Blood & Bras

Puberty hit me like a brick at age nine. I remember the day vividly. It sucked.

I had no clue what the hell a menstrual cycle was - I just remember suddenly bleeding, and then my mother having to sit me down to explain that this would be the norm for the next thirty to forty years of my life.

There’s an old joke in the hills - “Never trust something that bleeds for a week and doesn’t die.”

Gods, I felt like death that day. I was so utterly depressed. It felt like my entire childhood had suddenly just been ripped away by the horrors of cramps, hormones, and bleeding like a stuck pig every. single. month. My mother let me stay home from school for a day, just to adjust. Also because my stomach felt like that Alien movie.

I hear men bitch about how they deal with other men, war, work, shit they’ve mostly created themselves (again, other men) - and I’m sorry but if you haven’t had to bleed every month of your life, then fuck you. I was a happy-go-lucky kid playing on a swingset and then suddenly I was a monthly horror film.

And not only THAT but THEN I had to have the talk - again, at AGE NINE - about exactly WHY I bled, and all the wonderful risks / responsibilities that came with it. My mother at least was a sex positive soul - she tried to teach me that sex wasn’t evil, it was natural and you just “had to be careful”.

Careful. Yeah right.

If I sound bitter here it’s because not a single fucking boy I ever grew up with got the “reproductive responsibility” bullshit I had to deal with at AGE NINE, AGAIN - LIKE WTF - and they just ran amok like stupid idiots without a single care in the world. Gods, did I resent them. If I ever fall into a man-hating stupor you’ll have to excuse my bloodlust. Like, literally - if it weren’t for my raging hormones I would have signed up for lesbian land long ago. Like hell did I want to make my situation worse by dealing not only with the excrutiating pain of menses but also the utter degredation and body-wrecking experience that is nine months of hell followed by hard labor - which can also still kill you. Goody.

I hated knowing that just because I had to be born a girl this was my lot in life. I mean, it’s already shit knowing you’re gonna be treated as weaker, stupider, “nicer” (again - bloodlust anybody? really?) while being expected to stay home and do all the shitwork everyone takes for granted. Then there’s all the fun worry about getting attacked/knocked up pretty much every day you decide to go outside because again, men don’t deal with this shit so why would they care who they subject to more suffering? Meanwhile the boys get to go run and play in the hills and the dirt and the trucks, la la la. Fuckers.

Besides it’s natural for girls to have kids - that’s why we program them to love little dolls from an early age and play “house”, so they understand and adjust to their future role. I mean, it wouldn’t do for them to want anything else - they’re already suffering, best to just stay home. I used to watch my girl friends in grade school plan out their future dream homes and husbands and honestly wonder what the hell was wrong with them - how could they want this crappy life?? Especially more than one kid? Are you insane??

...

I’ve been told my programming was missed, somehow.

Like I said, puberty hit me like a brick at age nine. Maybe if I’d had a little more time to be innocent - a little more time to not utterly dread the future - my programming might have kicked in properly.

But otherwise - nah.

Tell some little boy his ass is gonna bleed every moon cycle for the rest of his life until he shits out a watermelon after hauling a keg belly for nine months, and tell me how well he adapts.