Menstruation

Disclaimer: this article is intended for sensitive readers...

I started my menstrual cycle in my last year of primary school when I was 12 years old. My mom, having a health background has always been open to me about sexual education. I did not have to wait for the Life Skill class to learn about gonorrhoea so it was not difficult for me to approach my mother when the first spotting happened. Although it was not a taboo subject in our house, I found that my school mates found it difficult to talk about menstrual periods so we all just hid it from each other. Issues such as menstruation are not freely spoken about within our society, if anything, the narrative around periods is often synonymous to shame and contamination. My mother once told me a story about her first period. Word was that your period meant that you were pregnant. The anxiety that came with thinking she was pregnant led her to hiding her periods from her family for a while up until her sister found out; even then it was to be kept between them. Although sexual education in our schools is progressive in the fact that information is available, not much is done to demystify the narrative around menstrual periods.

I'm 31 years old now and not once in my menstrual cycle have I run out of sanitary towels (otherwise known as pads). Out of the fear of running out, I keep my pads everywhere. In my cupboards, in my bags, in my car – everywhere! Sometimes when some (you know we have to say some right? *side eye) of my male friends come across my pads, one can see the obvious discomfort they feel. This discomfort is often followed by expressions such as “ewwwwwwww” or “what is this doing here, so disgusting!” I never understand what is so disgusting about sanitary towels. I am still waiting to be enlightened.

September was a tough month for me, I was under immense pressure so when my period started I was totally caught off-guard with no pad in sight. I still don’t know how I managed to run out of pads but I could not find even one. None in my cupboards, none in my bags and not even in my car, absolutely nothing! A big deadline was threatening and I knew that if I went out to buy some, my creative juices would not give me a second chance. I was in a predicament and if I needed to get my work done, I had to seize the opportunity that these juices had granted me. I started tabulating various ways I could deal with my flow while I finished my work. My mom’s story came to mind, she used newspapers before her sister enlightened her. Another option was to use toilet paper but I had received more than enough lectures on how I would contract all sorts of diseases if I used toilet paper during my periods. These were desperate times and certain risks needed to be taken. And so, Alas, toilet paper it was. The first day is always my heaviest flow so I was tortured by leakage therefore my visits to the bathroom were quite frequent. I went through that roll in no matter of time. I was in a bad mood and felt tortured.

Although I managed to finish my work, the experience left me a bit irritated. I decided to take a bath before going out to buy some pads. Exhaustion must have got the better of me because I passed out.  All I remember after taking my bath was sitting on my bed to read a chapter from a poetry book and the next thing (four hours later), my eyes opened and I was totally out of it. Forgetting that I was on my periods, I stood up without thought and yep, all I felt was a gush of liquid racing down my thighs. I clinched my thighs as I took the long walk to the bathroom. I ran a bath again and dipped myself and shed some tears (I shed tears quite often). I started thinking about all those women and girls who go through this on a monthly basis; those who do not have access to pads. A friend once brought up a very valid point during a discussion on sanitary towels “we have free condoms in the bathrooms but why do we never see free pads?”

The next day I had a lunch meeting with a very good friend of mine and he picked that something was bothering me. I related this story to him and to my shock; he had a look of disgust on his face pleading to stop telling him as he could not deal with the imagery. Mind you, he has two daughters and when I asked how he would be dealing with daughters should something like this happen to them. He said that is why they have a mother. But what if the mother is not around and his daughter starts her first period? What then? How can we be comfortable with watching horror and action movies where blood gets gushed all over but when it comes to the menstrual blood, blue liquid has to be used just so that people are comfortable?