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Original poster

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

448 replies

Doingtheboxerbeat · 02/12/2023 18:03

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 ?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
RosesAndHellebores · 03/12/2023 01:51

I'm more shocked that men think they may have an opinion on the matter tbh.

TempestTost · 03/12/2023 02:11

witchypaws · 02/12/2023 20:41

My colleague who has two daughters thought women made new eggs every month

How would having daughters make this clear? There is really no way to know this unless someone tells you or you read it somewhere.

BlueEyedPeanut · 03/12/2023 02:25

I don't think it is right to ridicule people for not knowing things they have never been taught. If it is not something you've ever thought about or needed to know, it might not even occur to you that you don't know it.

A lot of women don't know that they are born with all the eggs they will ever have.
They don't know that the uterus is the size of a plum.
They don't know that tampons can't disappear up into the uterus.
Some think they can't get pregnant while breastfeeding.
Some think periods only last 3 days.
Some think they pee out of their vaginas.
Some don't know what a vulva is.

That is just women about their own bodies. There will be things about men that they don't know either. No one is born knowing this stuff. It doesn't help that anatomy lessons in school are taught using nice, neat drawings that resemble no vulva ever and a womb 20 times its real size.

GarlicMaybeNot · 03/12/2023 02:35

neat drawings that resemble no vulva ever

Gaping vagina syndrome 🙄😂

TempestTost · 03/12/2023 02:36

I would also add, BlueEyedPeanut, that sometimes people learn this stuff at school, but they don't really take it in. How many 13 year olds remember all the details of any lesson?

And many things we learn from a book don't really make sense to us until we see them in reality.

A lot of this stuff, I don't think it really matters if people have the wrong end of the stick about something. In general it has no real effect on anyone. It tends to get sorted when it actually becomes an issue. A few are really far out, but a lot aren't that weird. If no one told you otherwise, it seems like a reasonable explanation.

Some of these things are variable as well, or not totally cut and dried.

BlueEyedPeanut · 03/12/2023 02:52

Yep. I leaned more from magazines when I was 17 than I did at school when I was 13. A lot of it just wasn't relevant enough to stick in my brain until I became actually interested.

With a lot of the "wrong" things, you can still see the thought process behind it. Thinking periods can be held in like urine isn't extreme.

MrsHughesPinny · 03/12/2023 02:54

I’m over here feeling quite sorry for the women who say their DHs have never seen the female anatomy. Can’t be a particularly thrilling sex life if they’ve never gotten up close and personal with you! Good grief… 😟

HollaHolla · 03/12/2023 03:04

My first serious boyfriend (me 16, him 18) had grown up in a house of boys - and their mother hadn’t been open about periods. He thought that when a period came, it was one day a month; and always the same date. He was gobsmacked when I revealed the reality to him.
He was almost completely ignorant of the female anatomy as well.

At least my ex (of many years) had grown up with 4 sisters, and an open household. It was a big difference for him to ask me if I needed anything - heat packs, chocolate, etc! Shows you the difference of being properly educated.

CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau · 03/12/2023 04:06

Re the egg cup thing, I remember being told that as a girl and not believing it. When younger and heavier (I reached my highest weight at 12, and then started menstruating) I remember thinking that it would be at least a cup of tea, a can of coke, a huge US glass of coke even! Now if I have a sporadic period, it’s probably closer to half a shot glass full (my dad accidentally bought incontinence pads instead of period ones, but I’ve not got through a whole packet in over a year). But we were definitely told the egg cup thing as women and pads were demonstrated to us with ink cartridges etc.

Mummyoflittledragon · 03/12/2023 04:07

BlueEyedPeanut · 03/12/2023 02:25

I don't think it is right to ridicule people for not knowing things they have never been taught. If it is not something you've ever thought about or needed to know, it might not even occur to you that you don't know it.

