Purdah and whatnot

NB Still dry and fusty. 

I’ve been on twitter for a while now and I’ve noticed that, while pretty well everything else imaginable is tweeted about, menstruation doesn’t get mentioned a lot. People are happy to boast about their wanking, rimming, fellating, tea bagging, and anal bleaching, among other things. ( I read other people’s favourites to glean this information).  It really seems that it is de rigeur to have hairless or nearly hairless genitals in the manner of a child or adolescent, and to mention your appointment every time you go to the waxer.

 And maybe I’m in the wrong corner of twitter but not much mention is made of the endometrium regularly sloughing off the uterine walls when conception has not taken place. This messy phenomenon, with which almost every pubescent and post-pubescent female is well acquainted, is either a matter of no or little interest, or, well, private. It’s still not an easy topic for most women to discuss freely, except in fairly select company, and it’s one that many men are likely to joke about coarsely, awkwardly and ignorantly.

Quite recently in New Zealand there was some consternation expressed (quite rightly) at the restrictions to be placed on who could view an exhibition of Maori artefacts at Te Papa. It was suggested the pregnant (hapu) or menstruating women (mate wahine) make arrangements to view it at a more ‘convenient’ time. The explanation was that because some of the artefacts were of a funerary nature or had been used as lethal weapons so they could somehow impart some ‘negative spiritual energy’  (my interpretation) to the women affected by these mysterious and dangerous forces of nature. Or maybe it was the other way round. 

However, to make up for all the horror, tampon wrappers are now really pretty.