If a recent conversation on the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit is any indication, MGTOWs remain baffled by and terrified of the human vagina.
In the midst of one of that subreddit’s typically dreadful discussions, the subject of women in the military comes up. One Reddit MGTOW lets it be known that he “f**king hope[s] women get drafted some day.”
One of his comrades steps in to MGTOWsplain just why he thinks that would be a bad, bad thing:
So … how would that work, exactly?
Either Some_one498 thinks that
- Our enemies have secret squads of vagina-sniffing dogs that can detect the scent of menstrual blood from miles away, or
- Women are so incapacitated by the monthly visit from Aunt Flo that they’ll just lie there and let enemy soldiers capture them
I made Some_one498’s quote into a meme using a still from the Goldie Hawn comedy Private Benjamin, but somehow I don’t think it’s going to catch on.
tl;dr: Vaginas are scary!
*Reads back through the rest of the thread*
Oh, heavens! @Kat is right! I’ve gone and upset poor little miggy by talking about my menses! Someone get the hard-seated fainting couch!
Edit: found an appropriate image:
http://img15.deviantart.net/3f94/i/2015/315/e/c/jinkies_by_8bitamy-d8uztd4.png
@snorkmaiden *perimenopause fist bump* The hot flashes I can deal with, but the insomnia, fatigue, and brain fog are awful. Some days I feel like a stranger to myself. It’s like puberty in reverse. Nobody warns you adequately about it, and doctors just shrug it off as “natural”. I’m glad women are starting to be more open about their experiences. Hope your transition is going smoothly.
As for JinkyZoinks, I would bet that, in a combat situation, he would be captured long before any women, what with the standing around loudly complaining and not actually going his own way.
Oh heeeey, speaking of casual, NBD mentions of periods, what a perfect chance to plug another cool thing made by someone I know…
Leigh Lahav, known on YouTube as OnlyLeigh, is making an animated show called Belle & Tina are Time Travelers (as you might gather, it’s about two ladies who travel in time), and the first and so far only episode has mentions like that – like “just a moment, I’m just gonna go put in a tampon” sort of stuff. It’s great. Also great for other reasons. Check it out!
@Penny
Ooh! You know Leigh!? You’re just fulla cool ain’t ya?
Saw her ‘stages of watching’ vids and a few others. I’ll check out the Time Ladies, thanks 😀
… did someone call me? I coulda sworn that someone called me here, it’s –
– oh, okay.
Hey, @Mig, or @Zoinks, or whatever you’d like to be called now. Know why you think it’s gross? ‘Cause you’ve been brought up to think that lady-things are gross. Eeeew, lady-things! Maybe that’s a part of your upbringing you need to shed, like a uterine lining. Painful but important for your health!
Also, notice that it’s not something we all talk about here every day, just when it’s brought up. Which it was, by the original topic of this post. So don’t be all “ladies are so uncultured these days, talkin about their gross lady-things all the time!” Stop bein such a snob!
And get better insults! Stringing together torn-out thesaurus pages isn’t impressive! I could write a markov bot that could make your insults all day every day! Like, this thing does a better job than you could hope to, you shameless clay-brained nut-hook!
😀
I… sorta know her. She’s a friend-of-friends, and part of the Israeli geek community (which is relatively small and tightknit; it also, by the way, has a whole lot of women, including all the latest managers of the SciFi&Fantasy Society, and a large percentage of the writers, which is really awesome) so I’ve seen her at cons and such, and we’ve occasionally talked on Facebook comments, but I can’t honestly say I know know her.
But I sorta do, and that is super cool. I totally fangirl about it sometimes.
Im’a fangirl about knowing Penny pretty soon. You have all the connections! 😮
So our newest troll (or returning troll with a new name) thinks it is inappropriate for women to talk about their period in the comments sections of a article about women’s periods. OK then jinkies or what ever you’re calling yourself,what would be a appropriate subject of conversation for this thread?
Well, gosh, Fabe, nowhere, really. It’s a shameful shame thing that should never ever be discussed outside of humiliated whispers, far away from the noble ears of the men-folk. Anything else would just be uncivilized.
