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This 3-Minute Viral Video Captures the Joy and Misery of Having a Uterus

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An animation from Bodyform's #Wombstories. (YouTube)

Gloria Steinem once said that if periods were a facet of male biology, “menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event.”

It’s an event, alright. A whopping 80% of cis women experience menstrual cramps, and 90% get some form of PMS in their lifetime. And for as high as those statistics are, America’s conversation around periods—though vastly improved from the old-fashioned PSAs of just a few decades ago—remains awash with euphemisms.

Bodyform, the second most popular sanitary towel producer in the U.K., deserves high praise then, for the boldness of its #wombstories campaign. Last month, it released a video that used actors, cartoons and stop-motion animation to effectively capture the agony and ecstasy of having a uterus. All in a little over three minutes.

We see the trepidation and relief that drops of menstrual blood can bring. We see the pain of periods and the misery of miscarriage. We see the joy of sex and birth. We see the unrelenting hot flashes of menopause. And, remarkably, we even see some humorous moments too. (It’s true that nothing brings on a period faster than new underwear…)

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The #wombstories campaign follows on from Bodyform’s landmark “Blood Normal” campaign from 2017. In it, the company stated in literal all caps: “Periods are normal. Showing them should be too.”

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