Nikki and I are THRILLED to have the lovely and talented Ms. Jillian Boyd featured on Vagina Antics this week. She’s a smut writer and blogger, and her blog is a delightful mixture of erotica and honest posts about her own developing sexuality. PLUS, she’s a fellow contributor to the erotica anthology FELT TIPS, edited by Tiffany Reisz, that will be published later this year.
Our guest bloggers get to choose their topic, and this week Jill wanted to write about that monthly visitor, our periods. Yes, that neglected part of female sexuality that gets negative press from women and men alike. This week we offer our readers three different viewpoints and different experiences about a common event that connects all females. Enjoy! xoxo Heather
Aunty Flo Comes A Knockin’
By Jillian Boyd
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I’ve noticed something.
It’s been troubling me for a few months now, but I can no longer keep quiet on it. My periods have changed.
Seriously. The last few months, they have become worse. More bleeding, fiercer pains in my lower belly, mood swings of a positively apocalyptic fashion. Well, maybe not that last one, but I have swings in my mood and they are not pleasant.
Never once did I imagine them to become worse. When I got them at age eleven (yes, I bloomed too early), they were already terrible.
Do I remember getting them?
Oh yes. Yes, I do. Because it was awful. Traumatic, awful and oh dear me.
Picture this. You’re about eleven years old. Nobody in school likes you, seeing as you’re that weird autistic kid from that special boarding house who doesn’t get to go home on the weekends. You’re shy, you’re awkward, you have no idea what life is.
So, of course, your periods decide to pounce on you in the middle of a school day.
You try to hide them. You even sit on your jacket on the bus ride home, because you don’t want to leave stains on the seating.
The bus ride is uncomfortable, by the way. As if you couldn’t guess.
You arrive back at the boarding house, and run up to one of the pedagogues. At this point you are without any words, so what you do is just show the MAHUSSIVE bloodstain on your jacket.
The pedagogue nods. “You’ve become a woman,” she says. (I don’t actually remember if she said it, seeing as I was violently sobbing and crying out for my mum at this point. True story.)
Needless to say, the first few months of my period weren’t exactly happy times.
I didn’t really know how to control the flow and when to change pads, so I often had “accidents”, that kind of made me the laughing stock of the entire school. It’s not fun running around with massive red stains across your bum, I tell you that.
Not long after, I started taking birth control, to regulate the flow of my periods. It did help, although it took me a few years to get used to changing pads in time. When I finally mastered that, I felt like I’d conquered a small country.
They became more subdued too. I could go about my business without keeling over with stomach cramps. No significant mood swings took over. It felt good.
Although, of course, you tend to lie about it in order to get out of PE class.
Or was that just me?
Lately though, it’s gotten worse. I don’t know how it got to be worse, but I just know that I’m experiencing more cramps and more mood swings.
You tend to learn to live with it though. ‘Cos that’s just how Flo rolls, ‘innit?
Every period experiences changes, I presume. Right now, mine is just at that time where I need more lie-downs during. And possibly a hot pack.
So.
Periods. Talk about them. Write about them. Fuck, be daring, and taste your own period blood, like I once did. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Flo can be a bitch. But she’s really nothing to worry about.
Jillian Boyd is a writer (of smut), blogger (of sex) and serial coffee drinker (of milk and two sugars). She is a soon-to-be expat and will be conquering the UK with her salacious ramblings. She blogs at http://barenakedlady.
Since I turned thirty, the pains got worse. Up until then, nothing except the odd bit of boob-ouchy.
Anyway, I’m 36 now and after a break of a year or so, I went back on the depo-provera jab recently. I’ve only ever been on it for chunks of two years at a time, as my nurse tells me “No-one knows what it does to you after that; most women decide they want to have a baby.” Uh…no. Just no.
It stops me bleeding totally, which keeps me happy. The first time I was on it for two years, I didn’t even bleed for A WHOLE YEAR after coming off it, which was great.
Anyway, I can recommend it. Periods are nothing but a nuisance, and as I never want kids, I don’t really care what the depo jab does to my fertility. If by some chance it sterilised me, I wouldn’t care one jot.
What I’d like to know is – why, in this country, does sanitary protection have VAT added? Why should we be taxed for being women?!
Thanks for commenting, Scarlett. I’ve always been tempted by depo-provera. Your comment may have sold me.
One of the best things to ever come out of a hysterectomy – no more periods. Can I get a hallelujah and an amen?!
I was like Jillian when I was younger too, bled all over everything. It’s so embarrassing and gross. And my momma was one of those women who didn’t really believe in tampons for young girls. *eye roll* So she made me use pads, which were like mattresses between your thighs.
I used to have cramps really bad too. My granny, God rest her sweet soul, used to make me toddies, as she called them. Whiskey with some other stuff mixed in. At sixteen my granny gave me liquor, y’all! Really, all it did was knock me out, but I didn’t have cramps no more.
I loved that woman more than life itself.
That hysterectomy was at 36, btw.
I love your Granny too! I WISH I had hot toddies. Well, I suppose it’s never too late to start.
Thanks for commenting, Jenny! Smooches!
[...] gone into the subject at great length for a guest post on Vagina Antics, which you can read here. But, just for your amusement, I’m going to write about it again and tell you about some [...]