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 ?

When my son had the talk in school he came home and gave my mum an almost word for word explanation about periods. She was totally enthralled and completely enlightened.
My sex education was a booklet given to parents to share with us, just before I started all girls Catholic grammar school. It included prayers to be said in the bath, as you washed certain parts of your body and you had to avert your eyes so you never looked at your naked body. Thankfully my mum had mentioned periods and bleeding every month so I knew some things. Told not to have a bath during my period, as it would stop the flow; send it back to my brain and would send me insane.
Slightly better than her introduction to periods. When she started she didn’t know what was happening. Her mum pinned a cloth to the front and back of her vest, told her she would be like that until she was 50 and keep away from boys.

Speaking as a man, I think that most men who know what a period is do understand, but I am not surprised at all to hear that there are men who don't or that imagine you can control it.

My gender rarely fails to disappoint me, but in fairness we are much simpler animals. More like labradors, but often with smaller brains. 😁

I believe in some rare cases women do pee and bleed from the same place, but I could be wrong on this.

Tbh men don't really need to know too much about periods and how they work.
They are never going have a period.......are they 😉

Not if the fathers are like any of the men mentioned on this thread, it would only be perpetuating the myths.

There are probably very basic things that are obvious to others that I don't know. We all have things that we don't know.

It gets more challenging as we age...

This is one subject that really has me cracking out the soapbox... Why have you put TMI in the title out of interest?
It's a period, perfectly natural as going for a piss but we're not shy about that, why? We need to talk about periods way more and normalise them, it's not a taboo subject. Girls should not feel embarrassed about being on a period or needing to use the bathroom because of it, fucking ridiculous.
As for your original question, no, I have never met a man that stupid -thank fuck.

I have never heard anyone say that you can control periods like wee.

@TotalOverhaul Luckily, they weren't, but I was still shocked! I thought he had attended the anatomy lessons.

This is what I was taught at school (I'm female, and not ancient) I only learned what a hymen is really like thanks to a TED talk with a model made out of a hula hoop (plastic not potato) and cling film!

...but the tampon is at least a finger length up inside... Urine shouldn't be able to get that far.

And this is why we need high quality RSHE taught in mixed sex groups.

'No, no! These weren't with an applicator! They were just tampons, but yours are like, short and fat-hers were long and thin like a cigar'.

'Dave, they'll have been the applicator ones. You don't GET 'long' tampons'.

This repeat X100 until I sent him a link to a website aimed at helping young girls learn about the different sorts of tampons and he read it and realised about applicator/non-applicator tampons.

What a jerk not to believe you.

@CrapGoat This should be entered for the mansplaining awards! It's truly a worthy winner.

Oh, your poor Nanny. @BrainWontWorkAnymore 😂😂

@EtiennePalmiere @HellInABasket he was a total jerk. Hence he's now an EX lodger.

@tachetastic that sort of talk annoys me if I am honest. Some of the world's most intelligent people are men. Inventors, scientists, surgeons-men are competitive creatures too. They'll literally create games out of just about anything to compete about it.

Why are they not competitive about understanding females? Why do they blame their 'simple minds' on not 'getting' this stuff? Men are as capable of thinking as women are.

I remember being in cars after a sports games giving alone man a lesson with the 3 other women in the car on female anatomy and contraception. They have all made good husbands/partners.

My own DP isn't that ignorant and neither are my brothers with daughters.

I have heard of men asking whether periods hurt in the same kind of pain you get when you cut yourself.
Also an ex boyfriend asked me whether inserting a tampon made me sexually aroused.
I think most men just cannot relate to the concept of periods in any way.

@BertieBotts Wait…they taught you this?! I’m 40 and definitely wasn’t taught that. That said, I did have one science teacher who was convinced that trees weren’t living organisms 😂.

It does seem crazy, but then again you don't know what you don't know. I would think a man should know this by the time he is an adult though assuming he's had a relationship with one or more female. I'm sure there's things that we don't know about me either. In fact I'd say there's lots we don't know about lots of things! Even our own bodies

It certainly does.

About 20 years ago I remember walking behind my Dad, and he was farting as he walked (He was mid 80s) and I wondered why he didn't hold until he got to the bathroom (about 2m away). Now I am late 60s, and I totally understand.

I can get up and walk across the room and I fart - I don't even get any warning, it just happens. Really weirdly though - my body, quite outside my consciousness, does know. I live alone. If my adult kids are here, it still happens. If anyone else is here - IT DOESN'T.
I went to a family wedding and a few of us shared an AIRBNB. All the time I was there, it didn't happen. At the wedding itself NOT ONCE. As soon as I got home, alone - it started again.

My guts definitely have a mind of their own

@NaughtyBoyGeorgeMichaelJacksonBrown - if you are thinking of the classic diagram of the stages of the menstrual cycle, if its any comfort I didn't understand until I had to teach it to student midwives. It's complex!

How old are you???

Ninety percent plus I’d say yes to that too. Occasional stomach upsets might mean uncontrollable leakage.

Yes! It's like so many things I learned at school - I knew it well enough to repeat and pass tests and exams but zero idea how it related to the real world.

@CrapGoat @tachetastic "that sort of talk annoys me if I am honest. Some of the world's most intelligent people are men. Inventors, scientists, surgeons-men are competitive creatures too. They'll literally create games out of just about anything to compete about it. Why are they not competitive about understanding females? Why do they blame their 'simple minds' on not 'getting' this stuff? Men are as capable of thinking as women are."

Apologies. I forgot this was Mumsnet and I had to add an ONLY JOKING warning. I'm not seriously suggesting men are actually less intelligent than labradors. On the whole anyway.

I don't think many men do blame their simple minds on not understanding female biology. I just don't think they were ever taught it to the degree you expect and have never had to deal with a period themselves and so sometimes make naive comments from a place of ignorance.

I raised two daughters in the absence of their mother, so I had more direct experience than most.