This article on Freebleeding is really interesting

[Mignonette]

Freebleeding - why is this taboo when images of violence, sex and repression are not?

Or should we see menstruation as nothing more than a process of excretion and attach no special significance to it?

[Grennie]

Washable sanitary protection is logically no more icky, than washable nappies.

[BerylStreep]

I recall a thread on here maybe about 6 months ago where a wedding guest had leaked blood on the chair at a hotel reception, and posters here were baying for blood, saying how revolting she was.

I thought it was all a bit over the top, and felt sorry for the poor woman who had leaked. On that basis, I don't think free bleeding will become acceptable in MN circles

[Mignonette]

Buffy

Definitely yes, staff and patients. I recall going into the segregated area with a male staff member to relieve night staff. The person had bled everywhere, it was smeared over walls and her. He was furious with the night staff that they hadn't tried to deal w/ it better but pretty hard to know where to start. He struggled to hide his feelings, a mixture of revulsion, sympathy and horror.

There were often incidents of urinary and faecal incontinence on the ward and people were definitely more sanguine (approp word) about it and patients would step over it or alert staff. Not blood though although blood presents a far more overt and immediate risk of transmission of certain (BBV) viruses.

With people who self harm on wards, you had to have immediate responses to blood spills.

[Salbertina]

Wow, Mignotte, respect. Can't imagine having to do this as part of the day job, if I'm honest, but grateful that people do!

[Mignonette]

Salbertina

Thanks. I loved my job but it had its tough moments

[Shallishanti]

But as Mignonette says, blood is a genuinely more risky bodily fluid than snot/wee/poo....so it's reasonable for people to be more concerned if it isn't cleared up quickly

[MiscellaneousAssortment]

Can anyone find anything more on culture and taboos around periods in the C19th? I find it really hard to understand how that fits into the culture of politeness and feminine repression.

[Mignonette]

Maybe if menstruation started at another time of our lives instead of in the middle of the maelstrom of adolescence where it is easy for feelings about one area of our lives to spill over into another?

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, even fifteen - so young to deal with it all. And when you are beset with severe pain, hormonal problems and mood swings it so very easily can become something that weakens and diminishes you, your life or feels as if it does.

[DuskAndShiver]

Some more on this:

www.mum.org/underhis.htm

When I was younger, I used to think that boys / young men my age behaved more freely because a formative risk was absent from their lives - that of unmanaged periods - and that girls had to make sure they always had san pro, money to buy it, access to bathrooms etc to deploy it and wash, and perhaps changes of clothes and laundry facilities, and an organised sense of time passing and when you could expect the next onslaught. Freewheeling adventures like "on the road" are not open to girls who would die of shame if they showed a blood spot. I knew boys who would be happily penniless (having spent their money on booze or fags and happy to scrounge food), sofa-surf for weeks on end, never worry about a change of clothes. it was a way of life that just didn't seem open to me.

Now it seems the opposite - that if we had really felt (or been) free, we would have done as we liked and sod the blood

[DuskAndShiver]

www.mum.org/underhis.htm

sorry, proper links.


liberationcollective.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/the-shame-of-menstruation/

[SingingGerbil]

Surely pooing is natural but I wouldn't take a shit in the street

[DuskAndShiver]

nope, neither would I. but people used to go anywhere! At Versailles, people pissed in corridors.

as Grennie, I think, said above, I think it is fascinating that the folk memory of looser times that were not so long ago, has completely left us. Not only were the practices banned, but even talking about them was effectively got rid of!

[Grennie]

Yes, so it means we have no idea how they stopped or what happened to change things.

[IAmNotAPrincessIAmAKahleesi]

There is no shame in menstruation in this house, our sex life doesn't stop and my teenage boys will happily pop to the shops for San pro for me, dh is my carer and doesn't bat an eyelid if he has to deal with it. I realise this is a little it unusual though and that is can still be taboo

I do think menstrual bleeding needs to be dealt with properly because of all the reasons others have said such as risk of spreading disease and also because we don't let other bodily fluids just flow wherever and whenever - look at the hideous effects of raw sewage carrying death and disease, we are incredibly lucky not to have to worry about those things and I think free bleeding would be a step backwards

I do think menstrual blood is 'worse' than other blood though (sorry) because a) there is usually a fair amount of it whereas it's quite unusual to encounter someone bleeding very heavily and b) it can start to smell bad quite quickly when not dealt with because it isn't just blood like you would get from a cut it also contains tissue etc, I don't think that means anyone should be ashamed of it but I do think it's another reason to dispose of it properly (as we do with other bodily fluids)

[EBearhug]

I grew up in a household where my mother's san pro was always on view besides the loo, whether actively in use or not, and mine is now in my house (it's convenient there.) I also don't go to any particular effort to hide sanpro in the walk from my desk to the loos at work - it's usually just in my hand, as I keep it in my drawer.

But I don't want to do freebleeding on the heavy days. It's fine when the flow is light, but the rest of the time, I have to do my laundry, and that's enough of a faff without it being blood-stained. (I fully appreciate chucking stuff in an automatic machine is nothing like the faff it was for my grandmother and - well, earlier generations, for the staff.) We clean up bodily fluids, and menstrual blood isn't any different - it's mostly about hygiene.

