It’s not a recent thing I’ve noticed or anything. But throughout the years I’ve seen a few people saying periods aren’t gross or correcting themselves after saying it is. I’m curious if this is supposed to be the ‘expected’ sentiment these days.

Now, I don’t think periods are some uniquely gross phenomenon or anything that needs to be pointed out and scrutinized like a 12 year old boy. I just view it the same as pissing or shitting. I mean, after all, it’s blood leaving your body.

I don’t know if the functions are the same as piss and shit or anything (I.e. getting rid of toxic waste - I never got any sex ed), but I just don’t like seeing body fluids at all. Of course, I’m not going to be “that guy” who runs away whenever someone says they’re on their period or asks for help (:Bwaaa:), I just wouldn’t pretend like it’s not a gross situation.

  • TillieNeuen [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    There are already a lot of good answers here, so I'll just add that a lot of girls are pretty young when they start (I was 11) and kids can be pretty immature about body stuff (she's bleeding out of her VAGINA omg) and that can cause baggage. Imagine you're in elementary school and you need to supply yourself with enough menstrual products to get through the day. At least when I was that age, my friends and I were kind of scared of tampons (what if I can't get it out????), so we stuck to pads, which were bulkier then. You can't fit enough in your pockets to get you through day, so you have a couple options. It is essential that you not openly carry a pad from your backpack to the restroom, because then kids will know that you're BLEEDING from your VAGINA omg. This must be hidden. You can carry a purse in addition to your backpack. This was the norm for my elementary school. Girls started carrying purses when they needed a bag they could grab and take in the restroom with them. You can also keep pads in your backpack, but then you also need to be stealthy about getting them from the backpack to the restroom. Some girls kept a small bag, like a makeup bag, in their backpacks with tampons in them. I'm not sure how old I was when I became comfortable with just openly walking towards the restroom with a tampon in my hand, but it definitely took a while. So when people say "periods aren't gross," they don't mean that dealing with a period isn't messy. They're saying that it's normal and not something to be ashamed of.