Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you from House Top works,
Speaker 1: not come hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, and I feel like we should offer
Speaker 1: a disclaimer right now that if anyone is uncomfortable with
Speaker 1: the discussion of menstrill blood, this might not be the
Speaker 1: episode for you. I hope they would have picked up
Speaker 1: on that by looking at the title and description of
Speaker 1: the episode first Period Pride, Well, maybe someone might think
Speaker 1: that it's a grammar oriented episode of No More Semi
Speaker 1: Colon's Period Bride. Well, yeah, and not putting two spaces
Speaker 1: after the period, you just put one. WHOA, Okay, that's
Speaker 1: a little bit controversy. We are we're getting. We're not
Speaker 1: going to go that far. Nobody's using typewriters anymore. People
Speaker 1: just use one space and Caroline. I also feel like
Speaker 1: I'm not qualified to even be talking about Pierre as
Speaker 1: in menstrual not grammatical pride, because I'm not currently on
Speaker 1: my period hashtag t M I because I really feel
Speaker 1: like part of period pride is being loud and proud
Speaker 1: about when aunt flow and why is it your aunt
Speaker 1: ps comes and knocking. I don't know, I guess it's
Speaker 1: because your mom is always there, so it can't be
Speaker 1: like my flow, or maybe mom's working. Moms working, so
Speaker 1: aunt flows in town. But aunt flows like the aunt.
Speaker 1: She's not really your aunt. She's like your mom's friend
Speaker 1: who just comes around a lot, you know, so she's
Speaker 1: not literally your biological aunt. Yeah. We recently saw a
Speaker 1: hashtag pop up that was live tweet your period, right,
Speaker 1: that wasn't that's not brand new? Is it brand new? Now?
Speaker 1: It's not brand new. It's been around, but it really
Speaker 1: hit the mainstream when the New York Times covered it. Oh,
Speaker 1: you like most things in June. Yeah, the New York
Speaker 1: Times made it official, which was I mean, which was
Speaker 1: incredible to see that in the New York Times was
Speaker 1: covering hashtag live tweet your period. And we're going to
Speaker 1: get to live tweeting your period because there is some
Speaker 1: interesting stuff that folks have to say about that, and
Speaker 1: also funny stuff that folks have live tweeted about their periods.
Speaker 1: But can we briefly talk about periods in the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies radical feminist period, the period period. Yeah. I feel
Speaker 1: like Germaine Greer was kind of the original period pride
Speaker 1: leader because in her vook the female eunuch. She wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: if the idea makes you sick, you've got a long
Speaker 1: way to go, baby. And the idea, friends, that Greer
Speaker 1: is talking about is tasting your own menstrual blood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had to have a moment. I've read that before
Speaker 1: and and every time I've read it, I have to
Speaker 1: take a moment and think, like, am I really my
Speaker 1: self hater? Do I hate women? Do I my body
Speaker 1: if I don't want to taste my menstrual blood? And
Speaker 1: then I thought of all of the other things that
Speaker 1: come out of my body on a regular basis, whether
Speaker 1: it's regular blood, not that I'm bleeding all the time,
Speaker 1: whether it's regular blood or sweat or like, yeah, who
Speaker 1: knows what. It's not like I go around putting that
Speaker 1: on sandwiches either. So I'm so glad for that, Caroline.
Speaker 1: So I don't feel like that necessarily signals a discomfort
Speaker 1: with my body. But German Gree, I get what you're saying.
Speaker 1: But our bodies ourselves, which came out originally in made
Speaker 1: a great point about not necessarily needing to see what
Speaker 1: your own menstrual blood tastes like, but embracing your body
Speaker 1: and all of its fluids that naturally occur um so
Speaker 1: in our bodies, ourselves. It says, quote ignorance and certainty,
Speaker 1: even at worst, shame about our physical selves create in
Speaker 1: us an alienation from ourselves that keeps us from being
Speaker 1: the whole people we could be. Yeah. I get behind
Speaker 1: that absolutely. And it seems like Caroline, in the past
Speaker 1: couple of years, a lot of people who have periods
Speaker 1: have really been embracing that our bodies, ourselves ethos of
Speaker 1: period pride. We were talking to some women um last
Speaker 1: week actually, and periods came up, and someone commented, it
Speaker 1: seems like menstruation is really having a moment right now,
Speaker 1: and everyone said yes. It seems like everywhere returned, especially
Speaker 1: on the Internet. There is some kind of viral post,
Speaker 1: there's a hashtag, there's a controversial Instagram photo detailing frankly
Speaker 1: the occurrence of menstruation. Yeah, and it seems like this
Speaker 1: is a wave that we've been riding. Do you see
Speaker 1: what I Yeah? I like that, Like you got that.
