Let's Talk About Talking About Periods

trigger warning in this post: talking about periods

There should be a drink that women who are menstruating, PMSing, or having any number of lady troubles should have nearby to signal that they are not comfortable on the kinds of hard-to-explain and socially stigmatized dimensions that periods usually occur on.

Some special awesome protein shake, or some special tea, or some special cup for the tea.

Currently, from my observation, ladies can signal something like this by wearing slightly cozier clothing — aka, change their outer appearance to look more cozy so that they invite more soft energies to themselves. Maybe they will have some tea or something, so generally, there is a way to signal that you are in a cozy state.

However, many women do not know this is possible, and many men do not know how to read these signals. “Oh, she is wearing a cute pink soft poncho thing today; I guess that’s just the current style this month,” could be a thought. Or “oh she looks all cozy, maybe I should go over and touch her” can be another thought and might be very unwelcome! In fact, some women like to wear jeans and leather jackets when they are on their period to feel extra protected and to ward off people who might get near them when they are feeling vulnerable.

Women on their period actually do tend to be more tired and less strong, and so the vulnerability is not psychosomatic.

Men often have been complaining that the culture of chivalry is dying, and that helping a woman lift things or opening doors seems too socially risky. But perhaps there is a way for women to signal that they are open to this.

I want there to be a catalog of soft clothes and nice teas for women to have around who may want them. Like all lifestyle brands, the women likely would not buy those specific products, but it would still be an ethos they can pull from. Whenever you see a woman’s home covered in those soft basket thingies, chances are they bought them at a nice price somewhere, and didn’t actually buy the $210 per basket ones.

Is there a demand for something like this? Perhaps there is perhaps not a need for this, since women sometimes can magically tell this stuff about other women, and men are responsive generally to women being sad and tired, etc., and women gravitate towards nice teas and nice things when they are on their period already.

However, given that millions of women have issues and various pain around their menstrual cycle, there are hundreds of maternity deaths in the U.S. every year, higher than any developed country, perhaps there are still mysteries around what would be “good for women” when it comes to their unique anatomy.

There is pain on such a big scale that some cultural improvement in this area at all would likely expand the conversation topics to conversations we may not even know we should be having, because we are not talking about it because it is so stigmatized.

Given the scale of the problem, interventions would likely affect and help a lot of people.

Imagine a protein shake that is specifically formulated with lots of vitamins, and it is sold at gas stations like other awesome, normal things. Or perhaps it is a recipe that is common knowledge, that people know they can make, and that people know they can make for other people. Perhaps it is banana and oat milk, or a Yemeni tea or an Indian tea, and you can make the full version with all the sophisticated ingredients or a simplified version. (There are already things like this that exist, but they seem to be more like one-offs, rather than being culturally significant.)

Maybe there can be more depiction of periods in films and TV shows, with the actresses signaling how they signal it to the actors in the show, and then the men react to it in some nice way, to model what kinds of things can be possible.

I am not sure which version I like the best, and have not analyzed which I think would be the best — just that these are things that I hope would exist but are not existing.

Terms I have used to describe my period: bloodfest, festival of blood. I call it moonfest sometimes to people. They have no idea what I’m talking about.

It’s like you’re allowed to talk about your period when you are going out for a hookup, like “Hey, by the way, I’m on my period if you care about that sort of thing,” or “Hey, no, I can’t come out to meet you, I’m on my period.” It’s like the only time you’re allowed to talk about your period or how it may affect or limit your maneuvering in the world is if someone is about to make a direct confrontation with it.

This is strange to me and bizarre. I talk about it sometimes, but I catch myself being crass or subversive when I do it.

Usually, I do not feel self-consciousness. My values have been such that perhaps self-consciousness is not so useful when either being authentic or searching for truth, and discussing truth.

I actually had a conversation last night with someone:

“I believe I would be a lot more insecure if I was 5% more self-conscious. What do you think?”

He said, “Let’s have a panel on it and ask people’s opinions.”

And I said, “Yeah, that would be great!”

But then, talking about the period is something I am actually self-conscious about — that does actually get into my self-consciousness radar. I don’t know what the faux pas actually is, but I know I am doing it. I also don’t know what principle I’m violating, or what my own principle is. If there is a Chesterton’s fence, I don’t actually know what I’m breaking. I don’t know what rule was there in the first place.

I don’t know what images get put in people’s heads, if perhaps they start suddenly thinking about blood or dead babies and that’s an impolite image to put into people’s heads. I don’t know if they start immediately thinking about fertility or warfare or horrible smells or what it is. We do not often talk about other unpleasant secret bodily functions, and so this makes sense in this category, but also it is a category that affects so many people, so much of the time.

I liked that in Greece, there were these little sandwiches, little ham and cheese sandwiches, so that you can signal to people that something is a little bit off while also making yourself feel better at the same time. It felt very kind, like a very kind little tradition that they have to welcome in people’s problems and have a little generalized solution for it — maybe you had a hangover or maybe got off a flight or maybe you have an upset stomach, who knows —and perhaps it is there for a completely different reason than I understand, like having an easy kid’s food or having an easy food for westerners, or perhaps the ingredients are easy to have and store and then selling it is easy at a markup (though these sandwiches were very cheap, which was nice). But I really liked that. It was very nice, and I felt very held and seen in Greece, and it matched my other ways of being held and seen in this country.