The blood and its opposite
For almost a year (Tempus Fugit) the articles, reflections and posts on everything related to period There have been many on this space, and the reason seems obvious, given the goal that we at this Unique propose ourselves.
Yet, yet, it seems that something is missing. If the menstrual revolution is a speech that concerns all*, the audience to which the problem is subjected is often and willingly a only female audience, as well as the mouths that speak of it, or the profiles that spread it.
And also beyond the social space, the problem related to the cycle (pains, inconveniences, at the price of the absorbents, embarrassment and the list could continue) remains relegated to the whispering between friends, the dialogue sooner or later inevitable mother -Figlia, to the affectionate advice between sisters.
Men - I mean not the totality of the human being but precisely specifically the males - are (better to say "we are", so as not to get away from a hindrance that is also mine) happily excluded from this matter. In short, We wash our hands, it does not concern us, it is one of those boredoms that we happily avoid porching, since fate has established that physiologically it does not touch us.
Not only.
It happens, and on the other hand it is inevitable, which from time to time we men come into contact with something that concerns the menstrual cycle. Anything. It happens then that in the best of cases we mumbled something embarrassed, we look away, we turn on the other side; And in the worst we ask the interested person not to speak, possibly, about that topic. Because however it is blood, and it can also annoy, heck!
This is to be opposed to another attitude, still exquisitely male (not of all males, eh, but in short to understand): that is, the tendency to bring any Female discontent to the cycle. Anyone. Improvised psychologists, we analyze the unconscious of our friends, girls or acquaintances in the blink of an eye, we realize that something is wrong and ask, almost with a laugh: "Do you have your things?"
Your things. Because in any case the word cycle, the blood, make an impression, and it is always better to censor them. Because even just appointing it would be like evoking a monster that we fear, which makes us feel suddenly uncomfortable, small in front of the ancestral and divine curse of the other sex, forced and sheds down monthly something that for us is so far from becoming of another world .
The truth is that the cycle scares us, that in a woman with "her things" we see all the difficulties that we would not be able to overcome because we have never had to do it. So let's react as we react, embarrassed, uncomfortable, completely out of place. Because the cycle is a taboo. Because the same advertisements as the absorbent, on television, censor the color of the blood and architects articulated linguistic games to avoid hurting someone's sensitivity. Of the cycle, among the males but in general in public, it is not talked about, it is not good, it is not the subject to be tackled still today, in the era in which we deal with and talks about everything. Also at the bar, among the lowest and beceri speeches (and those also come) the cycle is too low, too bitter. And I'm not talking about the cycle of the unknown, but also about that of one's girlfriend, with whom in those days you do not have sex, because everything is fine, but that is also a little suck.
We have fear of the blood. I'm not just talking about us males (I understand that perhaps it is too generalist as categorization), I speak of us as a company. Generally, the first feeling that girls feel towards the first cycle is the shame, as if it were a stigma. On the other hand, the kids come into contact with the cycle completely unprepared, and they remain for most of life, if not for a whole.
The society does not make any attempt to normalize the thing, it is not talked about, and when you talk about it it is done only as a cold physiological factor, read at school on a science book between a few jokes and some laughs. The result is a rejection Unconditional to accept the blood by that half of the population that the blood does not lose it, and a sense of embarrassment and modesty on the part of what, on the other hand, loses it.
It is not in itself the fault of the male if he is intimidated by menstruation; Nor is the female of the female ashamed of it. The fault lies with the taboo that society builds, still too conservative and bigoted to open up to what she has always considered impure, and too proud to admit the indomitable strength of women in facing the cycle, with all the pains - physical and psychological - that this involves according to individual cases. The strength of women, in fact, which is unacceptable in itself. Because it is an antithesis, a paradox: because the woman, you know, is the weak sex.
Enrico Ponzio