Speaker 1: It seems like we've been writing this for a couple
Speaker 1: of years now. It really sort of hit the media
Speaker 1: big time in because a couple of the things happened.
Speaker 1: It was like critical period mass um a period of
Speaker 1: critical period mass right period period period uh no, double
Speaker 1: space after um. One of the great things that came
Speaker 1: out of this was Hello Flows camp Gino commercial, which
Speaker 1: went live in July and has since been viewed more
Speaker 1: than ten point four a million times, And it's really cute. Um.
Speaker 1: It's if you haven't seen it already, it's featuring this
Speaker 1: girl who she's the first girl at camp to get
Speaker 1: her period. She becomes sort of a little tyrant handing
Speaker 1: out tampons and pads to people, and then she's dethroned
Speaker 1: because you have the Hello Flow company that sends these
Speaker 1: care packages full of not only uh period products like
Speaker 1: tampons and stuff, but also candy. It's you can get
Speaker 1: a little care package basically. And so it was very
Speaker 1: cute and it was refreshing lee not shocking, but just
Speaker 1: kind of refreshingly open in the way that it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it actually uses the words vagina period. The little girl
Speaker 1: calls her period the red badge of courage, which is hilarious. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Before that, I don't think I had ever seen such
Speaker 1: a public celebration of monarchy. Yeah. And then on the
Speaker 1: heels of that, in October, a feminist rap trio with
Speaker 1: the PG thirteen name hand Job Academy came out with
Speaker 1: a parody period that's hard to say at all. Parody
Speaker 1: period rap video called Shark Week came out, blew up
Speaker 1: the Internet. All of the lady blogs were blogging and
Speaker 1: reblogging it, and sample lyrics for instance and include things
Speaker 1: like bleeding since eleven and it feels like a werewolf
Speaker 1: is living in my unus, which I love, which I love,
Speaker 1: and it's and it's wonderful, and that you know, women
Speaker 1: women talking about their periods and being in your face
Speaker 1: about their periods and trying to get people to get
Speaker 1: over the quick factor of periods is nothing new, but
Speaker 1: this is definitely a new medium. You know, the rap
Speaker 1: music rap well, the viral rap music video the internet
Speaker 1: and viral rap music by ladies. And then another bit
Speaker 1: of imagery that people sort of freaked out about, which
Speaker 1: happened in October as well, was artist and photographer Petrick
Speaker 1: Collins drawing it was an illustration, not a photo. It
Speaker 1: was suggestive of a woman on her period masturbating, and
Speaker 1: so American Apparel put that on a T shirt and
Speaker 1: it went viral. A ton of people saw it, and
Speaker 1: a ton of people freaked out about it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know how many of those shirts American Apparel actually
Speaker 1: sold because people seemed universally freaked out at the thought
Speaker 1: of even seeing this imagery, much less wearing it. But
Speaker 1: if anything, they succeeded in making a lot of headlines.
