Fandom, Women, and that dirty blood week

[perpetual_motion]

Disclaimer: I'm on my period right now. So I am obviously not in a slightly more objective moment that I could be in during the other three weeks of the month.

Why are women in fandom never on their periods? I'm not talking about on television--I've pretty much given up on television using the period as anything more than a laugh track bit or a "very special episode"; I'm talking about the total lack of menstraution in fan fiction. I know the majority of the people in the part of fandom I keep up with like the hot man sex and the hot man parts and the hot maness of men being men with other men, but there are female characters, and male characters who care about female characters, and female characters who care about female characters, but there's never mention of periods. At least not past the occasional fly-by comment that is, again, used as a joke or something similar. We're writing about anal sex. Anal. As in the butt. We women, and it's been shown that slash writers [male/male or female/female], are by and large women, can write about anal and erections and cocksocking and cum-swallowing and all those other bodily functions that people write to Dan Savage about, but none of us seem to write about menstration. Why not?

I'm not talking about menstration as a sexual thing, just so we're clear. I'm talking about menstration as a female happening. Women have periods. All the time. Monthly. It's not a joke, it's not a "very special moment". It's something women deal with for the majority of their lives. Yet it never sees the light of day. How many stories out there have seriously detailed paragraphs about anal sex? About erections and blowjobs and cockrings and whips and chains? And why has no one ever thought that the women in the story will have a period?

All I'm asking for is a story here and there where the characters can have an honest, non-comedic conversation about cramps, or a shopping trip where someone buys a box of tampons, or someone walking into a conversation about cravings or diva cups or the best way to remove blood from the bedsheets. Because these things? These are every day events for women, and they're something that should be out there in fiction as well as real life. I know the majority of you who read my stuff love every day moments, those brief slices inbetween the big crises of the day, so why not show it from all sides? The stolen kiss in the lab, the smile over lunch, and the midnight run for tampons; because that's just as every day as everything else.

Comments

[gal-montag.livejournal.com]

Because when I'm not having it, I don't like to think about it. It's painful and messy and costs money.

[perpet-fic.livejournal.com]

All fair points [and have you tried raspberry tea? It's a muscle relaxer. It works better for me than aspirin or Midol].

But it seems like the frustration that most women feel about their periods [especially the money part] would translate really well into written words. It's a real experience, you know? Something that a huge group of people can relate to and understand.

[mcee.livejournal.com]

i don't know about anyone else, but if i have a choice and it's not actually needed for the story, i'd rather forget we tend to bleed from the cunt once a month.

>_<

that said, i probably would use it if i wrote het for more than a thousand words at a time. i like realism. (though i prefer realism that doesn't make me want to kill myself twelve times a year.)

[perpet-fic.livejournal.com]

But you wouldn't use it in slash? I think it'd show a great side to a male-female friendship if the guy went out and bought a box of tampons or even picked up a bottle of Midol. I understand not wanting to write about it because it's painful and obnoxious, but it seems like there's so much there that isn't being used.

[mcee.livejournal.com]

hadn't thought of it with slash. my head is so firmly in SPN right now, where there's an unfornate dirth of girls. ;)

[perpet-fic.livejournal.com]

Pre-show, Sam goes shopping, and realizes that Jess has put "tampons" on the list, thus making him realize that he's in a real, normal relationship.

[lunaris1013.livejournal.com]

And why has no one ever thought that the women in the story will have a period?

1. Because periods are less than 1/4 of our lives.
   
2. Because we'd rather not think of it, much less write about it.
   
3. Because it's in that category with clipping toenails and plucking eyebrows and shaving underarms and taking a piss, and those are just unpleasant subjects.
   
4. Because it's hella not sexy and nobody wants to read about it (except you, apparently)
   
5. Because fanfiction is escapist fare.

Also on my period, so I apologize if this sounds snappish. It just struck me as absurd.

[perpet-fic.livejournal.com]

I welcome snappish. That's why I post things that cause people to occasionally go WTF?

Outside of fic, I'm a realism writer--the every dey is very interesting to me, and I think that's amplified because of the timing.

::hands you chocolate::

[lunaris1013.livejournal.com]

Even inside of fic I enjoy everyday details in a story, your example above about man being handed shopping list that includes tapons and realizing that it's a "relationship" he's in is a nice example. Hell, last night the roommate asked why I was baking cookies and I told him my hormones were demanding tribute.

But that's just kinda dealing with the trappings and not the actual pain/mess/bloat/snappishness, which is what I'd look at in a story and go "the hell?"

[perpet-fic.livejournal.com]

I see where you're coming from. The original idea of the post was that you don't see the trappings or the discussion at all it seems, when they are very every day things that happen.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

Good question, and I don't know why. I suppose the fanfiction (and ordinary fiction) I've written has tended to focus more on the story rather than the everyday, but the Monstrous Piece From Hell may change that, and I do write poetry and journal entries about periods rather a lot. I find the symbolism fascinating.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

I was going to say something about the responses so far, because I read through them to see what everyone was saying, and then my eyes moved up to take in your "Title" to the post, and I stopped and said, "dirty blood week"?

And then I realized that I never really think of it as dirty, though before the Diva Cup, I did tend to think of it as messy, and associate it with pain.

But I find myself really kind of sad about how negatively we end up apparently viewing what is 1/4 of our time.

I can't think of anything else that happens to us for that much time that we might speak of as unspeakable--as unwritable. It even gets labeled "TMI" in many LJ posts, presuming that there is no such thing as "enough" information about it. It's always too much, excess, something that needs a "cut" tag or warning attached to it.

I can't imagine anything in a man's life or body that would be viewed so negatively by most men. Is there such a thing?

[perpet-fic.livejournal.com]

The 'dirty blood week' was meant as sarcasm. I don't view it as a dirty week. Messy? A bit. Uncomfortable? Sure. But I've put some work into seeing my period as something that happens and working with it.

And I don't understand why the TMI either. In my personal journal, as you well know, my period is chronicled from time to time. If I'm avidly discussing blood, I cut for people who just don't like blood, not because it's period blood. I think the distaste is because we're supposed to hate it and be upset about it. We're brought up from the day we're born that what happens "down there" is dirty and icky and shouldn't be discussed, at least not without appropriate cuts or closed-off rooms.

I remember when the weirdness of not talking about it hit me. I was listening to a couple of guys talk about their girlfriends going through PMS, and I had a sudden realization that while I'd had PMS, I'd never talked about it in public, and why were they allowed to talk about it when it didn't happen directly to them? Since then I've made a point to talk about it if I feel like talking about it. I've found that it's opened a lot of conversational doorways to mutual understanding because I think that while people may be shocked to hear it at first, they realize that I'll answer questions.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

Sorry--I should have specified that I recognized your title as sarcasm, because I did.

It's just that seeing that made me think about that and men and...

It's disturbing that men are often the ones associated with "dirty" jokes, and with scatological humor, and yet women are associated with dirt.

As for guys talking about PMS... it's weird, but that's the part that's speakable, maybe because it reinforces ideas about women being irrational, unstable.

Bleh. I can't figure it out, except that I agree with you, I think, that saying it means something.