For a span of about six months in my early 20s, I didn’t buy tampons, and not because I didn’t want to. Working nights as a commercial janitor during college, I trimmed my expenses in any way possible, including helping myself to the menstrual products from the industrial-sized boxes used to stock the machines in the office bathrooms.
It wasn’t my most ethical moment, though I’d argue that the expense and relative unavailability of menstrual products isn’t particularly humane, either. ...