Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

Visit From A Friend

August 10th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest post by Anastacia Kurylo, Marymount Manhattan College

"Ovulation", oil on canvas by Von Taylor

"Ovulation", oil on canvas by Von Taylor

It’s been four years since I had my period. I did get a visit from my ‘friend’ for six months a couple of years ago but considering that I menstruated regularly for nearly twenty years before that six months was not a long time to get reacquainted. Now I am menstruating again regularly.

Having my period again reminds me of the person I was for the twenty years before I had my children-independent, in control, free to eat and sleep when I wanted – and how that part of my life is over.

Having my period again also reminds me of the person I have become the last four years – pregnant or lactating with one of my two children either in my belly or on my breast for most of this time – and how that part of my life is over too.

I never liked or understood the euphemism of my ‘friend’ representing menstruation. I saw it as a silly way to refer to a mundane biological occurrence females should own, be proud of, and state bluntly.

Now I understand the metaphor. For twenty years, my ‘friend’ was close to me physically and emotionally. My period was a reminder of my maturity and femininity and just as often an inconvenience and annoyance. I knew her well – her tendencies, how she would behave, and how to handle her. After twenty years of being inseparable, my ‘friend’ left and was replaced by my daughter and, then, my son. At times, my children are also reminders of my maturity and femininity and are also, at times, an inconvenience and annoyance. As I have begun to get to know my children, I forgot about my ‘friend.’

Having my period again and no longer being or anticipating being pregnant or lactating marks the start of yet another part of my life. Now that my ‘friend’ is back, we have to get reacquainted –she is not the same and neither am I.

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Finding what you’re looking for

August 4th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

It’s always fascinating to look at perceptions of menstruation in societies other than one’s own, but I’d really like to see the questionnaire used in this study of attitudes toward menstruation among young Pakistani women.

Results: Out of 500 participants, 438 (87.6%) regarded menstruation as a natural process; whereas, 62 (12.4%) perceived it as a disease and curse from God. Out of 500, 415 (83%) of the participants responded that the menstruation process is good for health; however, 85 (17%) felt this process not healthy for themselves.

Do you suppose that the questions were multiple choice? Because ‘natural process’, ‘disease’, and ‘curse from God’ aren’t mutually exclusive.

[via Leslie Botha]

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Blood on Screen: Red Moon

August 2nd, 2010 by Giovanna Chesler



Red Moon: Menstruation, Culture and the Politics of Gender may have crossed your path as The Moon Inside You (its original title prior to 2010 its current distribution through Media Education Foundation). It is a film that has enjoyed wide release, with exhibition on French television and inclusion in an EU showcase of films that circulated last year. The broad exhibition strategy of Red Moon is fitting; it has a casual, heartfelt and humorous style that should appeal to many.

The purpose of Red Moon, as articulated by the filmmaker Diana Fabianova in voice over, is to answer this question: “At any given time, 25% of the female population is menstruating. Invisible. Discreet. Why is this normal, biological function taboo? There must be some deeper meaning.” There are problems with this statistical framing device – 25% is an over inflated number that eliminates girls and post-menopausal women as “females”. It also glosses over females that do not menstruate because of gender transformations and amenorrhea. Outside of this statistical malfunction, there are a few other facts provided through voice over which are not supported by specific research or attributed directly to any menstrual researchers. However, beyond these slights, Red Moon has great potential to make a taboo subject approachable.

The Menstruation Machine

June 30th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Hiromi Ozaki's Menstruation Machine

Hiromi Ozaki's Menstruation Machine

Researcher and artist Hiromi Ozaki has created the Menstruation Machine, an art installation featuring an appliance for men or boys (or other people who do not menstruate) to wear to simulate the menstrual experience. It features electrodes attached to the lower abdomen to simulate cramps and a blood-dispensing mechanism that deposits simulated menstrual fluid between the wearer’s legs.

The device is reminiscent of the Empathy Belly® pregnancy simulator, although it is being greeted with much more snark and misogyny. The blogger at Gizmodo is certain he’ll never try it (just skip the comments), and the DC Caller says, “This may appeal to the crowd of women who pull the ‘you don’t understand how I feel’ card once a month to their significant other.”

But the Menstruation Machine is an art project, and the Empathy Belly® is a real product, retailing for $649. It’s intended to be provocative, rather than profitable. Suddenly I’m reminded of the time my college boyfriend told me he wanted to dress as a woman for Halloween. I sneered and told him if he thought its was funny to dress like a woman, he should wear a tampon.

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Really? Even “Period” is Bleep-worthy?

May 19th, 2010 by Chris Bobel

Joan Rivers guests on talk showMonday morning: A friend tips me off that Joan Rivers’s on-TV use of the word PERIOD was bleeped! Yes, dear reader, somewhere, a censor deems even the innocuous euphemism for MENSTRUATION unsuitable for television.

Uh…speechless.

[You can view the clip at Jezebel.com, my friend's source for this sad information.]

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More on life-giving female fluids

April 23rd, 2010 by Chris Hitchcock

When I was pregnant and then learning to breast-feed my daughter, my doula told me that breast milk had great anti-biotic properties, and that it was good to use on eye-infections and cuts. Turns out that there is science behind that. Not only that, but now scientists have shown that breast milk contains substances that may kill cancerous cells. They’re calling the extracted substance HAMLET – not sure why a substance extracted from lactating women would be named after a grieving, tortured young man struggling with suicidal and homicidal thoughts, but I’ll leave more thoughts on that to those who are better at post-modern analysis.

It reminds me of the idea of harvesting stem-cells from menstrual blood. And also some questions about that. Like, is this one of the cases where it matters what produced the menstrual blood? Not all episodes of menstrual bleeding are the same. So how does stem cell quality differ among these different sources of uterine blood?

