My time of the month

I have spent the last few days posing with a tampon as part of an international campaign to demystify the important issue of menstruation. I do not usually menstruate myself, although out of a wish to show solidarity with those who do I set aside five or six days each month to behave in a grotesquely irrational and bad-tempered manner, snapping at people for no reason and moaning a lot. As a man this seems to be the very least that I can do, an attempt at empathy which still recognises my privileged position as a male.

The campaign which I mentioned — and I would urge you all to take part in it — is called JustATampon. You take a photograph of yourself holding the tampon — either still in its little torpedo chute or liberated and held by the tail like a dead albino mouse — and post the selfie online.