Speaker 1: As American Apparel sweet probably all know, has been pretty
Speaker 1: good at doing for better or worse. So what's going
Speaker 1: on though with all of these exam amples of this
Speaker 1: more in your face period talk. Well, don't just take
Speaker 1: it from us, you can take it from the creators
Speaker 1: of all of this media going on. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: if we look at hand Job Academy, Um Salon talked
Speaker 1: to them about their Shark Week video and when Salon
Speaker 1: spoke to Clear Withdrawl a k a. Clear Business in
Speaker 1: the rap group, she said that it was meant to
Speaker 1: clash with what she called the breast cancer pink azation
Speaker 1: of culture, and she goes on to say, quote everything
Speaker 1: is kind of pinteresty. You can't say vagina, you say
Speaker 1: the j J or the Jazzle. So I mean, from
Speaker 1: that perspective, there was a desire to just speak frankly
Speaker 1: about how periods work and happen and get messy and
Speaker 1: usually involve your vagina right, and not have to be
Speaker 1: cutesy about it or high behind that pink azation as
Speaker 1: she calls it. And actually, like you said, just be
Speaker 1: frank about the fact that, oh yeah, my body does this.
Speaker 1: And talking about her illustration, Petrock Collins told Vice that
Speaker 1: with your period, it's something that you can seal. No
Speaker 1: one's supposed to know. It's almost pedophilic. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to throw that word around, but this feminine ideology
Speaker 1: we have of the woman being a pre pubescent girl
Speaker 1: is how we're taught to change our bodies. And so
Speaker 1: here you just have people who are saying, we've got
Speaker 1: to get over this idea that women are like these
Speaker 1: squeaky clean robots who don't ever have any sort of
Speaker 1: bodily function happening. Well, and speaking of squeaky clean, I
Speaker 1: think it's also too targeting that idea of periods as
Speaker 1: dirty and shameful. Um. And when it comes to monarchy.
Speaker 1: With the Hello Flow campaign, not I'm a bloom who
Speaker 1: found it. Hello Flow told the Hairpin about the making
Speaker 1: of that commercial quote, I just wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: a true thing that happens to make an ad that
Speaker 1: women would actually recognize themselves in to show that the
Speaker 1: reality of periods is not this hidden, sanitized things where
Speaker 1: girls are wearing white pants and riding horses in a meadow,
Speaker 1: which reminds me of the classic imagery in tampon or
Speaker 1: maxipad commercials, where to show how absorbent it is, they
Speaker 1: pour what is this blue liquid? Yeah, you don't. You
Speaker 1: don't have blue liquid coming out of you. I should
Speaker 1: go to the doctor. I think I might. And of
Speaker 1: course the reason why the liquid is blue and not
Speaker 1: red is because again, period blood has been considered obscene
Speaker 1: and not just on television, but even on social media.
Speaker 1: And speaking of which, period power got quite a jolt
Speaker 1: of energy or moon energy from your moon cycle in
Speaker 1: thanks to Instagram. Yeah So. Artists Ruby Kaur posted a
Speaker 1: picture on Instagram that basically featured It was a woman
Speaker 1: lying in bed um and you could see her. She's
Speaker 1: facing away from you, and you can see that she
Speaker 1: has period blood on the back of her pants and
Speaker 1: then there's also a stain on the sheets. And Instagram
Speaker 1: took it off not once, but twice, and the artist
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, I I knew that this would happen
Speaker 1: and this is exactly what I wanted, and so it
Speaker 1: created a huge stink and people sort of took up
Speaker 1: the cause for for her, and Instagram apologized, they reposted
Speaker 1: the pics, and Ker responded, thank you Instagram for providing
Speaker 1: me with the exact response. My work was created to
Speaker 1: critique when your pages are filled with countless photos and
Speaker 1: accounts where women, so many of whom are under age,
Speaker 1: are objectified, portified, and treated less than human. Thank you.
Speaker 1: And really with that, it seemed like, especially when we
Speaker 1: go from more of an illustration, more of a jokey
Speaker 1: thing in the vein of a Shark Week or even
Speaker 1: Camp Gino, we've now entered a new and more frank
Speaker 1: phase of period pride because that photo actually shows a
Speaker 1: woman on her period. So in two thousand and two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, it seems like the groundwork was laid for
Speaker 1: today's period pride that is now the stuff of Internet virality.
