Well its been quite a few months since I've ranted on anything. I was doing good there for awhile. Then I decided to pack all of my belongings and my loved one into my car and move across the country. No really, I did that.
Now I'm writing from sunny Southern California. I have been quite distracted since I discovered podcasting and have been doing one weekly. Its hilarious, I won't lie.
Anywho, on to the good stuff. I have something to talk about and it involves icky girly things. If you are a boy and want to stop reading now, I totally will understand.
I recently read an article in Curve magazine about periods and I also discovered quite a few books on the subject. This has fascinated me enough to the point of wanting to write about it.
Lets start at the beginning...the way beginning. I was 10 years old and thought I was dying. I already had boobs and was the only girl in 4th grade wearing a bra. It was not a cool thing to have then and I hated my boobs. All the boys would snap my bra strap and I was horribly embarrassed. I would wear baggy shirts to try to hide the fact that I was wearing a white cotton bra underneath but nothing worked. Then to top my puberty sundae, I got my period one weekend afternoon at home. I came out of the bathroom screaming to my mother that I thought I was dying. My mother responded to my ever so common dramatics by telling me there were things in the bathroom to use under the cabinet. That was my lesson.
I sat on the floor of my bathroom attempting to discern the pictorial diagrams that accompany a box of Always maxi-pads and figure out how to attach them to my underwear. Then I experienced the joy of feeling like I was wearing a diaper. So begins the lovely journey of being a woman.
Now I realize this may paint my mother as an un-motherly brat but I can assure you she was not. She actually had went over the menstrual cycle with me about a year prior via my encyclopedia set. Not what I anticipated using it for when my parents bought it for me. That was a great birds and bees lesson full of lovely pictures of genitalia which scarred me for life. Maybe that should have been my first clue that I was a lesbian.
So now I was not just the only girl in my class to wear a bra but I'm pretty sure I was the only one on my period. To this day, I have yet to meet anyone who started as early as I did. I was pretty tomboyish around 4th-5th grade but my mother insisted I carry a little yellow purse to school. Again, the only girl who had a purse. To make it even more obvious, when I would ask to use the bathroom during class I would have to make sure I brought my purse with me. In 4th grade, that raises a lot of questions because why would you need to bring anything with you to the bathroom. It was a very traumatic time for me.
Now in my late twenties, I continue to get my monthly period like clockwork. Every 28 days, thar she blows. A monthly reminder that my eggs are being wasted because I don't want children. Every time the cramps start, the bloating begins and I start to cry at commercials I am punished for not wanting to use my eggs to procreate. I really wish this was optional.
I wish that I could decide not to have my period, just as I can decide I don't want to add a friend on Facebook. I wish each month I'd get an email saying "Your period would like to come and visit you. Accept or Ignore". Then I could happily click on Ignore and move on with my day. 1, 2, 3.
But I do not have that luxury. Sure I could go on birth control and then only get my period once or twice a year but I refuse to do that for a multitude of reasons. A) I do not need birth control as it is biologically impossible for my girlfriend to impregnate me. If by some miracle of life she did impregnate me, I'm pretty sure I'd be rich because I would be a world marvel. I would totally have a kid if it was a miracle of science like that. B) I do not want to put unnecessary chemicals into my body if I don't need to. If it was a matter of life or death and the only way to survive was to take birth control, then I'd do it. But to take it just so I can not have a period is a little ridiculous.
I'm sure when I go into menopause I will yearn for the days of a period and natural estrogen. But we won't know until that happens.
For now, I get to watch awesome commercials of birth control and feminine products during television programs that are in my demographic. I get to watch the women in these commercials frolic in fields of daisy's because they are on birth control. Or I get to see women dancing around in their underwear because they finally found the best tampon. Because some man who runs these companies thinks that is what will make women buy their products. Some dude in a suit, sitting in an office, says "I know if I was a woman, I would totally connect to this random ethnically diverse woman running and giggling and want to wear the same tampon she does." Do these guys really think that works? Do they think that their birth control or tampon will make me feel more connected to my womanhood? Let me in that board room. I'll make a commercial of some woman whining in agony because of cramps and balling at touching commercials for Rice Krispies. I will show a woman bitching about the price of these necessary products and that she has to go through this every month. Have you seen the price of pads or tampons? These dudes make a fortune off of us. Half of the worlds population HAS to buy these products. I can only imagine their vast menstrual cycle fortunes.
For now, I just have to suck it up and deal with it, as do we all. But I can say that the advertising and product world would be quite a different place if it was men who had their periods. I bet they would have found a cure for this by now. However, the worlds population would probably die out. Silly boys.
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