menstruation

From the reader mailbag: Can you please talk about sex while you're on your period? Should I be offended if my boyfriend would rather not? Shouldn't he be willing to accept my body no matter which phase of the moon it is? Well, this is one we've all dealt with many, many times, right?* I think responses to menstrual blood vary widely. I personally have no problem getting busy during my period--throw down a towel to preserve the sheets, and I'm good to go. I was lucky that my first serious boyfriend was completely unfazed by my period, so I didn't get any negative messages about it early on. I've had a few guys say "No thanks, I'll wait," and I just took it in stride. Everyone should be able to say no to sex if there's something about it that makes them uncomfortable, including mensturation. While that was occasionally (sexually) frustrating, it wasn't a big deal. And plenty of men don't mind at all, especially since I use condoms pretty much 100% of the time, so it's not like he actually comes nto contact with the blood anyway. Where I did have problems was on the very rare occasion I got an "Eww, gross!" response. Those men received the Feminist Lecture Series about how my vagina does not exist solely for their pleasure--it's part of my reproductive system, and if they couldn't handle that, they could get the fuck out.

The trailer for The Moon Inside You begins like a bad Dan Brown-zombie flick: "A curse on half the planet...a secret kept too well....so...much...blood." Thankfully, the world's in for one less crap slasher and in for a humorous new approach to talking about what most of us hate talking about...periods. From the looks of the rest of the trailer (available on the film's homepage), the movie will be a mix of personal stories (a group of women share histories of problematic periods), humor (two oblivious women walk around with comically-soaked crotches), irony (a professional man, completely straight-faced, states, "It's a phenomenon humans share with other apes...and old world monkeys"), and cultural analysis (clips from the Carrie, anyone?)...to say nothing of the belly-dancing classes and claymation scenes.