“Worried about your flow? Menstrual Accessory is a convenient solution to all your period stain problems. This new product is a sleek liquid you can use to cover your embarrassing period stains. It comes in fantastic colors including fluorescent pink, electric coral, and magenta. Menstrual Accessory is trendy, fashionable and desirable - unlike your actual period, which is dirty, ugly, and uncomfortable.

No longer are you tied to the boring redish, maroonish, brownish colors announcing to the world you have a reproductive body; Menstrual Accessory is a new way to have fun with your period!”

Taking the form of a lecture that might at times feel more like an infomercial, “Menstrual Accessory Product Pitch” introduced the audience to this life-changing product. You’d have been laughing so hard you’d hardly have noticed you were actually listening to a feminist critique of capitalist profit and repression of menstrual cycles. References to Margrit Shildrick and Ruth Green Cole provided a critical framework to this fun and funny performance. Menstrual Accessory celebrated the leaking body through embellishment and accessorizing, using an overwhelming flow of colors.

This performance lecture opened with myself changing from ‘regular’ clothes to an all white outfit with pink accents. This power suit was ready to be stained with menstrual blood leaking from my body, a performance trick/technique I have perfected. The act of making menstruation visible created the opportunity for me to demonstrate how to use Menstrual Accessory. I then went into further description of the product by looking at the competition (other menstrual product ads), proposing celebrities that might benefit from the product, and showing documentation of myself wearing Menstrual Accessory in various public spaces. Audience members were further engaged by testing Menstrual Accessory on pre-stained underwear. The lecture performance concluded by conducting market research—I asked “what are you willing to pay to cover your leaking body with beautiful bright fun colors?”

Inviting input from the audience led to discussion and suggestions about monthly subscriptions, and potential expansion into marketing the product for sweat or incontinence.