DIRECTORY of all topics (See also the
SEARCH ENGINE, bottom
of page.)
 
|
 
CONTINUED to next earlier News & Notes
"Each [MUM] site page peels off a thin layer
of the thick crimson-colored shame I've developed about this issue."
Read the e-mail a Hungarian woman sent me after I
posted her comments on stopping menstruation.
Rest in peace, Meds.
(1998-2006)
She belonged to the first litter of feral cats I adopted from my back yard
and helped me with the pictures of a folding bidet (here).
I named her after an early tampon.
She died today, Saturday, 10 June, sweet to her last hour.
You meet the darndest people in menstruation!
Like Huey Long, assassinated former governor of Louisiana and its
senator in the 1930s. The colorful crook even had a colorful pre-political
life: "For several years he worked as a travelling salesman, first
for a company that made a lard substitute called Cottolene, and later for
a company that sold a concoction for relieving menstrual cramps known as
the Wine of Cardui." (The New Yorker magazine, 12 June 2006, in a review
of a new biography of the character.) See what that was here.
Another is Diane Arbus, genius creator of eerie photographs of mostly
odd people. Before that final career she and her husband were commercial
photographers and shot some of the classy "Modess . . . . because"
ads in a series that ran for decades. See some.
And of course you'll meet several famous women in ads for menstrual
hygiene products, starting with beautiful Lee Miller,
later a famous photographer. An even more famous photographer, Edward Steichen,
took her photograph and sold it to Kotex, to her huge (but temporary) embarrassment.
See her and more such (but
willing) ladies.
And speaking of nurses: at least this one is smiling - but see the
next one!
Compare the German Nurse Thekla, below the green sign.
The generous contributor of the scan of the top sign writes that it's for
American sanitary napkins, probably from the early 1940s. The nurse meant
to inspire confidence, as did the cross - I wonder if the name, M-D, sneaked
in the idea of M.D., medical doctor. Nurse Thekla, pitching the 1926 German disposable
menstrual pad, Camelia, stands above the cross on the box, which almost
looks as if it bears a religious image - the Virgin Mary? Professor Domenico
Pecorari, University of Verona, Italy, kindly sent Nurse Thekla. Read more.
"Secret" tampon sample added to the
"Secret" page, U.S.A.,1930s-40s
They won't let the Pope see ads for
tampons and contraception when he visits Poland!
Salon.com reports
that
"Zbigniew Badziak, the state-run TV network's head of advertising,
told the Associated Press that 'there is always the risk that the faithful
may feel hurt if programming devoted to the Pope's visit is interrupted
by frivolous ads.' Not that they banned all advertising -- just frivolous
ads for contraception and feminine hygiene [and lingerie, booze and certain
desserts]. Still OK: useful, important advertising like car commercials."
Read the whole story (if you're a member of Salon premium).
Think about this, anti-artificial contraceptive believers:
"'Rhythm Method' May Kill Off More Embryos Than
Other Methods Of Contraception"
"... the rhythm method may well be responsible for massive embryonic
death, and the same logic that turned pro-lifers away from morning after
pills, IUDs, and pill usage, should also make them nervous about the rhythm
method," writes a professor in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Read
a summary
in ScienceDaily.com.
Instruments for gynecology and obstetrics (childbirth) in this museum:
The Sims vaginal speculum
And read a little history of The Touch method
of gynecological examination.
Read an article about stopping
your menstrual period. Another article
mentions approved or on-the-horizon menstrual period suppression products
Seasonale, Seasonique, Lybrel, Implanon, and
Yaz. Read what other people think about stopping menstruation.
The puzzled graduate is actually redesigned from a Kotex
menstrual pad ad from the 1940s, which is here.
Kotex menstrual pad ad, U.S.A., July 1942
Kotex menstrual pad ad, U.S.A., 1923
San-Nap-Pak menstrual tampon, U.S.A., 1930s-1940s
Menstruation supplies, 1923, U.S.A., Montgomery
Ward catalog
Why DO women menstruate?
