Defending the Need to Bleed. Period.

I asked for requests a while back and received only one - to discuss menstruation. I'm talking about bodily functions here, so if you're squeamish about that, you might want to skip this one. It's going to get medical, and it's going to get personal, so if you can't stomach that read no further! You've been warned.

My regular readers may know that I consider the medical establishment to be a continuation of the Inquisitions. In fact, one of the intentions of the Inquisitions was to wrest the arts of healing away from the village wise women and midwives so that it could be the exclusive domain of University educated men, who knew the local healer's herb teas were always going to be more effective and less objectionable than their leaches. Yes, that's an oversimplification, but I feel justified in that because the Inquisitors were overly simple. And deadly. The problem is that now that the Universities and Pharmaceutical industry have become a huge money-making enterprise, it is once again targeting women, who once again are being targeted as "unnatural" for being who we are. Woman has gone from a problem to be eradicated to one to be exploited for monetary gain and the result is, as always, that otherwise normal women are being treated as a disease themselves.

A woman is a gloriously complex biological system - much more so than a man
. I believe that men should not be allowed to make decisions regarding any aspect of women's health or reproduction because they lack the equipment to understand the equipment. To too many male doctors, women are a bunch of messy parts to be excised, cycles to be suppressed, moods to be controlled and incubators to be manipulated according to convenience and commerce rather than health or personal choice.

Before you accuse me of romanticizing menstruation, let me tell you way too much about myself. Because of an ovarian cyst, I had my first pelvic exam at age 4. There was a strong possibility that my hormonal imbalances were going to cause the onset of VERY early menstruation, though they did manage to hold it off until I was 9. I got sent home from school once a month, upon which I would sleep on the bathroom floor because I was too tired to get back and forth to the bed after throwing up. This eased up considerably when I got to college and discovered that a vegetarian diet all but eradicated my pain, and my acne as well. You see, there are some of us who are uniquely sensitive to the hormones used to produce animal foods. (I have no evidence of this, but my guess is that Andrea Yates and other victims of post partum psychosis are as well.) Show me a girl with debilitating cramps, and I'll show you a girl who drinks her milk and/or eats her yogurt and buys them both at a regular grocery store. Show me a person with cystic acne and I'll show you a person who consumes cured meats - hot dogs, bacon, pepperoni, salami and other lunch meats, and most sausages- or artificial coloring. (The new blue dye they use in M&Ms is brutal.) Anyway, the point of all of this is that my experiences with every aspect the menstrual cycle were about as extreme as they can get. I do NOT romanticize it but I do respect it.

The menstrual cycle is what uniquely connects women to Nature. Gaia rains, women bleed. Our periods have been under assault for years: from artificial light that disrupts our bodily rhythms; from lack of moonlight which can regulate our cycles; from those awful hormones in our food; and more recently with the hormones our doctors give us to make us less like women keep us from getting pregnant or make us less like old women "suffering" from menopause. There's always a new pill to "fix" whatever is "wrong" with women.

Of course, the medical profession hasn't got a great track record when it comes to the feminine gender. Women with heart disease were treated for years using information gleaned from studies of men, which turned out not to be the same for us. The Dalkon Shield was safe until it was proven to cause infertility and unnecessary death in women, yet there are still women walking around with them in their bodies. Silicone breast implants cause horrible suffering in women, but they're back on the market. There are more unnecessary hysterectomies performed than any other kind of surgery. Hormone Replacement Therapy was supposed to "improve heart health, enhance sex drive, offset depression, prevent osteoporosis and Alzheimer's disease and contribute to an overall improvement in the quality of life"¹ in menopausal women. It turns out that what it actually does is create "an increased risk of strokes, heart attacks, blood clots, cardiovascular disease and breast cancer." Of course, they discovered this only after decades of feeding women pills made from pregnant mare's urine. Have you checked your mother's medicine cabinet for "Premarin" lately? That's what it is.

The current assault comes in the form of menstrual suppression. Too busy to change your tampon? Want to make sure you don't have your period during swimming season or on your wedding day? Well now, you can stop bleeding altogether - more or less. You've probably heard of Seasonale, a birth control pill that can reduce your cycle to four periods a year. You may not have heard of its successor, not yet approved in North America, called Anya. Anya completely eradicates periods. None at all. (Unless you count the occasional spotting.)

Wouldn't I have loved to have this when I was lying on the bathroom floor, wishing I could just die or at least go to sleep? Well maybe. But if I had taken extended birth control then, I might at age 45: have the bones of an 80 year old; have heart damage from years of high blood pressure I wouldn't have had otherwise; be sterile; have tumors; and that's just the start.

Menstruation is a complex process that affects the whole body. Consider:

The peer-reviewed literature, whether focused on metabolic bone diseases, cardiovascular health, atherosclerotic processes, immunology, sexual response cycles, or studies of cognition, continues to reveal complex associations among physiology, behavior, and sex hormones. Cyclic secretions of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, androstenedione, and DHEA(S) play significant roles in maintaining the cascade of physiological events that promote healthy bone metabolism, sexual interest and response, and cardiovascular function, as well as adequate sleep and energy cycles.

