Period Sex: Blood In, Blood Out

Wouldn’t that be the best bumper sticker ever?

A quick search on the Google and, as with anything your sick mind might believe it was the first to imagine, you’ll find there are a host of sites dedicated to said predilection. And so my new word for today is menophilia, which is the term for being excited by a menstruating woman and/or aroused by the sight, smell, taste or sensation of menstrual blood.

On a 1 to 10 scale of Internet freakydeaky, I’d personally place period fetishes at a rather tame three or four. And if any of you wonderful readers have a lust for the moon blood, alas, this is not your story, but a quest to discover how many people are unwilling to go to town when Aunt Flo’s in.

Given my experience, it wasn’t all that surprising when I asked around a significant pool of more-or-less typical straight guys, across the race, age and relationship-status demographic, and found that most didn’t think it was all that big a deal—with one or two falling on the more extreme ends of the attraction/aversion scale.

And the women, gay and straight, seem to fall along the same lines—with a couple reporting that their cycles made them extraordinarily randy, and one readily admitting she’d stab her partner for suggesting it, leave him where he dropped, and go back to the couch and her bowl-mug of hot cocoa. That was more about cramping than the mess-factor, though, which was the number-one reason my female respondents close up shop that week.

“When I was single, I was more into it,” said Stephanie, 25, a lesbian. “After five years, my partner and I still have a pretty decent sex life—not to mention pretty well-patterned menstrual synchrony—so unless one or both of us is really insistent after a good happy hour…” She trails off, laughing. “It’s just a hassle. So, why bother?”

When the pair was just dating, however, things were different. “Lesbians definitely enjoy penetration, but there are a lot of other things we can do with just clitoral stimulation—hands, toys, tongues; the mess is nothing a tampon can’t hold back.”

“A little mess comes with the territory,” said Spat, 39, who’s earned red stripes with several partners. “If I were that worried about dirty sheets, I’d still be a virgin.”

Most men I queried, Spat included, said it was the girl’s call. In other words, if she’s willing, they’re generally happy to oblige. Lucy, 40, says the last thing she wants while PMSing is sex, but the tables turn once the floodgates open. “I’m always hornier and get easily aroused when I have my period … I have very sexual dreams, and find myself wanting to watch porn.”

She has no recollection of lovers past abstaining for menstrual reasons, but says she “gets” why some men might be grossed out. “My guess is that most haven’t tried it and have an unrealistic perception of what it’s like. My husband has no problem with it. Admittedly, that may be because he feels like he needs to get in on it when he has the chance. If I’m offering, on the rag or not, he’s taking me up on it!”

It’s a question that begs asking. Of the couple of men I found willing to admit that menstrual blood was something of a turn-off—one, Sal, 37 and married, noted the “different smell” as particularly repellent—neither turned their nose up at a potentially far more funky option. “I like anal!” he told me, with a measure of enthusiasm and pride.

How, I marveled, could a little menses on your man parts inspire such outright revulsion, while the possibility of— Jeebus, forgive me—“dook-on-the-dong” was no biggie?

Sal had no answer. My Vulcan logic had rendered him ineffectual.

“Maybe it’s the porn,” a friend of mine suggested. “It’s taboo,” he reasoned, then broke out the air-quotes. “It’s dirty.”

This was precisely my point (And I specifically note: Not that there’s anything wrong with that).

It’s no mystery to me, though, why the fillies of the Vivid stable are granted paid beach days when the crimson tide rolls. Period sex may not be a big deal to most men—particularly when the alternative is no sex—but unless you’re in the small minority of bloodlusters, it’s simply not something they fantasize about, which is what XXX movies are all about.

In case you haven’t noticed, most hetero guys aren’t married to or dating Jenna Jameson. And the women who are willing to sleep with them are, in most cases, less than enthralled when lover-man suggests a threesome with Isabella, the 19-year-old Phys-Ed major who shows up to clean the swimming pool in a macramé bikini and Lucite heels.

For many men, conquering this uncharted territory is a primal and oft-unfulfilled desire (one that Sal admitted, for him, has roots in a domination fantasy). A woman’s period is certainly natural, but its roots are planted firmly in reality; the reality that sex, biologically speaking, anyway, isn’t just for fun.

This is almost certainly not what Willis was talking about. Even so, the subhead makes a good point—not everyone digs on the same thing. My homicidally menstrual friend told me she’d prefer a boyfriend who was turned off by her period, which is particularly debilitating. “I really just want to be alone most of the time, anyway. Even going to work is an effort that week. I’m counting the years until menopause.”

Should you dump a guy because he’s not in for the blood bath?

“I think [men] just don’t have enough information about what menstruation is all about,” says Kim, 43 and 18 years married. “After all, it’s just sex. They can use a condom if it bothers them. My husband doesn’t care either way. He just grabs a towel or we go in the shower.”

Not unlike your friends who hawk Pampered Chef or scrapbooking products, Kim has been a purveyor of sex toys and other naughty goodies via private house parties for five years and remains in awe of the things left unsaid between partners. “I’m always shocked,” she says. “They’ve been together for years and still can’t tell their partner what they want in bed. It’s very disturbing.”

Like my own, Kim’s list of partners past is littered with willing men. “I dated this one guy for four years and we had sex everywhere!” The pair spent a great deal of time at the beach. “One time we were in the water and I told him that I was on it.” Stunted by the news, he worried aloud whether it might draw sharks. “Talk about wasting a hard-on!” she jokes.

Spat summed the consensus up quite nicely, I thought. “For me, a green light is a green light. And I’m not going to turn down sex just because of a little blood. Especially when it’s not mine.”