Women’s menstruation never ceases to fascinate us.
From Donald Trump, who dismissed a debate moderator with “She was probably bleeding out of her wherever”, to the Facebook story going around about a marathon running woman who freely menstruated down her legs. Apparently, she wanted to encourage women to be proud of their periods. We are fascinated by bleeding women.
Not to be controversial here about period pride, but I think if perhaps we can view the menstruation cycle as neither a source of pride or shame, then that would be a huge gain for women. And their ovaries.
Women’s reproductive systems are never far from the surface, whether we’re talking about political issues or having an argument with our spouse.
Perhaps, we should go ahead and tell the truth about our periods.
It’s all true.
Periods are magical.
Periods are to blame.
Periods are scary.
Personal lady items cause male muscle mass loss.
The ancient Romans believed that coming into contact with a woman who was bleeding out of her wherever, could kill crops, dull the edge of steel, rust bronze, and cause fruit to fall from trees. They believed that if a menstruating woman washed linens, the linens would turn black. Of course, we know now that all those things are true. We just had to hide our menstrual lights under a bushel because, apparently, making seeds dry up in a field with our twats freaks men out. Then to keep the peace, like we always do, we stopped using Aunt Flo to turn dogs rabid and to control hail storms and whirlwinds.
Everyone knows that periods are to blame when women act like assholes.
There could be no other reason for a woman to be irritable or unhappy other than her wherever is leaking.
Have a difference of opinion with someone? You must be on the rag! Tired of hearing your husband bitch about everything under the sun when you just need some peace and quiet? If it weren’t for your pesky period, then you’d be happy to listen to that same story about Bob in the office who clips his fingernails at his desk.
While all humans are sometimes unreasonable or short-tempered, the only reasonable explanation for women to be pissy is because she’s got a case of the monthlies.
Periods are terrifying. Just the mention of menstrual blood can make full grown men turn white and run out of the room.
Probably because they know that coming into contact with menstruating woman can turn their food rancid. We used to be able to overthrow the powerful magic of the shaman every time the moon was full, but not anymore. When just the mention of a period can turn a perfectly capable man into a babbling idiot, we’ve had to tone it down. We’ve been reduced to using that monthly advantage for making vague references to womanly issues to get out of work for the afternoon. Unless we have a female boss, then we can’t even use it for an excuse to get out of the office for a few hours.
Some men may already be in the know about they way tampons destroy muscle mass. They would never, in a million years, pick up a box of tampons or pads. Smart, really, because as soon as their hands come in contact with sanitary supplies, the cotton sucks their strength. The essence of that strength is trapped in the stay dry weave and stays there until we use the pad. Then as the pad absorbs the menstrual blood, we absorb the strength the pad stole from the poor sap who was dumb enough to walk down the feminine hygiene aisle.
We should take back our magical power and come clean about our periods. We should go ahead and confirm the worst fears. We are powerful and great and evil when we are bleeding.
Or, perhaps, we could accept that women can have an opinion, a bad day, or the occasional crop failure. It has nothing to do with our periods. Maybe, we could reach an understanding that menstruation is as natural as the phases of the moon. Periods don’t need to be considered when interacting with each other.
Or maybe, the next time some douche twizzle dismisses us with a ‘she must be on her period’ comment, we go ahead and unleash our ancient menses magic.
Haha! You’ve just let the truth flow…picturing my husband turning white and running out of a room where it’s just possible I might be pulling out sanitary supplies is a great description – and I’m married to an African American man! : )
You are not off the mark with the old husbands’ tales (I know they didn’t come from wives) – my neighbor across the street pointedly asked me once after I had walked through admiring his garden, if I was on my period as it would cause his cucumbers to shrivel and die. I’m thinking his “cucumbers” had some other problem…
For all that is holy…they thought that shit in the middle ages..your neighbor needs to catch up.
I had all my lady parts removed when I was in my 30s and haven’t had a period for nearly 18 years… I’m walking proof that being a nasty bitch with the power to shrivel plums has nothing to do with bleeding from the front bottom.
I had the same thing done in my 30s too and you’re spot on with the bitch thing. If they can’t blame it on the mense they try blaming the menopause.
Yeah…that’s my life right now. Blame it on the menopause.
HAHAAHAH….You’re a witch!!!!
Not only are you Awesome Michelle, you commenters are incredible as well!!!
Thank you! And I KNOW! I love all these people so much. 🙂
Mothafucking preach!
Seriously, this could not be more awesome if you actually did call down a hurricane by using your menstrual magic. Fuck yeah 🙂
How much to buy the phrase “douche twizzle?”
Consider it my gift to you. 🙂
That would be awesome. I know a lot of people who would be rather wind blown.
I can’t sympathize with the London Marathon lady. I can think of lots of things that would be more comfortable than letting my period run down my legs. But, I wouldn’t be running a marathon in the first place…
Yeah, that whole thing just sounded miserable to me.
This was amazing and made me LOL! As a woman currently on the rag (hopefully that’s not too much TMI), this was just what I needed.
No such thing as TMI here. At least not yet.
