Clean and Elegant

Clean and Elegant

Sunday 12 May 2013

Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter

Every time your vagina bleeds, it means that you won’t become a mother.  My mother hated getting her period.   I remember the sobbing, the wailing, and the devastated voice.  “I’m getting my period,” she'd call out through tears. 

At least once, I saw a toilet full of blood.

It looked a little bit like this.


What the Blood Looked Like
I was around four years old when I saw the toilet full of blood for the first time. The people who wrote the Vagina Monologues complained that they couldn’t find any positive images related to menstruation.  How is this possible?  Look at the beautiful blood in this toilet.  It is hardly original.

Usually in life, your dreams don’t come true.  When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming an excellent brain surgeon, or president of the United States, or a nun.  None of these things have happened.   Maybe it is not too late, but probably it is.  That’s okay.  Other dreams have come true. 

Or at least one did.

A couple of months ago, I had the dream of pouring all of the internal lining of my uterus and whatever else comes out of my vagina into a jar throughout an entire menstrual cycle.  Then I would have all of the blood in one place.  I could look at it, keep it in my fridge, maybe water the plants with it, or use it for arts and crafts. 

Friends, it wasn’t easy, but I persevered.  Everywhere I went, I toted along my peanut butter jar.  If you aspire to do this yourself, I recommend opening the jar before you pull out the diva cup.  Opening the jar with a full diva cup can be a little precarious.  Good thing I have such excellent dexterity. Be sure to firmly secure the jar’s lid in place.  One evening, I took the jar out of the fridge where I kept it at night and showed it to the Boatman.  “Look at all my blood so far,”I said, holding out my right hand.

He was rightly mesmerized. 

Then he said, “Babe. Is that blood on your hand?”

Oops.

After five to seven days, the blood stopped flowing and the jar was as full as it ever would be.  For one and a half weeks, it sat on this refrigerator shelf next to the jam and the peanut butter and the ketchup and the vegannaise.   Beside the ketchup, there are jars of salsa and pickled turnips. Somewhere around there, you will also see a banana.  One and a half bananas.



My jar of blood, amongst other jars of other things
I hate veganaise and regular mayonnaise.  I also hate cleaning my fridge.       

Now it is Mother’s Day and blood is flowing from my vagina once again.  The peanut butter menstrual blood jar has long ago been carried away by a recycling truck. 

These photos are the only proof it ever existed. Behold the red, and see how it makes you feel.  
 

 

Thank you to the Boatman for supporting me in my dreams and taking such revolutionary pictures. 

Thank you to my mother for supporting me in my dreams and giving up menstruation at least nine months in my honour.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mother and everyone’s.

The End.


Menstrual Blood, Peanut Butter
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Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
 
Exalted
The Boatman and the Maxi Pad
The Earth Will Shake Us Off Like Fleas

 


10 comments:

  1. Happy (potential) Mother's Day to you too!

    Your pictures remind me of something. I have friends who are totally repelled by the sight of menstrual blood (one of them throws up when he sees it). Looking at your pictures, I have this strange feeling that is rather hard to explain, but I'll try. A part of me finds the sight of the blood to be unsettling and even repulsive, but the rest of me looks at it and says, "Well, it's just blood." I have the feeling that the part of me that is repulsed by it is the part that has been conditioned by a particular culture to find it repulsive. The other part of me is the "naturalist" part of me that simply acknowledges blood as blood.

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  2. Oh, I should also add that the blood in your pictures bears a certain uncanny resemblance to strawberry preserves... I hope you are not unduly offended by the comparison of such a vital bodily fluid to something so mundane and prosaic.

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  4. Thank you for reading, and for your comments. Some people just don't like blood, but when it comes to menstruation, I wonder if the issue is that the blood came from a woman's vagina. Whatever the case, we all have different levels of comfort when it comes to bodily parts and functions. My level of comfort, as you can infer, is quite high. And I do find the colour rather resemblant of strawberry jam, and I found this interesting, if not mildly delightful.

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  5. 1. I am unsettled by this post. It bothers me when peanut butter is put in the fridge. I've heard you're supposed to do that with all-natural peanut butter but I never have my whole life, and nothing bad has ever come of it, not even in the apartment that was so miserable that even maple syrup went moldy.
    2. I also hate cleaning the fridge, and have therefore conspired to live a fridgeless life as soon as ever I can. I have hopeful sketches on yellow paper.
    3. You're in Halifax, aren't you? This gives me peanut butter envy. I miss east coast peanut butter like a ghost misses bones. (Not all-natural, though. The salty kind. Mmmyeah. That's the stuff.)
    4. This makes me want to have a menstruating contest with someone sometime. Depending on the cycle, I bet I could win. I (not) secretly (anymore) believe I am an above average menstruator.

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  6. i have finally read this post.

    i will admit, that although i LOVE my diva cup (and the fact that it has allowed me to feel so much more connected with my cycle), that although the sight of it all poured into the toilet is somehow beautiful and interesting, it still triggers an "ick" factor. I think it is a combo of what Nobel said (I really don't like the sight of any blood, no matter where it comes from) and what you said- we are conditioned to not talk about *those things*.

    so. In that vein- I say KUDOS to you for talking about it. we need to do that more :D

    (also, yay natural peanut butter! to emmwords, you totally get used to eating pb from the fridge :) )

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  7. Congratulations!!!!! Love your love Project. This is so sacred and so strong. Right now I am collecting my moon blood too. I feel great!!!!!!!!

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    1. Thank you for your comment, Yolanda. All my best to you and your moon cycle, and to the cup -E. xo.

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  8. Deberiamos pensar en la cantidad de células madre que tiene nuestro endometrio. Y como esta acción de aguardar tu menstruación en un frasco pueda convertirse en un futuro en algo practico. Algo que hagamos todas las mujeres para salvar vidas, para curar enfermedades, para crear vida.
    ___________________________________________

    We should think about the amount of stem cells that have our endometrium. And this action await your period in a bottle can become a future in something practical. Something that all women do to save lives, cure diseases, to create life.

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  9. First off, I am male. I find this fascinating, and because I have no periods it is both educational and very interesting. I am not in any way grossed out by it, and thanks for the lovely illustrations. Its all so natural. I have never seen the real thing etc, but if I date a girl I would have no problems at all, and could listen to her all evening talk about periods. It is so so fascinating. I am sure other men feel the same.

    Herts (England).

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