Naked, Natural and On Your Period
What Nobody Tells You About Naturism and Menstruation
There’s a particular kind of freedom that comes from being naked — no waistband cutting into your stomach, no bra strap digging into your shoulder, no quiet mental checklist about whether your dress is showing the outline of your knickers. Just you, the sun, maybe some water, and the pleasant knowledge that nobody’s looking at what you’re wearing, because you’re not wearing anything.
Then your period turns up, uninvited as always, and that lovely simplicity gets a bit more complicated. I, Asha, speak from experience.
I’ve noticed this at naturist gatherings and in spa settings over the years: women who are usually completely at ease naked will suddenly show up in bikini bottoms or a pair of pants. When I’ve asked, in a friendly woman-to-woman way why, the answer is nearly always the same, said with a slight grimace: “I’m on my period.”
Fair enough. It’s a genuinely awkward practical puzzle. A pad needs something to hold it in place, and wandering around with a sticky-backed sanitary product attached directly to your skin is not, as far as I’m aware, an emerging naturist trend. Even women who use tampons often keep something on underneath, worried about leaks or just not keen on the string being visible.
None of which means you have to give up on naturism for a week every month. There are more options now than there used to be, and most of them work rather well.
Just wear knickers
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first, because it’s still the right answer for a lot of women a lot of the time. Naturism was never meant to be a rulebook about what your body must or mustn’t do. If underwear makes you more comfortable while you’re bleeding, put some on and stop worrying about it.
You can use a normal pad, a liner, or period pants, and carry on with your day exactly as planned — sunbathing, swimming, the sauna, the massage table, whatever’s on the agenda. You’ll be marginally less naked than everyone else. That’s fine. Nobody sensible is keeping score.
Bodies leak things sometimes. It happens to roughly half the population on a monthly basis, and most naturist women will clock what’s going on and think nothing more of it, because there’s a decent chance they’ve done the exact same thing themselves.
Tampons, and the great string debate
For a lot of women, a tampon is simply the easiest way to stay naked through a period. No pad, no underwear, nothing visible except — if you’re unlucky with positioning — a small string.
That string causes more anxiety than it probably deserves. I’ve had conversations with women who genuinely dread it being seen, as though it’s some great scandal rather than a completely unremarkable bit of cotton. Anyone who’s ever menstruated knows exactly what it is, and anyone who doesn’t know what it is almost certainly isn’t looking closely enough for it to matter.
Still, feeling relaxed matters more than being technically correct about anxiety being irrational. If it bothers you, you can tuck the string in slightly — just don’t pull it tight or trim it, since you’ll need enough left to remove the tampon properly. And stick to the manufacturer’s guidance on how long to leave one in.
Tampons are brilliant for swimming, but they’re not for everyone. Some women find them uncomfortable on lighter days, or simply don’t like having something internal at all.
Enter the menstrual cup
If I had to pick one product that’s quietly transformed period naturism, it would be the menstrual cup. It’s been around far longer than most people realise, but it’s only in the last decade or so that it’s gone properly mainstream.
Get SlavicUncovered’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The appeal for naturists is simple: there’s nothing outside your body at all. No pad, no knickers required, no string. You insert it, check the seal has formed, and get on with your day — genuinely naked, genuinely unbothered, in a way that would have been much harder to manage a generation ago. It’s also handy for swimming, since there’s no external material getting waterlogged.
I wouldn’t tell every woman to rush out and buy one tomorrow, though. There’s a learning curve. The first attempt or two usually involves some fumbling, a bit of leakage while you work out the fold and the angle, and a moment of intense concentration the first time you try to remove it. Cups also come in different sizes, shapes and firmnesses, and finding the right one can depend on your anatomy, your flow, whether you’ve given birth, and where your cervix sits — so a bit of trial and error is normal. Once you’ve got the hang of it, though, plenty of women never look back.
Period underwear, for when you want reassurance rather than nudity
Then there’s period underwear — pants with built-in absorbent layers that do away with the need for a separate pad. It’s a good option if you’d rather not put anything internal in, and it’s about as familiar and fuss-free as products get.
The obvious catch, if you’re chasing full nakedness, is that you’re still wearing pants. So this one doesn’t solve the “I want to be completely naked” problem. But maybe that’s not actually the problem you’re trying to solve. If you’re at a spa or a sauna session and you just want to feel secure — especially on a heavier day — period pants can be exactly the right kind of reassurance, and there’s no shame in choosing confidence over technical nudity.
Going without anything at all
This is where it gets more personal. Some women with a light flow simply go naked and accept that a little spotting might happen. There’s something quite freeing about that attitude, honestly — menstruation isn’t an injury, it isn’t unhygienic, it’s just something bodies do.
That said, a bit of practical sense goes a long way. A towel underneath you on shared furniture is sensible regardless of where you are in your cycle. On a private beach, in your own garden, or somewhere you’re entirely relaxed about the possibility of a spot of blood, doing nothing at all might suit you fine. At a public naturist venue, I’d be a little more careful around communal seating, pools, and general hygiene expectations — naturism is about comfort with the body, not about ignoring other people sharing the space with you.
The bit that’s actually interesting
Most of us were raised to treat periods as something to hide. Smuggle the sanitary towel to the bathroom. Don’t let the tampon show. Check your clothes for stains every time you stand up. Then, somewhere along the way, some of us discover naturism, and we’re suddenly meant to be relaxed about total nakedness in front of strangers — while still, quietly, being mortified about the one entirely ordinary thing our bodies do every month.
That contradiction is worth sitting with for a second.
One of the genuinely good things about naturism, done in a healthy environment, is that it tends to dismantle a lot of that inherited embarrassment over time. Breasts turn out to be just breasts. Stretch marks are stretch marks. Pubic hair is pubic hair. And menstrual blood is blood — not sexy, not disgusting, just something a female body occasionally does.
You don’t need to become a period evangelist about it, announcing your cycle to the sauna like a weather forecast. Please don’t. Your period is allowed to stay entirely your business. But if someone does happen to know, there’s no need to feel embarrassed about that either.
What I’d actually do
Depends entirely on the day, if I’m honest. On a light day, if I want the simplest route to staying fully naked, I’ll reach for a menstrual cup — nothing visible, nothing dangling, no need to get dressed just because my uterus has sent its monthly memo. On a heavier day, I’ll want more reassurance, so that might mean a cup with extra backup, or just accepting that today isn’t a fully-naked day and putting proper period pants on instead. And if I’m somewhere I’d feel awkward about the possibility of leaking, I’ll put my knickers on and think no more about it.
Because that’s really the whole point. Naturism is supposed to make you feel free, not anxious about it. There’s no prize for being the most naked person in the garden. If knickers let you relax and actually enjoy yourself, wear the knickers. If a tampon lets you forget your period exists for a few hours, use the tampon. If a menstrual cup means you can spend the whole day bare without a second thought, brilliant.
And if, on some particular day, you just don’t care whether anyone notices a little blood — that’s a perfectly human response too.
The most liberating part of any of this was never really the nakedness itself. It’s arriving at the point where your entirely ordinary female body doesn’t feel like something that owes anyone an apology.
Bodies do what bodies do. Naturism, at its best, just gives you permission to stop pretending otherwise.