Michelle, you’re on a ROLL! Not “the rag”—a roll! Haha! I was sitting here, laughing out loud, at the paragraph describing how our pads and tampons suck the strength from men, hold it and then restore it in us as we use those items! (Or, in my case, USED to use those items.) All of your observations and musings: so…..spot…..ON. (I’m not intending to use puns here, they just crop up!) Just wait until the day that the periods STOP and you are able to begin using all that stored up power that you have drained from your unwitting victims! You no longer feel the need to say “yes” to everything! You stop suffering fools gladly! You no longer give a shit what anyone else thinks of you because if they don’t like you, it’s just that they aren’t compatible! Buh-BYE! Now, I can just be pissed off and tired of dealing with morons, without having a period brought up at all! It IS freeing and it IS magical!
Oh…I don’t have them anymore. My uterus started acting up a few years ago, so I had that bitch’s lining burned out. hahaha.
Well I never realized I had all this power! Thank you, Michelle! I’ll be sure to unleash the next time my Aunt Flo visits. Apparently I can just let it flow too, no more need to buy all those products! Thank you, bleeding marathon woman! 😉
The power has been with you all this time. Just click your heels together three times…oh. wait.
We ARE powerful and great and evil when we are bleeding.
At least, I am.
Sugar pop, I don’t know a time when I haven’t felt your greatness.
great post. My husband and son knew better than to use that line if my daughter and I were have a bad day (or year) and yet, probably did suffer from muscle loss in the drugstore – although I don’t recall ever asking for them to do that for me.
I used to hate it when my mom asked me to go to buy those giant bags of pads for her- that the druggist put in a brown paper bag.
I haven’t had a period for five years, and to be honest, I miss it – it would be nice to mess with crops a little, or turn sheets black at least one more time.
Haha. I hawe not had one for 3 years and I don’t miss it at all.
oh ya, we got the power! (too bad it’s so exhausting,huh?)
re Trump: never underestimate the power of the cheap shot to demonstrate one’s maturity (I just know there’ll be more of that shit from him, so stay tuned!)
re Ms. Menstru-thon: good plan deciding to run bloody, sticky and stinky and grossing out the masses with your menses (I equate her with the topless women who crash public events to get their message across – it doesn’t matter what they’ve written across their bare chests, all anyone ever remembers are the boobs and the laughter).
Funny how after, um what, centuries? some folks still squirm over periods and breast-feeding. Cue eye rolling. I think perhaps a required nursing course in middle school, complete with field experience, would put an end to much of these fucked up attitudes about the human body. Or “fuckitudes”. (Hey! I like that.) And to all you readers who are menstruating right NOW, please stay inside and pull the curtains. And if by chance, you find yourself sitting naked and wild in your darkened living room in front of some smoldering potpourri shit, murmuring in satanic tongues, please cast a spell to magically revive the alternator that just died in my car. Thanks, I owe you one.
I will sacrifice a badger and eat a popsicle in the name of your alternator.
I would love to reclaim my ancient magic. In fact, maybe I will.
I was on Depo for something like 7 years, and just as much of a raging bitch without my period as with. In fact, “getting my period back” somewhat improved my demeanor.
I still have periods. Kind of. I just don’t bleed…all the other symptoms though? yeah…
Have you noticed how men can blame (first) menstruation and then segue into menopause without taking a breath? Notice how they both start with MEN? Perhaps that’s why we’re so damn bitchy.
Hahaha..yes..that does make sense.
As a guy who went through the annoying discomfort of having a rash “way high up on my legs” this summer, that (I guess) I’m finally getting over now that I FINALLY figured out (with the help of a doctor because the internet failed me) the right cream to use, all I can think of, when I hear about the lady runner who bled the whole race, is “Whole Lotta Chafin’ Goin’ On!”
When I was married, I had to buy feminine products for my wife sometimes, and it didn’t bother me a whit, because it was just part of the whole “being married” deal, as far as I was concerned. What chapped my flat white ass was having to go out and buy her cigarettes in the evenings sometimes. I mean, you could run out of pads at the very end of the last cycle and then just forget for a month, but, cigarettes, hell no–that’s an addiction and you should never forget to keep it supplied. She DID have PMS, about 4 times a year, that would be so much worse than any other PMS times, that she could probably been capable of murdering anyone who hadn’t actually come out of her, and even they had better walk on tippy-toes. But then, she was like that some other times when not in the throes of PMS.
You always bring me an LOL, Michelle.
I am happy I make you laugh! And yes…the chafing HAD to be miserable.
It doesn’t make you an awesome bowler, either. At least that’s what the guy who played Mike on Breaking Bad said on John Oliver’s show about sex education. He apparently did some sex-ed/PSAish thing when he was younger that was somewhat confusing on that point. Then there was the woman who found out that there were little inspirational sayings printed on the packaging of feminine hygiene products, and suggested that they change them to something more useful, like “vehicular manslaughter is wrong” or “put down the hammer”…
Hahahaha…yes..those messages would probably be more useful.
