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THESE 2 e-mails
are too long to put on the regular
page.
January 2012 & December 2011
The New York
Times quoted from your e-mail from this column for an article on
menstrual suppression in the 14 October 2003
edition, Science Times section (online
here).
Below,
e-mail from a man dated January 2012
It was interesting to read some of the comments from
women in this section
of your site. As a 54 year old man it is
thankfully not something I would
ever have to experience but if men had periods, or if I
had been born a
woman, then I have no doubt at all that the answer would
be yes.
To be honest, I don't like bodies, or anything that goes
on inside them,
'out of site and out of mind' is my attitude towards
them, and I can't bear
to have people touch me; I avoid going anywhere near
doctors for example, I
really don't like it when they hold my wrist to take a
pulse.
My first encounter with this subject was pre-school age,
when I would see
that my mother was clearly in pain for a few days every
few weeks. I didn't
understand why; she just said it was because she 'was a
woman'. I didn't
understand this; If I fell over and grazed my knee it
hurt, but to be in
pain because you were a woman, and not for any obvious
reason seemed both
strange and rather disturbing to me. What was
wrong with my mother? Was
she going to die? Aged about four or five these
questions did not seem
unreasonable to me. There were two other things
which puzzled me, when we
went shopping she bought large paper packages of
something; when I asked her
what they were she replied that they were 'cotton
wool'. What would she
need large quantities of that for? Also, she would
sometimes dispose of a
small package wrapped in paper via a coal-fired hot
water boiler which we
had. I didn't understand this either, and had no
reason to connect the
three things.
My mother was 42 when I was born, so all of these things
stopped when I was
still young, and I thought no more about it.
The subject of menstruation stayed out of my life for a
few years until the
upper end of primary school, probably aged about nine or
ten. 'Something',
we were told, had happened to a few of the girls
in the school; we weren't
told what, but they might sometimes not be able to take
part in all of the
usual activities, and we should 'treat them nicely', or
words to that
effect. Did that mean that we could be nasty to
all of the others? <evil
grin> Somewhere I heard the word 'period'
mentioned, but had no idea what
it meant. Mother had a large medical/health type
book, with lots of
drawings of bits of bodies in it. I'd looked in
this book once, a few years
before, but I didn't like it, and quickly put it back on
the shelf. I think
I was too young to be able to read the words in it at
the time. However,
this book now seemed to be the place to look up
'periods'.
I knew that women had a place where babies come from,
but that was about
all; I had no idea at all that menstruation happened to
them, and when I
read about it I remember thinking that it had a pretty
high 'yuk factor',
and how on Earth can they go through that every month?
Left primary school, went to all-boys secondary school;
subject of periods
mentioned for about one minute during first-year biology
lesson, but
otherwise never thought about. Had a very bad time
at that school, was
eventually diagnosed as being 'schoolphobic'. I
would dispute this
diagnosis, but anyway, I was sent to a special
school. There ware only
about fifty of us there, all ages from 6-18, but only
about a dozen of us
were of secondary school age. Much better than the
previous school, we got
to do some practical things, like cookery and woodwork,
but not really
anything academic. Something over half of us
'older ones' were girls, and
several of them were really badly affected. At
that school periods were
never something which couldn't be discussed with, or in
front of, boys, and
were a fairly frequent topic of conversation.
After all, they affected more
than half of us.
The building had previously been an old primary school,
built around the
turn of the century, and had terrible toilet facilities,
basically outdoor
roofless brick structures on opposite sides of he
playground, and you had to
get wet if it was raining; typical of British schools
built at that time.
At some time before I went there' probably in the '60s,
new girls'
facilities were built indoors, and the old ones closed,
but the dreadful
boy's facilities remained. We often complained,
but nothing was done about
it. The girls then suggested that we share heir
facilities, and the staff
had no objection, so we did. These toilets were in
a huge room, easily big
enough to have both boys and girls facilities built into
it, so I don't know
why this wasn't done. Due to it's size the room
tended to be used as a sort
of makeshift common room, as well as toilets.
Along one wall were usually
to be found a few chairs which had been dragged in, and
where one of two
girls could often be found, often doubled up in pain,
unable to face going
in to class, or not daring to leave the toilets.
There was an ancient
sanitary towel machine on the wall, but I don't think it
was used. If one
of us (boys) was going out to the shops at lunchtimes we
never gave it a
second thought if we were asked to buy tampons for one
of the girls who
didn't feel like going out.