Some ancient Greeks felt it was a way to purify
the blood (a few writers to the stop menstruation page feel the same way), some people in the European Middle
Ages thought that menstrual blood nourished the fetus and was expelled when
there was no fetus, and today we - we really don't know a
purpose for it. C.A. Finn, in "Why Do
Women and Some Other Primates Menstruate?" (Perspectives in Biology
and Medicine, 30, 4 - Summer 1987) concluded that a few primates, a bat
and a shrew menstruate because the tissue that hormones build in the uterus
cannot revert to a previous stage when the hormone levels decline and so
must die and be discarded: menstruation. But we knew that. Why these animals
(including us) have developed this is not known.
Lotus: Early American menstrual tampon?
Comic strip: A conservative American
family visits the future Museum of Menstruation (Chapter
1)!
"Study Shows Rapid Return To
Menstruation Once Oral Contraception Stopped"
(headline from ScienceDaily)
Women - 99 percent of them - returned to normal menstruation or became pregnant with in 90 days
after stopping it long-term with drugs, finds a Columbia study.
This might be good news for women worried about stopping their periods with
hormones for a long time but later wanting to have children or resume menstruation.
Read
the story on ScienceDaily.com.
Meds & Modess menstruation ads, 1946
Dear Harry,
I just saw this email, thank you for replying personally
(and for featuring my comment [read her comments],
too)! By the way, I'm a 28-year-old Hungarian woman. I feel that we have
less information and less options here than women in the U.S. What I know
about Mirena, the Depo Provera and the menstrual cups, I know from the Web.
Your site has been a great source of information and comfort
for me! I can't begin to tell you how thankful I feel. For the first time
in my "adult" (=menstruating) life, I feel like I have a right
to voice my feelings and consider my options. I feel like I can do so without
being judged, patronized and hushed. Instead of suffering silently, I feel
like I have choices, even in this sensitive area.
While most men just enjoy their biological luck and make
cruel jokes about womenís menstrual problems, you make every effort
to understand the female cycle and share a wealth of information about it.
Wow. Thank you, not only for the information, but for being objective and
sympathetic.
Each site page peels off a thin layer
of the thick crimson-colored shame I've developed about this issue.
The experience is like an "intellectual menstruation"
that I can welcome and cherish. Forgive the parallel :)
In two little words: THANK YOU.
Warm regards,
****
Do good mothers
get PMS worse than the other ones?
The author of a recent book and study, Professor Jane M. Ussher, presents
her views at the University of Leichester, United Kingdom. Read about it
from an article on ScienceDaily:
"Premenstrually, when many women feel more vulnerable,
and their repressed frustration or anger comes to the fore, their self-control
is ruptured, and they can lash out, or want to withdraw from the caring
role. Yet this is followed by increased self-surveillance, leading to guilt,
shame, and blaming of the body.
"As women in lesbian relationships were found to report less distress
associated with premenstrual changes, greater acceptance on the part of
their partner, and less self-policing, Professor Ussher concludes that the
identification of self-policing is of particular concern for heterosexual
women." Read the ScienceDaily article.
Mmm, Kellogg's Corn Flakes - right? And have you ever had naughty feelings "down there"? Yes, I
think you have. Well, Dr. Kellogg recommended pouring
undiluted carbolic acid on your clitoris to stop them! I betcha
it worked!
And avoid intense mental excitement during menstruation!
Douche-bag nation:
Tupperware-like parties to sell Dainty Maid
douches and menstrual cups
Yes, gather your friends and party on! "Dainty
Maid" once - does it still? - put women's kids through college and
bought them cars if they sold enough douche bags. Read testimonials
and see what else they sold. No, no snapshots from the parties.
Argentine and Nigerian poets send their poetry:
María García
and Isiaka Abiodun Tiamiyu. Ms.
Garcia has also graciously translated several pages of this site into Spanish
(Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña
- Olor
- Religión y menstruación
- Seguridad de productos para la menstruación).
German kids maturing earlier - Fast food
the reason?
The online edition of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel
reports that German girls and boys continue the trend of earlier first menstruation
(menarche) and first ejaculation.
Emeritus Professor Norbert Kluge of the Universität Koblenz-Landau
wrote in der Internet publication "Beiträge zur Sexualwissenschaft
und Sexualpädagogik" that girls in 1992 had their first menstrual
period on average at 12.2 years old and in 2010 will have it around 10 or
11 years of age.
Researchers noted the trend 140 years ago. In 1860 the average
menarche happened at 16.6 years, in 1920 at 14.6, in 1950 at 13.1 and 1980,
12.5 years.