A lot of women don't know that they are born with all the eggs they will ever have.
They don't know that the uterus is the size of a plum.
They don't know that tampons can't disappear up into the uterus.
Some think they can't get pregnant while breastfeeding.
Some think periods only last 3 days.
Some think they pee out of their vaginas.
Some don't know what a vulva is.

That is just women about their own bodies. There will be things about men that they don't know either. No one is born knowing this stuff. It doesn't help that anatomy lessons in school are taught using nice, neat drawings that resemble no vulva ever and a womb 20 times its real size.

I didn’t know a lot of these until adulthood. Sex education when I was at school was pretty much non existent. We saw a baby being born in the equivalent of year 7. The only other lesson was the anatomy part - a functional diagram of the uterus and ovaries. Am 52.

petermaddog · 03/12/2023 04:12

usa school inthe 70s had classes i was 13 the boys were in a seperate class/but we all about 15, taken to planned parenthood to get more education/we could get on the pill if we wanted.
free condom if not .pill was free too
my father had no problem to the store to get tampons for us
would bring chocolate.icecream etc

Middleagedmeangirls · 03/12/2023 04:32

I could hold in farts until I had emergency bowel surgery a few moths ago. Now any pressure in my lower colon is very uncomfortable so if it builds up to fart level I have to poo. I have new found sympathy for people who hHe lived their lives this way.

ThirtyThrillionThreeTrees · 03/12/2023 04:32

Santaiswashinghissleigh · 02/12/2023 18:29

A bf in his 30's asked if I had to remove a tampon to wee... When I got married my dh first saw female genitals when i was giving birth to his first dc...

I am so confused by this statement.

How did you manage to get pregnant without him seeing female genitalia?

Do you just hace sex in the dark or something? No oral sex ever? Etc. I can't really imagine how this is actually possible.

saltinesandcoffeecups · 03/12/2023 04:48

Doingtheboxerbeat · 02/12/2023 23:32

Moreover, I may have worded it wrong but I literally mentioned this very story in my OP 🤭 the one I started in fact.

Show quote history

Isn’t that just awkward when some people, in their zeal to point out ignorance, show themselves to be foolish?

Sorry won’t derail your thread anymore.

So I’ll just add this to stay on topic.

I think stuff like this can usually be boiled down to a few factors: Never being taught and the never really thinking about it, or not really needing to know it. I’ve surprised myself by realizing how something works and thinking to myself ‘huh, I probably should have known that’ I guess it’s a good thing that we never stop learning. Better late than never!

thevegetablesoup · 03/12/2023 06:29

I have a gay friend, who has lots of female friends. I love him but we had a proper falling out about this. He was completely repulsed by an advert which showed a tiny drop of blood on a girls knickers and compared it to "other bodily fluids" which wouldn't be shown on tv. I said it wasn't the same thing and he insisted it was.

Then I said "if you had shit leaking out of you for a week continuously what would you do? Just carry on as normal as that's the same as a women having a period?"

He didn't get it AT ALL.

BertieBotts · 03/12/2023 06:41

My periods do last about 3 days. I get heavier bleeding on day 1-2 then it goes to spotting for a day or two, that's it. Sometimes I can just wear a pantyliner and that's fine. I once asked my gynaecologist if this was OK and she said "Don't complain, that sounds great" 🤣

Tadah2 · 03/12/2023 06:47

Until my DH met me he thought a period was akin to passing urine (and he had a sister at home). His family did not discuss these sorts of things and education at school does show the blood flowing out like urine, so I don’t blame him.

pinkstripeycat · 03/12/2023 07:00

I overheard a dad in Asda telling off his daughter (around 15 yrs old) for wasting a box of tampons. (A single box! Surely not enough anyway). He said “I bought you these last week! What on earth are you doing with them?!”

She looked so ashamed, not embarrassed, actually ashamed, as if she had actually been wasting them.

There was an adult woman with them who said nothing!

iIf she was still needing them after a week she must’ve been in a pickle.

