Talking to Girls AND Boys About Periods. Period.

Family

TALK ABOUT IT. PERIOD.

While we wouldn’t want to bloat it all out of proportion, Dani Sharp has a point…

A couple of years ago, I had a somewhat concerning conversation with my flat mate.

At twenty-one years old, he had absolutely no idea of what a period meant, or entailed, and was guilty, as many are, of making some pretty distasteful jokes. However, after a sustained and surprisingly adult conversation (considering the potato smileys that were baking away in the oven), I concluded that it probably wasn’t his fault.

Does your son know about periods? Does he realise there’s absolutely no need to batten down the hatches and barricade the doors? Ignorance is born from poor education and under the current curriculum of sex education, boys are unfairly erased from the teaching of periods.

Periods, of course, are a fundamentally female issue, but are also a human one. When a little boy is denied an education on such an important part of a woman’s life, it becomes a stigma. As it has for many young men already, it becomes an unknown, easier to joke about than empathise with. Who can blame them?

If we teach our little boys what will one day happen to our little girls, we’ve surely already instilled a sense of normalcy around periods which – lest we forget – are entirely normal for 50% of the population! Dare we live in hope that one day an assertive female opinion is not dismissed as ‘time of the month’? I believe that if young boys in particular understand what women and girls go through on a daily (or rather monthly) basis, we have the potential

to breed a generation of sensitive young men who value women and respect them for their human abilities, rather than hide from them, assuming that they are taboo, or worse, disgusting.

I decided to put some feelers out and asked what young men currently knew, don’t currently know, would like to know or wished they had been taught when they were younger. Almost all of the boys revealed that they didn’t really know anything about menstruation other than the fact that it was a monthly process and that they’d been advised to simply avoid women during this time. But yet, most of the boys expressed some desire to understand a little more than just the ‘mechanics’ that are taught in the Year 9 Biology curriculum. Nearly all of them now wished that they knew more, so that they could support their peers and girlfriends. These boys were all over twenty, studying at a Russell Group University and they were clueless. Many of the boys said that during their sex education, they were route marched out of the classroom during period talk. Is it any wonder that boys are uncomfortable talking about them? We are taught from day one that men shouldn’t know about, or get involved with periods, they’re labelled as something boys should actively avoid – at all costs – but many still wanted to know how to help, they just didn’t know how to ask.

If any child is educated rationally about menstruation, there will be no room for taboo. My goal, a one-woman mission – if you like, is to normalise the current taboo around menstruation. Now, I’m not saying we need to go public with our cycles, I’m not telling you to pack your son off to sort through the minefield of winged towels for night or day or white-water-rafting… but I do think that our sons have a right to know, and our daughters have a right to discussion, to empathy and to human understanding – even from the boys… Dani Sharp danisharp@hotmail.com 07907668767

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