Eeeeeee *blush*
I was profoundly irregular into my twenties, and had incredible cramps. Looking back, now, I’m shocked and annoyed that my parents and doctors just shrugged and advised Advil. When I was fifteen, I once got off a bus at the wrong stop to throw up from the pain.
When I was twenty-six I met my husband, and went on the pill for the first time, and everything resolved itself overnight. I was regular, and there was no pain at all. And when I went off the pill to get pregnant, my regular painless cycle persisted. We could have done this when I was thirteen! Why didn’t we?
Well, lesson learned, making notes for when my daughter is of an age to join Auntie Flo’s Mah-jong Circle.
There’s a wonderful story from anthropology about a male anthropologist visiting a group of First Nations people and and asking about this subject. The men replied, “Oh, during that time , women are unclean and are sent to a cabin away from the group for several days”
A few years later, a female anthropologist visited the same group and the women told her laughing ” It’s great, for several days a month, we get to go to river and lay around and relax.”
@ berdache
I must confess I’m not a fan of those apocryphal ‘just so’ type tales. They’re often used as a justification for the sort of keep women away attitudes we’re discussing here.
“It’s OK to exclude women because they enjoy it anyway”
I’ve heard exactly the same theme in a ‘joke’ about male only golf clubs. Women like it because it gets the men from under their feet etc.
Not because I object to talking about periods (although, being post-menopausal now, I have nothing interesting to contribute), but this is what the MGTOW headline reminded me of:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37337908
@ Alan Robertson.
Don’t think it’s apocryphal, I read it in a textbook with actual references for the anthropologists. Been many years since I read it, I could certainly be mis-remembering an anthropological urban legend as fact.
@ berdache
With anything like this I’m always reminded of the Gary Larson cartoon.
“Anthropologists! Quick, hide the VCR!”
Oh boy, chew toy!
http://24.media.tumblr.com/d1d91db5b6373140b45b3616b45077ae/tumblr_n68gj1RCaO1sig16bo1_250.gif
I have more dignity in my pinky toe than some troll slinking back in here under a different name trying to manufacture moral outrage over people having a discussion (that no one is forcing you to participate in) over a natural bodily process they find “nauseating”.
Boo hoo.
Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but for me periods aren’t a sexual thing, so I don’t actually get off talking about them.
I do have to admit though, while it’s not sexual, I do get a delicious bit of satisfaction from you coming in here and being all indignant. It’s adorable how you think you’re justified enough to come in here and have a shout.
I don’t think anyone here said that the reason people don’t like hearing us vagina-havers talk about our periods is “hate and oppression”, but rather, I dare say it’s from ignorance.
We’re not taught a lot about the anatomy of the vagina in schools (or at all), or if we are, it’s usually some archaic misinformation, or the bare minimum to please the government standards. Most of the time, women (and other people with vaginas) are taught, much like you’ve demonstrated, that vaginas are just gross and our biology is unmentionable because it’s not “polite” to talk about it (and yet cis men will still sexually objectify the fuck out of us and talk about how they want to put their penis in said vagina that they refuse to understand or know how it works. Figure that shit out, because I certainly can’t.)
And it’s only natural that we fear and are “disgusted” by things we don’t understand.
So, to do my part to help alleviate your “nausea”, I’m talking about periods with my fellow vagina-owners, thus helping to destigmatize the period and make this a place where we can feel comfortable talking about it.
No one here said that. You’re strawmanning again.
I’m very sorry for your condition, but we’d actually be more than okay with you venting/talking/whatever about it (when you come back with a different name that is).
We’d be more than willing to give you a platform here for talking about your experiences with your disease.
However, we don’t “walk around” and “air [our] grievances in detail”, we’re doing it in a fucking comments section, and only where the topic is periods.
You’re coming into a comments section, where the title included the word “periods”, and getting mad that people are talking about periods.
What’s next, are you going to walk into a McDonalds, and get mad that people are eating hamburgers?