Speaker 1: I feel like we see so regularly any kind of
Speaker 1: visual oriented post having anything to do with menstruation that
Speaker 1: automatically blows up in social media gets a million shares,
Speaker 1: and so people are creating this stuff even more and
Speaker 1: online media outlets, I think you're looking for it even
Speaker 1: more so. For example, over at BuzzFeed, Sammy Main and
Speaker 1: Dan Meth got together and created something called good Night Mensies,
Speaker 1: which of course is a play on the children book
Speaker 1: good Night Moon. And they essentially took the illustrations and
Speaker 1: the structure of good Night Moon and made it menstruation
Speaker 1: themed and it's kind of adorable. But the fact that
Speaker 1: they're making this specifically for BuzzFeed, I think speaks to
Speaker 1: how periods have gone viral. Yeah, yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: both feed does anything that's not shareable in some way. Um,
Speaker 1: But artist Georgia Gibson did her own photography project which
Speaker 1: I think is fantastic, which also went viral, and it
Speaker 1: features pads and tampons with red glitter and it's so stunning.
Speaker 1: It's so visually stunning because it combines like, oh, sparkly glitter,
Speaker 1: which is so like you know, glitter is always like
Speaker 1: cutesie and unicorns and stuff, with just the idea of
Speaker 1: periods and menstruation and so Gibson says, the title of
Speaker 1: the piece, I Don't only have glitter my Veins, was
Speaker 1: originally inspired by a boy who would compliment me on
Speaker 1: all of these silly things like you're so pretty you
Speaker 1: have glitter in your veins. But he would only focus
Speaker 1: on pretty aspects of women and not their whole identity.
Speaker 1: So what a great way to sort of combine these
Speaker 1: ideas of the cutesie and the pretty and the sterile
Speaker 1: and the sanitized with like, oh, hey, I have periods
Speaker 1: and you need to deal with it. Yeah, So here's
Speaker 1: here's some sample text. Good Night, laptop and sweatpants, good
Speaker 1: Night to the lamp, good night, pitiful bed nest where
Speaker 1: you suffered through cramps, good Night blanket chucking you in,
Speaker 1: Goodnight eve for this original sin, good night stars, good
Speaker 1: night air, good night noises everywhere. I'd read that to
Speaker 1: some child. I'm not a parent, but you know, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if a if a friend of yours is
Speaker 1: on her period, you can call her up Skyper, FaceTime
Speaker 1: or reader, good night mencies, right, might he's the pain? Yeah, hush, hush, Now,
Speaker 1: let me read this, this this story to you of
Speaker 1: of your period. Put away y'all cheetos, y'all sweatpant Let's
Speaker 1: me read do you well? So they're not the only
Speaker 1: ones talking about periods in a really kind of funny
Speaker 1: and cute way that ends up going viral. You've also
Speaker 1: got artist Georgia Gibson who did a photography project called
Speaker 1: I Don't Only Have Glitter in My Veins and it
Speaker 1: features um really shiny, sparkly red glitter on things like
Speaker 1: tampons and pads, and she was saying that she was
Speaker 1: inspired by a guy who would compliment compliment her all
Speaker 1: the time, saying silly things like you're so pretty, you
Speaker 1: have glitter in your veins. But she says he would
Speaker 1: only focus on pretty aspects of women and not their
Speaker 1: whole identity, and so it is sort of visually arresting,
Speaker 1: not in the way that like petrock collins illustration is
Speaker 1: visually arresting, but just like seeing something that's like red
Speaker 1: glitter that's so frequently associated with you know, crafting and
Speaker 1: magical girliness and have it be read and have it
Speaker 1: beyond tampons and pads. I think it's it's an excellent
Speaker 1: um jack to position, And honestly, it has me wondering why,
Speaker 1: you know, glittery menstrual products don't exist. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know the answer is you don't want glitter stuck in
Speaker 1: your vulva because you can never get glitter off. You
Speaker 1: really can't. I mean, a glitter tampon is a horrible idea,
Speaker 1: but so cute. Maybe a glittery rapper, Yeah, it could
Speaker 1: be nice. And then everyone would know that you're on
