Separating the men from the boys

The other day, I read an excerpt from Mindy Kaling's new book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Mindy Kaling's hilarious, so of course the excerpt was good. In it, she talked about the importance of dating a man, rather than a boy.

Until I was 30, I dated only boys. I'll tell you why: Men scared the shit out of me. Men know what they want. Men own alarm clocks. Men sleep on a mattress that isn't on the floor. Men buy new shampoo instead of adding water to a nearly empty bottle of shampoo. Men make reservations. Men go in for a kiss without giving you some long preamble about how they're thinking of kissing you. Men wear clothes that have never been worn by anyone else before. ...Men know what they want, and that is scary. 

What I was used to was boys.

Boys are adorable. Boys trail off their sentences in an appealing way. Boys get haircuts from their roommate, who "totally knows how to cut hair." Boys can pack up their whole life and move to Brooklyn for a gig if they need to. Boys have "gigs." Boys are broke. And when they do have money, they spend it on a trip to Colorado to see a music festival. Boys can talk for hours with you in a diner at three in the morning because they don't have regular work hours. 

But they suck to date when you turn 30.

So the concept of differentiating men from boys has been in my mind a lot lately. Cue the latest post by The Frenemy, who is also hilarious and good.

There’s this guy standing in front of me right now-adult, able to buy his own toothpaste, knows his jeans size in inches. This guy has totally lost his shit somewhere on the corner of Metropolitan and ‘maybe we should have taken a left’, and it’s technically something I said but not my fault. I’m standing here, looking around frantically at the six-pack of the kinds of hipsters that say they’re hipsters, so are therefore just dudes wearing hats. I’m eyeing them like maybe I’m the one that should be embarrassed, because my friend is going LA LA LA I don’t want to HEAR you and I have to keep on moving, coaxing him out of the moment like a dog.

Okay! I won’t bring it up anymore. Can we just get our hands on some ‘artisan what the hell is artisan’ burgers now and you can stop singing?

All I had said was that I was on my period. This is around the time that he started acting like a child, and it’s not his fault. 9 times out of 10 idiots, it’s this: you tell any adult man that you’re on their period/he’s got the maturity level of Dave Coulier in Full House, he can react in the ‘nana nana poooopy’ kind of way and we just accept it. He’s a baby, we think! I better stop being such a lady and shut my mouth!

...For the men- if you want to be an adult about it, you nod when I say that I have my period. You nod like an adult and you move on. Once a month, blood is shed from my uterus because I am not pregnant and I’m not having a baby squeeze out of me any time soon. It does not pour out like the river.It does not shoot out of my vag like a squirt gun filled with Kool-Aid, and it A THING THAT HAPPENS and you shouldn’t be grossed out by... Do not look away at tampons, do not wince at the word uterus. If you’re a grown-ass man who wants to stick his grown-ass parts into any woman, you better be respectful enough to acknowledge that the things her body does are normal and fine and not gross. I know you’re not all like this, because I know some real cool guys. I tip my hat off to you and your uterus respect.

I mean, I don't want to hog all the good quotes here, so go read the whole thing. I have yet to read a Frenemy post where I didn't LOL at least once.

Personally, I remember one of the first times I told a guy I had my period. He was my boyfriend, and I'm pretty sure I told him straight up. He was like, "That is awesome! I couldn't even tell! This is one of the many reasons why I love you--you're exactly the same when you have your period! You're not even grouchy or anything! That's awesome!" Ahw. <3

Menstrual intercourse

I have this article here. I can't decide if I like it or not. It's a guy writing about having sex during a woman's period. I like it and don't like it at the same time.

Now, I know which side of the fence I fall on on this topic. I do not like having sex during my period. Not only do I feel completely gross (my oil glands go into overtime), I also find that my vagina is much less receptive to any kind of stimulation during that time. However, I think it's great if couple's decide to engage in this act. I can see it as a very bonding kind of act.

The guy writing this article seems to be all for it, and I like that he supports whatever decision a couple decides to make, and even offers alternatives to actual intercourse. I like some of the euphemisms he uses like "closed for maintenance" and "seducing vampires". I like his general attitude toward this whole taboo act.

