As we all hunker down at home to shelter in place, we're learning a lot (A LOT) about the people we live with. Including their personal habits. For one 23-year-old woman, this meant that her father learned that yes, she menstruates (gasp!) when he walked in on her boiling her menstrual cup on the stove to sanitize it.
The woman has been using her menstrual cup for a year.
And knows that boiling your cup is the only way to keep it "properly sanitized," the original poster (OP) wrote on Am I The As—– subreddit.
Every month, after she finishes using it, she boils it to keep it clean.
She keeps a "designated pot" for her cup so that "no one in my family [mistakenly] uses it for anything else."
Usually she cleans it at night so that no one else is in the kitchen.
But she decided to take a risk and washed it during the day — which is when her dad walked in.
He "asked what I was cooking and looked into the pot," she wrote.
She wasn't cooking mac and cheese.
Her father was disgusted.
Even though she explained that it was all part of the process, her father was skeeved.
"He told me I was gross and should do that outside, and it was a health hazard for me to boil it in the same room where we prepare food," she wrote.
But that begs the question: How the heck is she supposed to clean it?
"I’m not sure how else I would properly sanitize it if I can’t boil it in the kitchen," she wrote.
Many people in the comments thought her dad had to get over his hang-ups with feminine hygiene.
"Good Lord…what were you thinking doing it in the kitchen? You should always gather firewood, properly build a fire in your bathroom (where all the icky girl things go) and boil it in there," one commenter joked.
"What? IN the house? Oh no no no. That kind of thing is done ONLY in the Red Tent I constructed for you in the backyard," a second person added.
"NTA…you’re literally sterilizing it in a pot of boiling water," a third agreed. "It sounds a little bit like your dad never matured beyond 'ew period yucky girl stuff.'”
There were some haters who told the OP that she was being gross.
"That is gross as hell, bringing genital fluids to the kitchen is beyond wrong," one person commented. "Wash them in the bathroom, buy new ones, or get your own place."
"When you boil water the steam goes everywhere in the room," someone else wrote. "Your dad is correct I am afraid."
"That's [expletive] disgusting," a third commenter chimed in.
The OP was stunned by her father's reaction.
Later in the thread, the OP wrote that her dad has never "shied away from talking to him about cramps or any other symptoms. When I was younger he would go to the store and buy pads and tampons for my mom and I and it would never be a problem, I’m not sure why this is such an issue for him."
And she made it clear to the haters that she was keeping things as clean as possible, thank you very much.
