Jezebel, the popular women's website, has posted a story, describing in lingering detail, the much-feared-but-never-spoken-of experience of forgetting to remove a tampon (after 10 days it smelled of "rotting fish meets sewage meets Black Death").
In removing Anastasia's tampon himself, Christian embodies a desire for women that transcends the disgust that culture has made men and women feel about female bodies.
Tampons and pads make up 10% of things flushed down toilets, a fact that makes wastewater workers despair, as well as beach cleaners: in a 2010 Beachwatch survey, for every kilometre of beach, 22.5 towels, panty liners or backing strips were found, and 8.9 tampon applicators.
"Beat it!" This is the woman who, as singer and songwriter of L7 – the all-female punk band who rode the grunge wave – removed her tampon onstage at the Reading festival in 1992 and threw it at hecklers.
When I went to the gym I also used a tampon as I was worried about leaking in my gym shorts.
Shouldn't it concern us all that our prime minister is a man who cannot say the word "tampon" out loud? 82.
Around the same time the artist Judy Chicago created Red Flag, a lithograph of a bloody tampon being pulled from between a woman's legs.
In the US, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney has been trying for years to get a bill passed that would require tampon manufacturers to be more transparent about the chemical content of their products.
But do a quick Google search for "50 Shades tampon scene", and you'll get almost 20,000 results – a number that suggests that even if the film's makers didn't want to discuss it, lots of other people do.
But do these knickers really signal the end of leaks, stains and tampon tax?
Although the US Food and Drug Administration requires tampon manufacturers to report dioxin levels, there are other byproducts of tampon manufacture that are of concern.
