To think periods are a terrible design flaw in the human race

[CrumpledCrumpet]

Humans are quite remarkably cleverly designed creatures. Binocular vision, opposable thumbs, walking upright - we’ve got it all going on. But honestly, who came up with periods?

AIBU to think this is a massive design fault and someone needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with something better?

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

To be fair, teeth would be totally fine if we didn’t eat sugar

Lots of ancient skeletons have very worn down teeth. That was down to too much stoneground flour.

@CrumpledCrumpet

I mean if it’s strictly necessary that we need to shed our womb linings once a month (and as I don’t need to regularly shed any other part of my internal anatomy, I dispute this), could it at least be bundled up into a neat package like an owl pellet that we could just shoot out of our vaginas and then be done with it?

Could we shoot it out with force? Rather like a ping pong show?

I love this idea! Somebody get the scientists working on it stat

*Our fallopian tubes are open at both ends, causing a backwash effect of blood into the abdominal cavity during menstruation. Our immune systems are supposed to clean up the resulting mess, but in some unlucky individuals (i.e me) this process partly or wholly fails, leaving old blood behind which not only causes scarring but deposits womb cells where they should not be, which in turn causes further bleeding each month, more scarring, dreadful pain, and strangest of all, can severely impact on fertility

Intelligent design, my fucking arse!*

But an argument for evolution on the other hand. Those whose bodies can't deal with this design flaw have fertility issues and therefore any genes involved in this don't get passed on. Until you start adding in medical treatments and IVF of course...

(I am not anti medicine btw, far from it, I just find it interesting how our attempts to cure some issues cause spillover issues down the line.)

Also think we should consider that chickens get egg bound, before converting to any other methods.

I agree. I've been on the pill for years and there hasn't been one single moment I've ever thought I miss my period!

@Tinselscarf

Not every female was constantly pregnant or breastfeeding - miscarriages, widowhood, men off to war, etc. I have read that many ancient societies were more supportive of menstruating women.

You're not going back far enough - evolution works over much longer timescales except when there's really strong selection, and whilst periods are bloody annoying, having them isn't going to kill you before you can reproduce. So we have to look back as far as mammals ancestors. (And anyway, much of human history involved women being pregnant or breastfeeding most of their adult lives even up to Victorian times, and still in some parts of the world today.)

I know what you mean about very ancient history, but I've heard it before applied to more modern times, and I always think - every woman, all the time? Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, the wives of Henry VIII... anyway, it's a flawed system!

I wonder why so many of us need glasses/contacts.
Is it just because of modern life, reading etc?

I agree and think about this every month. I just think it proves the fact that if there is a God he's a man.

AIBU to think this is a massive design fault and someone needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with something better?

The only way it will change is if a mutation arises which gives rise to a different sort of menstrual cycle which (alongside the standard things we'd like to change - cramps, bleeding, stabbing your partner), confers an advantage fertility wise i.e. more girls (who would inherit the new mutation) born of the women with new sort of wonder-period.

Slowly this environmental advantage (ie woman able to have more girls) would start to predominate.

Basically, as soon as we've had children, our (evolutionary) job is done.

I think our instinct to have children is very, very strong, and we'll put up with a lot.

stabbing your partner
Maybe it's an evolutionary mechanism to reduce the male of the species

Love that article, Cattenberg. Wondering if I should share it with my former embryo turned offspring, but I fear it will paint me as a less good hostess than heretofore.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

To be fair, teeth would be totally fine if we didn’t eat sugar

Not always! Teeth can chip, break, snap off, overcrowd, impact in the gum.... Not eating sugar won't make them OK either. Decay also develops from carbs that turns to sugar. Bread, potatoes, pasta for example. Carbs might be slightly less bad for teeth than actual white sugar/sugary sweets, but it's not far behind.

www.agriland.ie/farming-news/christmas-six-illnesses-look-ewes-late-pregnancy-lambing-time/#:~:text=%20Six%20illnesses%20to%20look%20out%20for%20in,usually%20seen%20in%20the%20first%20weeks...%20More%20
Sheep can suffer from prolapse, twin lamb disease, listeriosis, mastitis and calcium deficiency in pregnancy. It's not a walk in the park for my ewes either.

@Feetupteashot

Better than laying an egg tho

Hahahaha

@derxa

www.agriland.ie/farming-news/christmas-six-illnesses-look-ewes-late-pregnancy-lambing-time/#:~:text=%20Six%20illnesses%20to%20look%20out%20for%20in,usually%20seen%20in%20the%20first%20weeks...%20More%20 Sheep can suffer from prolapse, twin lamb disease, listeriosis, mastitis and calcium deficiency in pregnancy. It's not a walk in the park for my ewes either.

I think maybe the human race has interfered horribly with the breeding of sheep and given them all sorts of problems they might not have had in the wild as side-effects. Used they to have twins and triplets as a regular thing, back in the old days before they'd been bred to have wool that needed shearing instead of being moulted all year round, for instance, and two lambs was more profitable for the owners?

(This not saying anything against your ewes. Just comparing ancient more-like-goats sheep and modern ones.)

Those poor sheep, @derxa.
I remember seeing a farming programme (sorry, I think it was Countryfile!) and some of the ewes were having terrible problems.

@CrumpledCrumpet

I mean if it’s strictly necessary that we need to shed our womb linings once a month (and as I don’t need to regularly shed any other part of my internal anatomy, I dispute this), could it at least be bundled up into a neat package like an owl pellet that we could just shoot out of our vaginas and then be done with it?

‘Like an owl pellet that we could shoot out of our vaginas’

Oh @CrumpledCrumpet I am properly LOLing. Coming into my third week of womb shedding, this has really cheered me up.

I also agree it’s a ducking huge design flaw.

@Illdoitinabit

Oh OP, I'm having visions of myself lay on my bed, legs akimbo in the air and shooting out my period pellet 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Sneezing during perimenopause whilst using tampons has a similar result, I suspect.

I had exactly this thought while dealing with my own earlier.

I always think teeth, backs and not growing new limbs (and new teeth) as some animals do are a major giveaway that humans were not 'designed', and not sure how religious folks explain this, although I'm sure they do come with something.

No it seems to work very well attracting mates at certain times.
Attention and men looking is one sign I know I'm due on I must give out strong pheromone?

@Maireas

I wonder why so many of us need glasses/contacts. Is it just because of modern life, reading etc?

Well we no longer need to be able to see danger or lunch approaching over the horizon……

But we are fertile, we get pregnant, our periods stop. We give birth, breastfeed and then we are fertile and we get pregnant again.
It’s very efficient if giving birth is all you are designed for.. and really that’s all nature cares about.

I find it quite incredible - the whole thing

But I don’t get bad ones

Not in a hippy way just wow this thing happens that is a cycle for new life

We're actually not designed to die at 30 or straight after having kids. It was living in towns and poor hygiene that reduced our life expectancy - in the hunter gatherer age we actually lived longer and the older women helped look after the kids.

If we were meant to die at 30 we'd die at 30 regardless of modern medicine and hygiene because our hearts would just give out.