This was enough to convince me that periods are not a
good thing; nobody
should have to go through that every month.
In 1974 I left school, and started a four-year training
course to become a
technician. During the first year I was sent to
work for six-week blocks at
a large girls' school. We had several rooms in our
department, and the
headmistress would sometimes bring in a girl with some
sort of 'problem' and
ask if we had a quiet room which wasn't being used that
she could sit in for
a while. The 'problems' could be all sorts of
things, but were often
period-related; sometimes they would say so, but even if
they didn't you
could often tell, the obvious pain, and the fact that
the same faces tended
to appear at fairly regular intervals. The
headmistress herself used to
home in quite frequently to heck that they were ok,
which I thought was good
considering her position, and the size of the school.
After the training finished I worked in another school
for 12 years. Again,
it wasn't uncommon to see girls who were in pain and
distress from an
obvious cause. We even once had a first year girl
who spoke little English,
and who was found on the floor in a corridor, screaming
and with blood on
her hands and clothes. It turned out that she had
been told by her mother
that periods are caused by being possessed by evil
spirits, and the poor
girl had just discovered that it wasn't a one-off event.
In 1990 I left that school, and went to work in a
college. Older women do
seem to cope with periods better than teenage girls do,
but you still
sometimes see a student, or a member of staff, who
is obviously suffering.
I have never had a sister, daughter, girlfriend, wife
etc., so this is a
subject I have cause to think about now.
A few women have written here they enjoy having periods;
some have said
things like the pain isn't too bad, or it doesn't last
for long. Would you
not prefer that you didn't have pain at all?
Clearly, not all women suffer as badly as some of those
that I've seen, and
these were spread over many years, but what I have seen,
and what many women
have written here, suggests that many do go through
considerable suffering.
Toothache is horrible, but at least once you get the bad
tooth out it stops.
Knowing that you've got this coming again every month
must be terrible.
Also, as several women have said, it seems so pointless;
nobody spends 30 or
40 years of their life producing babies, but periods
have to go on for so
long.
The teenage years do seem to be the worst time, and for
anybody suffering in
that position every month, you have my greatest of
sympathy. Finally, if
you are in that position, please do not feel that this
is something that you
cannot talk to boys about; they will treat you with
greater respect and
understanding if they understand what you are going
through. Information on
this subject for teenage boys really is pretty
minimal. It's a long time
ago now, but I used to be a teenage boy.
.................................................................................................................................
Below, e-mail dated
December 2011
First, since I went through Menopause at such an early
age, 32 yr. as did
my mother, I would have done anything not to have this
happen at such a
young age. So I'd never want to stop Menstruating
until they put me in the
grave. I'd actually like to be menstruating at my
funeral! :)
Not to be flippant, but the newer products to prevent
normal menstruation
or MENSES aka Monthly in Latin, I believe from
scientific and personal
experience, how much this can affect so many other
hormonal functions in your
body.
Your Estrogen decreases for one reason. Say you? What's
the big deal? It's
a major hormone to prevent your heart, bones, brain and
so many other
physiological functions from warding off serious
diseases, Cancer of just about
every organ as example.
Secondly, if you do stop menstruating with VAGINAL
BLEEDING (I personally
don't give a damn who likes or does not like the proper
terms), the outcome
will be devastating if you have significant
Post-Menopausal "Hot Flashes",
headaches, some associated with early vascular
build-up of fatty plaque on
your major coronary arteries. In other words, if
you really want to stop
your Menses early, then you're wishing for your
body to age must faster. In
far too many scientific articles e.g. those of the
American Journal of
Medicine. American Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynecology and some in
Endocrinological Journals(those associated with
our secreting and excreting glands) as
well, demonstrate serous complications
post-menopause.
And let's face it folks, if women are so eager to stop
bleeding the normal
way in which they were meant, you are playing with real
hot fire, in your
longevity. The new drugs to "decrease menstrual flow"
have not been studied
sufficiently to demonstrate their safety over a 20 year
time frame.
There's one other MAJOR problem if you screw around
(pun) by stopping your
normal Menses, during sexual intercourse, Estrogen lack,
makes the vaginal
walls so dry, a women experience SEVERE
excoriation; so take it from me,
IT'S PAINFUL AS HELL, to have sexual intercourse
without the normal
lubricant, Estrogen produces. There's no
scientific study out yet, (at least none
that I've read) which demonstrate an increase in
divorce rate as a result of
inducing what is, "Iatrogenic (means medically
induced) Menopause.
