Is it really the majority view of people with vaginas that if you get menstrual blood on something it is RUINED FOREVER and must be thrown away?
I see people saying things like
“I’m so mad, I ruined my favorite underwear.”
“With these Special Gimmick Underwear, there’s no more ruining your underwear and having to buy new ones!”
“Now that I’ve had a hysterectomy, I can get nice bedsheets because I won’t ruin them.”
And I just don’t get it.
My experience with bloodstains is this: If you wash it within 24 hours, there will probably be no stain, or at worst a barely-visible outline. If you can– like, if you’re at home and have spare underwear and privacy– just put them in cold water immediately. A minute or two of scrubbing with your fingers and it’ll be gone. If you wash it before it’s totally dried, blood actually comes out very easily, especially from synthetic fabrics.
I have a few pairs of underwear with faint old stains on them, because I didn’t wash them right away. I have had zero pairs of “ruined” underwear.
(Possibly my experience is slightly different because I normally use pads and not tampons? So if I get a small amount of blood on my underwear, I can stick a clean pad on top of it and it’s manageable for a little while? But still. “Ruined”.)