  • a normal ovulatory cycle
  • normal-length but anovulatory cycle
  • very long or irregular cycles, which tend to be anovulatory
  • withdrawal bleed when you are on the pill
  • or even a post-menopausal vaginal bleed from taking sequential hormone therapy

I don’t even know if anyone is asking these questions, because there is relatively little interest or appreciation in the varieties of sources of menstrual blood and how it might change its quality.

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News: Mooncup leaks less than pads or tampons

April 10th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Mooncup, shown actual size

Mooncup, shown actual size.


A small study published this month in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology tested effectiveness of the mooncup. The results won’t surprise anyone who has used one: “The Mooncup leaked 0.5 times less frequently and required to be changed 2.8 times less frequently, on average, during one menstrual period than regular sanitary protection.”

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Previously, in Kotex Advertising . . .

April 2nd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

One of my Women’s & Gender Studies graduates, who is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Gender & Sexuality Studies, recently sent me this Kotex ad from last fall. (She received it from one of her students — don’t you love how that chain works?)

This ad predates Kotex’s all-new we’re-so-hip-and-cool-we-don’t-have-to-tell-you-how-great-our-products-are campaign by at least six months. Lisa found the names of the illustrated sleeping positions disturbing, but what I find interesting about this ad is that it seems to be doing exactly what I’ve suggested femcare ads should do: it tells us why the products are worth shelling out my hard-earned money. There’s no patronizing crap about flowers or freshness, and mercifully, no blue fluid. Ad for Kotex Overnight pads from Cosmopolitan, November 2009Just “the most coverage of any ultra-thin pad” so that you can “sleep comfortably and move freely”. Because periods happen.

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Menstrual Moments on Television: Parks and Recreation

March 27th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

I’m surely not the only fan of Amy Poehler and Parks and Recreation around here, am I? (Oh, Amy Poehler, have you been reading my mail? Leslie Knope is more like me than I care to admit.)

As I’ve written elsewhere, menstruation is seldom mentioned or represented on television outside of femcare advertising. The one notable exception has been when a girl’s menarche is played for laughs in the family sitcom. Now there’s another exception, in last week’s episode of Parks and Recreation.

In this episode, Leslie brought together all the surviving Directors of the Pawnee Indiana Department of Parks and Recreation, hoping for some inspiration for the catalog copy she needed to write. Instead she found a lot of bullying, misogyny, and other bad behavior.

In clip at right, the oldest of the former directors advises Leslie to stay away from leadership roles because the intellectual demands will interfere with her reproductive abilities. Leslie politely dismisses this by explaining that times have changed, and she aspires to greatness. But more importantly, she turns off the tape recorder, letting viewers know that this retrograde attitude is so unacceptable that she won’t be recording it for posterity. Having such views expressed by the oldest character also makes them easy to dismiss.

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That Which Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

March 24th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

Cartoon of women with cramps

London newspaper The Telegraph reports on the development of a new medical treatment for dysmenorrhea, or painful periods. The article contains very little information about the new pill — most of the article describes the variety of misery some women experience with menstruation. The only information about the new medication is that the drug blocks vasopressin, a hormone involved in regulating uterine contractions and thus a cause of menstrual cramping.

But I was struck by this sentence in the second paragraph:

But now [women with painful periods] might no longer have to soldier on stoically after researchers have developed a pill which could put an end to the root cause of their discomfort.

See that? Women with cramps aren’t whiners or crybabies or just making excuses. They’re hard-working troupers who soldier on stoically despite being miserable.

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Blood on Screen: The Runaways

March 23rd, 2010 by Giovanna Chesler

Last July we posted photos from an unnamed film set where Dakota Fanning stood, ready for camera, with blood running down her thighs and a blood stain on the back of her skirt. Were these menstrual markings or the next era of horror film misogyny? The answer can be seen in the newly released film The Runaways, a drama about a 1970’s all girl rock band fronted by Cherie Currie (played by Dakota Fanning) and guitarist, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart.)

Here, menstruation is a framing element, as the film begins with a screen sized image of a red blood drop falling to the pavement. Cut to Fanning wiping blood from her thigh in disbelief. Her sister, Marie rushes her to the bathroom to attend to their first period, for Marie whines “Everything happens to you first!” Cherie packs her undies with paper towels, ties a sweatshirt around the stain, and in stunned disbelief of what has just transpired, tags behind her sister and her sister’s creepy dude date. He leers at her, “You’re a woman now.”

Later that evening, Cherie crops her hair, paints a David Bowie red streak across her face, and begins to come into herself. Becoming a woman in this film, does not include being soft and desirable for boys. Rather, menarche signifies entrance into glam rock iconography.

As Cherie meets up with Joan, and the two launch The Runaways, Cherie’s early entrance into womanhood seems to have come too soon. Still a child, Cherie is pushed into the front of a stage and asked to groan into a mic about her bursting sexuality in the song Cherry Bomb. The demanding manager, Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), yells at her to give more to the song “This isn’t woman’s lib. It’s woman’s lib-ido.”

In the coming weeks on tour, Cherie will partake in her first kiss, first sip, first line, first pill – revealing how womanhood has not “dropped” upon her. It arrives in waves through her choices, or her inability to make them. And there is still more growing to do.

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Menstrual Tracking 2.0

March 22nd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

Mikvah CalendarI haven’t studied every online tool for period tracking but this one appears to be the most sophisticated yet: MikvahCalendar.com helps observant Jewish women track their cycles, including her niddah (ritually impure) time. It automatically calculates sunrise and sunset, sends email or text reminders, and can be customized for Chabad, Ashkenazic, and Sephardic traditions. And it’s Rabbincally Approved.

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Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.