Comfort: Discs sit higher up—like they’re trying to avoid eye contact with your actual life. When you get the placement right, you forget it’s there… until you sneeze, then congratulations, you’re suddenly hyper-aware of your anatomy. Cups sit lower, and if you don’t trim the stem or angle it just so, you get a gentle reminder that you chose violence this cycle. Personally? Disc wins for comfort, but only after a few awkward learning curve days. If your body hates foreign objects, though, it’ll hate both, just in different flavors.
Leaks: Discs are supposed to hold more, and sometimes that’s true. But “auto-dump” when you pee is either a cool trick or a jump scare—depends on your luck and bathroom situation. Cups are loyal only if you get the seal right. Miss that by a nanometer and you’re living in fear of gravity. I don’t trust either on my heaviest days, but black underwear is forgiving.
Ease of Use: Cups: Fold, insert, twist, hope, swear, repeat. The learning curve is character-building. Discs: Pinch, insert, tuck behind pubic bone, and pray you don’t need a search party to get it out. Removal is technically easier with a disc (no suction, just a weird fishing moment), unless you have long nails—then it’s a horror story.
Preference: I use discs—less maintenance, less drama, and I can pretend menstruation doesn’t exist for 12 hours. Cups feel more secure if you’re a control freak or just like a challenge. Most people I know have tried both, hated both, and settled for whichever one betrayed them less often.
If you’re looking for a clear winner, you’re not getting one. Pick one, curse it, try the other, curse it slightly less, and then evangelize your “discovery” to your friends like you invented it. That’s the ritual.