An absorbing topic

What time of year is it when yellow daffodils are blooming all around campus, everyone is complaining about those trees that smell like meat and the guys who live above Panda Express are shirtless out on their balcony? You don’t have to be a detective to solve this mystery! Every clue leads back to one thing: It is springtime in Bloomington.

The student body suffers from a collective post-break hangover, and if you managed to make it to every class this week or at the very least figure out how to form complete sentences, kudos to you, brave soldier.

As the weather shifts erratically from thunderstorms to heat waves, Mother Nature isn’t the only gal in town having mood swings.

That’s right, ladies, you know what I’m talking about. Call it what you like — on the rag, monthlies, shark week, surfing the crimson tide, Aunt Flo coming to town, Cousin Blood is visiting from Uterine Liningsville — I’m talking about menstruation.

Whether you are an experienced OB/GYN or if just reading the words “menstrual blood” makes you want to rip your newspaper up in disgust, it is something we’re all familiar with. Barring any unusual circumstances, every woman experiences this cycle, most of us on a monthly basis. So what is everyone so embarrassed about?

Sure, we all have those mortifying middle-school memories of when our well-intentioned but tactless classmates pointed out that, “Hey, there’s something on your butt.” Thus emerges the classic right of passage, making your best friend take off her hoodie so you can fashionably tie it around your waist, covering the evidence on your stained skort.

All jokes aside, those first couple of months can be terrifying for young girls. They are unsure of the changes happening in their bodies but too ashamed to reach out to siblings, friends and parents. I remember locking myself in the bathroom and frantically reading through poorly-illustrated instructions. My friends reluctantly bypassed pool parties and sleepovers to save themselves from potential embarrassment. I hope the embarrassment fades and that, with time, we learn to accept ourselves, but still it is common to find women so deeply uncomfortable with their own bodies.

As women’s menstrual maladies have become quite the absorbing topic among politicians recently, you would think such a heavy flow of reproductive debates would generate, if not more positive, at least more open discussion.

But no, even politicians and lawmakers fumble with the sensitive semantics of the female physique.

Being comfortable with discussing our gynocentric ground workings is one small but important step toward improving feelings about ourselves and how we talk about women’s reproductive health.

I’m not saying that the next time you need to pull out a tampon, you should loudly proclaim to all present your state of uterine activity. Just know that if Aunt Flo decides to make an unexpected announcement, don’t let the negative, misguided opinions of others cramp your style.

Explore eco-friendly alternatives to managing menstruation. Despite how ecstatic the ladies in tampon commercials look wearing white jeans and doing yoga, disposable wads of cotton are not your only option.

Be invested in your body. Treat it well.

Turn that period, if you will, into an exclamation point.

­— alliston@indiana.edu