The Gloves Come Off, Folks...I Review The Diva Cup

If you may recall, exactly one week ago I broke down (due to your constant nagging, nag nag nag) and bought the Diva Cup. I was skeptical, but a whole hell of a lot of you told me (I'm paraphrasing here) that it was the best thing since sliced bread and I'd be an idiot not to give it a try. Ok, so I did.

As it turns out, Aunt Flo was due to arrive the very next day, (what serendipity, eh?) so I am pleased to tell you that I have just completed my first "monthly" using the Diva Cup. What follows is a blow-by-blow breakdown on how it went. I will warn you in advance, I intend to get fairly graphic, so if you are A: a man who would rather think periods are simply a figment of our imagination, or B: someone with a tender stomach who just ate a big meal, you might want to skip this post altogether or at least wait until your food has digested. To make things a little less graphic, and also as a nod to the fact that this is supposed to be a food blog, I will henceforth refer to the contents of the cup as "pudding", something that is much more pleasant to visualize than the real deal, with which I got really up close and personal this week. So here goes....

The first thing that struck me about this little gadget is how simple and unassuming it is. I don't think most people would even know what this is for if they were confronted with it. I could easily store this in my silverware drawer or in the toolbox and be assured that no one would be the wiser. That being said, it's comfortably resting in it's cute little pink flowered bag in my bathroom vanity...

Insertion, theoretically at least, is easy. You squeeze the top lip together, then together again, until what you have is a letter "U". Then, you have to slip in into your love canal with the bottom of the U towards the bottom of yourself. You let it pop open like a big happy parachute, give it a little twist, and Voila! Attila the Hun and all his many hordes are not getting past that little latex fortress. It's supposed to be a piece of cake.

For practical purposes, though, at first I didn't find it to be a piece of cake. In order to get the top part into your box, you have to stick it in with what feels like a whole bunch of fingers, more fingers than I've had in my twat at one time since that swingers party back in the 1998. (Mom- Just kidding, and I mean that.) But seriously, it's not like a tampon insertion; with this sucker you have to get very friendly with your nether regions. Not until I tried to insert this did I really appreciate just how many tiny tender bits I had down there, all of which seem to want to get in the way. I managed to give myself a very painful pinch with my fingernails that had me dabbing the toilet paper with cautious precision for about two full days.

One thing I learned right away is that it's not actually meant to go over your cervix, which is kinda where you would think it would go. No, it actually just sits rather close to the end of the vajayjay. Ram it too far up and your looking at leakage. (But no stupendously embarassing cascades of lava, which was my initial fear. Wear the wrong size tampon and you might have a red spot on your trousers....but this thing, I pictured it giving way and resulting in something resembling a murder scene from CSI Miami. Thankfully, that did not happen.)

And they tell you once it's inserted to give it a little twirl. The twirl might seem unimportant, ladies, but I assure you...the trick to the whole thing is in the twirl. That seems to, to coin a phrase, seal the deal.

As you know, this weekend I had a fall camping trip that I had to attend. We had running water, but it was very COLD running water. Very cold. Super cold. I made the decision on Saturday, as I stood in the bathroom with this icy cold device and contemplated how it would feel in my coochie, that I would fall back on other, less new-fangled devices for twenty-four hours. I couldn't wash the pudding out of it properly, and I also didn't want a frostbitten lady muffin.

Aside from that 24 hours, I wore the Diva Cup for the entire week, and I would like to sum up the experience in point form, because it's late and my fingers are tired.

--> Firstly, before you ram it home, make sure that all your pink parts are lined up on either side of the gymnasium, if you get my drift.

--> Secondly, before you pull it out, have a little nest of TP ready on your lap. Once you pull it free, you have a rather messy cup of *cough* pudding in one hand and no where to put it if, for example, it turns out you can't pull the toilet paper off with one hand. (This happened to me. )What the hell do you do with it at that point? It was messy, not gonna lie.

--> This is not that great a solution if you're going to be somewhere without the privacy to rinse and wash it out somewhere privately at least twice a day. This is not an activity I would recommend you undertake in a public bathroom sink. And it's not that sanitary a feeling to re-insert it having just tried to de-pudding it with gobs of crap wrap while hunched over the toilet.

The Verdict: Despite it all, I am glad I bought the Diva Cup. Once I figured out how to insert it properly it was reliable, did not leak, and you couldn't feel it. I know now that a catastrophic failure would be very unlikely with normal use, and it only took me a cycle to figure out proper insertion. I can definitely see me saving some major dineros as time goes on. However, I will try to avoid when possible emptying it while in public bathrooms, because I didn't like the feeling of putting it back in while it didn't feel clean enough.

So, my final word: Go on and buy it, I don't think you'll be sorry! (And if you end up having to call their tech support with one hand while you squirrel it into your vag with the other, please email me and tell me about it, OK? I think that shit would make my day....)

Peace!