We’re not walking around and shouting to the world exactly what our periods entail, are we? For fuck’s sake, stop being hysterical about people with vaginas are talking about their periods. You’re exaggerating.
We do have the right to discuss our magical tomato soup disasters, thankyouverymuch.
This is David’s site, and no where in the comments policy does it say that we can’t talk about our periods. We are perfectly within the rules to discuss whatever we want as long as we follow the comments policy.
And considering we haven’t been given a warning by David, and we haven’t been banned (tee hee), I’m going to assume that he’s okay with us talking about it.
This website is also based in the United States, and the United States has Freedom of Speech. I have the freedom to talk about my period, and you have the freedom to fuck off if it bothers you.
No one said we wanted a fucking audience, broseph. We were having a discussion amongst ourselves about experiences we face, in the comments section of an article that’s about periods.
This might be a “public” comments section, but you also have the rest of the blog, or, hell, the rest of the internet to go be a hysterical asshole on. You have the means to go elsewhere or to not comment if you don’t like what’s being discussed.
You don’t walk up to people who are having discussions amongst themselves in public meatspace and shout at them for discussing things you don’t like, do you?
Quit acting like you’re somehow morally superior because you expect people to toe your line of “basic decency” while you run around and be a rude little snot to everyone else because you walked into a comments section on an article about periods and got hysterical about people talking about periods, you nauseatingly rabid shitlip.
Which is it MGTOW? Women shouldn’t have voting rights because they don’t have to register for selective services or they shouldn’t serve in war? would it kill them to be consistent?
At this point, it very well may.
I don’t even think they actually know what “consistent” means anymore. They’ve re-written it in their heads with…whatever this form of “logic” is.
@paul tidwell As someone mentioned in a previous post, they are consistent – with their hatred.
@ Paradoxy
If he wants to, I can introduce him to some vegans I know…
welp, try as I might, I couldn’t find any funny “tomato soup disaster” or “ketchup spewing heathen” pictures. WHTM is actually some of the top hits for that! So, that’s a tragedy. I did find a lot of food pictures, though, so now I’m hungry.
(Also, while those phrases are hilarious, I’d like to point out that ‘lol you have periods’ is perhaps not the most biting of insult, Miggy. And that you’d use it as an insult also pretty much proves our point. 😀 )
Kudos to Shaenon for mentioning the ditches-and-infections quote! (I was just about to mention it myself when I decided to see if I’d been beaten to the punch.)
In reply to that mention, Tessa skrev:
Well, he went on to say that “On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn’t matter, you know.” To be fair, he did allow the possibility of women having a place in the military, say, on the bridge of an Aegis-class cruiser where “a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”
(If anyone can give me a convincing reason why we should let this retrograde turnip live down his public displays of tertiary recto-basal ambiguity, I’ll do so. Until then, as long as the Gingrich Rules remain in effect, I for one will keep doing the job the Mouse Circus won’t of making Newt own his shit.)
My first instinct, when I read our antagonistic pre-convert with the penchant for Shakespeare-pastiche insult soliloquies, was to post those more graphic experiences and insights that I had been holding back out of consideration for those who might actually feel a bit put off by it.
Then I realized that nothing about the troll’s reaction should dictate my consideration for others, and I did not.
As for the question, “have you no dignity?”, well, speaking of euphemisms, in my family, we used to use “dignity” as a euphemism for “buttocks.” Yes, poor awkward young man, I do have a dignity, and I pity those poor souls that don’t. I will be shaking to great music in a clot-dislodging dance in honor of all the fucks I do not give today, and for the full visual, I am dressed in a manner that would not be out-of-place on Margaret Dumont in an office-based Marx Brothers comedy, complete with pearls.
@Scildfreja Unnýðnes, I’m from Chicago. Perhaps “ketchup-spewing heathen” is somehow a reference to hot dogs?
