The Boy Who Tried to Mansplain Periods

In High School, I was sitting in my Spanish class with my best friend before class started.

“Do you have a Tylenol? My cramps are horrible today.”

“Sure hun, here you go.”

And next to me, was this tiny little guy let’s call him Richard, or Dick for short. Dick turned toward me, looking completely disgusted.

“Ugh, how can you say that out loud?”

I looked around for a second then back at him.

“Say what?” I was confused, I didn’t think I said anything offensive.

“Cramps. No one wants to hear that.” He snarled and looked me up and down like I was covered in mud.

“You’re on the Cross Country team, you get muscle cramps. It’s almost the same.”

“No, it’s not because girls always overplay how much their periods actually hurt. Just hold it in, jesus.” He turned away from me, thinking the conversation was over.

Oh, it was not.

I didn’t continue it there. He was friends with a few of mine so I waited till Lunch when we were all hanging out in the auditorium. He brought up the conversation and tried to get the rest of our friends to gang up against me. Why? I don’t know. He was like 15 and an aggressive virgin f*ckboi.

“You need to just shut up about your period.” He said loudly in front of all our friends.

“I didn’t say anything now.” I sat on the edge of the theater stage while he was pacing the seating at ground level, so he was below my eye level.

“Earlier, you mentioned your cramps and its disgusting.” One of his friends started retching and the boys laughed.

The girls all stared at him, like he had lost his mind.

“Obviously, you’ve never been close enough with a female to understand how our bodies work so let me give you a lesson.” I stood up and looked down on him like a peasant in my royal court.

“Once a month I wake at midnight with blood on my body. I gather my bedding and wash it myself while the pain is still a dull ache between my legs. By dawn, it is an unfathomable pain. A deep ache that no penis could ever reach within my vagina. By then, I have taken enough pain medication to knock out a baby elephant and it still does NOTHING to slow the curse in my body. And yet, I come to school, like a goddamn Valkyrie to put up with pathetic boys like you who think that just because you don’t know the pain I’m dealing with that it can’t be that bad. God forbid I cannot control the blood leaving my body and it leaks on my jeans and YOU see it because suddenly your phone is out taking videos and shaming me for a bodily function I have no control over.”

He was staring up at me, in shock, as were his friends. I leaned down and looked him straight in the eye.

“I woke up this morning covered in my blood, I have absolutely no problem ending my day covered in yours.”

I’ve never seen a boy get so pale so quickly. He turned and walked out of the gym while my best friend was laughing her ass off.

He never brought it up again.

So, let this be a lesson to all the guys out there who think you can shame women for having their periods or think the pain can’t possibly be that bad.

My appendix almost burst while I was taking a Math Final in College, and I thought I was just having cramps. The pain was actually less than my cramps usually are. I almost DIED.

One of my girlfriends has to have a special prescription medication similar to Fentonal to keep her cramps mild so at least she can get through work without collapsing.

My sister once passed out while taking a shower from the amount of blood that she lost in a half hour.

I have passed out WHILE WALKING from the bathroom to my room. My mother found me at 4 am in the hallway passed out and bleeding on the carpet, she thought someone broke in and attacked me. It was just my period.

Men, do yourselves a favor and don’t try to explain to a woman how her period works. Get her a heating pad, hot tea, french fries, the tv remote and leave her the fuck alone.