A few of the comments on the Megyn Kelly tampon post said something to the effect that periods aren’t gross and we should stop treating them as such.
I agree with the spirit of that.
But I also think periods are gross.
I think pooping is gross. I think peeing is gross. I think spit is gross. I think all of the fluids involved with intercourse are gross. I think childbirth is just about the grossest thing that ever gross’d.
I think humans are big gross bags of various goo.
I handle all of the gross things my body does by accepting the grossness. I deal with gross things as quickly as I can and then I don’t think about it anymore. Our varied assortment of bodily goo is a byproduct of being a human and living a life and just something we have to deal with from time to time.
There is no shame in it. We should not shame others for it. And I don’t think we should go out of our way to hide the icky parts of the human experience.
But I also don’t think we need to tell ourselves that gross things aren’t gross.
It’s similar to how I feel about stretch marks. I really do not have the time or mental bandwidth to convince myself they are actually “tiger stripes” and some beautiful aspect of my body. I view them the same as I view my knuckles. They are just there. I don’t try to tell myself I have pretty knuckles. I don’t think they are ugly either. I assign no aesthetic value to my knuckles.
I personally think this is a more healthy approach than lying to my brain until it believes something. I’m not saying everyone has to take this approach, it’s just what works best for me.
But I can say from my experience dealing with an elderly dying person for over a year, it only gets grosser from here, so you should definitely prepare yourself for all of the extra goo in your future.
Sometimes things are gross and that’s okay.
#look if it’s one thing that being disabled has taught me it’s that human bodies are gross#and sometimes all you can do is deal with the grossness#the grossness is often times not preventable#ya just gotta deal with it#(also I feel like accepting the grossness of humans would go a long way#toward society seeing the disabled as actual people and give us more room to talk#about the various gross things that come with it#but it’s 5am and I have not had tea yet I cannot have this conversation with rn)
Being a living creature of the Animalia kingdom comes with a lot of mucus and oozes and just because certain mucuses and oozes have specific names doesn’t make them any more gross than others.