From the 2004 archives: letter from the infamous Tampon Man.

Now this? This is a good old-fashioned weirdo letter. It’s sort of sad - I hardly ever get this kind of email anymore. (And god knows I don’t get actual snail-mail letters like this anymore, although once in a great one, The Stranger forwards some entertainingly strange missive sent to me at their office.)

What makes it a classic? It’s not the fetish itself. I have known perfectly charming men who found bloody women erotic.

No, it’s the writing style. The bludgeon-like use of capital letters! The insistently interrogative multiple question marks! The jarring juxtaposition of the flowery, hyper-submissive phrases with slightly offensive made-up words like “cuntsume”. And the bizarre rhetorical questions, that remind me of advertisements for snake-oil, or personal-injury attorneys.

Sheer length also counts – the original of this letter was about four pages long. I do not lie.

He also gets bonus points for the use of then-current events as emotional reference points to sell his concept. Menstruation = Weapons Of Mass Destruction? That’s bold branding, people. Bold!

I just think it’s a shame people don’t put the same sort of effort into writing oddball letters as they used to. Now they just Twitter or text. Sigh. Passing of an age.