Kluge (by the way, klug means smart in German) attributed
the early maturation mostly to obesity caused by fast food. Lack
of fat can also stop menstruation, which is what happens with anorexia.
Read the story
(in German). Read more about the age of first
menstruation here.
A French woman writes that the
Sudanese government censors this site:
"I just wanted to mail you some information I got
from a friend of mine who is also French and has spent two years in Sudan
in an archeological institute.
"I sent her the address of your site by email, since
I thought she might find it interesting. Here is (translated into English)
how she answered me:
'Can't! It's censored by the Sudanese government. I find
a sentence which tells me it's haram (sin), and a verse from the Koran
which promises me Hell if I go on this site.' Later on she added, 'I talked
about it with a Sudanese friend who told me, "They put that site with
porn sites." 'Then I explained to her that I found that kind of censure
on almost every medical site that I tried to go on and she was very upset.'"
You are known by the company you keep: along with Sudan
at least one American feminist group tells its members not to visit MUM.
My comic strip in part plays
with this.
Women call tell just by looking at his picture if
a man likes children (in a fatherly way, not sexually) and if he has a high
testosterone level. Read the summary of Proceedings of the Royal Society
B article at sciencedaily.com
(scroll to second item):
The men who had expressed an interest in children were identified
by the women as those they thought would be interested in children. Those
men who had shown high levels of testosterone were identified by the women
as physically attractive.
"The study provides the first direct evidence that women's attractiveness
judgements specifically track both men's affinity for children and men's
hormone concentrations," the researchers concluded.
Pill to stop menstruation indefinitely in Brazil
is not new at all, writes Dr. Nelson Soucasaux,
your MUM's gynecologist.
New contribution to expressions for menstruation
in England:
"My friends and I sometimes say 'The sock is
here' because when I first started, I once complained that it felt
like I had a sock trapped in my underwear," writes an English 14-year-old.
See many more expressions for menstruation from
around the world that YOU contributed.
Are you a victim of those special weaknesses to which womankind is so
apt to fall?
I have something.
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
"Here is what I would like to say in answer to your question.
"If I could have it my way, I would never stop menstruating.
I love menstruating. I hate the thought that somedayI will stop menstruating.
I love having a monthly cycle, and feeling how I change during it. I love
that I perceive and deal with things differently during different stages
of my cycle. I do get pretty bad cramps and acne and all of that, but I
don't mind. There are few things that give me such a deep, intense sensation,
even if it is uncomfortable. I also love the way menstruating feels. It
feels warm and slippery and lovely. I also love my menstrual fluid. Sometimes
I sit in a bath and watch it swirl around me. I hate the term 'bleeding'
because it really is not like bleeding at all. I think what I love the most
is that menstruation gives me a special, close connection to my body. My
cycle is sometimes irregular, but I've come to enjoy that about my period.
I really would like to go on a form of birth control, but I dread the idea
of losing my natural cycle." (More of your answers)
College student, age 19
Does dress length have anything to do with menstrual
pain?
A interesting woman thought so.
And women are not as capable as men in science?
A 100-year-old (almost) message to (outgoing) President Summers of Harvard:
"If any one cares to claim that the brain of woman is inferior to or
in any essential respect different from that of man he must seek the evidence
for his belief in his personal experience or the archives of history - certainly
not among the sober records of science. . . . [I]n
the matter of zeal for work and of intelligence in grasping facts and principles
[women] have shown themselves, on the average, quite as capable as the men
students, while in one respect, namely the ability to express what they
know in clear and logical English, I have found them as a rule to be superior
to men." (Dr. William H. Howell, professor of physiology at
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in the New York Times, February
15, 1915. Two men and four women led that Johns
Hopkins medical school class of 80 men and 10 women.) More.
Women like more masculine-looking men during ovulation
- and their partners get jealous. But not when The Pill stops her ovulation!
Darn it, life is so complicated.
Anyway, read this from the University of Liverpool: "Images
of male faces that were either high or low in dominant features, such as
a strong jaw lines and thinner lips, were shown to male participants who
provided ratings of dominance for each image. A dominant person was defined
as someone who looked like they could 'get what they
wanted'." Wow! Hot stuff! Now you
want to read the whole
thing, don't you?! But please be gentle with the guy(s). I've been through
this.