Speaker 1: your period because you have a little glitter hands glass
Speaker 1: half fall. It would still be the silent rapper, though,
Speaker 1: because God forbid a woman in the stall next you
Speaker 1: knows that you're having your period. Yeah. Well, another artist
Speaker 1: too who got some internet fame using her period blood
Speaker 1: as Jen Lewis, who kind of went Germaine greer with
Speaker 1: her project. She used menstrual blood and then suspended it
Speaker 1: in liquid and took photos of it. It's beautiful, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is beautiful because she was saying she
Speaker 1: got the idea she was using a menstrual cup and
Speaker 1: was emptying it out and sort of got the idea
Speaker 1: of like, oh look how it how it is in
Speaker 1: the water. It just like goes in and spreads out.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like paint. Wait a second. And I
Speaker 1: do think that these different kinds of projects that are
Speaker 1: playing with either actual menstrual blood or the idea of
Speaker 1: menstruation and all the cultural baggage it has are serving
Speaker 1: a good purpose of normalizing this thing that even still
Speaker 1: is so taboo that a lot of people still feel
Speaker 1: a lot of shame and hesitation around in a way
Speaker 1: that isn't as I think, unnecessarily shocking, as say, showing
Speaker 1: an illustration of you know, someone masturbating on their period,
Speaker 1: which is clearly intended more to shock than educate, I
Speaker 1: would argue, Yeah. And I think the overall or underlying whichever,
Speaker 1: the underlying tone of a lot of this is that
Speaker 1: people are just sort of fed up at the idea of,
Speaker 1: like you said, periods being gross, periods being dirty, periods
Speaker 1: being secret, that you should be ashamed somehow that you
Speaker 1: know it makes you crazier, limits your ability as a
Speaker 1: woman to function. Um. And that's why you get people
Speaker 1: like the fabulous women behind Dear Kate's underwear and thinks
Speaker 1: period panties, um, people who are just saying, like, no,
Speaker 1: this is a thing that happens. This is a natural
Speaker 1: part of your body that just happens, and so let's
Speaker 1: find a great way to deal with it and not
Speaker 1: have to stop what we're doing, not have to worry
Speaker 1: about throwing our underwear out or staining our pants or
Speaker 1: anything like this. Let's let's function within it and not
Speaker 1: try to avoid it, all of which I think are
Speaker 1: fantastic initiatives, which leads us full circle to hashtag live
Speaker 1: tweet your period, which, yes, it is a legit hashtag,
Speaker 1: like we said, The New York Times covered it, and
Speaker 1: Jenna Wortham, writing about it um for The Times, wrote,
Speaker 1: on the surface, the hashtag seems like little more than
Speaker 1: communal commiseration, but to me it felt like something bigger,
Speaker 1: a micro protest against a modern paradox. Social media is
Speaker 1: saturated with images of hyper sexualized women, but these are
Speaker 1: rarely considered a scandalous as the content that dares to
Speaker 1: reveal how a woman's body actually functions. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: you get tweets like scientific fact salt and vinegar chips
Speaker 1: taste forty six percent better when you're on your period.
Speaker 1: Another one, which is totally a sympathetic tweet, is oh
Speaker 1: my god, my FFing uterus hashtag live tweet your period
Speaker 1: or these ovaries eight loyal hashtag live tweet your period. Honestly,
Speaker 1: if you are ever on your period and are feeling
Speaker 1: bummed about it, just google that hashtag and just read through,
Speaker 1: because it really I mean there is that can no
Speaker 1: commiseration aspect of it, and also the hilarity of that
Speaker 1: sometimes ensues with life on your period. Sure, well, I
Speaker 1: you know, I have an I U D. And so
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily get a period every month. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's funny. Uh. Sometimes I get a really heavy one,
Speaker 1: sometimes I don't get one at all. Sometimes it's light.
Speaker 1: So it's like the Goldilocks of periods. Um. But I
Speaker 1: can always tell that someone's common because I will suddenly
Speaker 1: be hoovering up And I hate to be a stereotype.
