I bleed blue: A “period” piece, Pt. II

Continued from Pt. I

I am an adult. I know other adults. I know adult women who are still afraid to talk about their periods. O RLY? I always say that if someone doesn’t realize that you, a grown ass, pre-menopausal woman, sheds her uterine lining every 28 days, well then there’s something wrong with THEM. What is the big freaking deal?

Of course when I was younger I tried to hide the fact that I was on my period. As mentioned in Part I, I didn’t really have anyone sit down and talk to me about my period. I certainly didn’t have any empowering messages related to me. Everything we saw and heard told us that it was imperative we conceal our menses or else risk alienating every man around us and opening ourselves up to ridicule. You can’t deny that women (including young girls) are expected to uphold a sexualized ideal for men, which includes hiding the most boring, ordinary and non-sexual facts of life, i.e. using the bathroom, farting, body hair removal, applying or removing make-up. On top of all of that, you’ve got to conceal your period because since many folks do not have sex when a woman is menstruating, that time directly contradicts a sexualized ideal for men. Oh boy, not only has the feminine products industry done a number on us, but we’ve got the overarching patriarchal society imposing shame on women. Great!

Baby, do you want a massage?

I just thought this was too cute!

No, I’m not talking about that lame line brothers use to try and get you naked (Shout out to Little Brother). The kind of massage I’m talking about can really help a sister out when she’s most in need: During her period.

When I was in college, I went through a period of severe menstrual symptoms. I would have long, heavy periods with cramps, chills/sweats, vomitting, headaches, the whole nine. I was in bad shape. Luckily the worst of the symptoms would only last the first two days, with day one being the most severe. During that time, I started paying more attention to the way my body was feeling, kind of isolating the areas of pain. Most of those places are expected to hurt: lower back, tender breasts, lower abdomen. One place that felt odd was the bottom of my feet. I started to think that maybe there was some pressure point in my foot that was “connected” to my uterus. Since I couldn’t massage my uterus, maybe I could try my foot. BINGO! While I wasn’t able to get complete relief, (probably because I didn’t really know where to touch), I did start to feel something was letting up.

Reflexology is a strange holistic “medicine”, mostly because no one knows how it really works.