I don't want to make assumptions about gender on HN, but if you grew up female it was kind of hard to avoid. You can just search for "tampon virgin" and come up with a ton of sites and people that try to reassure girls that using a tampon doesn't mean you lose your virginity.
I also grew up in LA and not in the middle of some super conservative area, but my girlfriends used to freak the hell out when they needed to dip into my stash during emergencies and all they found were tampons. Sex ed until I took the high school edition didn't help much there either. It was only into high school/college that tampons were way more commonly used. Today I still have a mix of tampons and pads in my bathroom for anyone that needs it.
For the other stuff...idk. I hang out in /r/twoxsex and used to hang out on the VaginaPagina LJ community and read the hell out of Scarleteen among other resources. It's a bit self selecting, but there's a lot of myths that get busted often. One I can think of - I started hormonal birth control really early because I had very heavy+painful periods with iron deficiency anemia (like, passing out in the middle of the street bad) and my parents and I went through a couple different doctors that were all judgmental about a 13-14 year old on the pill. I eventually just went to Planned Parenthood for gynecology needs (amazing people!) and they were all understanding and hush hush because parents of other women would sometimes illegally pester them for more information. So there's the "young teen/woman on birth control must be having sex and not need it for anything else" bullshit right there. Another one: right now I have an IUD, and everyone feels the need to tell me about the one friend of a friend story about a uterine perforation - legitimately a risk, but not like it's an inevitability for everyone using the IUD. There's also the twist on the tampon virginity that involves the menstrual cup. I also like to talk about skipping periods since I used to do it for a few years, and so. many. people. think it's a terrible thing to do. Meanwhile every doctor I had since going to Planned Parenthood thought it was a good thing to do, and this year for the first time in ~14 years since hitting puberty I finally have normal levels of iron without making an effort to supplement it. It's pretty wild. So much of it is so everyday if you spend enough time around frustrated women that I almost forget that these are really big problems.
> if you grew up female it was kind of hard to avoid
>I also grew up in LA and not in the middle of some super conservative area
>So much of it is so everyday if you spend enough time around frustrated women
I grew up in a fundamentalist conservative family in the midwest who believed the earth was 5,000 years old. Even we thought the "tampons kill your virginity" thing was ludicrous. I can believe it's a problem in the third world, but suggesting it's a common modern day belief in a first world country like America seems a bit hard to believe.
(A lot of religious people are still weird about the pill, though.)
This is one of those unusual posts to which I have nothing of value to add, but feel compelled anyway to take the time to say that it's one of those insightful perspectives that I find inspiring.
I also grew up in LA and not in the middle of some super conservative area, but my girlfriends used to freak the hell out when they needed to dip into my stash during emergencies and all they found were tampons. Sex ed until I took the high school edition didn't help much there either. It was only into high school/college that tampons were way more commonly used. Today I still have a mix of tampons and pads in my bathroom for anyone that needs it.
I don't have an explicit "tampon virgin" story to share right now, but here's one I saved from reddit a while ago that made me gag: http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/utzu0/ladie...
There's also some terrible stories in this link shared with me on irc that made me almost have an asthma attack laughing earlier today: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1zinku/sexed_teac...
For the other stuff...idk. I hang out in /r/twoxsex and used to hang out on the VaginaPagina LJ community and read the hell out of Scarleteen among other resources. It's a bit self selecting, but there's a lot of myths that get busted often. One I can think of - I started hormonal birth control really early because I had very heavy+painful periods with iron deficiency anemia (like, passing out in the middle of the street bad) and my parents and I went through a couple different doctors that were all judgmental about a 13-14 year old on the pill. I eventually just went to Planned Parenthood for gynecology needs (amazing people!) and they were all understanding and hush hush because parents of other women would sometimes illegally pester them for more information. So there's the "young teen/woman on birth control must be having sex and not need it for anything else" bullshit right there. Another one: right now I have an IUD, and everyone feels the need to tell me about the one friend of a friend story about a uterine perforation - legitimately a risk, but not like it's an inevitability for everyone using the IUD. There's also the twist on the tampon virginity that involves the menstrual cup. I also like to talk about skipping periods since I used to do it for a few years, and so. many. people. think it's a terrible thing to do. Meanwhile every doctor I had since going to Planned Parenthood thought it was a good thing to do, and this year for the first time in ~14 years since hitting puberty I finally have normal levels of iron without making an effort to supplement it. It's pretty wild. So much of it is so everyday if you spend enough time around frustrated women that I almost forget that these are really big problems.