Bad Blood

I passed out naked—after a drunken weekday night—without brushing my teeth or removing my makeup or contacts. When I woke up early the next morning, my face was nestled in the hairy confines of the cranny of this bearded dude's neck, with one arm and one leg draped over him. The new summer sun had risen in a big way, blaring on us like lasers through the shitty Ikea blinds I'd mildly incorrectly hung myself. He and I were drenched with sweat, but my throat was arid. I peeled myself off him and rolled over to my nightstand, where an opened Diet Coke had been residing for God knows how long. After a few desperate swigs, I decided to make the enormous effort of traveling tens of feet to the kitchen for some water.

When I sat up, I felt a gush between my legs and was gripped with abdominal pain. CRAMPS! Ugh. The last thing I needed to accompany this massive hangover. Grimacing, I got up to look for a pair of old, ratty panties and some PJs. I glanced over my shoulder to see if the boy had stirred. He hadn't. But I noticed a giant multi-colored stain—half damp and maroon, half dry and chocolate-milky. And it was touching his leg. Oops.

Back in the day, particularly in the very early days of my sex life, something like that would have mortified me. I would have gone to extremes to hide it, or tried to eliminate the mess while the boy was asleep. But frankly, at this point in my life, a period stain is tantamount to an untied shoe—a slight inconvenience that might trip me up, but could be taken care of relatively easily. Besides, I gave that dude a pretty amazing BJ, in which I deep-throated so hard that I almost puked on his dick like three times. We also banged.

The way I see it, this guy should be grateful for the time he spent in my orifices, and relieved by the evidence that I'm not pregnant with his mistake. Most importantly, I couldn't be that embarrassed in front of him after he witnessed me coming hard, which means that he saw me get all My Left Foot; contorted face, limb-locked spasms, etc. Also, between my squirting and the jizz that he insisted on spraying all over, that bed was a soggy, filthy mess anyway.

But still, large, damp period blots aren't exactly how you want to say good morning to anyone, especially a boy you'd banged a few hours before. But I didn't have time to worry about any of that, as my cramps had kicked into overdrive, making me feel like I had food poisoning or something.

I have poop issues on a daily basis. I guess it's like mild IBS. I've been like this forever. I have to be really aggressive about my fiber intake each day, and still, I only go like a few times a week. But when I get my period, that's when I empty out. For me, cramps just feel like I have to take a major shit on the double, and then I do. So there I was, hungover, in pain, pooping my brains out, with a guy sleeping in my blood-soaked bed. It was only 8:30 am and this day was already a candidate for epic suckdom.

I grabbed a pad from under my sink and unwrapped it. I looked down on the little tab attached to the wings and noticed the message printed on it. "Have a happy period." FUCK YOU, I thought. Who the fuck has happy periods? No one. Periods only make you happy if you've been irresponsible that month. And that joy only lasts like 1.5 seconds of the 5 - 7 days you have to deal with it.

I mean, the well wishes (which I solely hear in Regina King's voice, thanks to the commercial) are a nice gesture, I suppose. But when I have my period, I'm touchy to say the least, so bubbly sentiment emblazoned on my glorified diaper doesn't go over so well, especially when raisin-sized clots are plopping out of me while I have painful diarrhea.

Seriously, if Always wants to communicate with me during my cycle, I'd much rather get some sympathy or empathy rather than well wishes. Like, I'd be more appreciative if the wings tab was like, "Aw, how's your tummy?" or "Dude, this SUCKS, right?" or "You're entitled to a cupcake today." Instead, I'm left with "Have a happy period," to which I respond by grunting, balling the paper up in my fist, and tossing it in the garbage. (I usually miss and it lands on the floor.)

It's nice that there's a pill for women that makes it so we never have to get our periods. Personally, I would never take it, because I think my body is supposed to get periods, and because taking birth control hormones makes me a raving cunt face.

Typically, day one and day two are the hardest, as far as flow and cramps go. But around day three or four I get incredibly horny. Occasionally I'll be able to talk a guy into doing it when I'm in that state, but it's not something to be counted on. I've masturbated with a tampon in before, but really, it makes me uncomfortable mentally. I can't stop imagining the tampon in there, and I have a slight, irrational fear that my vadge will contract so much that it will just swallow the whole tampon up, string and all, and then I'll be in a real bind, trying to get that thing out. The daymare alone turns me off. I usually use a vibrator over my underpants while wearing a pad, which invariably makes my dry weave all wet, and leaves me feeling a bit icky after.

