Would you stop menstruating if you could?
I always thought that any girl or woman, once she’s had her period, hates it and would love for it to be over. To stop getting your period. I really just took it for granted that, like me, ALL (presumptuous I know) women hate bleeding every goddamn month and if it were possible to end it they would!
I was wrong! So wrong! There are actually women out there who cannot conceive of Life Without Menstruation (hell of a movie title that would make). These women loooove that they bleed regularly. They ‘accept that menopause brings with it a whole different set of issues’ but they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it. Until then, they will daub on the bloody war-paint and wear it proudly – Menstrual Blood – What Women Have & Men Can Only Dream About (more movie titles).
Why do they love it? Beats me. But here’s some of the things they say –
“No, I don’t want to miss my period. It makes me feel healthy and powerfull.”
“I always enjoy my periods, and always look forward to it coming. I feel so girlish and feminin. My boyfriend loves me more during these times.”
“It doesn’t only remind me of the fact that I’m a femail (and that’s a fact that I DO like), but it’s also very natural. If God has created us like this, why should we try to stop it?”
“I am proud of my period. It’s been a part of my life for 13 years, and I wouldn’t want to part with it now. It’s helped to shape my self-estime, my identity, and who I am.”
“As a sexually active adult female, it’s always nice to have a cheque to let me know I’m not unexpectedly pregnant!”
If they fact that they love their periods doesn’t convince you that these women are crazy.. maybe their spellings will. You have to give them credit for all the pride though, I guess.
I still don’t get it. I don’t understand why any woman would NOT want to stop menstruating if she could! I hate the inconvenience, even with tampons. I hate the pain. I hate the discomfort. I hate the blood. I hate the emotional mind-fuck. More than anything else, I hate how little control I feel I have over my mind and body ‘that time of the month’.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ashamed. Although that’s what they’d have you feel. Ashamed and embarrassed. It is so frustrating how people WILL NOT talk about blood and pads and white out all things red in the name of culture and what have you. All those ‘Whispers’ and ‘Stayfree’ ads on TV – with their fancy all-white graphics except for the occasional, subliminal insertion of red, along with their clever, mind-bending puns with the mission of disguising the notion of bleeding –
&^#%$*#&^ PADS – ‘filled with freshness’ – as opposed to what?
#@*&$(*@&#) PADS – ‘dry protection you can touch’ – because otherwise I cannot touch me down there?
– do not help anyone feel good about themselves, plain and simple. Their goal is to keep women self-conscious, and not in a good way, so as to sell more pads, more tampons and more deodorants or douches or whatever. The goal is to keep female self-love, self-esteem and self-appreciation at an all-time low, so their sales will reach an all-time high. They act as if they are doing you a favor, whiting out your period with their lack of words and with all their technology, but really they are not. It’s ridiculous! They even use blue ink to show how absorbent one maxi pad is versus another!! You don’t actually have to collect a woman’s menstrual blood to demonstrate this, but red ink maybe???????
Did you know, Most countries in south Asia tampons is not available, even in India only able to buy OB tampons at only select supermarkets in few countries. Then recently I heard they stopped selling OB! Anywhere! When my friends came down for a wedding in December they bought boxes and boxes of Ria tampons from Colombo to take back. And now I discover that even the OB tampons were actually from China! Insane!
The welfare of women has never been a national priority, making it much easier for everyone to pretend our monthly cycles simply don’t exist or should be kept under wraps. If you want to watch this attitude in action, just go to a shop and ask for a packet of Stayfree . Observe the shopkeeper treating your purchase like nuclear waste – wrapping it in thick layers of brown paper or knotting it into a black plastic bag. You can almost feel him shudder. Most boyfriends and husband even won’t go to the super market to buy tampons or pads for their girlfriends and wives! Why does it embarrass them???
Nothing in our society, except violence, has been more effective in keeping women in their place than the degradation of their menstrual cycle.
It’s hard for people to face that real women bleed at regular intervals. Our cyclic nature is still known as “the curse,” the time of the month women are ‘unclean’ and ‘impure’, and incapable of swimming, and even bathing! This stereotype is reinforced by our mothers, aunts, and the outdated messages conveyed by movies, magazines and adverts.
We’re not allowed to say ‘vagina’ in TV commercials – this is not shocking – this is Maldives/Asia. We can’t show red ink. Eeks. Blood is filthy. And none of us are vampires right?
We can’t even advertise tampons! Why? Oh you really are such an amoral ignoramus! If you show tampons, you will promote sexual promiscuity – no don’t laugh, really – tampons (apparently) cause girls to lose their virginity and/or cause too much sexual stimulation, down there. And you know this is not in ‘our culture’!
Now if you are a woman who has ever used a tampon, you will know this piece of shite was written by a man, because you will know that there is nothing sexually stimulating about a wad of cotton you’ve stuffed up your vagina.
Now although tampons are my preferred choice of menstrual product, please know that I’m not biased when I go on about how cool tampons are. I just don’t think women should be scared to use one. Tampons are not some new-age invention either. The ancient Egyptians invented the first disposable tampons made from softened papyrus. Other materials used for the first tampons have included: wool, paper, vegetable fibers, sponges, grass, and later cotton. Tampons as we know them (with the removal cord) have been around since 1929!! And most of them are made of a blend of rayon and cotton. You also get organic tampons which are made of 100% cotton.
I have been using tampons for over years. I’ve not once had a problem. The string has never ‘just broken off’. It hasn’t got ‘lost inside’ me. It didn’t ‘fall out’. I didn’t bleed for longer because the tampon was ‘blocking blood flow’.
The only potential problem with tampons (and even that’s only under certain conditions, like if you haven’t changed your tampon in over eight hours) is the Toxic Shock Syndrome and you can get that even from diaphragms. I don’t know why the glorious tampon is such a reviled product. Once I switched to tampons I couldn’t go back. Why would I want to?
Now let me state at the outset that this is not about feeling less like a woman or feeling ashamed about my cyclical bleeding. This is about comfort. The wonder and amazement and joy you will feel when you use a tampon for the first time and walk with it inside you and realize that you are walking without a bolster between your thighs – well, it has to be experienced.
I know some women won’t use tampons because they think it’s gross to put their finger inside their ‘you know’ to push the tampon in. Seriously. A] They come with applicators now. B] Seriously?? Don’t you clean your ‘down there’ after you pee? Or when you bathe? So what – you like urine but not blood??? I don’t get that. How can something that’s part of you, in you, be gross to you?
Menstruation is not gross or shameful or dirty. Menstruation is not a pregnancy check. Or it shouldn’t be anyway. Menstruation does not make me feel more womanly. If that’s what makes you feel like a woman – you have other issues – please get help. And lastly, sanitary napkins/pads are not the only options available to a menstruating woman – you will not go to hell if you use tampons!
We’re in 2011. But here’s a film Disney made in 1946, called The Story of Menstruation. Probably the only Disney film that says the word ‘vagina’. In 1946! And now, in 2011, we STILL cannot talk about blood, pads, tampons - it seems to me they had better sex education back then, in 1946 (65 years ago!!!) than they do now. Waaaaaaaaaaay better.
If it wasn’t so sad, I’d laugh!
Fuck sad. It’s bloody pathetic.
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