Howbizzare22 · 03/12/2023 07:03

I’m so tired of women’s bodies and how they function being such a taboo and shamed. 2023 and it’s still going on.

wiseoldcat · 03/12/2023 07:05

modgepodge · 02/12/2023 18:04

I’m not that surprised. I am a primary teacher who has to cover periods in PSHE and I always make it explicitly clear that it’s not like a wee that you choose when to do it, it just happens constantly for a few days. I do only teach girls though so I’m not helping the next generation of men unfortunately!

It is a shame that only girls are taught this. How come the boys aren't taught it too? Is there a move towards teaching boys about this topic? Genuinely interested as I thought things were becoming a bit more progressive now.

Moredarkchocolateplease · 03/12/2023 07:18

This thread is fascinating. I also thought the hymen was a thin but of skin that got broken. Will ask my teen DC if they know what it is!

And I also thought that about clots in period. That the blood had clotted together... I'm off to Google!

And I thought the uterus was the size of a fist. And that my period cramps were the lining of the uterus coming away.

I'm 45 and have two DC!!!!!

That said, I refused to read any books about pregnancy as it all made me feel a bit sick, so lots of that came as a surprise!!!

Moredarkchocolateplease · 03/12/2023 07:20

wiseoldcat · 03/12/2023 07:05

It is a shame that only girls are taught this. How come the boys aren't taught it too? Is there a move towards teaching boys about this topic? Genuinely interested as I thought things were becoming a bit more progressive now.

Show quote history

Suspect that poster teaches a girls school.

My DC prep school started this stuff aged 8 and they still have phse lessons going in to mid teen years where the info is refreshed and elaborated on.

I had a great conv with DC when he was 8 all about tampons and pads on the way home in the car after school once!

Madamlulu · 03/12/2023 07:24

I listened to an article on the radio some months back about a campaign to teach boys about periods. It explained that boys are very uneducated about it making it a really embarrassing thing for girls because boys don't understand how to treat girls around it and be respectful.

It made me think how us Mum's or boys (I have 2) have a responsibility to educate our boys on this. Tbh I always have some- not through trying to educate them but just simply by being the only woman in our house
and I'm open and talk about mine! I talk to them about how I have period pain, how I've leaked through to my trousers and had to change, how I've got to go out and buy pads , how I'm more tired on the day I start my period etc etc - all the things we would talk about to a friend. I've just always been open but I realise now this is so important! To them periods are not a big deal now and I've heard their girl cousin saying to them on holiday that she doesn't want to go swimming because she's on her period and they don't bat an eyelid.

Made me realise how important it is to be open with our sons. Not sure if I am approaching this like all mum's do tbh as I have no idea - I grew up in a house of girls which is maybe why I am so open and don't know any different.

Madamlulu · 03/12/2023 07:30

Sorry for the typos.. typing when just woken up without glasses and read it back and realised I really shouldn't do that!

mangochops · 03/12/2023 07:34

BlueEyedPeanut · 03/12/2023 02:25

I don't think it is right to ridicule people for not knowing things they have never been taught. If it is not something you've ever thought about or needed to know, it might not even occur to you that you don't know it.

A lot of women don't know that they are born with all the eggs they will ever have.
They don't know that the uterus is the size of a plum.
They don't know that tampons can't disappear up into the uterus.
Some think they can't get pregnant while breastfeeding.
Some think periods only last 3 days.
Some think they pee out of their vaginas.
Some don't know what a vulva is.

That is just women about their own bodies. There will be things about men that they don't know either. No one is born knowing this stuff. It doesn't help that anatomy lessons in school are taught using nice, neat drawings that resemble no vulva ever and a womb 20 times its real size.

I agree with this. My husband was born and raised in Iran- there until his late 20s, they had no sex education whatsoever and its a taboo subject to even discuss in public- even western TV programmes with kissing scenes were edited out. I have told him everything about female anatomy but its hardly his "fault" if he was unable to discuss it and it wasnt talked about and therefore, he didnt know it. Not everyone has the opportunity for a good education or an environment where they can ask questions.