I prefer to be like David Foley of The Kids In The Hall, or, as he once called himself, “the guy with the good attitude towards menstruation”. Having women discuss their menses magic with me has led to some thought provoking questions, such as, “When I get my period I feel like that’s a child I could have had. Do you feel that way when you masturbate?” This led to me attempting to calculate how large a population I’d wiped out with a single–or rather several–strokes, but that’s a very different thing and not nearly as magical as menses.
Dude…I had that skit in my head THE WHOLE TIME I wrote this. I even referenced it on the ‘shaman’ line.
I get the monthly homicidal tendencies without the bleeding since the op. but yep, I am destroyer of worlds, crops and shriveller of plums. I’m also Santa Claus, Marilyn Monroe and the Tooth Fairy.
People are scary, make them go away 🙂
I was really not on board with the London marathon runner either, opposite end of the spectrum. I just wish some men were less dickish when finding reasons for our lack of acquiescence to their self perceived greatness.
Yeah that is how I feel about the marathon runner.
I am gathering strength at this very moment.
I love everything about this post. Please, never stop writing.
(God, I’m such an asshole at this time of the month!)
Hahaha…I am an asshole often, but it appears to be arbitrary. I do not plan to stop anytime soon. 🙂
I happily gave up all of my evil powers years ago when I had my hysterectomy. But surprisingly, the bitchiness didn’t stop — apparently that shit was part of me on a cellular level.
At least we’re good at it.
Yes, the period has LONG been used to keep women down. Men and their fears, bah!
Yes! BAH!
There are a few I’d like to unleash it on, but I save that for when hubby says something really stupid which takes most of my strength.
HAHAHA..right there with you, sister.
I haven’t had one in years… thank GOD- however that doesn’t keep the meanness at bay. I have the crabby mean person flare ups that as of today have bit me on the ass. I sent an email to a friend about an overly happy coworker… and that she was getting on my nerves with her babbling about her baby… and accidently sent it to her.. OOPS. Damn computer. So what do you say to that?? I wish I could blame it on my period!
oooooh…that sucks. I get it though.
I once sent an instant message complaining about my boss TO my boss. oops.
honestly – it could have been so much worse… at least all I said was her happy babbling was getting on my last nerve… so much worse
But I have to be a wee bit honest here…Back in my teens and twenties, my PMS was epic. Premsyn PMS is the only reason why there are some people walking around today that are healthy and whole. I don’t want to add to any stereotype, but Dude, I was horrifying.
It wasn’t that new things irritated me. I wasn’t that normal things annoyed me. I just lost all of my capability to tolerate. Irritating and annoying things that I normally just put up with became issues that I WOULD CUT YOU over.
However, contact with feminine products never did effect my husband. He did WHATEVER I asked him to do…including going to the store and buying tampons…without a quibble. Because I married a smart, smart man.
Hahha…yeah, Randy is smart like that as well..
Love this! I once got vicious cramps at work when I was young & told my boss I had to go home. He gave me the mean look, and then I told him “woman stuff.” I swear, he was terrified! He told me to leave RIGHT away. Sheesh…
It’s actually hilarious. I have had more than one boss like that.
Wouldn’t it be funny if it was actually women that perpetuated those myths about menses spoiling food or contaminating the cleanliness of the home? Like they figured out that what they really wanted was to go off to the hut and be left alone, and not have to do any cooking or washing up. The only way to pull this off was to convince the men that the women were looking out for the men’s needs. Smart ladies.
We are pretty goddamn smart. That makes sense to me.
He said WHAT? I’m still on that. Just…he said WHAT? On TV???
Nothing pisses me off faster. I’d have possibly smashed his stupid face onto the podium, by the hair.
I never really say the bitchy things I (often) think, but when I’m fiiiinally tired of whatever-it-is that I never complain about, and I gently speak up and say ARE YOUR LEGS BROKEN? I AM NOT THE MAID AROUND HERE, and I hear “Boy, it must be that time of the month”, I want to Unleash Hell. If you want to see me really rage, just say that.
ps…actually it quit being That Time of The Month for me, like a year and a half ago, so now I can fall back on Menopausal Woman crazy, which is a whole other level. 😉
it’s been over two years for me. I love it.
Yeah…that will start the apocalypse.
Dang, I no longer have periods, so on what shall I blame my rancid food?
Let’s blame Randy.
I was just re-reading this and thought to myself: “Trump is such a douche.” And then I was all, “Heh. That’s actually pretty funny, considering.”
HAHAHHA
Well you have just covered this topic from A-Z period! haha. I think Donald Trump would have gotten along with the soldiers from Roman times.
Or they would have eaten him. Although, I don’t think they were cannibals. They might have made an exception, though.
So true. Periods should neither be great shame nor great pride. They just are. If given a choice, most women would probably choose not to have a period, but we do. And here we are. I guess everything’s relative. Menstruating women aren’t considered the demons they once were, but its obnoxious when any difference of opinion is attributed to being on the rag.
Yeah…and when someone who wants to run the country makes a negative remark like that..well..it makes me see red. (see what I did there?)