When I was a teenager, my girlfriends and I spoke about “that time of the month” in hushed tones. It was embarrassing to even mention “that time of the month,” let alone have a boy (GASP!) find out that was happening! You’d never get a date to the prom if boys knew you had a (GASP!) period!

Now that I have a few stubborn grey hairs and have lived on this planet a little, “that time of the month” is just a fact of life. It’s what happens if you’re a woman, and I realized a long time ago that sending your husband to the store for feminine hygiene products is not a big deal, unless he comes back with the wrong product that looks like a package of diapers with flowers on it.

I’m not embarrassed to be a woman. I’m proud to be a woman – not because of my plumbing, but because of what I have achieved in life. I didn’t achieve it because of handouts or special protections that allowed me to advance because I happen not to sport a pair of testicles in my pants. I achieved it because I had the intestinal fortitude to improve, to learn, to demand perfection from myself and from those who worked for me, and the skills I developed over time.

So no, I’m not embarrassed to be a woman.

There are, however, things that make me embarrassed to have a vagina. Ashamed. Facepalmingly appalled that I share femaleness with the likes of this:

And this:

Musical interlude (to the tune of Hakuna Matata from the Lion King)

Vagina dentata, it’s a wonderful phrase;

Vagina dentata, it’s no passing craze

It means soprano for the rest of your days!

— courtesy of a friend.

This also makes me hide my face in shame at being an XX:

And this creature who expects us to take it seriously, while it waxes sarcastic about a Congressman screwing its uterus, demonstrating its lack of actual knowledge about how sexual intercourse works.

And this latest embarrassment from the social justice fuckwits in Virginia’s legislature, demanding “menstrual equality.” No, this is not the Onion.

When a City of Alexandria woman was booked into the Fairfax County jail, she wasn’t wearing white underwear, the only color allowed. It’s not like she packed a bag, and she didn’t know that she would be arrested on a shoplifting charge. So when the deputies confiscated her underwear she started worrying about what would happen when she started menstruating.

She didn’t know she would be arrested, otherwise she would have brought a pad or something. But you know, when the need to steal from others strikes, one just never knows when, Virginia taxpayers just need to ensure only the best pads are available! #thieflivesmatter

Because equality, or something.

“They give you these pads after they have not given you any underwear, so there’s really no place to hold the pads,” she said. “If you start a menstrual cycle while you are in there with no underwear, they don’t give you anything to protect yourself.”

While she was behind bars in 2015, inmates were limited to two pads a day. She says they were the cheapest kind available, which means they were very thin and more than two were often needed. She said she heard some of the other inmates begging for more pads, but the deputies would not provide them.

Here’s a radical idea. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

DON’T STEAL FROM OTHERS!

I know. It’s an amazing concept. I was floored myself when I came up with it, but there it is. Ruminate on that option for a sec, OK?

Done?

Moving on.

So Criminal Cupcake had Teh Sadz™ because the pads provided by the jail facilities weren’t to her liking, and inmates had to pay extra for tampons. This didn’t sit well with Del. Kaye Kory (D-umbshit, 38), so she is going to remedy that by requiring jails and prisons to provide feminine hygiene products on demand.

Meanwhile, another Virginia legislator, Del. Jennifer Boysko (D-oofus, 86) has two bills that work toward menstrual equity. I repeat: menstrual equity.

One would add feminine hygiene products to the list of products that are exempted from sales tax during the annual back-to-school tax holiday. The other bill would eliminate the sales tax for these products altogether.

I think this is the only time we will ever see a Democrat advocate for the repeal of taxes, so revel in that. But to Jennifer, it’s about DISCRIMINASHUN! I’m pretty sure if she could advocate for a bill to force men to pay for women’s feminine hygiene products, she would, but to her, this is the next best thing.

“A woman doesn’t have a choice whether or not she wants to buy menstrual products,” said Boysko. “And because she’s taxed on it that’s unfair and it’s discrimination and so it’s a parity issue and a fairness issue.”

Ummmmm. Actually women do have a choice about whether or not they “want to buy menstrual products.” If you have doubts about that, I urge you to search out the phrase “free bleeding” on the Interwebz. No, I’m not doing it for you, nor am I posting any pictures telling you what it is. My point is, the choice is there.

Now, if we’re going to eliminate taxes on feminine hygiene products for girls, because apparently they don’t have a choice about whether to purchase them or not, shouldn’t we eliminate taxes on socks for boys who have no choice during puberty but to use their “happy socks” for involuntary… um… emissions? After all, it’s only fair!

Men have to purchase a lot of other stuff too – food, clothing, shelter, etc., and those things are taxed. Not like there’s a choice, right? You either buy food, or you starve. You either buy clothing, or you go outside nekkid, and trust me you WILL get arrested for that, and then you’ll wind up in jail with no tampons, and we’re back to square one!

The claim that a tax on feminine hygiene products is somehow discriminatory is a large pile of bovine excrement. Fact is, most states charge taxes on a whole host of goods considered necessary for dignity.

“We tax toilet paper. We tax soap. We tax most things. I don’t think this is a plot to burden women,” said Kim Rueben, a state and local public financing senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

That’s because sales tax statutes typically just say that all goods are subject to tax, and then list only the exemptions that lawmakers have intentionally carved out for any number of reasons.

A big one is the idea that the poor shouldn’t have to pay tax on things they must buy to survive. But exempting an item gives a tax break to everyone else who buys it as well.

Now, I’m all about eliminating taxes on as many things as possible, but the fact that Virginia Democrats are using this ridiculous OMGMISOGYNYDISCRIMINATIONSEXISM excuse to make feminine hygiene products tax-free, because women need special privileges, including special tax exemptions, is absurd.

You know what else is absurd? Screeching about how strong and independent women are, while demanding special treatment, privileges, and even tax breaks for them, as if they’re incapable of buying their their own gorram tampons. It’s not just absurd. It’s offensive to me as a woman.

Claiming oppression because you’re not given the feminine hygiene product of your choosing in jail after you have committed a crime, while there are women in the world who can’t even go to the store by themselves and are forced to wrap themselves in burlap sacks because dog forbid a man catches a glimpse of an ankle, loses control of his penis, and rapes the woman, forcing her family to kill her to restore its honor, is insulting and tone deaf.

These creatures make me embarrassed to be a female!