The Weekly Mindfuck: Period Sex

Is there ever a wrong time of the month to have sex? 

There's one thing I've wanted to write about for awhile, and it's not something we talk about a lot when we talk about porn. We don't talk about it in porn because this kind of porn is rarely made, and this kind of porn is rarely made because it's illegal to do so in many places—if you want to make money off it, that is. I could get into how that reinforces the stigma that says period sex is "gross," but I'll leave that argument for another day. Right now, I want to talk about what period sex is like in real life. 

Let me lead with: I don't lead a particularly abnormal sex life, and I don't have sex with a whole lot of different people. The only thing that is perhaps slightly different about me is that I've never been particularly grossed out by anything my body does, probably due to a lucky upbringing. Because of this, getting my period—which happens every month, like clockwork—has never meant anything to me other than another trip to Walgreen's. I don't think it's icky or gross or embarrassing; I just find it to be a relatively colorful reminder that I'm still not pregnant. (Boo yah.) 

The very first time I ever had sex, I was starting my period. I didn't know it at the time, but I wasn't particularly worried once I realized it. (Partially because I picked a good partner.) Since then, I've never once opted out of having sex because I was on my period, though now I usually know it is or will be happening and give fair warning. My first sexual encounter with several of my partners went down while I was on my period, and I have one very, very funny story I'll opt out of telling you here. My point is this: I've never been turned down for sex on my period. Not once. Not even when it was the first time that person had seen me naked.

Unfortunately, women are pretty conditioned to think their periods are gross and wrong and that having sex while they're on them is too, so many times, they'll give their partners a gentle not this week, babe, before moving onto blow jobs or Netflix or both. (And my refute to "Blow Job Week" is this: If you're only getting head one week of the month, you should probably adjust your strategy.) 

I'll go one step even further: Some of the best sex I've had went down during that time of the month for me. Part of that is biology: Women are hornier on their periods, the whole shebang is a little more slippery, and there is slightly less chance you'll get pregnant, which is damn liberating. But it's more than that—to have sex while you're on your period requires you to be more vulnerable, and to have sex with someone while they're on theirs requires you to be a little more open, a little more accepting of mess and sweat and funny noises and all the things you're told sexy sex shouldn't have but most definitely does. That kind of connection is pretty awesome.

Then there's clean up. You cannot escape from the clean up of period sex, unless you're having one of those magical days where nothing escapes your body. You can tell a lot about your partner by what they do after the mess has been made. Do they laugh it off? Do they get weird and uncomfortable afterward? Do they clean you up, or let you clean them up? Those towels aren't going to clean themselves, you know. (Unless you're at a hotel. Then you've effectively peddled that responsibility onto someone else. Congratulations.) 

For all these reasons and more, period sex has become a sort of benchmark for me, a way to get a good look at who my partner is, what he's comfortable with, how close he's willing to get to me, and how generally down he is. So maybe we can't show it in porn here in the U.S., and maybe I didn't post any photos of it here. Maybe it'll be one of those things that's just a little taboo for the rest of time, but as a woman, I'll say this much:

I'll be damned if I'm going to spend a fourth of my life not having sex because of a little blood. 

Have questions, comments, or concerns? Feel free to contact me at [email protected].