I'm writing this because as a nurse, I worry about you
young girls who are
looking at the NOW CONVENIENCE FACTOR. Sure, it's a lot
easier to have
intercourse if you're not bleeding. But think about it?
Do you think whoever or
however our bodies evolved as women, there was not
a good reason to hold
back a few days to a week, WITHOUT SEX? I think
so.
In summary: The term Menses or Menstruation are the
proper terms for a
human woman to shed OLD BLOOD, from their bodies every
28 days in general. We
are I feel, far too concerned with the "troublesome"
bleeding we have/had
during child bearing years. The hormones
given to prevent normal menses are
far from being proven SAFE later in life. It's a
normal process to shed old
blood (blood incidentally that may cause some
women to have an allergic
reaction at a cellular level, and increase their
propensity for EARLY CANCERS
of the Uterus, and most seriously the OVARIES.
Cancer or Sex? You decide?
PS: Just one other value to NOT preventing early
menopause with
meds/chemicals....Estrogen beside preventing Hot
Flashes, etc., WILL KEEP YOUR SKIN
LOOKING WAY YOUNGER AS YOU AGE.
Isn't that enough justification in and of itself, NOT to
screw around with
what nature has designed as normal?
GOOD LUCK & THINK TWICE BEFORE TAKING MEDS TO STOP
YOUR BEAUTIFUL BLEEDING
EACH MONTH. THAT BLEEDING IS PROPERLY CALLED:
"Menstruation" or my"
Menses". Be PROUD of it!
****, RN, MSN
December 2011
I just wrote a very long thesis I guess one would call
it [above], on the Value
of Menstruation or Menses. I was meant to encourage to
feel positive about
their Menstruation. This young woman who wanted an
Hysterectomy because she
does not want children, and thinks, her
monthly bleeding is "dirty"
It sounds as if you've had a very negative and
significant event in your
life to make you this adamant having an early
Hysterectomy. I hope you'll
read my comment for one, and two, your blood is not in
any way "dirty". It's
not any different than if you cut your hand and
bled. It is a build-up of
older blood which must be sloughed off every month
because a few days 13-16
days prior, it would have been the blood which was
designed to go through
a little clean baby's cardiovascular system. But
if you do not conceive
i.e. the egg you've sent from your ovaries, is not
fertilized, then that blood
is not as able to provide the oxygen and nutrients
needed for a new baby
to grow. But it's NOT bad, or dirty blood.
Granted, you should keep as
clean as possible and change whatever you use. to
stop the blood from
saturating your clothing, whether a pad, or
tampon. Change those at least every 6
hrs or 8 hrs at the very latest. Any blood,
whether it comes from your vagina
or your hand when cut, will smell if not cleaned.
And I AGREE! I didn't
want kids because I wanted to have a great career
in nursing. It was and
still is, my belief children need their mothers to
care for them. On that I
make no apologies. But to have an Hysterectomy is
going a bit far both
surgically in terms of the risks any woman takes,
and you may change your mind
after you've done whatever it is, you want to do
in life. But my word!
Please? Don't ever feel dirty with your Menses.
Remember, there's not a man on
earth who has the miraculous ability to spawn and
let a child grow inside
them. Women's body is so beautiful and not just on
the outside. WE ARE
MIRACULOUS BEINGS WHO NEED TO BE PROUD OF OUR
GENDER AND NEVER FEEL LESS THAN ANY
MAN.
You are too beautiful, to want an Hysterectomy at your
age. If you don't
want kids but want to have the Intercourse of course the
best way is to use a
Condom. But if you have a special guy in your life
where you are
exclusively with one another only, then use a very
mild birth control. Look! Even if
you did get pregnant, while I know, I REALLY know,
an Abortion is another
alternative. It's not one to be used on a regular
basis, but if it's not
against your religious faith, then some women do not
feel guilty about
having a planned abortion. I don't normally advise
Abortion for psychological
reason, even later in life. But compared to
tearing out your womanhood, it's
a definite better choice.
Best Regards and hope you never feel that blood is dirty
EVER again. It's
no different than your body making new Red Blood Cells
every few weeks. It's
NATURE AND IT IS BEAUTIFUL FUNCTION ONLY WOMEN
HAVE THE GOOD FORTUNE TO BE
BLESSED WITH THE MONTHLY MENSES..
****, RN, MSN
December 2011
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