However, some of the points he makes seem to be towing the line between being awesome, and being a closet misogynist, like this sentence here about blow-jobs "The fact that she completes this act of lovemaking and accepts a part of her man into her body makes her a woman worth keeping (of course, not if you're paying her by the hour)." or this gem "or are engaging in casual sex with the bucktoothed girl that helps you get rid of a load or two every now and again"

Even with these little jabs at womanhood though, I feel like he has a pretty good attitude toward the taboo menstrual intercourse. Most people aren't even willing to talk about it, much less give you tips (I like the diaphragm tip, anybody know if you can have sex with a Divacup in?) on how to enjoy it, even if you think it's a little gross.

So keep on keeping on, Mr. Strovney, but watch how you speak about women a little more carefully.

It may only be funny to me...

..but here's a screen cap from my facebook livefeed, courtesy of my favorite boy-cousin and one of his friends:

A Date With Ryan

New campaign from Stayfree. It's slightly creepy, but also ridiculous enough to make me laugh.

Read better thought-out opinions and watch the other (quite similar) videos at The Globe and Mail.

Clever.... or no?

Something about this I don't like.
Perhaps it's my general disdain for unwitty slogan t-shirts.
Or maybe it's my unfailing need to over-seriously apply logic to just about every aspect of everything:
How does bleeding for 5 days and not dying make someone untrustworthy?
It logically makes her tough, or persistent maybe. But I see no connection to trustworthiness.
FAIL.

Transgender Menstruation

A couple nights ago on MSNBC (I think), I watched a show about a FtM transgender boy and his FtM mentor. It was a touching story. The boy was about fourteen/fifteen. I'm not sure how long he had been transitioning, but one thing he mentioned being terrified of was getting a period. His mom said one day he had one tiny spot of blood and flipped out. I have no idea what that must be like, but I imagine it's very disturbing.

So then I was thinking about what else menstruation might mean to different members of the trans community. A little googling led me to learn about Korean transsexual pop singer Harisu. She got famous by doing make-up commercials, but what caught my attention was the commercial she did for disposable pads.

I can really see how those transitioning female-to-male would want to avoid menstruation altogether, but I wonder how it's viewed from a MtF perspective?

PMS Buddy?

Feministing brought to my attention a new website called PMSBuddy.com. What is it, you ask?

PMSBuddy.com is a free service created with a single goal in mind: to keep you aware of when your wife, girlfriend, mother, sister, daughter, or any other women in your life are closing in on "that time of the month" - when things can get intense for what may seem to be no reason at all. ...Saving relationships, one month at a time!

Uhm, alright.

This website is geared towards men who want to keep track of women's magic times with the assumption that said magic time correlates with moodiness.

Firstly, as someone who has never really had any trouble with PMS, I can say that that correlation doesn't exist (in me, at least, and certainly in other women).

Secondly, PMSBuddy says it is "a great way to give people in your life a heads-up of when you might be feeling a bit irritable without having an awkward conversation". So instead of an "awkward conversation" (whatever that means), you can instead sign up for regular awkward emails?

Thirdly, maybe I don't want anyone or everyone to know when I'm having my damn period! This site kind of operates on the assumption that ladies will gladly tell you their bleeding schedules so you can avoid picking up on any social cues about if someone's grouchy or not. And for that matter, it also assumes regular bleeding schedules.

PMSBuddy, I hope, is intended to be a light-hearted joke kind of thing, so I'm trying not to get too analytical about it. Personally, I've never really thought jokes about PMS were funny. Although they're not always offensive (though most of the time they are), they just plain don't make me laugh. So this seems like a dumb idea to me. There are a lot of aspects of the website that annoy me: "During PMS women can feel bloated and unattractive. Show her how you really feel with some sexy lingerie". Ugh. Please don't. Odds are 999 to 1 that this website was made by men.

Thoughts?

Panty-WAIST?

The other day I was reading in my soc book something about masculinity and the author used the word panty-waist as one of the terms boys might call each other when someone's not acting masculine enough or whatever.

I've heard this term before of course, but I had never seen it in text. Panty-WAIST? I always thought it was panty-WASTE, as in, the waste inside a pair of panties. What the heck is a panty-waist? Elastic? Boys call each other boys pieces of elastic? It would be much more insulting to call someone a stinky sticky blob of lady-fluids. I think.

