Alex Casey examines the perils of having your period at a music festival. 

It was right after Clairo’s swooning set that Sarah* knew it was time. She was on the second day of her period at Auckland’s Laneway festival, and braved the portaloos to empty her menstrual cup and change her pad. “I have a heavy flow so, if I’m out there for the long haul, I’ll always make sure I’m really prepared,” she said. But what she hadn’t anticipated was what awaited her behind the plastic door: “no bin, no running water – just hand sanitiser.” 

What happened next is the kind of situation you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy. Teetering precariously over the blue liquid of the toilet bowl, Sarah removed her menstrual cup and immediately got blood “fucking everywhere”. After cleaning up with the wafer-thin 1 ply toilet paper, and rinsing the “CSI crime scene” from her hands using her water bottle, there was one more insult to add to the psychological injury: nowhere to dispose of her used pad. 

“I just wrapped it in toilet paper and put it back in my bag,” she told The Spinoff. “I didn’t want anyone to see me with this big wad of toilet paper, so I just carried it around until I got home.”

Sarah’s story sits alongside countless others from festivals all around the country. Emma* had taken a tab of acid at Fisher when she needed to change her tampon, her disoriented feeling and funny tummy soon exacerbated by the labyrinthine loos. Again, there was no bin and no running water. “I just put the tampon in the toilet because there was no other option, and used the foot pump thing – you also can’t be too overzealous with that because it splashes easily.” 

An even more harrowing event experience came from Leah*, who once attended an all-day festival for motorcycle enthusiasts and was shocked to see the portaloos removed from the premises entirely, with three hours still left on the event schedule. “I don’t know why, I guess they thought all the men had done their shits for the day and would just be weeing outside,” she laughed. “It was predominantly men there, but there were plenty of women too.” 

Attending the event while in the midst of her period, Leah was forced into the “horror” of making do without a portaloo for the rest of the day. “I ended up in a quiet corner, just shoving enough toilet paper into my trousers so that any leaking would just be taken care of until I could get home,” she said. “In other situations, you make it work, but when there’s not even a dirty cubicle for you to stand in… I truly just don’t think the organisers even thought about it.” 

Beyond that particular extreme, Leah is used to taking menstrual matters into her own hands. “Sometimes I will carry a little zip lock bag that I cover with black masking tape so it’s not visible what’s inside, and then it can just be thrown out at the end of the day. It’s a little tramping trick I learned,” she said. “But when you’re at a festival you’ve paid lots of money for, you’d expect that these things would be taken care of, or that there’d at least be a bin or running water.” 

Dr Sally Roberts, head of microbiology, pathology and laboratory medicine for Te Whatu Ora in Auckland, said it is “misguided” that festivals are only providing hand sanitiser in the toilets. “Hand sanitiser is for if your hands are clean,” she explained. “When you’ve been to the toilet, your hands aren’t necessarily clean. Soap and water is what is required to remove what we call soiling – if you’ve got anything on your hands, you really need soap and water.” 

Her advice to festival-goers is to take something extra to clean their hands with – a wet wipe or a small amount of liquid soap and water – and to remember about door handles and railings too. “If you’re wise, when you get out and shut that toilet door, you’d do alcohol hand gel again at that point, because so many people haven’t washed their hands in that toilet, and then they’ve contaminated the door handle and all those surfaces that you’ve just touched.”

When it comes to disposal of period products, a representative from Flssh NZ, who provided the loos for Laneway, said there is “no issue” in throwing period products into their toilets as all waste is “methodically macerated, counted, and separated” responsibly after the event. Flssh has trialled sanitary bins in the past, but found that they are easily damaged or misused (needles) and require their own specific handling and disposal methods which have higher risk of contamination. 

“If sanitary products are pumped out from the toilet, and all waste and contents are contained in the waste tank – this is safer,” they said. “Sanitation bins work considerably well in lots of other environments, but in portable sanitation with the right operational input and correct maceration methods, it doesn’t make sense to put into practice.” They said the best solution in their opinion is to have a specific block set up with external hand basins for those on their periods.

Thankfully, some festivals have got the menstruation memo. Rhythm and Vines had free period products available in all main portaloo areas, as well as “very clean, very chic loos where you can change your period products in peace” and a “comfort zone” to rest and recover. “I’m ngl I stopped going to RNV for a bit there,” one commenter wrote under the announcement post. “I couldn’t stand the idea of going into a rank portaloo and having to change my pads.” 