I would suggest the reason things changed through the 19th century is because that there were loads of changes in public health and individual health. Water supplies improved, people got access to water closets, towns got public sewers, there were public wash houses. There was better understanding of how diseases and so on spread. There was more public interest in how people's lives were lived. Also, skirts used to be pretty much floor-length - it would mostly have only been petticoats which were bled on, and in the 20th century, skirt lengths start moving upwards, exposing ankles, calves and knees, so freebleeding just wouldn't have been as discreet. And houses these days are often carpeted, not bare floor strewn with straw, and you can't muck out a carpet in the same way. I would think there were a whole load of factors that feed into it, and it just becomes less common.

But while I wouldn't go as far as freebleeding, I don't see why menstruation has to be a secret. If my colleague can say, "I'm off to the loo, had a big curry last night," (which frankly is TMI,) then I don't see it's any worse to say, "I'm just going to the loo before I start leaking." Though to be honest, I wouldn't think I'd mention it at all - if I do, it's likely to be, "I just need to pop to the loo before the meeting starts," without going into any detail about exactly why (not least because occasionally it's just that I need 5 minutes away from my phone!)

[SwayingBranches]

The taboo around menstruation isn't about the biology of it though. I mean no-one wants to be confronted with other bodily fluids, or solids, but they are still spoken about, and if not directly addressed, they are allowed to be joked about.

[RufusTheReindeer]

My 12 year old has just started and is bleeding a lot

Over the weekend she has bled through a towel, pants shorts onto the sofa. And through the same amount of "protection" onto a wall..don't ask

She doesn't care, the boys and her family are brushing it off (they don't know any different) but it does worry me that it will happen at school because of the pack mentality

It will probably calm down and not be an issue but a lot of people act repulsed by it and I don't want her upset and feeling that she is dirty

[PleaseJustLeaveYourBrotherAlon]

I've seen this before, but someone just reshared on _chat...

[PleaseJustLeaveYourBrotherAlon]

Rufus has she tried mooncups? I haven't used them myself but I know they are loved by all of MN and you can also use a pad that way. Also that sounds like quite a lot of blood, make sure you speak to her doc and keep her iron up

[PleaseJustLeaveYourBrotherAlon]

Also I remembered a film with periods which I don't think has been mentioned.


Superbad

He's dancing with a girl gets a bit of blood on him and his horrified and mocked for the whole scene.

www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/10/10-most-disgusting-uses-bodily-fluids-movies/superbad-period-stain

Link above is titled the 10 most disgusting uses of bodily fluids in movies.

A bit of menstrual blood on your leg is fucking rank apparently.

[RufusTheReindeer]

please

This is only her 2nd period, her first was more "normal" or at least like mine!! I was going to leave it for a few months and see if it settles down, if not it's doctors for sure

I was on the pill at 13 for bad periods so it wouldn't surprise me if she is the same

Moon cups is an idea if it stays heavy and I had forgotten about the iron so thank you very much for that reminder

[Mignonette]

Interesting posts.

Generally if you are a person who wouldn't pass comment about going to the loo then i suppose that would extrapolate to letting people know you had a period. I frequently didn't mention it to my Husband unless the issue came up (very light, very short) not that it bothered him and he was unfazed by it. However he was a registered psychiatric nurse himself and has had to provide personal care to menstruating patients - there isn't always a same sex member of staff available. He did say I am the most private women he has ever met re this. I think private=bit of a hang up in this respect.

I never even told my Mother when mine started. We weren't close. I just dealt with it. That makes me feel a little bit sad for my 14 year old self.

Interesting juxtaposition about changes in public health being a possible factor in the cessation of free bleeding. I think ideas around 'cleanliness being next to Godliness' may have played a part in this too and the containment of Women and diminishing of their presence in the public sphere. Although Women may have always lacked agency in certain arena's it was the Industrial Revolution that impacted upon patterns of Female working and collectivity wasn't it?

Certainly our homes now are not conducive to free anything in terms of us all being stashed away in our little sealed units, carpeted and heated (as Bear said) and every aspect of our lives under scrutiny. Such a dichotomy in the way clothing has become looser, more down to personal choice (for many women-not all) yet female bodies and what we do with them appears to be not in tangent with this. The last gasps of a patriarchal society? One can hope.

We have a way to go before leaks can be viewed nonchalantly without extra shame or embarrassment being attached- certainly no more embarrassment than one would feel if they accidentally urinated over themselves.

[GarlicReturns]

I dunno. I had irregular mega-periods all through my life. I've bled everywhere. I used to wear black trousers all the time, except the fortnight after a period. No-one's ever said anything, steered clear or cornered me for a quiet chat. I've frequently phoned in late for work, having needed to get off the Tube and find a loo to change my multi-layered sanpro. The only boss who made a fuss about it was a monster bully anyway. I've left hotel sheets in an apocalyptic pile, and apologised to the management on my way out. Once I came on while wearing shorts, there were rivers of blood running down my legs in the Sainsbury's checkout queue. One man asked if I needed a doctor, and a member of staff brought me a packet of wipes.

I'm old, though Has it got worse, or are women assuming it's more of an issue than it is?