The famous Marie Stopes showed in the early 20th century that
women's sexual desire peaks about the time of ovulation - see her chart.
What did mothers tell their daughters about
their first menstruation in 1932?
Are you kidding? They left it to Kotex!
"Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday"
Dutch o.b. ad showing nudity, 2005
Did menstruation knock out kick boxers?
In the 1970s, a woman TV announcer circled inside a ring in a boxing
stadium in Thailand. "That night, every fight ended in a bloody T.K.O.
[technical knock out] owing to cuts. The female announcer was held responsible,
on the strength of a murky associative link between women, menstrual blood,
and T.K.O.s, and women were banned from entering a boxing ring." Even
though women box professionally today in
Thailand, they don't in THAT ring, according to the "New Yorker"
magazine article "Cool Heart," 16 January 2006.
And guess what cures warts!
"The Filth Pharmacy" (Dreckapotheke in German) cured
all diseases "from head to feet" employing people's and animals'
excretions and secretions - use your imagination! - including, of course,
menstrual blood, which drove away warts. (Try it.)
This pharmacy, actually a German book, helpfully (for you) contained many
recipes from antiquity to 1693, when it appeared in Frankfurt am
Main. The disgusting medicine drove away disease demons and reactivated
the living "Stoff" clinging to the excrement - at least that was
what Christian Franz Paullini believed, who wrote it. History rewarded him
with the term Paullinism. The Dictionary of German Folklore writes that
not only do some Germans still use the wart treatment, they treat chilblains
- inflammation and sores on the feet and hands caused by cold - with urine.
The Dictionary (actually "Wörterbuch der deutschen Volkskunde,"
Stuttgart, 1981, from which I translated the information here) lists Paullini's
book as "Neuvermehrte, heylsame Dreckapotheke, wie nämlich mit
Kot und Urin fast alle, auch die schwerste, giftigste Krankheiten u. bezauberte
Schäden vom Haupte bis zu den Füßen innerlich und äußerlich
glücklich curiert worden; Mit allerhand raren, so wohl nutz- als ergötzlichen
Historien" - or, "Expanded, beneficial filth
pharmacy, how in particular one can successfully cure almost all, even the
most difficult, most poisonous diseases and bewitched injuries from head
to feet, inside and out, with filth and urine; with all sorts of rare as
well as useful and entertaining stories." Whew! Phew!
Anticoncepción y religión, Breve
reseña, por Kathleen O'Grady
(Spanish translation, by Maria Garcia, of Kathleen O'Grady's "Contraception and Religion" on this site.
By the way, I am proud to have such an accomplished
Spanish translator of this site: visit Maria Garcia's beautiful Web site
www.maria-garcia.com.ar
The Art of Menstruation: Kate
Goldwater
What causes menstrual odor?
You're not going to like this.
Bacteria from the anus - oh, I'll just say it: they're from
feces, and are the famous Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria - eat
the blood, cells and tissue running from the uterus and vagina and produce
the characteristic smell of menstruation.
Sorry.
You say you don't have fecal bacteria in your vagina? Oh,
ho, ho, yes you DO!
Your anus is about an inch (2.54 centimeters) from the entrance
to the vagina and it's a snap for bacteria to creep that teensy distance
- or ride on a tampon, cup, pad or inside panties (imagine how a thong might
do this) or get wiped there with a swipe of toilet paper (a good reason
to wipe the anus toward the back, not toward the front of the body, to minimize
the number that do make the trip).
Now, for most of the month the acid in the vagina - yes,
helpful bacteria there make lactic acid - ties the hands and feet of those
little devils by hardly allowing them to reproduce and grow. They and many
other disease-causing bacteria cannot thrive in the acid.
But for a few days each month the vagina, and outside, on
the vulva, are the perfect places to raise a family! You guessed it: during
menstruation! Blood, cells and secretions from the uterus and vagina make
the vagina more alkaline and the bacteria feel right at home. Oh, girl!
And they gorge gourmet whenever they want!
So what about female folks who don't menstruate, like prepubescent
girls and postmenopausal women? Fecal bacteria can live in their vaginas
without producing that characteristic smell because the bacterial and hormonal
setup is different from that of menstruating women.
O.K., if there are so many bacteria in the vagina during
menstruation is it safe to have sex?
