One company, Thinx, even has a blanket that costs close to $370 using moisture-wicking cotton, presumably to have sex on. There are now colourful period-leotards and period-exercise-wear, period-swimsuits and period-sleep shorts. Period pants have much improved to become a booming market. There are now colourful period-leotards and period-clothes to exercise in and period-swimsuits and period-sleep shorts When they started to stretch out, I threw them away and never ordered replacements. I wore them as back-up on planes or while camping, but didn’t exactly feel reassured. It felt like wearing a wet sanitary pad and, if I’m honest, they had a certain scent about them. They were cotton pants with a thick gusset, as if a cotton pad was built in.

Period pants have been around since the mid-1990s, though my first foray was just over a decade ago when I worked at a feminist magazine and we were sent Lunapads (now called Aisle).

Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights. Who knows how long I had been walking around like that? I continue to be mortified by this story, and it’s a long way of saying that I should probably be someone who invests in period-wear. It was the worst-case scenario, worthy of the “embarrassing story” section in a teen magazine, and yet I had been menstruating for 25 years. I had got my period and hadn’t even noticed it until that dear woman saved me. Inside a portable toilet, I found a stain the size of a child’s football, the colour of rust and red grapes. “I brought you a bottle of water because I think you may have sat in something,” she said. It turned out she had something else on her mind. I thought she wanted to speak about the festival.

It was August, hot and sticky, and I was wearing a white linen dress and thin cotton underwear. Mine happened a couple of years ago while reporting at a festival on New York’s Governors Island. I suppose everyone who has ever got their period has the same nightmare, though for most of us, it’s come true.

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