Stand-up comedian and actress Amy Schumer is teaming up with Tampax in an effort to “normalize women having their periods and take away the stigma.”
She told PEOPLE that she was pretty excited for the collaboration, as it felt “incredibly natural” and “almost felt too perfect to me, because we have the exact same goals in mind.”
The 39-year-old said, “We want to just take the shame away from this thing that is really strange that it’s still so secretive and that we’re made to feel bad about it. And just to get rid of some of the myths.”
She discussed stigma around menstruation and debunked a few misconceptions and fears surrounding the topic.
Schumer said among the “misinformation out there about periods” that she has seen over the years is the myth that “using a tampon means [women will] lose their virginity.”
“[Ladies] have all these misconceptions and fears, and there really isn’t that much education out there,” she added. “Only 24 states have any sort of required sex education and only 13 of those states require any sort of upkeep of actual medical studies.”
“So if you don’t have an older sister, or if your mom isn’t super up to date, you really have no one to rely on. So I’m hopefully gonna be people’s older sister, explaining the things that I’ve learned to them.”
Schumer recalled, “I do remember that my mom made me feel informed, but she never taught me how to [insert] a tampon. I didn’t find out how to put a Tampax in for probably a couple of years.”
“People don’t understand — I didn’t understand that your flow changes and you need different sizes so I think I was probably just using whatever tampon my mom had. If it hurts when you put it in, you go a size down.”
“I didn’t know that. And I didn’t know how far to push it in,” she continued. “Some women don’t even know — they’re not pushing it in far enough, so they can feel it. You shouldn’t feel your tampon. And those are things I didn’t learn for far too long.”
Schumer went on to say she did not have period shame, explaining that is what the Tampax campaign is all about. At the end of the day, she said, “Women have periods — that’s how we’re all alive, is that we get our periods. And then we don’t. We have to continue the human race, but we don’t talk about it.”
The Trainwreck star also revealed that she chose to be honest about her body changes after giving birth to son, Gene David, last year for being transparent. She said it was “just as much for me as the idea that it can help anyone.” The article originally appeared on PEOPLE.