Ovarian hormones influence diverse neuroendocrine pathways: Beta endorphins, melatonin, oxytocin, growth hormone, prostaglandins, and the adrenal androgens (including DHEA{S}) are all increasingly being identified as intimately dependent upon the cyclic secretions of ovarian hormones. Excessively high or low levels of the hormones are associated with many diseases.

Estrogen has been shown to play a structural role in the central nervous system, interacting with progesterone to help maintain both nerves and myelinization. And now it seems that the cyclic progesterone of a fertile menstrual cycle is responsible for triggering other hormone secretions such as oxytocin which, in turn, enhances sexual sensation of uterine and breast tissue by enhancing contractility. Fertile cycles promote the excretion of sex-attractant pheromones. Oral contraceptives which are monophasic suppress (flatten) the cyclic rise and fall of sex hormones and have negative effects on sexual interest (libido), in contrast to the triphasics, which yield better sexual response in women.

Bones represent another concern. The life history of a healthy woman’s bone shows the period of rapid pubescent growth of long bones to conclude when the end-plates close shortly after puberty. Thereafter, provided her calcium intake exceeds the obligatory daily calcium excretion (estimated at about 600 mgs per day), and her health habits are good, with regular monthly ovulatory menstrual cycles, her bones continue to accrete mineral by thickening instead of lengthening through her mid-thirties. The thicker the bone she is able to build, the less vulnerable to fracture she will be during her menopausal years.²

It isn't just about having a baby or not. That cycle affects us neurologically, psychologically and physiologically. Did you know that one of the reasons women probably live longer than men and have fewer heart problems is that our menstrual cycle lowers our blood pressure for two weeks out of the month? That oxytocin - it's the stuff that makes your uterus contract when you smell a baby- not only helps us bond to our babies, and lesbian couples to one another, but probably keeps most straight women from killing their men in their sleep? (If you've had a boyfriend or a husband, you know what I'm talking about. I'm joking. Sort of...) That melatonin affects your feeling of well-being? That the changes we go through in the month affect our sexuality? Do you really want to flatline sexually?

Women in this culture can be incredibly cut off from our bodies. We're raised to be all prissy and squeamish about "down there" and think its icky and hate even touching it. How many young girls gag at the idea of inserting a tampon? We're afraid of our natural scents, and don't know what they mean - that they tend to be strong and acidic near ovulation. (Think "onions") I've met very few women that know anything at all about their own fertility. Most can't identify "spin" or know what it signifies. (It's a thick discharge that is present around the time of ovulation and is necessary for conception. It's called spin because you can stretch a string of it between your fingers like a thread. If you don't want to get pregnant, avoid sex when it is present. If you do, that's the best time to try.) That rush you get during the month that has you climbing the walls is because you have a menstrual cycle. Ovulation triggers your libido to the point that it peaks at approximately the day before your period begins, hoping for a last chance at fertilization. Those are the days it's ALIVE. Any woman who has a pussy and doesn't occasionally know that it's the center of the Universe is either dead from the neck up or the waist down. That feeling is what ties you to Nature - your animal self, your primal urge, your most intimate tie to all women everywhere and everytime.

Women who take birth control pills don't ovulate. That bleeding that happens when the 7 days without hormones take place in the cycle is a false period. It's bleeding caused by the drop in hormones, not by ovulation. I'm not saying women who take birth control are never horny, but it does affect the intensity of the cycle in many women.

Anya is supposed to be 98% effective. Exactly how do you know you're pregnant if you never menstruate? How long before you notice? Longer than 12 weeks, most assuredly. Terminating such a pregnancy would be difficult, costly and potentially more dangerous.

The medical community has been true to form on the subject of birth control, too. They claim that you have more periods now than women used to and claim it's too much for your body. A period is a sign of good health and good nutrition. It's true that ancient women probably averaged about 160 periods in a lifetime, and we average about 450, but look at the factors that influence that - better nutrition, longer life expectancy, fewer pregnancies, less time spent nursing babies, earlier menarche, more fertile years, later menopause. There is no indication that we can't handle the process.

There is plenty of indication that the birth control pills aren't safe, though, and they aren't telling us about that. These new pills haven't been studied much at all. There's no science saying they're safe - YOU are the guinea pig. Imagine them approving sale of a drug intended for men that isn't properly tested. It just wouldn't happen.

There's no information on what long term cessation of periods would do to a woman, let alone a young girl. We're looking at an age where girls could theoretically grow up with no periods at all. What happens to her bones? Her sex drive? Her fertility? NOBODY KNOWS. If you don't use it, you lose it. Plenty of research shows that, contrary to what the pharmaceutical industry would have us believe, extended use of birth control causes long-term problems with fertility. Some women just don't regain a normal cycle of ovulation after they stop taking birth control.

Doctors are going to prescribe this stuff for young girls, and mothers will give it to them, thinking it's safe. It isn't. And they know it.

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More on the symbolism and myth of menstruation later.
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1.Haven't We Learned our Lessons Yet?
2.
"Menstrual Suppression by Contraception and Non Cyclic regimens of Hormonal Replacement Therapy are Potentially Dangerous to a Woman's Health" Winnifred Cutler, Ph.D.
Also: The end of the period: A new contraceptive will soon let women stop menstruating. Is it the pinnacle of liberation, or a reckless experiment by Lianne George
Why I am opposed to menstrual suppression: a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Leslie Botha-Williams, Women's Health Educator, http://www.holyhormonesl.com