Singing Tampons To Feature On Swedish Kids TV

After its kids’ video featuring animated dancing genitals went viral earlier this year, a Swedish children’s show is now launching a video of singing tampons to teach youngsters about menstruation.

“The Period Song” will air Friday 16th October on the SVT Barnkanalen children’s channel in a bid to explain menstruation to children. During the piece Alex Hermansson sings with teenagers and pulls on tampon strings to make them dance like puppets before dunking them in a glass of red water.

The first verse goes: “It’s a thing that happens to girls sometimes/ They don’t want to talk about it/ Maybe they’re a bit ashamed/ They don’t want us to know anything at all/ But we know, that it, it’s something totally normal/ We just need to be a little extra nice to them/ Show a little patience/ It’s just a little blood.”

“Period, period, hip hip hooray for period!/ The body’s working as it should/ And that is really, really good — hooray!” it continues, as red drops splatter on the screen.

The broadcaster has said that the video aims to destigmatise menstruation and explain the subject to children. “You should be able to talk about the most natural thing, as half the world’s population is involved,” said Petter Bragee, SVT Head of Programming.

Another clip produced and aired by SVT in January featured animated male and female genitals, called “Snoppen och Snippan” in Swedish and translated into English as Willie and Twinkle. It has been viewed on YouTube more than 6.4m times. That clip was also intended as an educational tool, and was made after the word “snippan” was created by a group of women who were dismayed by the lack of an acceptable slang term for vagina.