If by sex you mean a penis doing his job, and if both people
have no infectious diseases, for example HIV and hepatitis, then it's generally
safe.
But there is one huge exception: women who get urinary tract
infections. The entrance to the bladder is right above the opening of the
vagina and the penis can rub the swarming bacteria right into the tube that
leads to the bladder, which is much shorter than a male's, one reason women
get UTIs much more often than men.
Douches and deodorants can also change the environment of
the vagina and allow dangerous bacteria to grow there. (Read about not douching.)
MUM board member Dr. Philip Tierno
Jr.'s book "The Secret Life of Germs" supplied most of the information
for my essay, although he wrote with more restraint.
Mmm, Kellogg's Corn Flakes - right? And have you ever had naughty feelings "down there"? Yes, I
think you have. Well, Dr. Kellogg recommended pouring
undiluted carbolic acid on your clitoris to stop them! I betcha
it worked!
And avoid intense mental excitement during menstruation!
Douche-bag nation:
Tupperware-like parties to sell Dainty Maid
douches and menstrual cups
Yes, gather your friends and party on! "Dainty
Maid" once - does it still? - put women's kids through college and
bought them cars if they sold enough douche bags. Read testimonials
and see what else they sold. No, no snapshots from the parties.
Argentine and Nigerian poets send their poetry:
María García
and Isiaka Abiodun Tiamiyu. Ms.
Garcia has also graciously translated several pages of this site into Spanish
(Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña
- Olor
- Religión y menstruación
- Seguridad de productos para la menstruación).
German kids maturing earlier - Fast food
the reason?
The online edition of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel
reports that German girls and boys continue the trend of earlier first menstruation
(menarche) and first ejaculation.
Emeritus Professor Norbert Kluge of the Universität Koblenz-Landau
wrote in der Internet publication "Beiträge zur Sexualwissenschaft
und Sexualpädagogik" that girls in 1992 had their first menstrual
period on average at 12.2 years old and in 2010 will have it around 10 or
11 years of age.
Researchers noted the trend 140 years ago. In 1860 the average
menarche happened at 16.6 years, in 1920 at 14.6, in 1950 at 13.1 and 1980,
12.5 years.
Kluge (by the way, klug means smart in German) attributed
the early maturation mostly to obesity caused by fast food. Lack
of fat can also stop menstruation, which is what happens with anorexia.
Read the story
(in German). Read more about the age of first
menstruation here.
A French woman writes that the
Sudanese government censors this site:
"I just wanted to mail you some information I got
from a friend of mine who is also French and has spent two years in Sudan
in an archeological institute.
"I sent her the address of your site by email, since
I thought she might find it interesting. Here is (translated into English)
how she answered me:
'Can't! It's censored by the Sudanese government. I find
a sentence which tells me it's haram (sin), and a verse from the Koran
which promises me Hell if I go on this site.' Later on she added, 'I talked
about it with a Sudanese friend who told me, "They put that site with
porn sites." 'Then I explained to her that I found that kind of censure
on almost every medical site that I tried to go on and she was very upset.'"
You are known by the company you keep: along with Sudan
at least one American feminist group tells its members not to visit MUM.
My comic strip in part plays
with this.
Women call tell just by looking at his picture if
a man likes children (in a fatherly way, not sexually) and if he has a high
testosterone level. Read the summary of Proceedings of the Royal Society
B article at sciencedaily.com
(scroll to second item):
The men who had expressed an interest in children were identified
by the women as those they thought would be interested in children. Those
men who had shown high levels of testosterone were identified by the women
as physically attractive.
"The study provides the first direct evidence that women's attractiveness
judgements specifically track both men's affinity for children and men's
hormone concentrations," the researchers concluded.
Pill to stop menstruation indefinitely in Brazil
is not new at all, writes Dr. Nelson Soucasaux,
your MUM's gynecologist.
New contribution to expressions for menstruation
in England:
"My friends and I sometimes say 'The sock is
here' because when I first started, I once complained that it felt
like I had a sock trapped in my underwear," writes an English 14-year-old.
See many more expressions for menstruation from
around the world that YOU contributed.
Are you a victim of those special weaknesses to which womankind is so
apt to fall?
I have something.
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
"Here is what I would like to say in answer to your question.
"If I could have it my way, I would never stop menstruating.
I love menstruating. I hate the thought that somedayI will stop menstruating.
