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Don’t Trust Anything That Bleeds for Five Days and Doesn’t Die
By Jeff Fecke | May 25, 2007
I’m certainly glad that we as a society have conquered sexism, because I’d think this next story might have something to do with the generalized undercurrent of misogyny in society otherwise.
The FDA recently approved Lybrel, a new contraceptive pill that, among other things, is taken constantly over the course of a month, eliminating a woman’s period in the process.
Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I have a good attitude toward menstruation, but I think if you’re a man and you’re over eighteen, you’ve sort of gotten over any squeamishness about it. (If you’re a woman, you either menstruate or have at some point, so I assume that bridge is crossed somewhere around menarche.) It isn’t a good or bad thing, it’s just a part of the reproductive cycle that evolution has both blessed and cursed humanity with. And it certainly isn’t a defining characteristic of who you are as a person.
At any rate, I certainly don’t know if I would want to take Lybrel if I were a woman. But as with most things along the reproductive axis, I’m in strong favor of choice. Certainly, if you’re one of the women who really suffers through her period, I’d think that you’d be thrilled to have this option. Even if you just find it inconvenient, you might consider it. And if you like menstruating, or view cutting off menstruation as unnatural, then you’d probably not want to take Lybrel. It seems like a personal choice.
But you’d better make the right one, lest you turn into a man.
No, seriously, that’s the lede on this bizarre ABC News story on Lybrel:
The curse. Aunt Flo. Riding the Crimson Wave. And, in British-bashing Australia, the red coats are coming! Women across the centuries have had names for their monthly “friend” — some laced with humor and many whispered in tones of taboo.
Ha! You see, menstruation is funny! I always liked The Onion‘s list of euphemisms myself, which include “Red Skelton dropped by,” “Walking along the beach in soft focus,” and “It’s ‘that time of the month’ when ‘I’m not at my best’ because ‘my vagina is bleeding.’”
At any rate, let’s get serious.
Just this week, the Food and Drug Administration approved the birth control pill Lybrel, for the first time giving women the option not to have a period. Period.
Okay, now let’s get serious.
It’s unclear whether women will embrace this new pill, which contains the same formulations of estrogen and progestin used for birth control pills for decades, but its arrival marks yet another step toward the blurring of the genders.
Hwaa?
Look, I may be just a foolish man, but if women stop having periods, they’ll still be women. Indeed, this happens to hundreds of millions of women worldwide, every year. After all, there’s more that makes you a woman than the sloughing off of your uterine lining each month. I mean, I’ve been with a lady (wink wink, nudge nudge) and there are a few differences.
But of course, it isn’t all about holding Cap’n Bloodsnatch at bay:
As 21st century women dominate the universities and continue to climb the executive ladder, and metro-sexual men explore their feminine side, it’s harder to define what it means to be a woman.
Indeed! Women are working, and men actually show emotion. How will we ever define gender now? We need to make men cold again, and get women back in the kitchen where they belong.
How is a woman defined? She’s female. She’s human. And…that’s enough, isn’t it? She can act how she wants to, because that’s what being human is supposed to be.
But of course we’re already there — because as we all know, there’s no significant sexism in society, and women can do whatever they want already.
Now, do women think the elimination of their period makes them not women? No:
“There are women out there who cannot reproduce, and yet, they are not less of a woman,” said Lizzy Holmgren, 21, and a recent graduate of the University of Colorado, who said she would not hesitate to take the new pill.
[...]
Other pills, like Yaz and Seasonale, either reduce the length or frequency of monthly bleeding. Gynecologists say more women are asking for ways to limit or stop their periods. Surveys have shown up to 50 percent of all women would prefer not to have them at all — most would prefer them less often and a majority of doctors have prescribed contraception to prevent periods.
Now, I’m not hyping Lybrel, and don’t hype any particular drug, because no drug is for everybody. Fifty percent of women would eliminate their periods if they could — but that means fifty percent wouldn’t, and it seems to me that this is all fine and dandy. But then, I don’t think that humanity is particularly endangered by blurring of the lines between the sexes — I think it’s good that women are in the boardroom and men are in the kitchen. And while I don’t think this will change anyone’s idea of what women are, if it “blurs the lines,” so much the better.
Via Amanda, who also has some nice things to say about noted Insane Person Leslee Unruh.
Topics: Feminism, Health Care | 18 Comments »
May 25th, 2007 at 11:55 am
I’ve never actually tried this myself (I have been on BC in the past but I’ve never tried unprescribed methods to cease having a period) but I’ve heard other women say that you can do the same thing with regular BC and the Nuva Ring by just not skipping the week and that lots of women have been doing that for years already. So it doesn’t really seem like this is anything new.
So right now, I think Lybril is just a marketing gimmick. Or maybe it’s like an awareness campaign. ;)
May 25th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
I’ve had my period only 4 to 6 times perfectly naturally (I credit the power of my mind) since I started menstuating at 14 (I’m 52) with no ill effects (I have two children, the exact number I wanted). My daughter has been managing the same feat with her birth control pills and the blessings of her OB GYN. Amazingly, we’re still female!
May 25th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
That should be “4 to 6 times each year.” Most years it was just 4, and the seven years I breastfed my kids, it was even less.
May 25th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
So right now, I think Lybril is just a marketing gimmick. Or maybe it’s like an awareness campaign.
