Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Womankind's Curse?

My writing here is heavily influence by my reading on the subject. Not much of this is original. The language is, however, mine.

Admittedly, I’m not too fond of getting my period. There’s just too much tension and nervousness, checking and changing involved. It’s this huge issue- you stain your bed, which means you stain your sheets, the bed cover, your panties and sometimes even your mattress. God help you if you stain your host’s sheets. The embarrassment and desperate scrubbing constitute a royal pain. With time, you learn to sleep on your side, spread towels underneath, “clean up” afterwards.

All the time you’re wearing either tampons or sanitary towels.
Tampons keep the stuff that’s supposed to come out, in, defeating the purpose of the whole affair. Sanitary towels [diapers for you- oh insensitive male/ pad hating female] become a hot bed, literally, for bacteria as well a source of great discomfort.

Stocking up involves watching a wo/man hide your preferred instrument-of-control beneath layers of plastic and/or newspaper.

Over the years I have grown tired of this routine and now refuse to let the wo/man satisfy her/his sense of “decency”. Usually s/he looks on in horror as I whip the package out of her/his hand and saunter down the road barely stopping myself from holding it high in the air. I can’t help but not be discrete you see. And why am I required to be discrete?

Why am I required to furtively tuck a pad under my shirt, or in the pocket of my jeans or what-have-you when I need to change? Why am I kept out of temples? What’s UNCLEAN or shameful about getting your period?

Menstrual fluid is 2/3rd blood and 1/3rd the stuff that composed of the lining of a woman’s uterus. It’s not smelly or unclean like urine. The reason you get the smell is because of the bacteria that thrive inside your panties when you wear the pads. It’s normal to pee, to ejaculate- but getting your period is gross, unpleasant, something you don’t talk about, a pain.

It also makes the WOMAN unclean for that period. She can’t enter temples because she’ll render them unclean. Like they’re pristine pure otherwise.
It’s not like the bleeding woman who entered your place of worship is not taking measures to hide that fact anyway. It’s not like she’s letting the blood drip onto your precious idols, or your furniture or your cloth or whatever else it is, that is not rendered “impure” or “unclean” when a man scratching his testicles or a kid with unwashed hands fresh from a trip to the toilet touches it. [You're telling me washing your hands with water before entering the temple makes it any better?]

There are alternatives to pads and tampons. Visit this links for ideas.
http://www.mum.org/collectionwash.htm
Here's a link to women on whether they would stop menstruating if they could.
http://www.mum.org/collectionwash.htm

I don’t know what it’ll take for people to treat menstruation as a normal, regular, HEALTHY, POSITIVE occurrence and not something that has to be covered up, all evidence destroyed. Hygiene and cleanliness is one thing. It’s essential. What is not essential is treating something that’s not dirty as dirty. If you let yourself bleed freely, and let the bloody dry up, you’re actually being cleaner than when you wear pads. I’m not suggesting that women worldwide wander around butt-naked while menstruating. That’s impossible, at least at present. I’m saying they consider letting themselves stain “menstrual clothes” freely at home and wash afterwards or something. Basically, look at alternatives. Heaven knows I’d be a lot more comfortable if I didn’t have to wear pads 24*7.

Here, by the way, is why it is a positive occurrence. Getting your period means you’re not pregnant, it means you’re healthy and normal, and you’re not going to have a baby keeping you up at night. No gynea visits or pills or diet changes.

I’m going to stop complaining and saying things like “why does this happen to women” and “periods are such a pain” now. Because getting my period means I’m capable of giving birth. And that’s pretty darn amazing.
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Of course, not everything I've said applies to women that have painful periods, I thankfully don't]

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