@Berdache
Given that when I heard that one it was an equally unspecified African tribe where it supposedly happened, I’m going with the urban legend. In my experience, pretty much anytime one comes across a story claiming that First Nations people did this or believe(d) that, it’s safe to assume that it’s garbage unless it specifies which nations have that belief or practice. (The same goes equally for stories about African, Polynesian etc. practices)
@EJ(TOO)
I think that’s another of those things that varies with the individual; I couldn’t stand up straight for a week.
I love this thread. I don’t tend to use euphemisms, but “cheering for ‘Bama” is my new favorite.
I read that line in Brick’s voice when I saw it.
Me too. I’m sympathetic to those that do, but I don’t understand it. I get a little gassy but that’s it.
My period, on the other hand, sucks. If I could spend the entire time with a hot water bottle on my abdomen I would. I just mainline ibuprofen. I also have heavy first few days plus a minor bleeding disorder which means I can bleed through an Always Infinity Overnight in 2 hours. It’s loads of fun.
I also have a 23-27 day cycle, but I don’t sleep with the light on so I can’t blame that. It’s always been that way. Not knowing when exactly it’s going to show up is annoying but I also don’t have any other reason to go on birth control and me remembering to take a pill every day, much less at the same time, is almost non-existent.
Holy crap, that made it 1000% better! Perfect.
@Auntie
Ha cha cha cha! 😀
Re: cycle length, mine is 25 days +/- 5 days. 20 and 30 day cycles are rare, but I can never predict when they’ll come with that kind of range and none of the trackers I’ve tried have predicted it with any accuracy. Actually they always predict the exact mean of the data I’ve provided which is not helpful. I’m tempted to write my own that actually looks at deviations.
Shaenon said (way back on page 1)
As a cis woman veteran of the USAF, I find it hard to take these guys seriously. It’s all too clueless to not to be amused by.
Menzers seem to think that after Basic Training and tech school, you get thrown out into military life and that’s it, you have to survive on the aforementioned training and your wits. Nothing could be further from the truth!
There’s a LOT of training involved in military life, all the time. In any given year, I had to go through First Aid, CPR, and Buddy Training at a minimum. Before transfer overseas, we had to qualify on M-16s and .38 handguns, which also meant more training. While overseas, those of us in office jobs had to be trained in “war skill” jobs, gas mask training (with tear gas) and participate in base-wide exercises. That training was quarterly, at minimum and we had base-wide exercises twice yearly. My war skill job was Disaster Preparedness and we did our own Broken Arrow exercises in addition to the base-wide ones. I got to train in search and recovery, hazardous material handling, personnel decontamination (radiation), and NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) defense.
I did all these things while sometimes menstruating, too! Lawks!
I’m now post-menopausal, but I can share some amusing menopause stories, if there’s a period related comment slowdown.
jorge, – ‘the purpose of this blog is…’
I’ll go for number 3 – mocking the mra “movement”. I think everyone is doing a hell of a good job of it.
kat – oh come on now, plants are not injured. I have a friend who used to use sponges, she would rinse them out into her watering can and sprinkle it on her houseplants.
I was at an antiwar rally once (we’ve been in Iraq how long?) and the cops were being their usual brand of asshole – we were all hanging out in the paddy wagon and one of the women pulled out her cup and dumped the blood out all over the floor. When they pulled us out to book us they flipped out a little bit – “who’s bleeding, who’s cut?” I don’t think they ever figured it out.
I got kicked in the balls playing soccer in high school once, it hurt like hell but I got over it in an hour or so – the girl who kicked me though was apologizing for months. It would be nice if they were retractable.
@sillybill
Except when one of em decides to just hide away where it no longer belongs. Like fuckin landing gear, these things sometimes. Super uncomfortable, and they really don’t fit very well up in there. Do I leave it in, do I nudge it out? Not a frequent occurrence, but it’s no fun all the same
It’s not as bad as accidentally sitting on em tho, so, on 2nd thought, voluntary retraction sounds like a great idea…
Monzach:
“White Guard(TM) menstrual pads for when you don’t want the Red to show. The choice of Miss Finland 1918 – now available with right wing only!”