Probably true — if there’s one thing Pharma excels at, it’s marketing.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
It’s funny that people think this might be dangerous, because, as Rhiannon said, doctors have suggested this for years with regular pills. The problem comes when insurance companies won’t cover the extra pills (because if you don’t skip a week each moth, you need more pills for a full year’s coverage). Any way that allows women to do what they want or need to do while those with insurance are covered is a good thing.
Marketing indeed. Any company with good business sense would have done this years ago. What made this company smart enough to do it now, I don’t know.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Re: The title of the post. I’d just like to point out that I only bleed for 3 days out of the month, so I guess that makes me trustworthy right?
May 25th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
“The communists have invaded the summer house” is my new favorite euphemism.
Lybrel doesn’t seem so strange, if one considers that a depo shot will do the same thing for several months at a time. I wasn’t so fond of the 50 lb. weight gain, but the BC method worked well and I didn’t bleed. And even before that, I would constant cycle the BC pills, so this is just another way to do that.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
This is so great! Let me just make sure I have this right: If I’m not menstruating anymore, that means I’m a man. This means that my lover and I can be legally married! (Not to mention getting rid of that pesky glass ceiling.)
Oh, wait — scrap that — she’s post-menopausal, too — so I guess we’re fags now.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
So then does that mean if a man has a vasectomy he becomes a woman?
May 25th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
About half the women in the study dropped out for various reasons. Many did so because of the irregular and unscheduled bleeding and spotting that can replace scheduled menstruation, according to the following article:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/22/no.more.periods.ap/index.html
So, apparently, about half of the intended market was not all that enthralled with the product.
And, apparently, it did not live up to its advertising of “no more bleeding”. Just no more REGULAR bleeding. Just a surprise “Gotcha” now and then when you least expect it.
To me, the surprise gotcha is ALWAYS worse than the anticipated, and prepared for, event.
May 25th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
So, like any medication, if it doesn’t work, you try something else. How unreasonable and dangerous.
May 25th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
It’s definitely marketing. I’ve been taking continuous oral contraceptives for about 10 years now as a way of managing endometriosis and chronic pain (insurance covers the extra pills because of the endo diagnosis). Seeing all this press about skipping your period with the New Wonder Pill leaves me a bit jaded.
May 25th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
I recall some report a while back (possibly as a New Yorker article) which traced uterine cancer to menstruation in Western women being more often than in women in primitive cultures (and, presumably, than for most of evolution) – women used to have fewer cycles because they were pregnant and breastfeeding longer.
It would be interesting to see if use of this pill cuts back on uterine or breast cancer.
May 28th, 2007 at 2:11 am
Sorry, I am having some difficulty believing that there are not important natural cycles that are related to the menstruation process. I’m all for choice, and I’m certainly not saying that menstruation has some essential connection to gender and that gender has to be preserved, I am just skeptical that this can be accomplished without unforeseeable health consequences.
But I dont menstruate, so it is a textbook case of “Not My Call.”
May 28th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Am I the only one who thinks, “hey, this is great, I can have my period WHEN I want”?
I think most women fall in-between the “I want my period every time” and “I don’t want my period, ever” extremes. I’d be glad to go on this so I could not have to deal with nature on a camping trip, long vacation, or for a special event. But it’s kinda reassuring to have it once in a while.
January 20th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I just want to focus in the first line of your article. “I’m certainly glad that we as a society have conquered sexism…” .. Have we?
recently I asked a conservative blogger what is the conservative academic response -if any-to writers like Mackinnon, Katz, Butler, Anzandúa etc. He’s e-response was a bunch of insults like the B word, and those that confine women to their sexual practices and he, of course , insulted my intelligence. Most people think that sexism is related only to a certain part of human practices. they look for the legal advances/non-advances regarding that narrow part of human life. In order to state that we humanS have overcome sexism we should take a good look at the Bill of Rights. Mackinnon asks “Are women human?” not as a merely rhetoric figure but based oN facts, namely, violence against women, forced prostitution, LOWER INCOME FOR THE SAME JOB POSITION, the amount of women as political representatives in comparison to the amount of female/male population, percentage of rape victims, (according to Jackson Katz more than 90%rape perpetrators are men ). and she goes on to say that “…now that ‘everyone’ has had a right ‘to take part in the government of his country’ for the past fifty years, why are most governments still run by men? Are women silent in the halls of state because we do not have a human voice?” Even further, the way women are portrayed in the media and advertisement – mainly as sexual objects- in comparison to the way men are portrayed – mainly violent. Women are more and more frequently turned into objects and turning a person into a thing is the first step to violence against a person. (Cf. Byron Hurt, Jackson Katz, and Jean Kilbourne)
thanks for reading
G T
February 19th, 2009 at 12:58 am
I agree with micheyd. I would feel uncomfortable with never having mine, but it can be a real pain sometimes. I don’t really have much else to say, I just thought I’d throw my two cents in (and I didn’t want to do my trig homework).
March 4th, 2010 at 12:41 am
I found this 2007 thread while looking for something else and am pleased that so much has changed in 3 years.
Now, my insurance company pays for me to have any type of birth control I want and for me to take it straight thru and never have a period, as long as the doc writes it that way.
And ladies, I understand if you want to have a period for reassurance but for those of us with horrific menses, it’s a godsend to be period free.
I had PMDD and felt like I was going to bleed to death every month and now I’m happy, blood free and mentally well ALL THE TIME.
As a woman, hell, just as a person, I deserve that.