To be horrified to learn that there are men .. TMI warning

[Doingtheboxerbeat]

This is not a men bashing thread
There are actual adult men that are unaware that periods can't be controlled like other body fluids and that pads and tampons are there in case of leaks. That we can hold it in until we visit the toilet.

At first I thought bullshit, then I realised, actually how would they know unless someone specifically pointed out the difference. I can't remember ever being told this, because I started in primary school before I learned about it at school.

I discovered this from a Reddit post so probably bs that a single parent man who was probably quite poor and thought that his daughter was wasteful/ too lazy to just not wait to visit the toilet.

I have never in my life met any man that thought this, but then again, I have never asked, but then I think about how many millions of people are uneducated about things that don't really affect them.

This is batshit, right ?

Unfortunately my DH had no idea about the female reproductive system. He’d been to all boys Catholic schools. Was brought up by parents in a loveless and separate bedroomed marriage. I quickly brought him up to speed when we got to that point in our relationship.

Fortunately DD knew she could ask her (now fully educated) Dad to get her some towels when she was caught short when I was out and he was happy to comply.
It’s not the man’s fault if he doesn’t understand how it works.

I remember mentioning thisnin passing in front of a male friend at school around age 15 and he was like whaaaaaaat you mean you have zero control over it?! He just assumed it was like a wee.

Is because of schools being too prude to teach boys about female bodies.

On the other hand .... I had a friend who (until her wedding night!) thought that a penis was the width of a pencil.

Does anyone really still think you can’t have a bath during a period? (I forget which pp mentioned it).
My DM was born in 1918 and even she didn’t believe that, so I was honestly shocked to find that my German exchange girl’s mother most certainly did - they weren’t allowed to wash their hair, either! What on earth did she think would happen, I wonder?

This was in the mid 60s and I still remember vividly the younger sister having a tantrum at the dining table because she wasn’t allowed to wash her hair. ‘Ich kann es nicht mehr leiden! (I can’t bear it any longer!) and good old Mutti giving that sort of patient sigh - ‘Immer ein Theater!’ (Always a drama!).

I think it is up to mothers to teach their sons about this.

Ds has always known about periods. He was a Velcro toddler who would randomly appear in the bathroom and mine have always been very heavy and horrific, so I had to explain it in as age appropriate fashion as possible.

Now he is a bit older it’s just one of those things, not a big deal, but he understands how it works and how it can affect women.

Though he did announce loudly in the corner shop the other day that he was going to use his pocket money to buy his older dsis some ‘period chocolate because her tummy hurts’ which got a few funny looks.

I’ve just remembered something that may be related and help explain how these misunderstandings can occur. It was a post on mn actually, a doctor admitted that she had though that babies produce a constant stream/trickle of poo and wee and it had never occurred to her that they had bowel movements and urinated when necessary.

she was embarrassed, and explained that she’d never given much consideration to when she thought they learned to hold it in.

i suppose it’s understandable that if you have never shared a bed with a woman who leaked you might not know that periods aren’t controllable?

I teach PSHE. In Y7 we have a unit on puberty and menstruation. I make them label diagrams of the body, including 'three holes?' as one incredulous child exclaimed. I pass round sanitary products, including reusable pads and pants.

I asked the kids last year why boys and girls had to learn about periods. One boy said 'well, because half the population are female - it's your mum, your sister, your auntie, your girlfriend, your wife - how can you say you don't need to know?'

The coy husbands and wives are definitely a thing. I worked with a woman in the 90s who came from a very traditional Irish Catholic background, very happily married (she actually seemed to be very positive about sex, which was surprising) who informed us all one day that she'd only seen her husband naked for the first time two years before! Married nearly 30 years and three kids, the mind boggles. I would surmise lights out, long nightdresses, pyjamas with loose elastic.

Yes. One of my Y7 girls last year said her mam would not let her, or her older sisters, have a bath during their period.

Me too! I can sometimes make them silent, but that’s the extent of my control.

How did that go?

On the same lines, women never have periods in films. OK, characters rarely pee and never poo either, but I do sometimes think writers/directors could wrangle a bit of period awkwardness in there now and again.

Coupled with the not unrelated facts that your movie female manages to survive weeks under hostile conditions without growing any leg hair, and always goes from snog to orgasm in 15 seconds, it's hardly surprising that many men have unrealistic expectations.

I’ve just asked my highly intelligent, 2 parents as doctors, 50 plus friend this question and he said “well yes. I think so”. Explains a lot. I asked him if he could hold in a nosebleed

I used to know a man in his 60s who thought that women urinated through their clitoris. He also admitted he was a virgin, and I don't know what sex-ed he had in school, if any.

I had the period talk in the last year of primary school... boys and girls separately. I had no idea what periods were until that day, or that sex involved putting a penis into a vagina. The school nurse put a tampon in a jug of water, and it blew up to the point that I decided I would never be using them (and I haven't). I am in my 40s and would have no clue about tampons.
My mum never spoke to me about periods or sex. When I shyly told her I had blood in my knickers, she pulled a face and gave me the worlds thickest pad. Said to flush it down the loo after use, and never to wash my hair when I was on my period. Also said to never let the packaging rustle when my dad was about. Even now, in women's loo in pubs etc, I wait until everyone is gone until I change a pad.

But then, it wasn't until relationships with men that I had any clue about wet dreams, morning wood, pre-cum and growers/showers.

I had a female friend in the 1990s (she was in her 20s at the time) who genuinely thought that period pain was caused by the womb lining 'tearing away'. I mean, FFS!

There are grown ass men in government in the US that think a woman can’t get pregnant from rape. In fact they think womens bodies just stop rapists.

so no, this isn’t remotely surprising

How is it that she didn't know until she had her third or fourth baby that birth was through the vagina? I don't understand how that's possible.

Threads like this always invite those who make stuff up to sound even more awesome than the previous poster.

This is my favourite of all the female biology facts ... The egg that you were, was formed in your grandmother's uterus!

Given how many doctors, incl. mine, have a bee in their bonnet about the menopause 'starting at 51', as if our bodies have timers like central heating boilers, ordinary men's views don't really surprise me, tbh. A lot of men seem to think that women's bodies are like machines that can be 'sorted', they talk that way about contraception - 'why don't you get yourself sorted out {so I can fuck you}, why don't you try HRT {so I can fuck you).' The highly individualised complexity of the female body seems to really annoy some of them.

Your son sounds adorable!

My (ex)boyfriend who was 17 at the time in 1998 told me it was a shame girls couldn't wee and pooh at the same time. When I queried why that would be he informed me confidently that girls wee'd out of their bums so the wee and pooh couldn't come out at the same time. He was also very sure that only half an egg cup full of blood was produced during a period and didn't understand what the fuss was about.

And he really thought he was far more intelligent than I was 😔

Men obviously don’t have periods so they only knowledge is based on what they have or haven’t been told

women have periods so one way or another they find out wether it’s being told or experiencing it

This is what I mean, and I am absolutely questioning if all the men I have ever known actually subconsciously think this too.
It's too weird to think about to be honest.