Speaker 1: I hate it. But I'm suddenly hoovering up anything that
Speaker 1: is chocolate or salty, like like I've wanted it, like
Speaker 1: I've never wanted anything before in my life. Well, Caroline,
Speaker 1: I mean it is a scientific fact, per cent ter,
Speaker 1: So if you can send me a bag of salton
Speaker 1: vinegar chips followed by like a pack of Hershey Bars
Speaker 1: or something, or any any chocolate. Well, and speaking of
Speaker 1: I U D s, I gotta tell you a Caroline,
Speaker 1: because of mine, I've had mine long enough that I
Speaker 1: never really ever ever have a period. So I honestly
Speaker 1: felt a little bit left out when I was reading
Speaker 1: all of this stuff about period bride and live tweeting
Speaker 1: your period, and look at all this stuff for periods.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I don't even I don't even really
Speaker 1: have one anymore, which I'm pumped about. Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I love that about my Marina. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe I just like fake tweet my period.
Speaker 1: That okay, a period poser, that's okay. What's the what's
Speaker 1: the quote on the internet, no one knows you're a dog?
Speaker 1: I think that you know, on the internet, nobody knows
Speaker 1: you don't have a period. You go just it's fine,
Speaker 1: be part of the community. So what do we think
Speaker 1: about this in the grander scheme of things? Um and Freedman,
Speaker 1: whom we say all the time, and he was also
Speaker 1: one of the leading commentators on millennial ladydom these days.
Speaker 1: And I really hope that if someone like informs her
Speaker 1: that I said that, that she takes it as a
Speaker 1: compliment and not an insult, because I love her writing
Speaker 1: and all of her insights. Um And one thing that
Speaker 1: has jumped out to me though with and Friedman's work
Speaker 1: is how pro period she is in the sense of saying,
Speaker 1: let's get real sometimes periods are awful and debilitating and
Speaker 1: acknowledging that is okay and it should be okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love her personal nightmare pie chart that's split up
Speaker 1: into basically fears fears that a company your period, and
Speaker 1: a quarter is getting attacked by a shark because we
Speaker 1: are leaking period blood in the water. Another quarter of
Speaker 1: the pie is getting period blood on the passenger seat
Speaker 1: of a crush his car. And then there are a
Speaker 1: couple of other ones. What are the other ones getting
Speaker 1: period blood on a bar stool, getting period blood on
Speaker 1: a friend's couch, and then finally getting period blood on
Speaker 1: alone remaining fair underwear with how period says, which I've
Speaker 1: been there, you know, because sometimes you get busy, but
Speaker 1: obviously that was in my my pre pre Marina days. Well,
Speaker 1: while you have somebody like Ann Friedman who is saying
Speaker 1: periods are normal, but it's also okay to not like
Speaker 1: your period or to be like so over it and
Speaker 1: what it does to your underwear, um, you've got somebody
Speaker 1: like Amanda Hess at Slate who in offered a slightly
Speaker 1: different perspective. She said menstruation has been stigmatized as gross
Speaker 1: and embarrassing for so long that it's only natural to
Speaker 1: want to fight back with roaring pride, But trumping up
Speaker 1: the act of menstruating as a source of power only
Speaker 1: gives fuel to the detractors who hope to define us
Speaker 1: by our bodies. And I get it. I read I
Speaker 1: read Hess's Peace, um and I and I understand the
Speaker 1: idea of like, hey, guys, there's there's no need to
Speaker 1: trump up your period as a powerful act because most
Speaker 1: people who have periods are getting them regardless. It's not
Speaker 1: like a feminist active like this month, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have one, and I'm going to be a better feminist
Speaker 1: for it. On the other hand, I absolutely support the
Speaker 1: idea of like, no, we're going to talk about this
Speaker 1: and talk about it and talk about it and tweet
Speaker 1: about it and text about it until people are just
Speaker 1: not so grossed out by it. Yeah. I think if anything,
Speaker 1: it's really dismantling that shame and dirtiness factor around it.
