Touching and Being in Touch with the Menstruating Body

Abstract

Figure 1. The Curious Cycles kit: (a) The poster, (b) the curious eye, (c) the blood bank, (d) prompts, (e) the reflection, (f) the heat pad, (g) the zine.

Designing Menstrual Technologies with Adolescents

“…E.g., Eva and Lena developed a nuanced vocabulary and exploration of their own bodies, as they tried placing the actuators on their chest area to, as they express it, literally fill up their body with air through breathing, and affectively make them feel like "their body is there", that they are not empty. Their breathing shirt for pre-menstrual depressive feelings is an example of using experiential qualities from soma design, such as breathing, touching and movement [13,34,49], to both express an emptiness in the body and respond to this by creating resistance on the body. One challenge for doing soma design on menstrual cycles was that the participants would not necessarily have somatic experiences of menstrual cycles during the workshop.…”

“…Across themes such as education, management, embodiment, and advocacy, related work points to the sociotechnical and political implications of menstrual technologies, and the continued need to reimagine how menstrual health education and care can be designed and delivered. Such work is increasingly moving towards "a care of menstruation" [6], engaging with the materiality and lived experiences of menstrual cycles, such as bodily fluids [13,29], or menstrual pain [7]. This approach to menstrual technologies involves becoming comfortable with the materiality of the menstruating body, its pain and fluids, and moving from managing to caring for the body.…”

“…With inspiration from first-person experiences and existing Feldenkrais lessons by professional practitioners, the first author scripted and guided a Feldenkrais-inspired lesson directed to create awareness of breathing and pelvis movements. Inspired by research on touching and being in touch with the menstruating body [13], the lesson invited the participants to touch their chest, ribs and hips in order to come into deeper contact with their bodies. The participants lied on a yoga mat on their backs, and were told to only do comfortable movements.…”

“…For adolescents it is not only important to learn about menstrual health "in theory", but also to surface and anchor knowledge in their own lived body, cultivate body awareness and a willingness to explore and feel comfortable in/with their menstruating bodies [62]. Technologies can be designed to produce knowledge and appreciation of the menstruating body through touching the body [13]; an interaction that implies coming into close contact with the body. However, how can designers and researchers involve adolescents who recently started to menstruate in design for menstrual health?…”

Troubling Design

“…Lastly, designers are also starting to create objects and garments that more intimately integrate with women's bodies and its materiality. Examples include "Future Flora" that is designed to treat and prevent vaginal infection by harvesting and growing healthy bacteria from vaginal discharge [Tomasello 2016], as well as "Curious Cycles" that encourages people to touch their menstruating body and its bodily fluids [Campo Woytuk et al 2020]. These examples, among Troubling Design: A Design Program for Designing with Women's Health 24:5 many others, explore how we can reimagine women's health through digital technology, and they are closely related to the feminist and speculative practices that I present in this article.…”