Erotic Menstruation

There aren¹t many naturally occurring life events more disliked than the ³monthlies.² Popular consensus has it that bleeding time is a bad time and truth be told, that¹s how a lot of us experience it

Could it be that it¹s because we live in a society that still feels pretty uncomfortable with female sexuality and female pleasure that I had to discover completely on my own that menstruation can actually feel erotically and sexually pleasurable? The first time I had this experience, it took me months to put the pieces together. Then it hit me like a lightning bolt. Hey girl, wake up! Guess what parts of you are pulsating to get that blood on out of your body

I made that discovery 14 years ago. Since then, some of the most profound, most spiritually satisfying sexual experiences of my life have been given to me by my period. Opening up to my bleeding self has been a lot like discovering, to put it kind of crassly, a ³built-in² lover, who¹s dear enough to visit every month. The nice thing is I don¹t even have to do much to experience pleasure with this partner

Menstrual pleasures are often more mystical, I find, than what comes through self-pleasuring or partnered sex. As my belly pulsates, so does my mind, drifting in and out of dreams, intuitions, memories shimmering like reflections in a lake. Sounds, colours, sensations can take on particularly intense and vibrant reality

And while it all sounds fabulous, I know I have to be careful not to make it sound like it¹s also always easy. My period has turned out to be a totally tuned in and non-compromising lover. If there¹s a place in my body, mind, or heart that¹s not fully open to that month¹s flow, my menstruation informs me in the language of pain or dysfunction

Personal issues aren¹t the only ones that interfere with my love affair. Social convention isn¹t exactly supportive of menstrual eroticism. According to women¹s magazines, what I really need are painkillers, superabsorbent ³feminine hygiene² products that won¹t give away the horrible secret that, like most women, I menstruate, or better yet, synthetic hormone brews or surgeries that will stop the inconvenient blood altogether. (The articles and doctors promoting these treatments often talk about how we find menstruation inconvenient. They never talk about the darker secret, that what many of us are trying to get rid of with these medical interventions is our feelings of shame and disgust about our periods, ourselves.) I wonder sometimes whether a lot of the moodiness and cramps so many of my sisters experience are just a reflection of repressed sexual energy. I mean, how would any partner react if, month after month, they weren¹t allowed to do their thing, and love your whole, delicious body?

My menstrual lover also demands time and attention from me, and that¹s not time most employers or families easily concede. I¹ve learned a lot about assertiveness just by deciding that I want to spend time letting my period make love to me. It¹s not a conventional excuse for rescheduling a dinner date, if you know what I mean. Then there¹s the whole woman sexual autonomy thing. If a period can make you feel good all on its own, that can be threatening to the old patriarchal gods we still sometimes carry inside, the ones who insist that women envy the penis and need a man

For me, the struggle to be with my menstrual partner has been completely worth it. I¹m a way happier, healthier human than I used to be. And like any woman worth her salt

by Sibylle Preuschat

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