I’ve got three four recordings to offer today. The first two are from recent lectures in my Beauty and the Body course, taped and posted by Mon-Shane Chou:
Fear of Fluid: on menstrual blood
Mon-Shane also has her own version of my November 18 talk on stoplights and enthusiastic consent
UPDATE: Tal Peretz sends me this recording of our panel discussion on Men & Anti-Sexist Activism which took place at NWSA 2010 in Denver. You can stream this one without needing to download, though it’s a long-un at over 77 minutes.
Sorry, I haven’t listened to your lecture entirely. Have you read Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch? In her book she talks about the fact that boys/ (men?) do not have much respect for semen. For them it is simply ejaculate that they get when masturbating. She compares the womb to a sputum-bag. According to her, the female body for men is simply a recepticale to discard that “spit,” which is why derogatory words for the womb came up such as douche-bag, etc. Consider the word Jizz and other derogatory words for semen. I am not sure if you have covered this already in your lecture.
I always want to talk about menstruation as blood. According to a book I read on menstruation, some cultures used to consider that blood sacred and drink it, and then men started drinking blood randomly. In some African tribes, it still happens i.e., drinking blood of hunted animals.
I hope this may not be offensive but there is some theory that drinking Christ’s blood (symbolically) is in line with that tradition in some societies to drink actual blood. (It was either in the same book about menstruation, Her Blood is Gold, or Da Vince Code, or both.)
There are some societies that actually even eat the flesh of their dead ancestors, in order that the ancestor becomes part of them. Sorry for getting into this religious aspect of things.
Blood is not viewed badly in all societies.
Women give birth with pain, and blood. Sometimes the first time they have sex, they bleed. That’s how it is, isn’t it?
I also remember reading in The Female Eunuch that menstrual blood is not a waste product, and that we can actually, and should try it. Of courese, I haven’t done that yet. What is your take on that from a scientific point of view. Do you think it would taste different from blood (since you argue that it is not acutal blood from capillaries, veins or arteries.) From losing baby teeth, I remember blood tasted what I would now consider something iron-like or perhaps, the taste of plasma. What is the concentration of iron, plasma, platelets, red cells, white cells in menstruation? Is it really all that different from blood, other than the fact that it is also scrapings of a membrane called endometrium?
Some comments on your lecture from this biologically- inclined woman:
1) Veins are not small arteries. Arteries carry blood away from the heart and veins return blood to the heart. They are not differentiated based on size, and many veins are bigger than arteries! If you gouged deep into your thumb, you would hit arteries and veins and bleed like heck.
2) The endometrium contains a lot of blood because it is richly vascular. Blood is carried to the endometrium in capillaries and stored in lacunae. When the endometrial lining is shed, you lose the blood stored in these lacunae. Blood is blood is blood. If you take your blood and put it into a cup, it is still blood. Here is a link to some histological pictures of the endometrium, showing it chock-a-block with blood. (if you have a university library account you should be able to see this http://accessmedicine.com/popup.aspx?aID=3156480). And a diagram (http://accessmedicine.com/popup.aspx?aID=6183166). I get the point you are making- that menstruation is no more dirty than ejaculation, and I agree. However, we don’t need to purge the endometrium of all blood to make this point. We do not need to change the composition of the shed endometrium- we need to change attitudes toward it. Since I am a scientific person, and I know that the shed endometrium contains blood, what am I to come away with? That it is dirty? Because your lecture built a case that the endometrium is not dirty because it is not blood.
3) The rhythm method is a wonderful method for women who choose it. Many women choose to use condoms at the time that they are ovulating so they can enjoy sex when they are feelin’ it.
That’s all. I found your lecture interesting, and hope you post more in the future.
Amy, thanks for expanding on that. Again, I want to emphasize that blood is not considered bad in all societies, so call menstruation blood or fluid wouldn’t make a huge difference.
I have to listen to lectures more, especially semen one.
Amy, I though the whole point of the rhythm method and NFP were to avoid the use of artificial contraception. What’s the point of doing it if you’re just gonna use a condom during ovulation? How does that help a Catholic, which I think was Hugo’s point?
Are there people who use the rhythm method who aren’t in any way religious?
Yes, there are women who use the rhythm method who aren’t religious. It is a good method for women who do not want to take hormonal birth control for personal or health reasons, and who do not wish to use condoms all the time (usually in a long term relationship in which an accidental pregnancy wouldn’t be the end of the world to both parties). There really is no “perfect” birth control method- all require some combination of effort, invasion into the woman’s body and inconvenience. For some women I know, the rhythm method is the best fit for them. It can also be combined with the withdrawal method- ie. use withdrawal most of the time but step up to condoms when ovulating.
Indeed, Amy, I agree that there are many women who use the rhythm method who aren’t religious. And I accept your point that there is no perfect birth control method. But though research has shown that the withdrawal method does have more efficacy than we had once imagined, I’m still never comfortable mentioning it without saying that it has proven notoriously unreliable. I’m not ready to recommend it to young people as a primary method of contraception!