I love having a monthly cycle, and feeling how I change during it. I love
that I perceive and deal with things differently during different stages
of my cycle. I do get pretty bad cramps and acne and all of that, but I
don't mind. There are few things that give me such a deep, intense sensation,
even if it is uncomfortable. I also love the way menstruating feels. It
feels warm and slippery and lovely. I also love my menstrual fluid. Sometimes
I sit in a bath and watch it swirl around me. I hate the term 'bleeding'
because it really is not like bleeding at all. I think what I love the most
is that menstruation gives me a special, close connection to my body. My
cycle is sometimes irregular, but I've come to enjoy that about my period.
I really would like to go on a form of birth control, but I dread the idea
of losing my natural cycle." (More of your answers)
College student, age 19
Does dress length have anything to do with menstrual
pain?
A interesting woman thought so.
And women are not as capable as men in science?
A 100-year-old (almost) message to (outgoing) President Summers of Harvard:
"If any one cares to claim that the brain of woman is inferior to or
in any essential respect different from that of man he must seek the evidence
for his belief in his personal experience or the archives of history - certainly
not among the sober records of science. . . . [I]n
the matter of zeal for work and of intelligence in grasping facts and principles
[women] have shown themselves, on the average, quite as capable as the men
students, while in one respect, namely the ability to express what they
know in clear and logical English, I have found them as a rule to be superior
to men." (Dr. William H. Howell, professor of physiology at
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in the New York Times, February
15, 1915. Two men and four women led that Johns
Hopkins medical school class of 80 men and 10 women.) More.
Women like more masculine-looking men during ovulation
- and their partners get jealous. But not when The Pill stops her ovulation!
Darn it, life is so complicated.
Anyway, read this from the University of Liverpool: "Images
of male faces that were either high or low in dominant features, such as
a strong jaw lines and thinner lips, were shown to male participants who
provided ratings of dominance for each image. A dominant person was defined
as someone who looked like they could 'get what they
wanted'." Wow! Hot stuff! Now you
want to read the whole
thing, don't you?! But please be gentle with the guy(s). I've been through
this.
The famous Marie Stopes showed in the early 20th century that
women's sexual desire peaks about the time of ovulation - see her chart.
What did mothers tell their daughters about
their first menstruation in 1932?
Are you kidding? They left it to Kotex!
"Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday"
Dutch o.b. ad showing nudity, 2005
Did menstruation knock out kick boxers?
In the 1970s, a woman TV announcer circled inside a ring in a boxing
stadium in Thailand. "That night, every fight ended in a bloody T.K.O.
[technical knock out] owing to cuts. The female announcer was held responsible,
on the strength of a murky associative link between women, menstrual blood,
and T.K.O.s, and women were banned from entering a boxing ring." Even
though women box professionally today in
Thailand, they don't in THAT ring, according to the "New Yorker"
magazine article "Cool Heart," 16 January 2006.
And guess what cures warts!
"The Filth Pharmacy" (Dreckapotheke in German) cured
all diseases "from head to feet" employing people's and animals'
excretions and secretions - use your imagination! - including, of course,
menstrual blood, which drove away warts. (Try it.)
This pharmacy, actually a German book, helpfully (for you) contained many
recipes from antiquity to 1693, when it appeared in Frankfurt am
Main. The disgusting medicine drove away disease demons and reactivated
the living "Stoff" clinging to the excrement - at least that was
what Christian Franz Paullini believed, who wrote it. History rewarded him
with the term Paullinism. The Dictionary of German Folklore writes that
not only do some Germans still use the wart treatment, they treat chilblains
- inflammation and sores on the feet and hands caused by cold - with urine.
The Dictionary (actually "Wörterbuch der deutschen Volkskunde,"
Stuttgart, 1981, from which I translated the information here) lists Paullini's
book as "Neuvermehrte, heylsame Dreckapotheke, wie nämlich mit
Kot und Urin fast alle, auch die schwerste, giftigste Krankheiten u. bezauberte
Schäden vom Haupte bis zu den Füßen innerlich und äußerlich
glücklich curiert worden; Mit allerhand raren, so wohl nutz- als ergötzlichen
Historien" - or, "Expanded, beneficial filth
pharmacy, how in particular one can successfully cure almost all, even the
most difficult, most poisonous diseases and bewitched injuries from head
to feet, inside and out, with filth and urine; with all sorts of rare as
well as useful and entertaining stories." Whew! Phew!
