One of the most insightful and amatory questions to ask a girl when on a first date with her, aside from “what’s your cup size?” and “do you shave in a pattern?” is: “what’s your absorbency rating?”

In the UK the range of absorbency (of menstrual fluid by tampons) is as follows: Lite (light flow) 6g and under / Regular (light to medium flow) 6-9g / Super (medium to heavy flow) 9-12g / Super plus (heavy flow) 12-15g / Super plus extra (very heavy flow) 15-18g

I tried this question during a lovely first date in an otherwise underwhelming restaurant:

“What’s your absorbency rating?”
“My absorbency rating?”
“Hm-hm. Yeah. What kind of tampon do you need? Two drops? Four drops?”
“Oh, five drops.”
“Really?
“Hm-hm.”
“You’ve got a nice free flow? Plenty of blood and uteral inner lining coming out?”
“Pretty much. It’s actually 15 grams. On a normal day.”
“Grams. That’s odd. You’d think they’d measure blood in centilitres or something. Or is it the weight of a tampon after use?”
“It’s not just blood, that’s why.”
“Oh, right. Of course.”
“There’s chunks.”
“Right, right. But wait, how do you know it’s 15 grams? Did you measure it? Like, catch it in a measuring cup?”
“Yeah, I squatted over a measuring cup all day. No, of course not. It’s not like it all comes out in one go.”
“How did you do it?”
“Well, first I tried to wring it out of the tampons after I felt something was happening. Can you imagine? Really bad idea. Messy. Lost most of it. Stupid, stupid idea. But then I used menstrual cups. Brilliant. Poured it out into a measuring cup, then weighed the measuring cup on my kitchen scale minus what it weighed without the fluid. 15 grams. And of course washed it out later before putting flour and sugar in it when making pumpkin pie. In the measuring cup, I mean. Not my vagina.”
“Oh, I got that.”
“And since you’re interested, I have a fun story to tell.”
“Go ahead.”
“I once traced a rather bad smell back to my vagina.”
“Your vagina smelled?”
“Yeah, quite badly. The kind of smell where flies drop dead.”
“There were flies?”
“No! It’s a figure of speech, I guess. If there’d been flies near, they’d have dropped dead. From the smell.”
“Right, right.”
“So anyway, I thoroughly wash my vagina. Thoroughly. I used several drenched cloths, vaginal soap, normal soap… I was almost reaching for the dishwashing liquid and drain cleaner.”
“Drain cleaner…”
“And I just can’t get rid of the smell for more than a few minutes. So eventually I let myself be coaxed into seeing a doctor.”
“Who coaxed you?”
“My then-boyfriend.”
“Is this incident why you broke up?”
“No, that was because of an unrelated depilatory incident. I liked grooming him, but one time he freaked out about me having gotten too enthusiastic. I think he was overreacting, and so do my friends, but that’s his problem.”
“Yeah, and the vagina smell?”
“Oh, the doctor found an old tampon.”
“Found… in you?”
“Where else? Yes, in me. Nestled pretty snugly. Except it was falling apart. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed that. But I’m all clean now. As clean as can be. Although I do still lift guys up to my face after they’ve been below for a few seconds, to examine their expression. If there’s even the fadest hint of disgust I can’t go through with it. But if he genuinely looks like he’s enjoying it down there, I’ll come like a crazy hag.”
“Wow.”
“That’s just what it’s like to be a woman.”

It was a great conversation starter, and the date slowed down after we’d stopped talking about it. So I returned to the subject one more time when our main courses arrived:

“Have you ever heard of the song Gorging On Menstrual Chunks by the band Gutrot?”

“No.”
“Taste the waste?”
“No.”
“Shame.”