Emma still had a lot of fun at Fisher, even though the portaloo period situation definitely dampened her overall experience. “I just don’t feel like the organisers did anything to make the experience better or more enjoyable for someone who was on their period,” she said. “Even just having accessible running water, or a small amount of free products. It’s such a small thing, but it does reduce stress massively – and surely that’s a big win for everyone.” 

*Names have been changed

From tradwives to ‘petite blonde’ preferences, this season feels like a throwback for all the wrong reasons, writes Alex Casey.

First of all: I know. Complaining about bad stuff on Married at First Sight Australia is like complaining that water is wet. But I’ve been bobbing around in these waters for a while now, and there’s something particularly ominous lurking just below the surface this season. It’s not just that the water is wet – it’s that the water appears to be hiding an ancient chest full of hokey old gender norms buried some time around the advent of the contraceptive pill. 

It’s been there from the very first episode, where we met 35-year-old Eliot. He called himself a “control freak” with “unrelenting standards” who had a very particular vision for his romantic future. “I just want that 1950s nuclear family – Dad comes home, hangs his briefcase and hat on the wall, the kids run up to him and the wife’s in an apron in charge of the household,” he said. “I want someone to take on that traditional feminine role, but a lot of girls aren’t into that.” 

One girl who could not be more into that was Lauren, who believes that she was born in the wrong era, and finds that “feminine men” give her the ick. “I’m like the wifiest wife material that there is,” she said as she delicately wiped the leaf of a peace lily repeatedly. ‘What makes me happiest is serving my partner. As long as I find them masculine, I want to serve them in every possible way. They’ll never have to pack the dishwasher or cook dinner.” 

Jacqui and Ryan also couldn’t stop yapping on about their need for traditional gender roles. Jacqui said she was looking for someone with a “masculine energy” and that she wanted “to be the woman who makes him feel like a man.” And if you think that means nothing, wait until you hear Ryan. “I believe a woman shouldn’t be afraid of her feminine energy,” he mused. “I love a woman with a career, but I’ve still got to be able to protect her – that’s my role as a warrior.”

These traditional values are discussed in a totally neutral and uncritical way by the experts, which just goes to show how modern phenomena like “the tradwife” and “The Joe Rogan Experience” have influenced gender roles (tradwives are women who retreat from modern feminism into the simple confines of the home, while The Joe Rogan Experience is a public place for billionaires to huff and puff about the importance of masculine energy). 

Alas, it turns out that matching people based on how aspirational they found Don’t Worry Darling isn’t the key to a lasting relationship. Eliot was immediately dissatisfied with Lauren, and it soon became clear why: “I want someone who is younger than me, around 25,” he told cameras, as titles reading ‘Eliot, 35’ subtly arrived in the frame. “For me certain things are non-negotiable, because I know what my values are… I want someone that’s not really a career person.” 

What’s worse is that this doesn’t even come close to the most galling expression of men and their “values” we’ve seen in the two short weeks since MAFS AU returned to our screens. When smiley charter captain Tony, 53, married DJ and fitness instructor Morena, 57, his groomsman Steven looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Holy moly, that’s old,” he later divulged to Tony, still grief-stricken. “You should be have been awarded someone a bit younger, someone 38 to 42.” 

Through the 1950s goggles through which an alarming number of these people appear to view the world, “awarded” is an interesting language choice. Steven also suggested that Tony could “get away with” being married to someone in their 40s, as if that was some kind of challenge or dare. At least Tony maintained crisp 2025 vision: “mate, she’s pretty, she’s nice, she’s warm… She’s exactly what I asked for. Age is just a number.” 

Which brings us to the pièce de resistance of wretched MAFS male entitlement: Tim. He arrived as an unsuspecting PE teacher who believed that “looks fade” and wanted “a natural looking woman who is confident in her own body.” But after getting matched with Katie, a natural looking woman who was confident in her own body, his good guy mask slipped all the way off as he sulkily revealed he normally goes for shorter, blonder (or more brunette), and more petite women.

As if that wasn’t enough, he kept elaborating as Katie blinked back tears on the honeymoon: “it’s not just physical though. I’d normally go for quieter women… and funny.”

So just to recap: it’s week two and we’ve seen men seething that the brides are not a decade younger, that they’re too career-driven, too loud, too large, too redheaded. Is this all down evil casting? Or is it that there’s more poison in the pool as the manosphere enters the mainstream? Call me old fashioned, but I miss the good old days when MAFS men used to reveal their monstrousness slowly and skilfully over time, rather than knee slide in wearing it proudly like a badge. 

Because if this is what we’ve got already, you have to wonder: what hell possibly awaits?

Watch MAFS AU here on ThreeNow