Long sleeves or jackets are a period’s best friend. Periods hate short sleeves, spaghetti straps, halter tops, tank tops, or anything that lands above a girl’s wrist. Sometimes three-quarter sleeves are allowed, depending on how easily the wearer can contort her arm in one direction or the next.

Sleeves just make things so much easier. Reaching into their bags, girls have mastered the maneuver of shifting a tampon from deep under their books to the inside of their sleeve -- always leaning against the inner wrist so their fingers can keep it from slipping out. But what happens when they’re wearing short sleeves? I’ve known girls to aggressively grab a tampon from their bag, choking the small savior as if it would betray them -- to who, I’m not sure. Or, worse, girls will wait for class to end before rushing to the bathroom to take care of what has become a bigger problem than necessary just because they didn’t want to risk someone catching the quick sight of a tampon in their hand.

No one considers the unspeakable -- grabbing the small, thin stick that is no longer than our palms, and calmly walking from the room, maybe even swinging our arms while it dangles slightly from our fingers, just as we do with our key rings.

My greatest question and wish is for girls to consider something for a moment: Who are we hiding tampons from? Surely not the girl sitting next to us, who by the end of the semester may sync up with us because of proximity and ask to borrow one herself. Giving another girl a tampon will go down in the same unnecessarily inconspicuous way; both girls will reach out to each other with sleeves open and ready as the "Red Market" exchange is complete. We shove tampons in our pockets and sleeves, cringing every time we hear what we think is an obvious crackling from the wrapper as it jostles against its sheath, just because we don’t want guys to know Mother Nature has come once again.

I don’t understand it.

The same miscommunication happens with panties and cloth-based pants. Girls shove a thong up their butt to hide their panty lines while guys get to carelessly lounge with their boxers poking out the top of their jeans. Why are we hiding what’s obviously there?

I refuse to acknowledge a man who would stare at my boobs, but get uncomfortable at the sight of a tampon. I had to go through puberty to get the boobs, so if he’s mature enough to handle that, he can handle the boob-period package deal; they come through the same means.

Many people will chalk up our natural instinct of hiding all signs of our period to the impact of living in a patriarchal society. Maybe that’s right, but my issue is with the now slowly transforming world. Moving forward can’t happen without a little budging. We’ve confused the concept of constantly cleaning up the blood or containing it throughout the day with the idea of having to hide it. There’s a difference between keeping our clothes clean and being shamed to secrecy over an issue everyone knows about. Periods are not a secret. Stop keeping them that way and everyone will be forced to get used to it.