then needed a switch after having kids, and I was seriously depressed on mini-pills and Depo shots. The Mirena gave me 0 periods and a decent attitude.
I had the first insertion without any anesthesia (c-section prior) and it wasn’t that bad, felt like a really, really hard pinch, but the next couple of days I was pretty much immobile from pain, the next 3 months it felt like there was a carving knife through my midsection (oddly it was my back/kidney area more than uterus itself), and the next 2-3 months still had weird pains like long, drawn-out stabby cramps. I’ve been told by a couple of gyns that puts me on the unusual high end for painful reactions, though. And I wanted it enough that I toughed it out, and after about 6 months it dropped down to almost nothing but normal-ish cramps once a month, and awhile later not even that. The next two removals/insertions were really easy by comparison – about the same pain as a pap smear and maybe one day of vague soreness after. Given that it happens only at 5 year intervals, totally worth it. Apparently most people don’t have nearly that amount of pain from the first insertion, but a few have it bad enough that they get it removed entirely. I’m basically a Mirena shill now given how much I like it regardless of the first adjustment period, but of course your mileage may vary.
And there’s no way I’d ever start gluing things together. NO WAY. Even if it did work, which it obviously would not because anatomy and physiology, he does not know them.
Brian Pansky @ # 18: In actual fact, it isn’t amazing at all to get patents for any nonsense you can dream up, including perpetual motion free energy scam devices.
Last I heard, the US Patent Office, exhausted by dealing with cranks, long ago specifically requested (and got) Congress to pass a law rendering perpetual motion machines unpatentable.
Of course, I read about that quite a while back, well before we had a Speaker of the House who, if made aware of such legislation, would do everything possible to prevent such an injustice from befalling John Galt.
Even if it worked, I can’t see how it would be better than the alternatives. I don’t think this person knows anything about the physical aspects of menstruation.
Apart from anything else, the blood tends to clot and dry and solidify, and I really would rather not think about the horror that would result if quantities of it did that while dammed up. I am fairly certain it would take more than twenty seconds’ worth of urine to wash it away.
At the moment my preferred method for managing the blood is just ripping the whole uterus out already, due to over a month of daily bleeding, but I don’t expect my doctor will go for that. It’s not like I’m using it for anything, except apparently for making bloodstains on everything. The worst part is that sometimes, randomly, there are clots. Sometimes roundish clots, which slither out like possessed evil jello. Sometimes long, stringy clots. I’ve thought this menstruation thing was a royal pain since it started, just a nuisance in every way, and now that it’s getting ready to permanently cease it’s no better.
Wasn’t there some Englishman who wanted the end of free tampon distribution based on a similar complete lack of knowledge? Sadly I can’t seem to find it, but I’m almost certain.
Is not knowing anything about what a vagina is or how it works really such a common problem? I recall learning all these things in grade school, again in middle school, and a third time in high school. Then again, I live in one of those Librul immigrant-filled states, so I suppose the fact that I had decent sex-ed makes sense.
Pierce R Butler @20, said:
I believe they are still patentable, but only if the applicant has a working demonstration unit.
jaybee @ # 23 – Looks like you’re right.
But in my # 24, I’m wrong – giving the wrong link, at least.
IPWatchdog.com confirms jaybee’s statement here.
Brian Pansky@18, Yes, you are correct, I’d forgotten / overlooked the scam. My bad. (From memory, the Forbes reporter also overlooked this point, albeit that does not excuse my error.)
However, as others have pointed out, at least in the States, you cannot patent a perpetual motion machine unless you supply the Patent Office with a working model. My memory is this is the only class of application which requires a working model.
Mooncups seem to work for a lot of people around these parts.
I was surprised how few Americans even know what they are.
Guy has never had a girlfriend I suppose…
Has anyone ever ,ever, managed to use up a tube of super glue before the cap sets rock hard?.
nelliebly – I had a mirnena for 5 years. Insertion was about a month after I delivered an almost 10 pound baby, and the only pain I felt was comparable to a pap smear. I spotted daily for the first 6 or so months, but after that, I pretty much only had minor spotting during my period. I did have to have the strings trimmed because my partner could feel them poking him during sex. The strings do soften over time, so that problem probably would have gone away on it’s own. I was very happy with it for the time I had it.
The whole category of behavior is simultaneously fascinating and revolting because of the examples we tend to focus on. There is this generalized need to make a group of people do something for you in a public act of dominance. Body modification is a common theme (circumcision, scarification, foot binding, more…). It makes sense in as general way but we need to control the specifics. Consent being a a primary moral concern.
This example is literally like douches, circumcision, spine damaging high-heels, looking happy and cheerful all the time…it can controlled an altered by society in many ways.
We choose as a group. We choose to talk about it. We choose to do something different and better.
Whilst searching for any clews about @22 (haven’t found anything, yet…), I stumbled across an entire category in the Grauniad on the subject, “Menstruation“, discussing issues around the world (in addition to advice / suggestions). One example, Having a period is unaffordable in Kenya, yet no one wants to talk about it (it mostly goes without saying the idiotic idea of the woo-woo in the OP would be of no help at all to the problems in Kenya, even if it
didcould work).Remember this guy?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/03/05/crazy-obsessed-weird-perverse/
Greta Samsa@22, “Wasn’t there some Englishman who wanted the end of free tampon distribution based on a similar complete lack of knowledge?”
Yes† (Oct-2016), Teen Goes on Anti-Tampon Rant, Internet Destroys Him:
And Teenage Is Ridiculed For Anti-Tampon Rant, Saying: .
† A slight caveat: The original source seems to the Mirror, a UK newspaper which isn’t entirely reliable, albeit it can and has had good investigative journalism. The incidence apparently happened on Twitter, albeit I have no idea of the link or if it still exists (I also haven’t even tried to look, as I detest Twitter).
All the time and money I’ve wasted using acetone as a solvent. Next time I superglue my fingers to a project, I’ll just pee on everything. Maybe I can get the cats to help.
@nelliebly
You’re not by any chance in Maryland are you? When I lived there my OBGYN there sterilize me with Essure when I was 23. One of the best decisions I’ve made. I’ll give you her info if you’d like. She was great. I set an appointment with her based on the fact that she performed the procedure (it was still very new then). I was open to hearing no for medical reasons, or wev, but wanted to be taken seriously. She listened to what I had to say and never tried to shame me or tell me I’d change my mind. We went forward with it. I’m sure she’d be opened to other forms of sterilization too, if you don’t like Essure.
@nelliebly
I also just found this on Reddit- I was looking for a good place to share my doctor. I know it’s hard to find one who will do it, and I know lots people who have trouble taking hormonal birth control like you and who would be significantly harmed by a pregnancy. They list resources for sterilization by state. https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/wiki/doctors#wiki_maryland.
@eccaba
That’s really kind of you! Unfortunately I’m in the UK – but hearing about so many good experiences with Mirena on here is making me think it’s worth giving it a try. Good tip on Essure – if the coil doesn’t do the job that’s another option to discuss.
I think Gyny is trying to help, but there seems to be a lot of resistance in the medical community for female sterilisation before you’ve ‘completed your family’ – which seems to be code for ‘as long as you’re potentially fertile’ – which is kind of ridiculous considering:
1) I’m taking antibiotics that can cause birth defects and miscarriage.
2) I have a genetic skin condition that I have zero intention of passing to anyone else.
3) I have PCOS.
4) My family is as complete as I want it to get.
But still no sterilisation because babies