Many many years ago, when I was but a young thing, Dr Jack Cohen, the 
noted reproductive biologist, who regularly talks at sf cons and other 
fan type meets, regaled us all with stories of how we as women, didn't 
know how our bodies worked and how we didn't question enough (he never 
did this in a negative way).  His point was exactly about how as 
females, we were unaware that it was more dangerous to come on and off 
the pill every month, than it was to stay on it continuously.  How we 
sat in biology classes, with illustrations of the vagina as an 'opening' 
like a tunnel - wide and full of air - and yet we sat on seats with 
closed legs as we read looked at those illustrations, and had no 
'opening' to speak of, just warm flesh touching warm flesh.  How we 
could accept statements about who we were, and how we worked, from 
people who couldn't even draw accurately.

His point was very much that menstruation was a rare thing, with most 
women only doing it every now and then, as pregnancy and breastfeeding 
spaced it out for years at a time.  He'd read up on some female hunters 
in some tribes who hunted whilst menstruating (can't remember the exact 
details) , and about how they'd learned to cope with having menstruation 
whilst hunting, including a famed female huntress who had labia that 
would close over in a cup and retain bleeding until she washed in the 
evening (that one always fascinated me).  But the point was very clear: 
it was not part of the normal biology of the female to menstruate every 
month for most of their adult life and it caused all sorts of health 
issues - not least of all the emotional and psychological problems 
associated with what we then called PMT and now call PMS.

He also explained that the reason why we come off the pill every month, 
in order to menstruate, is that the physicians at the time of the 
original pill development, complained that lack of periods every month 
would psychologically scar all women and was a therefore a serious 
threat to mental health.  So it went into stone that you had to come off 
it every three weeks to allow menstruation, which was a far greater risk 
to actual physical health.  I did try to argue this with my GP, who was 
having none of it, and carefully regulated my supply of tablets to stop 
me doing this 'dangerous' thing.

And whilst we are on this subject, can someone please explain to me why 
it hurts to breastfeed during ovulation?  Is it the same as why it hurts 
to nurse during pregnancy, or something different?  (And yes, is there 
anything that can stop the pain!)

Morgan Gallagher

> Here's a couple of links I found relating to menstruation & cancer.  I found it 
> interesting to read in the first article that when the birth control pill was 
> being developed, they originally were intending to orchestrate it so that women 
> only had one or two periods a year but changed it to a monthly cycle b/c women 
> would see that as more "normal" and be more accepting of the pill.  So the 
> makers of the pill clearly had the right idea that we shouldn't have periods so 
> often but unfortunately that's now how it worked out in the end.
>
> http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/fact_060309_menstruation
>
> http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/14/4/799
>
> There are tons of links but I just don't have time to go through them all and 
> find the most relevant/scientific ones to post here.
>
> --
> Margo
>   

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