Before we begin, be prepared for frank conversations coming up about menstrual blood and sex organs.

All around the world, in Sweden as well, some girls think that they're dying when they get their period. It's awful.

It's the most natural process there is. We all exist in this world because of it.

And the more we can normalise it, the more we can remove other stigmas related with it.

This is one of my favourite parts of Stockholm subway, where the track goes above ground and you can spot the medieval old town right on the waterfront.

My name's Maddie Savage. I'm from the UK and I've been working as a journalist here in the Swedish capital for seven years.

I've made this journey hundreds of times, including when a sanitary towel leaked into my jeans and the day I had such bad PMS, I couldn't stop sobbing.

It's the first time I've mentioned my periods on the radio, but this is a programme about how Swedes are breaking down to booze around menstruation.

I'm getting off here at Slusen Station to meet Livströmfist, a cartoonist, and probably the country's most influential person when it comes to periods.

Hi, Liv. I'm Maddie. I'm from the first. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Good. Let's take a seat.

Five years ago, some of Liv's cartoons were picked for an annual project where city officials choose artwork for underground stations.

It was a moment in feminist history.

So the pictures were displayed right here in front of us. They're quite big, I don't know, two metres tall or something like that.

The ones that gained quite big debate were three different pictures of ice skaters that had menstrual stains in their crutches.

The images were simple, blacking on white paper with red watercolor. They'd already appeared in one of Liv's best-selling books.

For me, personally, menstruation has always been something really, really painful and embarrassing. I was like a very stiff kid that was not at all, you know, chill about having my period.

I couldn't talk to anyone about it. And I thought it was interesting not to interpret this in some personal psychological way, but to investigate it as a thing that is in the whole society, which is this feeling of shame and embarrassment over something very, very natural that half of humanity is experiencing.

Liv's bloody ice skaters were supposed to represent a utopia for people who menstruate where there's no shame about periods.

One had the caption, it's alright, I'm only bleeding. Recycling and giving a feminist twist to the title of a book, Dylan Song.

I can vividly remember spotting them here for the first time. I wasn't offended, but I was shocked because I'd never seen that kind of art in public nor had most of Stockholm's commuters.

The biggest question is, do you know what I'm saying? I'm scared, but I'm constantly, I don't know, hinting at the ceiling. The pictures stirred up debate on public broadcasters, various radio, social media and even global news programs.

It's a bit too in your face to have it in a public space like this. I think it's kind of tasteless.

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