Maybe we should roll out MayBee’s “ Menstruating” t-shirts soon, before they’re passe. If I said that this was Frankenpharmafeminism, would I get credit for the coinage? Would I make anyone angry?
The author, one Sarah Richards, seems to be ambivalent about the idea:
Life without getting your period, though, would be life without one of the touchstones of the female experience: a sisterhood of shared empathy, tampons and chocolate, and laundry lessons passed from grandmother to granddaughter. Liberation from premenstrual emotional peaks and valleys sounds great, but we would also lose the surge of creativity and libido that comes with the urge to strangle your houseplants. Would movies be as poignant, or garlic mashed potatoes ever taste as good?
And she includes a reasonable warning:
But if modern menstruation isn’t completely natural, by prehistoric standards, suppressing one’s period by taking hormones is even less so. No one knows the health effects for menstruating women of long-term continuous exposure, especially the risks of blood clots and breast cancer and the effect on later fertility. The uncertainties are especially troubling for adolescents whose reproductive systems continue to develop after they start menstruating, explains Jerilynn Prior, director of the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research in British Columbia. Nearly one in five teens uses a form of hormonal birth control. Given the unknowns, perhaps doctors should consider setting a minimum age requirement for Lybrel, or limiting how long women can stay on it.
I just know in my heart of hearts that we can have a polite exchange about this.
Define “polite.”
The kind where anyone saying they don’t think it’s a good idea gets compared to Taliban thugs.
Given the name, frankly I think we would be remiss not to question the timing.
I don’t like the idea of perfectly healthy people altering their fundamental body chemistry through drugs. I have to take medication daily for asthma, otherwise I can get quite uncomfortable. The idea of someone volunteering to medicate for no good reason is very strange to me.
We could argue that this development is a perfectly logical conclusion to modern feminism, which seems to encourage women to be more like men. And what can be more fundamental to sexual identity than the monthly cycle?
Cranky-d: Do you think that if you had to go through a period every month you’d still think of suppressing them as “no good reason”? My understanding is that women on their periods “can get quite uncomfortable” too.
There is a huge difference between supressing a natural biological process and supressing unnatural inflammation of the bronchial tubes that can make breathing difficult and, for some people (not me, luckily), can send them to the hospital.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to take any medication unless it’s to help correct or alleviate something that’s wrong with your body. Periods aren’t wrong.
– This discussion is proceeding just to civily. You’re all being to PC. Work with Darleen and Casandra, and give them some red meat to use people. What are we wimps? True Neandrathals would never take a backseat to the Tali-turbins. I’ll start off if the rest of you are to shy:
“Periods aren’t wrong.”
– Unless you’re running for president?
TW: england13 …. Swings like a pendulum do….”boobies” on bycicles, two by two… West Menstrual Abbey, My tower of “Big Ben”… I’ll grow up sane, quafing lots of Rydalin….
Cranky: Well, you might not be comfortable with it, but recreational medication is about as old as mankind (we call one form of it “beer”), so… I think that’s just you. Which is okay.
Me, hey, I manage creativity and savouring garlic mashed potatoes without ever having had a period. I think that just maybe women could manage that, too.
(And her invocation of the precautionary principle, while well-intended and not entirely without justification, can still figuratively bite me.
Nobody knows exactly what the long-term risks of anything are, to be perfectly honest. We’ll find out, though, if people decide to try.)
I drink like a fish, but I still don’t drink a lot every day. And as we all know, you pay for it somehow. I have not argued against recreational medication. If you do it all the time, though, you will screw yourself up.
Also, human beings have been using alcohol for thousands of years. Most of those who couldn’t handle it in moderation are gone.
But whatever. If you think it’s a good idea for women to supress a natural function, one that also happens to be a good early indicator for health problems when it goes awry, that’s ducky. I think it’s a bad idea.
BTW, trying to marginalize me for my opinion (“that’s just you”) does not help your arguement at all.
Anyway, I’m out. I tried to be clear and it seems I have failed. Maybe we can get a woman to chime in?
Atempting to alter otherwise healthy bodily function by heroic measures strikes me as a unnecessarily dangerous, at least within the realm of what we call medicine. In an age when many are overly concerned about eliminating ‘toxins’ and where ‘natural’ is presumed better than synthetic to imbibe foreign substances in an attempt to effect a decidedly unnatural state would seem contradictory at the very least. People should be free to do so, and free to suffer the consequences (to my knowledge the FDA has no jurisdiction over Murphy’s law), just don’t call it medicine.
You can talk about menstruation all you want, but for pure damn crazy, let’s discuss pregnant women.
Speaking as a girl, folks, sometimes it’s nice to be able to skip it. I used to get sick as a dog for a solid week every month. I also got sick as a dog for 9 months with each of 3 children, so when somebody runs on about “disrupting natural body functions” and all that, I have to ask where they’re coming from.
The Sisterhood of Tampons and Chocolate is the screenplay Jeff’s abandoned us to write.
Addressing two separate posters here:
Like, say, ovulation? What do you think about birth control?
Which explains the total absence of alcoholics from the world.
My wife uses the three month cycle one, and she likes it. I’m pretty sure she would be in favor of doing away with it completely.
If women stop having periods, will they stop throwing like girls? Will they be able to parallel park and to kill their own damn spiders?
And will they take positions on issues based on logic instead of emotion?
If the answers to these questions are “Yes,” then I say, Lybrel Rulz!
If they start killing their own spiders, what do they need us for?
– No no no…. a thousand times no… Just who the hell would I have to remind me to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom, take out the trash, or put the toilet seat down (without the saran wrap) if that happens…. shhhheeessss
You don’t expect them to lick their own … spoons, do you?
People forget something though: working through tough parts of life builds character. That’s why things like unnecessary medication and even cosmetic surgery bother me. People try to avoid problems rather than deal with them. This goes for a lot of things other than bodily functions and physical appearance. Sometimes, you have to just deal with it, whatever it is, and that is what makes you a strong person.
You can fix things from within or without. If you fix them from without, you are dependant on the external. It is far better to be dependant on the internal.
My wife’s gyn in New York insisted that having a period every month for 40 years or so was more wear & tear on the system than our forebears had evolved to handle (I always thought of this as a cross between the naturalistic fallacy and good ol’ piggery). So he pushed pills without hesitation. My wife wound up a victim of that very low stroke risk you read about on the product packaging. No neurological deficits, but that’s just dumb luck.
I sure don’t love having my period, but for heaven’s sake it is what it is.
Whenever I hear about medicines like this I think of all the wonder drugs that have come before. Like Thalidomide and DES.
Besides, if women stop getting our periods we will see such a crash in M&M/Mars stock it could shatter the economy as we know it.
I’m saying beware the collapse of the Menstrual Industrial Complex!
I wonder how those Afghan women are doing, chocolate-wise.
– I’m going to come down on the side of Elizabeth Book on this. I say
BREASTS WERE MENT TO BE FREE TO BREATHE, YOU BOOBIST TYRANTS!!!!!
BBH, you’ve never had any have you?
TW: husband, no that doesn’t count. you wouldn’t know until you tried running and felt the effects of gravity.
– Well yeh… I gotta a set, but they’re sort of muscley and gots some hair. So I don’t think they care about breathing all that much. But I get the gravity thing. Fact is I hold my dates pair up every chance I get. Just want to be helpful.
This will help you understand, BBH.
NSFW
– Moe – you wouldn’t. What am I saying. As a card carrying PW regular of course you would. who could help being dragged through the bowels of hell with a friend like Collins.