I finished up my business in the bathroom and with that brick of a pad between my legs, did a sort of John Wayne wide stride walk back into my bedroom. The dude had just woken up and was staring at the giant blood stain, horrified.

With much disdain he said, "Gross, it looks like someone was murdered."

"Keep running your mouth like that and maybe someone will be," I sneered. I'm sure I scared him, because I looked crazed, with my girl cowboy stance, bed hair, and raccoon eyes. At least I managed to wipe that assy look off his face.

My period is something I have to put up with, and I accept that. And no matter how sensitive or understanding they may be, guys will never really know what it's like to deal with the pain, discomfort, and general shittiness of menstruating. But then again, they'll never know what it's like to come six or seven times in a row. But if they're lucky, they'll get to watch as it happens.

Comments

[Plusha]

Oh, I just love you. Seriosly, it's as if you got in my head and lifted all this shit from there. Except the time that I woke up in a pool of my own blood hungover, I wasn't in the comfort of my own bed. I was in someone elses bed, and there were two other people there with me. I thought about being embarrassed about fucking up their bed and partially bleeding on one of them, but then I thought "fuck it". One of them was a woman anyway, so she should have understood.

[phartizan]

I've got to say a lot of my fellow guys are pussies.

[The Ethical Slut]

The bonus of the relationship is that a smart guy will learn to love the period. What was the quote from Entourage? Its like Flag Day...lots of blood lube, and they can come inside of you. Like you, day 3-4 I get really horny and fucking is just the right "mild exercise" that helps my cramps. Last night, after he pulled out and I gave birth to a bucket of blood, period chunks, and jizz on our 'save the sheets' towel, he said, "Cool." Thats a keeper.

[yungrii]

"So there I was, hungover, in pain, pooping my brains out, with a guy sleeping in my blood-soaked bed"

what a sentence

[Deege]

OMG! I thought I was the only one that got the shits when I got my period. I'm also against a "no period" pill, but damn, the whole period ordeal just fucking sucks.

[lindsay]

OH MY GOD, I always take major dumps at the beginning of my period too!!!! I've always thought that part was worse than the cramps themselves.

[Jacinda]

SM you still wear pads??? I'm shocked.....I thought they were only for virgins and soccer moms

[Shiny]

That was a great fucking post, I'm on my first day as well and in an assy mood - way to cheer a girl up.

I'm in agreement with The Ethical Slut, a good bf will offer to make you feel better with head.

[Pretentious]

Huh huh. Period chunks.

[aag]

Hysterical. I go through a full-body purge on Day 1 too, and then comes the Horn-Dog stage of Days 3-4.

[aag]

Hysterical. I go through a full-body purge on Day 1 too, and then comes the Horn-Dog stage of Days 3-4.

[The Mrs.]

Love it. Thank you.

My husband & I have debated for months if this was from a man or a woman. Your paragraph about shits-n-menses answered my question. Hardly any men know this, I would imagine, unless they're doctors or have a fetish.

[CJ]

Classic. The John Wayne Wide Stride made me laugh out loud at my computer.
I too have experienced the period on the sheets episode, but it was in his bed and very early in our history together. He handled it like a champ and I felt he had the makings of a keeper.
The best part was that I helped move him into his new house and we were moving the mattress (it had soaked through because he was fool enough not to have a matress pad) and his mom was very curious as to what that spot was. He was embarrassed, but I wasn't anymore.

[Scarlett]

Argh period cramps are the worst thing. My ex-husband used to say 'oh well it's not like getting kicked in the balls, that's much worse'. Well sure if he got kicked in the balls repeatedly for a week every month and blood came out. Asshole.
Love your blog, as always. The John Wayne quote made me laugh to myself for a long time.
Have a happy period? Like hell I will.

[nun'ayuhfuckinbiznis]

Hey, I had a similar experience two months ago, minus the naked guy and the bedroom. And the sex. And the hangover.

I was actually in a BOARDROOM during my personal deluge, dressed for success. After the grueling meeting was over, I sat on the table to bitch and moan with the project director -- thank God a WOMAN!!! -- when suddenly I felt a pressure between my legs that reminded me of childbirth.

Instantly, I slid off the table, only to see, horrifyingly enough, smeary blood -- MY MENSTRUAL BLOOD!!! -- all over the table top!!!!

The project manager and I stared at the blood and at each other and then we burst into hysterical laughter and grabbed some Starbucks napkins and made the blood disappear.

Then, still weak with laughter, I strode "John Wayne-style" (apologies to SL) into the nearest bathroom where I stood butt-naked while I scrubbed my skirt, underwear and legs for about 2 hours while explaining my actions to every fucking single woman who came into the bathroom.