Anticoncepción y religión, Breve
reseña, por Kathleen O'Grady
(Spanish translation, by Maria Garcia, of Kathleen O'Grady's "Contraception and Religion" on this site.
By the way, I am proud to have such an accomplished
Spanish translator of this site: visit Maria Garcia's beautiful Web site
www.maria-garcia.com.ar
The Art of Menstruation: Kate
Goldwater
What causes menstrual odor?
You're not going to like this.
Bacteria from the anus - oh, I'll just say it: they're from
feces, and are the famous Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria - eat
the blood, cells and tissue running from the uterus and vagina and produce
the characteristic smell of menstruation.
Sorry.
You say you don't have fecal bacteria in your vagina? Oh,
ho, ho, yes you DO!
Your anus is about an inch (2.54 centimeters) from the entrance
to the vagina and it's a snap for bacteria to creep that teensy distance
- or ride on a tampon, cup, pad or inside panties (imagine how a thong might
do this) or get wiped there with a swipe of toilet paper (a good reason
to wipe the anus toward the back, not toward the front of the body, to minimize
the number that do make the trip).
Now, for most of the month the acid in the vagina - yes,
helpful bacteria there make lactic acid - ties the hands and feet of those
little devils by hardly allowing them to reproduce and grow. They and many
other disease-causing bacteria cannot thrive in the acid.
But for a few days each month the vagina, and outside, on
the vulva, are the perfect places to raise a family! You guessed it: during
menstruation! Blood, cells and secretions from the uterus and vagina make
the vagina more alkaline and the bacteria feel right at home. Oh, girl!
And they gorge gourmet whenever they want!
So what about female folks who don't menstruate, like prepubescent
girls and postmenopausal women? Fecal bacteria can live in their vaginas
without producing that characteristic smell because the bacterial and hormonal
setup is different from that of menstruating women.
O.K., if there are so many bacteria in the vagina during
menstruation is it safe to have sex?
If by sex you mean a penis doing his job, and if both people
have no infectious diseases, for example HIV and hepatitis, then it's generally
safe.
But there is one huge exception: women who get urinary tract
infections. The entrance to the bladder is right above the opening of the
vagina and the penis can rub the swarming bacteria right into the tube that
leads to the bladder, which is much shorter than a male's, one reason women
get UTIs much more often than men.
Douches and deodorants can also change the environment of
the vagina and allow dangerous bacteria to grow there. (Read about not douching.)
MUM board member Dr. Philip Tierno
Jr.'s book "The Secret Life of Germs" supplied most of the information
for my essay, although he wrote with more restraint.
Above: Very early Dutch Tampax ads: 1938
Early German adhesive sanitary napkin (Monatsbinde)
ad, 1973
So THAT's what causes it! Quick, call the Westboro
Baptist Church in Kansas!
Midol ad, 1960
More letters to your MUM:
"Put briefly: I work in a building that is predominantly
men. And yesterday, my period decided to surprise me at work and I had forgotten
my faithful Keeper at home. So what's a woman to do?" (more)
"A Woman's Kit of Necessary Items. c. 1700 -1919. $45.00
Contains a dozen absorbent, layered cotton clouts and four linen wraps packaged
together neatly in a drawstring bag that may be discreetly carried to events
for truly feminine "experimental archaeology." From original sources,
including oral histories and careful study of an original linen clout-wrap
found in the wall of a
house c.1830 that was being demolished in Mecklenburg County, N.C."
(more)
ANNOUNCING!
A God-fearing American family makes
"A Visit to the Museum of Menstruation
and Women's Health"
Graphic novella starts 10 May
on a site near you,
namely this one!
New Words
and expressions about
menstruation:
A woman sends 41 entries for
Finland!
New Would
you stop menstruating
if you could? (2/4/2006)
Allergy might cause some PMS
ScienceDaily reports today that
"Some women with menstrual cycle disorders like asthma and
migraine headaches may be experiencing allergies to their own estrogen and
progesterone hormones" and "[I]t was found that symptoms could
be diminished by very low concentrations of progesterone, which served both
as a diagnostic feature and for symptomatic relief when needed." More.
(31/3/06)
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