(Finnish civil war reference. The anti-communist White Guards are called literally that in English, or “protection collectives” in Finnish. Finland’s map image is conventionally seen as a silhouette of young woman, where the skirt hem (southern part) was briefly taken over by communists. Literal bloodshed ensued.)
@Arctic Ape: I. Love. That.
@ Arctic Ape
They sound revolutionary; especially for the independent woman.
(I’ve got my coat)
Anti-revolutionary actually, but that “independent woman” thing was right on mark considering Finland’s history with Russia/USSR.
I’m totally psyched to try out one of Jinkies arguments. I’m going to go up to a group of people who’re talking about something I don’t like and scream “You have no right to have me as an audience to your depravity!”
And then I’m going to stand there, just glaring at them.
@Scildfreja Unnýðnes
SLOW MOTION KITCHEN FLOOD:
http://cg-fluids.com/portfolio/realflow-slow-motion-flood/
@ Arctic Ape
Yeah. I should have said ‘almost revolutionary’. I was trying to work in something about stopping the bloodshed, but arguably of course that might not be the correct claim (my Russian and Finnish friends have varied opinions on that)
Not to prevent bloodshed but to keep the red from showing.
(I’ll go to sleep now.)
@Axe:
I once had that happen to me during a presentation. It wasn’t that painful, but there was no way to gracefully remove it while I was standing there with Powerpoint slides up, so it was awkward as hell.
(That’s probably TMI.)
Looks like the flow just keeps on coming 🙂 (though the thread would only be the better for some menopause stories too. And of course the textually testicular tales.)
These guys really don’t get that ‘woman’ is not just a homogeneous mass, do they?
For every woman who cramps up during her period, there’s another who feels completely fine. I never had cramps in my life (but bloating, now and again), but in exchange I tend to bleed a lot.
And the only noticable change in mood I have? I get horny the week before my period hits. Like ‘next person coming around the corner gets climbed like a tree’ horny.
Say, would that be a plus in their book? Or just more proof of how all wimmenz are evil slutty cuckolding whores?
@Fishy Goat.
Or. OR.
https://youtu.be/HNnCL0q3EuI
Confession: My menopause stories are actually perimenopause stories. I was fortunate* to have simply stopped having periods. The only weird thing is that I got smelly armpits, like I did in puberty, which hasn’t gone away.
*I did take a supplement called Amberen for a couple of years (on and off) which I found helpful, but I don’t know that it was responsible for my never having any hot flashes. I do know that I had to halve the regular dosage, or I constantly felt pre-menstral.
Off topic perhaps, but I’m not sure any pad, no matter how magical, would make me feel comfortable enough to go hiking in super short khaki shorts. I understand the ad was probably from the 70s-early 80s, before tampons were a big thing and definitely before menstrual cups were a thing (they are wonderful), but that image made me cringe. I had to wear khakis for a summer job and when I was on the rag, it made me want to run to the bathroom every hour to check my butt. And that was just standing around. I didn’t have to hike up a mountain.
On a light day, though, it’d probably be fine. I still think tampon/pad commercials are weird, probably because they’re created by men who don’t actually understand periods. There have been some great ones, though. Like the one with the blue liquid and the one with the soundtrack from a Tribe Called Red. No surprise they were created by the same company.
For me it doesn’t hurt much immediatley, then a few minutes later I experience nearly debilitating aches that can stop me from doing much other than bending over and hoping it passes quickly. This can even happen pfrom a solid tap I just barely felt.
Seem to somehow fucked up my name in that last comment…
@Blackrising
Yes 😉
@Wanda
Not a menstrual ad, but ‘a woman’s V’? You serious? (sidebar: I actually really like this commercial. Stupid, but the MANtage gets me everytime 😁)
I just can’t handle the cup. Getting in it is fine. Getting it out is another story. The time I tried, there was some spillage. It looked like a scene from a horror movie in the bathroom by the time I finally fished it out.
Sorry for the TMI everyone, but I just wanted Miggs to read it. You know he’s still lurking and will sock again. And again. And again. And again.
@WWTH
I would totally get that smart cup that tracks your volume if my cervix weren’t so sensitive.