I’m not sure why or how, but the idea that women should be ashamed of their periods got lost on its way over to me. It’s not like people didn’t try to get it through my head that there was something dirty or wrong about it all, but somehow it never sank in. Instead I tend to view it as somewhat inconvenient and potentially messy, but certainly nothing terrible in moral terms. I mean, it’s not like I went out of my way to get it. It’d be like being ashamed to have eyelashes or something equally silly.
Despite that, if I wanted to talk to anyone about it, or even refer to it, I had to learn the secret code. Because, it seems, nobody ever really wants you to make a direct reference to the fact that you are, at that very moment, bleeding. So what do you say? Well that depends on where you are, how old you are, and what you need to communicate.
When I was in school and we were all terribly fascinated by what our bodies were doing, we had a whole ream of terms for it, some of which have origins that completely baffle me. ‘Chums’, for instance. Written, if I recall correctly, C.H.U.M.S. I have no idea what the word stood for, but no sooner would one of us start that she would pass around a note with the word on it. And we didn’t have to hide it either because none of the boys or even the teachers knew what it meant. Come to think of it, that might have been why it was chosen – it’s possible that it never was an acronym but just a random collection of letters designed to confuse those not in the know. Oh the coolth of it all.
A much older friend once told me that she and her cohort used to say simply that their ‘friend’ was visiting again. Similar to that was someone halfway between us in age who, instead of ‘friend’, would say ‘Auntie Flow’s in town again’. Usually serving as the butt of much gross-out humor, the poor old dear (and lending her services to my tagline, too).
I don’t know when women started referring to it as the ‘curse’ or the ‘monthly curse’, but I suspect it’s been around a while. As has ‘that time of the month’, which strikes me as quite wishy-washy.
Oh and then there was ‘Charlie’. I have no idea where that came from, but I think we all dreaded visits from Charlie back in the day. Does anyone still say that?
While I’ve heard some women use the expression ‘to be on the rag’, it seems to be used most by boys and men who seem to see its use as some proof of toughness. A bit like children or students who try to shock you by using a particular word or making a statement that they think is outrageous. Sometimes it’s cute, but mostly it’s just lame.
…so I Googled ‘euphemisms for menstruation’ and came up with 183,000 results. The largest number seem to be at Aunt Flow’s World of Menstruation Euphemisms. My current favorite off that list is ‘arts and crafts week at panty camp’. WTF? Anyway.
Nowadays, we tend to go by a certain metonymy – if I say I have ‘cramps’, it is assumed that I mean period cramps and that I therefore have my period and am dealing with its attendant crap. PMS is another favorite, though the ‘pre-’ seems to be optional. Like ‘C.H.U.M.S’ before it, PMS seems to work by drawing on that particular authority that acronyms confer on the user. Weilded properly, it has the power to excuse you from meetings, classes, lectures, work, family gatherings, and other social responsibilities.
But what gets me is the need for so many euphemisms. Is it simple circumspection, much like referring simply to going to the toilet (or bathroom for those who find the ‘t-word’ indelicate) instead of explaining what we did in there? (And even with that, there are degrees of information and differences in register. If you do mention it, do you go with urinate/defecate, pee/poop, piss/shit or something else? And do the registers for each match? Does it matter?) But does the fact that menstruation is unique to women shift it from simple circumspection to silencing? Speaking euphemistically about something men and women have in common not just with each other but with most animals as well is one thing. Because we all share it and know it, we only really talk about it if there’s something out of the ordinary to talk about. Putting up barriers to speaking about something that happens only to women – that arguably defines arrival at biological womanhood? That, I’m not so sure about.
