You may think that celebrating your 19th birthday at an indoor trampoline park is a mark of immaturity. If that is the case, I will have to disagree. I am a huge fan of trampolines and I decided a few weeks ago that for my birthday I wanted to take a few friends and bounce around for an hour or two. I love the freedom and adrenaline that come with playing on a trampoline.

The plans were going better than I expected. No one was more than 15 minutes late, and my friends are reliably unreliable with timing; the place wasn’t too packed, and there were only 700 small children running around for Lauren’s 10^th birthday party, and my friends and I were ready to rock and roll.

Just after I put on my sticky glow socks, something unfortunate happened. I got my period. Luckily I am always prepared to handle such a situation; I was just irritated that I would have to be a little more careful on the trampolines than I would have otherwise.

The trampoline park was more fun than I could have possibly imagined. It was actually quite exciting to dodge all the small children, kind of like an ever-changing obstacle course. After a few minutes of bouncing and dunking on the basketball hoops, my friends and I began to try some gymnastics. I did a huge split midair and I started laughing. My friend asked me what was so funny and I told him I felt like I was the spokesperson for some sports tampon commercial. Commercials for tampons always have women running and jumping to show how convenient and comfortable the tampons are. My friend, who is a male, made a face of sheer disgust and said, “Ew, that’s gross.” I was appalled but not surprised. This was not the first time I have received a less-than-mature reaction to a wholly kosher comment about my period.

Women get periods once a month. It is a fact and it is a process that we have absolutely no control over. Surely everyone in the world has heard a woman complain about her period at one time or another. It is not a pleasant experience. However, in my 18 short years of living in this society, I have become painfully aware of the taboo put on this natural bodily function and it bothers me to no end. I can only speak to my own experiences; however, I am sure other women have had similar ones.

I simply cannot understand why our society has turned this involuntary female experience into a seemingly criminalized act. When I was younger I had a friend who didn’t even dispose of her tampon wrappers in her bathroom because her brothers used the same one and she didn’t want them to see the packaging.

Women should not have to lurk in the shadows and hide their faces until their periods are over. Periods hurt and are uncomfortable and women should be able to vent about their feelings without feeling out of line or inappropriate. I am still on my period and I am not feeling as great as I normally do. This can sometimes affect my mood too, but that’s a topic for a whole other article. My point is, if I pull out a tampon, the reaction of any male bystander should not be equivalent to the reaction he would have if I were to pull out a gun.