I think I was fourteen when I got my first period. Seemingly one of the first in my group of friends, although we never talked about it. It was something joked about in hushed tones, sharing a hotel room with a group of girls on a band trip to Disney World, where hiding the massive pads my Mother gave me to wear was next to impossible. One of my best friends announcing to the boy I liked that I was indeed “on the rag”. Desperate to join the pool day, I was handed a tampon with no applicator, expecting a young teen wit her first period to attempt shoving the little OB inside her with little to no understanding of how to do so under the anxiety of a sloppy water-park bathroom. The pain and frustration I remember every time I unwrap a tampon with its pearly plastic applicator out of its pastel-themed wrapping.
Deep breath.
Relax.
Pivot to pre-pubescence. Visiting my Uncle’s farm as a young girl, preparing our private stash of sweet corn from his Decatur, Illinois farm with the entire family crowded in the basement. Shucking, scalloping the ears, and bagging in a sugary liquid so we could enjoy through the winter. The circle of women working away over buckets of corn silks, the latest Playboy centerfold plastered on the wall by the stairs to the exit. Young and gorgeous, these late 80s, early 90s, pinups were one of my first references of the female form.
The Scarlet II series uses centerfolds from the year 1969, trimmed to reveal hand painted underwear in a crimson color. Like the first Scarlet series, these red underwear represent the scarlet-colored undergarments worn during medieval times to camouflage leaked menses. Paired with floral ink and vellum drawings, the pictorial symbol of fertility, but also referencing the bouquets of florals carried during those early centuries to deflect the smells of menstruation.
The constellations of red and gold dots represent a 28 day birth control pill pack, with 21 red representing the cycle, and 7 gold for the placebo prompting the shedding of the uterine lining.
Although it felt at 14 I was early to bloom in the 90s, studies are showing girls are now experiencing puberty at earlier and earlier ages. One study found that in the first decade of the aughts, girls were developing an average between 7 - 12 years old. That in dozens of countries, the age of puberty in girls has dropped by about 3 months per decade since the 1970s. Juxtapose this data with the average age of the playmates of the month being 22.4 years.
