FUCK//KILL//DEVOUR: more on period blood and "feminism"

June 6, 2012

FUCK//KILL//DEVOUR: more on period blood and "feminism"

fuckdudeskilldudes:

i mean part of why i’m so into menstruating/menstrual menacing/whatever, personally, isn’t so much the “you should love your body bc REAL WOMEN LOVE THEIR BODIES” shit, bc fuck all that shit. it’s more the “YEAH MENSTRUAL BLOOD FUCKIN’ IS GROSS, but also it’s amazing and not gross at all, but also let’s confront this horrible gross feeling in ourselves and terrorize men with feelings and/or blood”

though I gotta say I’ve been feeling kind of uncomfortable with the way that people (myself obviously included) have been menstruating on the internet lately? which is the most ridiculous thing I have ever said. bc like. MENSTRUATE (OR DON’T MENSTRUATE) HOWEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT TO. and like. i’m excited about making “bleed on everything they love” shirts! i’m excited about rgr’s group menstrual calendar! i genuinely care about whether my menstrual cycle is in phase with the moon! and when I started thinking about this and realizing that menstruating could be this AMAZING PERFECT FEMINIST TERROR body thing instead of this “inconvenient thing that I sort of like, but that I try not to think about too much, and that dudes are grossed out by” it was great. it was totally great and felt very affirming and nurturing and good. but.

BUT.

is this a white lady thing? is this a cis lady thing? is this a gross horrible radscummy thing? should we all be side-eyeing the fuck out of this thing? like WHAT EVEN IS this thing that we are participating in, is my question? what exactly is happening when we are all like “i’m menstruating! i’m menstruating too! ~*internet menstruating bffs*~!”?

like maybe actually the thing that is happening is fine and good and necessary! but maybe it isn’t. and sometimes it does feel kind of bad/weird/wrong. and I don’t quite know where the bad/weird/wrong feeling is coming from - it could be coming from the usual gross misogynist place or it could be coming from somewhere different/better/more uncomfortable though.

but also it doesn’t really matter WHY we do a thing or what we MEANT by it? like i don’t really ever care about intention. I only wanna talk about things/being/doing. so basically my entire point is:

when non-white folks are like “HEY WHITE FEMINISTS THIS THING THAT YOU DO IS GROSS AND REALLY ALIENATING” that is a thing you (we) gotta take seriously and pay attention to

Mona, Rose, Jordan, Cassie, Katina, Alina, Gretchen, Sarah, and I—and, seriously, so many other womyn in our feminist circles—are super fucking into periods and do not identify as “white.” some of us identify as WOC, some of us remain in the liminal space of what I’ll refer to as “half-breed-dom,” some of us are Middle Eastern Americans, some of us are Mestizas, some of us are queer and gender-nonconforming, some of us are trans*, some of us are Two-Spirit.

while I agree that it is absolutely imperative to check our “passing” privilege and critically interrogate the ways in which we perform our feminisms, I also want to magnify the fact that menstrual menacers are not always solely white, cis radscum.

I wanna say more, but I really love yr post and think you’ve got shit covered. xo