[darek]

I hate to be "that guy" but I have experienced the period.

I had to have a kidney removed (it was born fucked up, swollen with pee) and to undrain it, I had to have a stent inserted in my Ureter through my Urethra (up the pee hole). I was wide awake, local anathesia (needle to the dick) and first they had to insert a tube up my dick. I was able to see my bladder from the inside, that's how far they went "up".

This immense pain made me bleed out of my private parts for 5 days, left me cramped and scared to touch myself "down there".

So girlfriend, don't think all men don't know what you go through, I've felt your pain.

[The Ethical Slut]

I've had that procedure, darek, and sweetheart, your heart would explode if you ever had to go through a period. Ha, you think you know what pain is.

[darek]

hey call me old fashioned, but i just dont think things are meant to go guy's pee holes

assholes, yes (im still waiting) but pee holes, lawdy no.

were you scratched along the inside of your urethra as well ES?

we should start a support group :)

[mc]

the first time i saw the "have a happy period" pad, it was after a week of a missing period and thinking i was totally pregs.. i'm pretty sure i burst out laughing while sitting on the toilet.

[Princess Zippy]

"I looked crazed, with my girl cowboy stance, bed hair, and raccoon eyes. At least I managed to wipe that assy look off his face."

I am going to make an old relative needlepoint that on a pillow. Seriously.

[Kate]

Oh wow, I love this blog so much. I also "unload" on the first day of my period. I have also experienced the period bed stain. I was in staying in my boyfriends parent's house for the first time and left a big blob on his mothers pristine cotton sheets. But she's cool, as all other good women should be! I also get super horny on the last days of my period. God, I agree with you so much about the pill too. I've been on it for about 4 years now even though it's against my beliefs that it's unnatural and MUST be bad for me. But my stupid boyfriend refuses to wear condoms. I'm a sucker. At least I get him to pay for my prescriptions..

[Jenna]

I find that the Instead cup things are a girl's best friend for mid-period masturbatory needs.

Just found your blog via fourfour... great post!

[The Ethical Slut]

You know they found that taking the pill to cycle out periods is MORE natural and lowers your risk for cancer, right? I can't be fucked to find the articles, but until the last few decades, women gave birth pretty much non-stop and what's "natural" for a woman is to have less than a dozen periods in her life. When they were inventing the pill, having a 5-day period was a completely arbitrary decision. All my (female) gynos have all strongly recommended cycling out periods if on the pill.

[krissythegroupie]

Jesus. I love how girls can talk about the GROSSEST shit and laugh hysterically about it. I think all women have had the period stain with someone else in bed thing. Ahh, rites of passage.

[megan]

That was awesome.

[miss christy]

Like, I'd be more appreciative if the wings tab was like, "Aw, how's your tummy?" or "Dude, this SUCKS, right?" or "You're entitled to a cupcake today."

holy shit that was awesome. what a great idea!!! you should totally market it.

[miss christy]

Like, I'd be more appreciative if the wings tab was like, "Aw, how's your tummy?" or "Dude, this SUCKS, right?" or "You're entitled to a cupcake today."

holy shit that was awesome. what a great idea!!! you should totally market it.

[trix4kids]

"what's 'natural' for a woman is to have less than a dozen periods in her life."

This is the dumbest thing I've heard today. Think about it: if a girl gets her period at say... 13, then gets pregnant at 15, which WASN'T the norm "a few decades ago" (would that be the 1950's?) she'll have already had what, 24 periods? So, even if she gets knocked up continually for the rest of her life, she's already had more than your "natural" number of periods.

The average woman starts menstruating at 12, and stops at 51 during menopause. At 12 periods/year, that's 468 periods. Even if a woman has 10 kids, she'll still have 378 periods. For a woman to have your "natural" number of 24 or less, she'd have to have 49 and 1/3 children. Let me repeat this for emphasis:

FOR THE AVERAGE WOMAN TO HAVE LESS THAN 24 PERIODS IN HER LIFE SHE'D HAVE TO HAVE 49 KIDS.

Maybe if you're figuring that woman died before they stopped menstruating "a few decades ago", your claim makes sense. Otherwise, your logic is fucked and you are a dumbass.

[JB]

I've begged you to get therapy.

[Ali]

I think the posts on your blog are great -- I'm not such a big fan of your Gawker ones though. Do they edit the hell out of them or something?

[Sabina]

Trix4kids, Ethical is right-- and even without ever giving birth, it's more natural to have fewer periods. The whole once-a-month deal was an unhealthy gynecological invention, and in the past as well as in many other countries, women have far fewer periods (and no cramps). Look it up.

