When I first got my period at 13, I didn't know anything about the female reproductive system. When I started passing clots of blood (pieces of uterine lining) with my period, I thought they were pieces of the baby that I would have had if I'd had sex. I'd look at it and try to figure out if it would have been an arm or a leg or something.

Don't Know Where I Came Up With That!

when I was about 13ish I was talking to a friend about periods and things and she commented how painful it was to change her sanitary towel, which confused me but after some explanation I realised that she was actually sticking the adhesive side to herself!!! ouch. I kindly told her the right way in doing it!

rb17

when i first got my period i thought it was only going to last for one day. On the third day i thought i was going to die, but i didn't tell anyone, so i tried to stay seated for as long as i could so i when i died it wouldn't hurt when i fell over.

eloc

My little cousin was caught sticking panty liners all over the window. When my auntie found her it turned out that she saw an advert on tv talking about 'wings' and wanted to see them fly.

Anon

at about age 9, a friend told me that each month - at the exact same time each month - women lay eggs which are then cleverly caught by Tampoons (cloths with a dip in the middle for the laid egg). I can vividly recall my horror and remained convinced of my imminant egg-layage for another 3 years.

magenta

My mother told me about menstruation when I was 7 or so. Mindful that this was the same woman who had previously sold me a bill of goods about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, I assumed that she was lying through her teeth.

Molly, NYC

When my younger brother was around 8 or 9 years old, he was curious and read the directions inside a box of tampons. For years he believed tampons were for cleaning out your butt because of the illustration on the directions.

Anon

At age six, my mum made a bit of a mess of explaining the birds and the bees to me. I asked her if you could get periods anywhere and she said yes. Of course rather than thinking that you could get them in any place that you went, I thought you could get them in any part of the body. Every nose bleed or cut on my knee was a potential period for the next two years until sex ed put me straight!

hotteee

When I was 12 I stayed over at my mates house. Her little brother was 7.

In the afternoon her mom came back from shopping, put all the groceries away, and left all the toiletry stuff in a plastic bag ready to put upstairs. My mates little brother rushed in from outside and had fallen off his bike. He had a big graze on his forehead.

his mom had popped around to see a neighbour, so when he asked where the plasters were, we told him to look in the plastic bag on the stairs.

He did look a prat with a sani pad stuck to his forehead as he went back outside to play with his mates......

classic comedy moment.....

hjhendry

In the fourth grade the girls had to watch the "period movie". In the movie it mentioned that "soon after you start to get pubic hair.. your period will follow." So I thought that if I shaved it off I would never get my period. I would shave it often with my fathers razor in the bathroom. To this day ... he doesn't know.

Jennifer

when my dad and his sister were teenagers he would see her eyelash curler on the counter near the sink. untill he married my mom, he was convinced that the eyelash curler was a tampon remover!

mona

When I was 7 years old I found some pads under the bathroom counter. I thought they were knee pads. All the neighbors had a good laugh to see me riding my bike up and down the street with sanitary napkins stuck to my knees and elbows.

PeanutLuLu

tampax tampons used to come in these cool cardboard applicators, and if you gave them a good intentional whack on one end, well then the cotton tampon would be propelled out like a soft bullet.

As a young boy growing up in a house full of women, I had no idea what a tampon was. But I knew quite well what "cotton rockets" were. My mom arrived upon the scene to witness the yard covered in unused tampons that i had been shooting here and there, under the sly pretext of Star Wars battles and Spider Man adventures. My dog was chasing after the tampons and chewing them up. It was sunny, and I remember that that was a really fun afternoon.

I can't imagine what she thought. I think I got the "facts-of-life" intro speech not long after that.

werewill

When i was about 10, i had seen a commercial about super absorbent Maxi pads. So, i knew my mom kept these similar looking ones under the sink in the bathroom. I took one and decided to experiment myself how much they did absorb. Taking red paint and watering it down i drenched this maxi until it over flowed with water and paint. I threw it out. Later my mom came to me very concerned thinking that i had gotten my period and she hadn't the chance to explain to me what it was all about. Poor mom, she got scared.

KM

I'm posting this anonomously because even though no-one knows this story, it still makes me blush to repeat it...

One sunny summers afternoon my Mother was sunbathing nude (on her front) in the back yard. Not such a shocking thing to do in a private space and with only your family around. Except when her darling daughter pointed out she had a 'string' near her bottom, and did she want me to get it for her. I don't think she's moved so quickly since!

Red faced

My parents decided to educate me early about my period, when I was seven. I didn't quite understand it though- I thought that girls got it only once, and it lasted for 28 days. A few years later I found out the truth and I was quite pissed off.

Jo

I'd once heard maxi pads referred to as "feminine napkins", so for a while I used to think that when I got my period I would have to put a dinner napkin down my pants.

Athazagoraphobia

When i was about 6-7 i played with these 'napkins' i found undernieth the sink in the bathroom. one day my mom found me playing with them and said "What ar you doing in the special napkins?" so then the next time we had a fancy dinner shehad asked me to set the table to i took out the 'Fancy' napkins. I never knew why i got in so much troble till i was a bout 9.

yoblossom

My mom never told me about girls getting a period...When I was 10 yrs. old I woke up one morning to having some blood in my panties, well I thought I scratched myself in my sleep but I was very PRIVATE girl and did not go to my mother about it...as the day progressed I saw drops and tried looking with a mirror to see where I scratched myself...NO LUCK!!...the next morning I woke up and there was even more blood spots so I put BANDAIDS all over my private area but to no avail it continued and was only getting worse...so I finally went to my mother TOTALLY EMBARESSED to say "Mom I scratched myself and it just wont stop bleeding and I have tried using bandaids to cover the scratch but it's not working"...Needless to say my mother wanted to see and when I showed her or rather she could tell it waas not a scratch but my first period...It took everything for her to not laugh at the site of bandaids everwhere from front to back...She proceeded to tell me then what it was...One thing she told me was now I was a "Woman" so to speak and I had to stay away from boys..lol...I sure made sure when I had my daughter to tell her very early on about this subject...lol

SP

I had to tell my 17 year old boyfriend that when a girl has her period the blood actually comes OUT of her body. He was extremely grossed out! I still haven't figured out what he thought happened to it!

Emily