Speaker 1: I mean, we haven't even touched on and aren't going
Speaker 1: to go into detail on period sex for instance, about
Speaker 1: how if a woman is on her period, like that's
Speaker 1: just such a big deal as to whether or not
Speaker 1: her partner or even she is comfortable with her even
Speaker 1: being naked in bed and enjoying sexual pleasure, which I
Speaker 1: think is uh. It has been personally and also were
Speaker 1: publicly disheartening because it's like, why why does this why
Speaker 1: should this thing disqualify us from that one week out
Speaker 1: of every month because it's dirty. No, it's not. It
Speaker 1: shouldn't be considered something that doesn't belong in the bedroom. Well, then,
Speaker 1: I mean we also have to mention the fact that
Speaker 1: menstruation isn't every woman's experience. That's true and and not
Speaker 1: just And we don't just mean you know, women who
Speaker 1: are post menopausal who no longer get a period. We're
Speaker 1: also talking about um, trans women who don't get periods,
Speaker 1: and so the idea there's there's definitely a criticism there
Speaker 1: of the idea that menstruation equates to true womanhood, because
Speaker 1: that's it's just not true. Um, I don't think that
Speaker 1: you are defined as a woman. I don't think you're
Speaker 1: defined by menstruation right well, and by extension too, you
Speaker 1: have trans men who have periods, so by that virtue, obviously,
Speaker 1: periods don't equal real womanhood um in absolute terms either.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's where where the line starts
Speaker 1: to get crossed with period pride. I'm all for period
Speaker 1: pride in terms of embracing, reclaiming, and destigmatizing menstruation, but
Speaker 1: to then take it this step further and make it
Speaker 1: part of identity, I think is where we get into
Speaker 1: the troubled waters, so to speak, troubled shark infested water.
Speaker 1: Troubled shark infested waters. Absolutely well, Caroline. In the process
Speaker 1: of recording this podcast, I have been internally confronting I
Speaker 1: think some of my my own period nervousness because I
Speaker 1: feel like we've gone more t M I and Frank
Speaker 1: in this episode than we have and probably most stuff
Speaker 1: I've never told you episodes. I mean, we've talked about
Speaker 1: our own personal periods and experiences with that, our period
Speaker 1: underwear thoughts on period sex so personal. I'll even tell
Speaker 1: another period underwear story. All right, I go for I
Speaker 1: have this great pair of green undis that I love.
Speaker 1: Um they're great, bright green, but I never wear them
Speaker 1: because they have a stain on them. And I just
Speaker 1: happened to wear them at one point. My boyfriend was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: those are so cute. I've never seen those before. Why
Speaker 1: don't you wear them? And I was like, um, I
Speaker 1: guess they're just always in the laundry. Uh so so
Speaker 1: much like so much period embarrassment. They're wrapped up in
Speaker 1: those underpants. So what do you think is the best
Speaker 1: way then to show your period pride? Well, you could
Speaker 1: take a cueue from Mesopotamian women who painted conception spell
Speaker 1: dolls with their minstrual blood. I was going to do
Speaker 1: that this weekend. And that is to say, maybe we
Speaker 1: could all take a cue from some of the artists
Speaker 1: and people who are creating some interesting period art. Carolina,
Speaker 1: are you going to open up a period art at
Speaker 1: two store? I feel like I feel like you got
Speaker 1: a little glimmer in your eye. Well, no, that's the thing, Kristen,
Speaker 1: Like I said, with my eye, you do you never know? See,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be like I'm not I'm not a reliable
Speaker 1: source of administruation. Yeah, neither ofm I I'm not reliable
Speaker 1: at all. Well, I guess maybe we need to hear
Speaker 1: from more reliable sources of administration. Listeners, that's you, what
Speaker 1: do you think about period pride? And I also want
Speaker 1: to hear from people who don't have periods, who have
Speaker 1: never experienced periods about this whole period pride thing. Does
Speaker 1: it totally weird you out? Mom Stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com is our email address, and if you
Speaker 1: want to tweet us, you can do that at mom
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook. And we've got a
Speaker 1: couple of non period related messages to share with you
Speaker 1: right now. Well, I have a letter here from Lacy
Speaker 1: on our Bisexual Erasure series. Uh. She says, I was
Speaker 1: struck by the advice columnist who told a married bisexual
Speaker 1: woman to essentially stay in the closet. Of course, Lacey's
Speaker 1: are referring to the Dear Prudence column that Kristen and
Speaker 1: I talked about in an episode number one. Um. She says,
Speaker 1: although I absolutely agreed that no one should have the
Speaker 1: right to tell someone else whether to come out or not,
Speaker 1: in some ways I can see where she was coming from.