[The Ethical Slut]

Here's an article about the study, dumbfuck:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f00/web2/donimirski2.html

Sorry my numbers were off....you sure showed me with your godlike ability to multiply, dude. I said that I didn't have the information in front of me and you're an idiot for taking that number literally and getting so incensed about it.

You're also pulling shit out of your ass, the average age a woman starts menstruating is 12....in the US in the past couple of years (http://www.mum.org/menarage.htm) Also, perimenopause begins on average at 39 when periods become irregular. I guess what I'm saying is way to take fucked logic to a new level and make yourself look like a blustering asswipe.

[slut machine]

people don't like potty girl because they think i'm trying to impress them when i'm not, because they think i take myself seriously when i don't and because they think i'm trying to be sexy when that is really never ever my intention when i write about sex.

[Mortality]

Period cramps suck! Thankfully I've always had atleast five weeks between each week of blood and pain. ^^

[Kim]

How appropriate. I just got home from a midafternoon sex session with my boytoy like 30 minutes ago. After we were done, he looks at me and asks where I was in my cycle. I was just like...oh...yeah, sorry. At least he was polite about it and the sheets were black.

And now I have a craving for cupcakes.

[trix4kids]

wow, ethical slut...

...you linked to an undergraduate's paper with only 4 sources (all of them www). The closest thing to an 'authoritative' source this paper has is the New Yorker.

The best support for your claim seems to be the paragraph about the anthropologist who studied one group of menstruating women in an African tribe in 1986:

"Among the Dogon she found that a woman, on average, has her first period at the age of sixteen and gives birth eight or nine times. From age 16, at the onset of menarche, to age twenty, the Dogon woman would average seven periods a year. Over the next decade and a half, from the age of twenty to thirty four, she sends so much time either pregnant or breast feeding (which, among the Dogon, suppresses ovulation for an average of twenty months) that she averages only slightly more than one period per year. Then, from the age of thirty-five to menopause, during which time her fertility rapidly declines, she would average four periods per year (2). In total, Dogon women had approximately one hundred periods in their lifetime (with the women living to be approximately seventy or eighty years old). In contrast, modern, Western women average about five hundred times during her lifetime (1)."

So there's a group of women who average about 100 menstrual cycles during their life. First, that's 4X your claim of "less than two dozen". Moreover, the fact that some small group of women experiences fewer periods doesn't provide any evidence that it is more "natural" or "healthy". (Women in the modern U.S. have a greater life expectancy than those in the study you cited).

The question of whether fewer periods has health benefits remains unresolved, and I'm not claiming to have an answer to that question, but your evidence is weak. If you're going to make arguments about human biology, a student's paper-- written in 2000-- for a Bio 103 class-- with ZERO authoritative sources (by authoritative I mean scholarly research from the New England Journal of Medicine, etc.) isn't going to cut it.

[trix4kids]

also, you posted a broken link.

I think you meant to post http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f00/web2/donimirski2.html

[trix4kids]

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f00/web2/donimirski2 (.html)

[aj]

After reading the exchange between Ethical Slut and Trix4kids, I'm getting bored of this issue of what is "natural." Nature has never been very forgiving to women, and the fact that women have experienced something for thousands of years does not make me feel inclined to experience it anymore than I have to.

[Mawrter '94]

Ethical Slut--
That sounds really, really off.
How old are you?
Could that have been YOUR undergrad paper? From, like, last semester?

Menstruation is one of the female body's ways of cleansing itself. "Menses" comes from the word for month (ergo, it occurs 10 to 12 times per year unless interrupted by pregnancy).

Manipulating your endocrine/reproductive chemistry with synthetic pharmaceutical hormones may or may not be dangerous, but it's certainly not natural.

That said, I chow down on hardcore painkillers every month. Fuck Pamprin and Midol. Sex and perscription narcotics are the only thing that keep me from shoving a melon-baller through my navel and scooping out my demon womb.

[Jessica]

Ugh. For me, at least recently, the shits come a day or so before my period. It's kinda my body's cute little way of punching me in the ass and screaming, YOU'RE GOING DOWN FUCKER. You know, just in case I didn't realise menstrual hell was nigh.

