Ahhh, Reddit. Reddit is amazing when it comes to crowdsourcing information, meticulous fact-checking, astounding true-life tales, and the comforting notion that other people like the same weird porn you do. While the website can turn itself into a veritable font of useful knowledge, it can also expose critical flaws in the education of women’s issues. More specifically: no one can ever seem to figure out how women’s periods work.
When I first spotted (pun absolutely intended) a thread in the Squared Circle subreddit entitled “What’s an inappropriate, rude, or potentially offensive wrestling-related question have you always wanted to ask?” I knew that, somewhere in the tiered comments, I would be guaranteed the one question that never fails to arise in these types of situations. Lo, like an angel descending to Earth on the wings of a gilded maxi pad, there it was:
I’ve always wondered how the women handle wrestling during that time of the month
Let’s get this out of the way first: Periods are an uncomfortable topic, but a reality of for those of us with the appropriate set of organs. They’re uncomfortable and painful and for most, pretty gross. They can be complicated and a million different things can factor into someone’s personal experiences, and we’re not gonna dive into them here. However, it can’t possibly be shocking that after a few hundred thousands of years of reproductive function, menstruation remains an absolute mystery to our uterine-challenged friends. Anyone who’s ever had to explain to an adult male the difference between Tampax and Always — should they even venture that far into our cave of ovarian secrets — knows what’s up. But these brave souls, well, they donned their super absorbent miner’s hats and went spelunking.
First, the most obvious solution:
well. There is medication to prevent periods.
I believe most use birth control to, well, um… Stop the ring from becoming as red as Eva’s hair.
There’s a lot to unpack here. A few women did helpfully jump in to explain that the blanket term “birth control” doesn’t stop your period, bless them. Now, we don’t expect the average male wrestling fan to know their Norethisterone from their Mirena. Most don’t even know their Chigusa Nagayo from their Manami Toyota. Just like women aren’t a singular entity, neither are their periods, and especially their contraceptive methods. But the idea of simply popping a pill and being period free is…guys, no. In truth, almost the entire thread is like watching the opening scene of 2001: A Space Oddity, but with a giant tampon in place of that actual monolith.
The second comment…well. I hope someday someone is patient and kind enough to gently explain that periods are not uncontrollable Tarantino-like geysers rendering someone incapable of executing a german suplex without turning ringside seats into the Seaworld Splash Zone.
Sure, we’ve all had embarrassing accidents, and the early ’90s grunge movement was a godsend for bringing shirts tied around your waist into vogue, but I would venture a guess and say that nearly 100% of the time you can’t tell people are menstruating without them explicitly telling you. Managing one’s menstruation for three to seven days on the reg (puns still very much intended) is gonna leave you with the capability of doing it for five to 20 minutes of vigorous in-ring activity. Like…it’s cool. We’ve got this.
Just like birth control apparently just full-on stops your period, I’m 100% sure this comment will full-on cure any future depression because I will be laughing at it for the next *checks watch* forever:
Seriously, in addition to tampons, I’m also reasonably certain that female wrestlers are wearing decently thick panty liners to prevent against camel toe or any kind of discharge (period or not, I could see some harder hitting moves make a little pee dribble out).
Will there ever be a phrase funnier than “decently thick panty liners”? Sorry, comedians, time to put down those jokes and pick up office jobs, because the answer is a resounding nope.
Now, we do have to give props to any dude who’s willing to try tug at that tampon string and unravel the Great Menstrual Mystery. Realistically, living in a patriarchal society that relies on literally thousands of years of women’s bodies being viewed as unclean and their minds as unstable emotional fireworks factories during their monthly cycles has contributed to an unhealthy lack of proper sex education for all genders and a cultural shaming of basic bodily functions. While we may not love having our own periods explained back to us, we do lovingly applaud anyone who’s willing to ask “okay, but no really, what do you go through once a month?”
Well, except maybe this person:
I’ve honestly wondered this as well. I’ve tweeted it to a lot of the divas before but never got a reply from anyone.
…yeah. Gonna go out on a limb and say the chances of current WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte answering “hey, girl, you bleed like your dad or naw?” are exactly zero.
