Are we synching? Historical & current beliefs about periods
Men should open this email too
Hi Everyone,
Happy hump day and thanks so much for reading the ADULT SEX ED newsletter! If you’re enjoying it, please share with friends, so they can be hilariously informed!
This is a weekly newsletter from me, Dani Faith Leonard , a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. It’s an extension of the live comedy show ADULT SEX ED that I’ve hosted since 2018. The show is about plugging the holes in our education as adults, so I’ll be doing just that (if you want to know more about this newsletter, here’s a description on substack). Ready to get a little smarter? Okay, let’s go!
This week, I read that Flo, the most popular ovulation and period tracker used by 300 million people, announced Flo for partners. This new feature will allow your partner to have a window into your menstrual and reproductive health. According to Cath Everett, VP of Product and Content at Flo, “Women are tired of carrying the mental load, and men are tired of being left in the dark when it comes to their partner’s health journey.”
In the newsletter heading, I implored men to open and read this post. It’s not just for my benefit. We find it incredibly sexy when our partners know about and care about our periods! So it’s for your benefit. Knowing things about periods might get you laid. And if you don’t get a period or have sex with people who do, it’s still helpful for us to know about each other.
Why would men know anything about periods? We’re often separated in childhood sex ed. We pass each other tampons in private. It’s hard for someone without a uterus to know the specific pain of period cramps, which is why this experiment where a period pain simulator was worn by cowboys in Calgary, Canada was so much fun to watch. Periods are so taboo that there are thousands of euphemisms used around the world. On the rag. That time of the month. The curse. Code red. Pink Floyd. The Red Army. Ketchup week. Sailing the Red Sea. Riding the cotton pony. Surfing the crimson wave.
On average a person menstruates for about 7 years during their lifetime. That’s a lot of time to spend with a period, but there are still a lot of myths and misconceptions that people believe. First of all, most of us bleeders don’t know how much we actually bleed. Although it may seem like we’re bleeding a river, it’s usually 2-3 tablespoons. Obviously, men don’t know this either. There is a now famous story about the preparation for Sally Ride’s trip into space. Tampons were packed with their strings connecting them, like a strip of sausages, so they wouldn’t float away. Engineers asked Ride, "Is 100 the right number?" She would be in space for a week. "That would not be the right number," she told them. They claimed they just wanted to be safe. SAFE FROM WHAT?
A myth that I have heard more times than I can count is that a woman isn’t fit to be president because we’re too erratic when we have PMS. No matter that most of the women who have run for president are well past the age of getting a monthly visitor. There is still a lot of period stigma around the world and that has historical origins. Here’s a quick overview:
Some cultures believed that periods were sacred and powerful. According to the Cherokee, menstrual blood had the power to destroy enemies. There’s nothing I crave more than the destruction of my enemies during my flow. In Ancient Rome, philosopher Pliny the Elder believed that people on their periods could kill entire fields of crops, cause bees to leave their hives, and control the weather. Fuck yeah.
On the topic of sorcery, there is no scientific evidence that periods synch (but most of us think they do!). The concept of period synchronization and the lunar cycles were present in ancient mythology. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote that the indigenous myths of North and South America expressed men's worry that, unless women's periods were carefully monitored and synchronized, the universe might descend into chaos. Periods are that powerful. All I know is that I’ve been synching with my sister since high school.
Most of the taboos about menstruation originated in the Bible, which laid the groundwork for practices like menstrual isolation. In the Old Testament (Leviticus 15:19-30), a menstruating female is considered ritually unclean: "anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening." Better go out and get some hand sanitizer and get over it! In Judaism, a woman during menstruation is called niddah and may be banned from certain actions, like having intercourse. This lasts for up to two weeks, when she bathes in a ritual bath called a mikvah. Many Orthodox Jews still adhere to these rules, while more liberal groups do not. Some Christian denominations follow similar laws. In Islam, women are excused from performing prayers and fasting, and the traditional interpretation of the Qur'an also forbids intercourse.
For other religions, there are a range of practices. In some of the orthodox churches, women are advised not to receive communion during their menstrual period. In Hinduism, menstruation is seen as a period of purification, but Hinduism's views and practices on menstruation are diverse. Hindus in Nepal practiced menstrual isolation until is was outlawed in 2019. In various Chinese belief systems, women are not supposed to pray to or touch sacred statues during their periods.
There are some cultures that still use huts outside the home to isolate women during menstruation. The famous book The Red Tent described the biblical practice of isolation where women on their period are sent away during menstruation or childbirth. Menstrual huts still exist in the Jewish community in Ethiopia and in certain states in India. In developing countries, many young girls miss school during their periods, sometimes due to lack of access of products and sometimes due to isolation customs.
In present day, myths vary country by country. In the United States, women are told not to go hiking or camping because we might attract bears. In Australia, swimming on your period could result in a shark attack. In the UK, many people still believe that using tampons as a virgin will break the hymen and take your virginity. In Japan, women shouldn’t cook because they can’t taste right. In India and Italy, they’ll also spoil the food. In Poland, having sex while on your period can kill your partner. Now there’s a menstrual superpower.
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