I was just surprised. Ohhhhhhhh homophones, you have beaten me again.

Girlfriend aint had period since she got pregant?

I dunno if it's authentic or not, but I just had to share this.

"Vampires were our first freedom fighters!"

My mom has told me about this several times, but I never realized it was from Gloria Steinem. I had never heard the whole thing. It's pretty dang sweet.

If Men Could Menstruate: A Political Fantasy, by Gloria Steinem

A white minority of the world has spent centuries conning us into thinking that a white skin makes people superior - even though the only thing it really does is make the person more subject to ultraviolet rays and to wrinkles.

Male human beings have built whole cultures around the idea that penis-envy is "natural" to women - though having such an unprotected organ might be said to make men vulnerable, and the power to give birth makes womb-envy at least as logical.

In short, the characteristics of the powerful, whatever they may be, are thought to be better than the characteristics of the powerless - and logic has nothing to do with it.

What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?

The answer is clear - menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much.
Boys would mark the onset of menses, that longed-for proof of manhood, with religious ritual and stag parties.
Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. (Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of commercial brands such as John Wayne Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-dope Pads, Joe Namath Jock Shields - "For Those Light Bachelor Days," and Robert "Baretta" Blake Maxi-Pads.)

Military men, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve in the Army ("you have to give blood to take blood"), occupy political office ("can women be aggressive without that steadfast cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priest and ministers ("how could a woman give her blood for our sins?") or rabbis("without the monthly loss of impurities, women remain unclean").

Male radicals, left-wing politicians, mystics, however, would insist that women are equal, just different, and that any woman could enter their ranks if she were willing to self-inflict a major wound every month ("you MUST give blood for the revolution"), recognize the preeminence of menstrual issues, or subordinate her selfness to all men in their Cycle of Enlightenment.

Street guys would brag ("I'm a three pad man") or answer praise from a buddy ("Man, you lookin' good!") by giving fives and saying, "Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!" TV shows would treat the subject at length. ("Happy Days": Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still "The Fonz," though he has missed two periods in a row.) So would newspapers.(SHARK SCARE THREATENS MENSTRUATING MEN. JUDGE CITES MONTHLY STRESS IN PARDONING RAPIST.) And movies. (Newman and Redford in "Blood Brothers"!)

Men would convince women that intercourse was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself - though probably only because they needed a good menstruating man.

Of course, male intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguments. How could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics, or measurement, for instance, without that in-built gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets - and thus for measuring anything at all? In the rarefied fields of philosophy and religion, could women compensate for missing the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death-and-resurrection every month?

Liberal males in every field would try to be kind: the fact that "these people" have no gift for measuring life or connecting to the universe, the liberals would explain, should be punishment enough.

And how would women be trained to react? One can imagine traditional women agreeing to all arguments with a staunch and smiling masochism. ("The ERA would force housewives to wound themselves every month": Phyllis Schlafly. "Your husband's blood is as sacred as that of Jesus - and so sexy, too!": Marabel Morgan.) Reformers and Queen Bees would try to imitate men, and pretend to have a monthly cycle. All feminists would explain endlessly that men, too, needed to be liberated from the false idea of Martian aggressiveness, just as women needed to escape the bonds of menses-envy. Radical feminist would add that the oppression of the nonmenstrual was the pattern for all other oppressions ("Vampires were our first freedom fighters!") Cultural feminists would develop a bloodless imagery in art and literature. Socialist feminists would insist that only under capitalism would men be able to monopolize menstrual blood...

In fact, if men could menstruate, the power justifications could probably go on forever.

If we let them.

Boys

In my Sociology of Gender class last week, somehow we got on the subject of menstruation and how girls are socialized to keep it a big secret. It was a pretty fun little talk, and one girl in my class said something that made me laugh:

"Guys don't understand periods until they've had a couple girlfriends. Then they're good to go."

That sounds about right to me.

I kind of avoid telling boys about my honors project. Well no, that's not entirely true. Depending on who it is, I either completely avoid talking about it, or I whole-heartedly spearhead the conversation and quietly judge them based on their first reactions. I'd say only about 5% of boys fall into the latter category though.