(no subject)

andrewducker posted a link to this kickstarter for a menstrual cup with a battery and transmitter that automatically tracks the flow, colour, and regularity of blood. I thought this would be really cool (though I am now not sure how colour would be checked, unless vaginas have secret lights that are the opposite of fridge lights and they only go on when you're not looking), but reading a bit more I don't think it'll work well enough for me to spend the $40.

Firstly, the inbuilt battery only lasts for 6 months, and you can't recharge or change it. The environmental beauty of the mooncup is that it lasts forever (or until you drop it down too many toilets, burn it while boiling it clean, or your vagina hits the magic mark to upgrade sizes), so having something that has inbuilt obsolescence is a bit off.

Secondly, the capacity is smaller than my current cup, and I still sometimes overflow it at night, so even automatic updates to let me know it's about to flood my thighs will not be useful when I'm asleep. (Though there's a stretch goal for other sizes, apparently.)

Thirdly, you can't boil it clean. They say you can just wash it with warm water and soap, but as someone who has more than once dropped a cup in the toilet and had to boil the shit out of it (literally...) this just won't cut the mustard. And although my hygienic standards are best described as "slovenly", I think I would feel distinctly uncomfortable with not having it sterilised between times.

Fourthly, they point out that going through airport security with the looncup in is likely to have bad consequences. For a start, I'm never going to remember that, and though I don't mind a quick fumble, I'd rather not cause a vaginal alert, especially in some of the countries I travel through. I also travel frequently enough that it could take 2 days out of the data for several months of the meagre six months' battery time. Also I'm not sure how well it would go down in a scan of handluggage.

Fifthly, and most flippantly, my current cup is flecked with blue glitter, and I don't see how you would ever downgrade from disco vagina.

Sixthly, you can't cut the stem off because it acts as an antenna, which might be uncomfortable.

But even with all those caveats, I would really like to have a wireless mooncup that could work for me. I never keep track of my periods, because I can't be arsed. And I am constantly surprised by it, and not infrequently get blood on my clothes from overflowing. So having something that kept track without ANY effort on my part at all, and sent me reminders in case the cup was filled unusually quickly, would be genuinely helpful. And I love a graph. Think of being able to whip out a graph demonstrating "here you can see that day 3 was bright red, and day 5 was that brown sticky consistency" to annoy awful men! Basically that joke about how if men bled they would boast about how long for and the amount of tampons they got through in a session is exactly how I would be left to my own devices. However, I'd also have to finally invest in getting mobile data wherever I was, which could be a pain, and would mean I needed a phone with better battery life.