Speaker 1: I'm a bisexual woman who came out to most people
Speaker 1: in my life when I was twenty two and single.
Speaker 1: Nine years later, I'm married a man. My husband knew
Speaker 1: I was bisexual from the start, and we talked about
Speaker 1: it on our first couple of dates. However, and now
Speaker 1: that we're married, it's true that my bisexual identity is
Speaker 1: mostly invisible. Were monogamous, most of the world assumes him straight,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure some of the people that I came
Speaker 1: out to have written off my bisexuality as a phase.
Speaker 1: I think some family members are even relieved that because
Speaker 1: I married a man, they will never have to explain
Speaker 1: or defend my more complicated identity to acquaintances, coworkers, and strangers.
Speaker 1: While bisexual erature is very real, I feel somewhat irritated
Speaker 1: by the implication that bisexual people have an obligation to
Speaker 1: come out because of it. I felt compelled to come
Speaker 1: out fairly widely when I was single because a I
Speaker 1: didn't want people to be shocked if I started dating
Speaker 1: a woman, and be I wanted folks to know I
Speaker 1: was open to meeting and entering into romantic relationships with
Speaker 1: people of any gender. But now that I'm married, I
Speaker 1: do not come out as frequently as I used to.
Speaker 1: In particular, my husband's family and friends do not know
Speaker 1: that I'm bisexual, and I may not ever tell them.
Speaker 1: This mostly has to do with privacy. I know some
Speaker 1: of these people I haven't told harbor prejudice and assumptions
Speaker 1: about queer people, and would likely be troubled by a
Speaker 1: whole string of stereotypes about bisexuals that just don't apply
Speaker 1: to me. I'm not going to leave my husband for
Speaker 1: a woman. We do not have threesomes, et cetera. I
Speaker 1: don't feel as if it should be my responsibility to
Speaker 1: take it upon myself to educate these people about what
Speaker 1: bisexuals are quote unquote really like, because this ties into
Speaker 1: my private life and my past, which I should be
Speaker 1: able to disclose only as into whom I see fit. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the choice to come out or to keep coming out
Speaker 1: is always a personal one. I have told the people
Speaker 1: in my life who need to know the whole met
Speaker 1: my husband, my friends, my families. I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I'm hiding if I don't tell every acquaintance I come across,
Speaker 1: if I don't share other intimate details of my life
Speaker 1: with them, why should I feel a duty to share this?
Speaker 1: So thank you, Lazy Well. I also have a letter
Speaker 1: here on our bio Ratiare podcast from someone who would
Speaker 1: like to remain anonymous, who writes as a bisexual woman.
Speaker 1: I've become accustomed to assumptions, generalizations, and uncomfortable questions once
Speaker 1: I've come out as bisexual. Actually quite recently, my roommate
Speaker 1: and I were having a conversation and they said that
Speaker 1: since I'm a bisexual woman currently in a relationship with
Speaker 1: a man, that I'm no longer bisexual. On another occasion,
Speaker 1: at a party, a woman who I don't know trying
Speaker 1: to force herself on me once she found out I
Speaker 1: was bisexual, despite very clearly attending the party with my
Speaker 1: own significant other. It's uncomfortable experiences such as these that
Speaker 1: make being bisexual unique challenge all on its own. Not
Speaker 1: being recognized by many communities only makes it more difficult
Speaker 1: due to the lack of a strong community and recognition
Speaker 1: that bisexuals deserve within the broad spectrum that is sexuality.
Speaker 1: And it's by no means trivializes any of the struggles
Speaker 1: of those who identify as any other sexualities, but it's
Speaker 1: fantastic to get some recognition and understanding on a larger scale.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much ladies for doing this podcast,
Speaker 1: and thank you everyone for sharing your insights with us.
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
Speaker 1: email address, and Bri links all of our social media
Speaker 1: as well as all of our blogs and videos and
Speaker 1: podcasts with this one with links to our sources. So
Speaker 1: you can check out all that period pride happening on
Speaker 1: the internet. Head on over to stuff Mom Never told
Speaker 1: You dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com