[talesofacollegegroupie]

Mawrter and trix4kids-

Actually, Ethical linked to an undergraduate paper that cited Beverly Strassman, who isn't just some random anthropologist but happens to be one of the leading experts when it comes to endometrial cycles (she's got lots of fascinating articles I had to read for human sexuality, I suggest you look at them). Strassman did indeed present the first long-term data on menstruation in a natural-fertility population (the Dogon), but she wasn't the first to do research in that field. The 1987 study you allude to was conducted by Johnson and the population was the Gainj of Papau New Guinea, who had only 40 menstrual cycles in 36 women (I suspect this is where the low numbers for lifetime amount of periods come from and they're hard for us to believe, because we definitely don't live in a natural-fertility society and for us the onset of menarche is much earlier and menopause comes much later, thus our high rates of breast cancer. did you know the average age of menarche in the US was 17 years of age 200 years ago?). Strassman states in her write-up that Bentley, Harrigan, and Ellison attempted to study the Lese of Zaire but found them to have almost the same menstrual cycles as women in the Western world. The Lese women were also all pretty much sterile thanks to STDs.
According to Etienne Van De Walle, the theory that menstruation is the female body's way of cleansing itself goes all the way back to the time of Hippocrates, "if the menses do not flow, women's bodies become prone to sickness". It's the whole "woman is weak and must clean herself" shtick.
I can't argue about synthetic hormones because I personally am not a fan, but using all sorts of unsafe methods to control menstruation/ovulation/etc is as old as history itself. I think anything, be it herbal cures or Pfizer's drugs, that interfere with a biological process isn't very "natural". And we also have to question, just because it's an evolutionary biological process, does that mean it's still important? Although there are two hypotheses out there, nobody has conclusively proven exactly what menstruation is for. The only thing that has been proven is that we certainly shouldn't be menstruating as much as the average Western woman is (I'm too lazy to look up the specific studies, they're out there though, pretty easy to find), now the question is whether birth control is the right remedy for this.

Anyways, enough of that, hope it made some sense.

Slut Machine- this is hilarious. I can totally relate, except I usually have the shits like two or three days before my period. It's like a warning that the blood is coming and it's time to head to the local supermarket and stock up on the sort of food that makes the bagger dude wonder how much pot I've been smoking. I've had about five incidences where I've started bleeding during sex as well, usually I can tell something is up because it suspiciously starts to feel like there's some sort of lube coming out of me.

[the "other" kate]

Put another check in the "unloaders" column for me.

I find the debate about the number and frequency of menses quite interesting (barring the fucktards, of course). I've gotta say though, I'm leaving my body to its own devices. Firstly, I'm a bipolar smoker with non period-centric migraines, which is basically three strikes right out of the gate for side effects. I tried the pill, which turned me into a nervous weepy wreck so fast I couldn't stay on it to see if it helped the cramps. I tried Depo, which in 9 months of use made me bleed for 3 months straight, and when I stopped taking it I didn't menstruate for another 6 months.

My preferred form of birth control is a tubal ligation, but I'm apparently too young at 25, and no doctor seems to seriously believe that I'd claw my own uterus out simply to avoid having children ever. Which is doubly amusing to me knowing that 50 years ago my psychiatric diagnosis would have meant I got one against my will. Yay for progress!

I'm really interested in following the research about menses as the body of work gets deeper, but I remain unconvinced that synthetic hormone manipulation is that way to go. Maybe we should embrace the tribal examples and just cut out the processed food, hormone-injected meat, and get off our "civilized" asses and walk around a lot more. I suspect that would probably help.

[lizbeth]

It never fails to crack me up that despite all our obvious nonchalant attitudes towards the pints* of blood pouring out of us each month, men still often have the idiotic & outdated idea that women faint at the sight of blood - especially when men themselves are clearly the bigger crybabys when it comes to all things bloody. In fact, I have made many a male friend shriek in horror just by waving a box of tampax in their general direction. Sissys.

*yeah, I know it's not pints. It fucking feels like it, tho.

[Nina]

I... love... you.

[chasingeros]

Holy Mutha - I just spit out my wine. You got one mighty guffaw outta me, luv!

[Avatar]

This post was all kinds of awesome.

[mim28]

Nice try-kidney-operation guy...sure that sounds painful but try going through it every month - for the best part of a freaking lifetime.
'So girlfriend, don't think all men don't know what you go through, I've felt your pain.'
Fuck off.

[Viviane]

Damn. I had to dry off my keyboard.

[Jaime]

OK, maybe I'm not the norm but I don't think having your period is all that painful. Yeah, its not fun, cramps suck and all but its not really the horrible, gut wrenching pain that some of you are describing. Take some advil, lay on a heating pad and its much better. Giving birth, yeah that's painful and you can whine all day about that, but I don't think having your period is as bad as some of you are making it out to be.

I'm willing to bet kidney operation guy had it much worse that we do once a month.