Howl

Why I Fantasize About Period Sex

I want to be wanted every day of the month, blood or no blood.

There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have wanted a man to come near me when I was bleeding. I was ashamed. I was in pain. I felt like I should hide everything about it, fold myself into a tiny shape and wait for it to pass.

It didn’t help that I grew up reading teen magazines that told me periods were smelly and embarrassing. That I would need to flush out my vagina regularly with scented water and perfumes if I wanted a man to come near me no matter what time of the month it was. That I would have to wear tampons because they were small and easy to conceal so no one, god forbid, would ever know when I was on my period.

It also didn’t help that my former sexual partners were disgusted by menstruation. Any mention of it sent them running — literally. If I commented that I was bloated or feeling moody, they’d say, “See you in a week, okay?”

My last partner was the worst of all. He would barely touch me when I was on my period. On Day 3 of my cycle, when my cramps eased, when I was barely bleeding at all, and my sex drive returned with a jarring impact that sent me running into his arms, he’d shy away.

“But I’m done,” I’d say. “It’s basically over.”

He’d shake his head, wrinkling his nose with a “No, thanks.”

He called those my “pink days” because once, when I’d stopped visibly bleeding, we had sex and afterwards, he’d noticed traces of pink-tinged discharge on his penis — the faintest hint of blood. He’d looked horrified and immediately took a shower.

It was humiliating.

As I’ve gotten older and my body has blessedly changed, no longer debilitated by menstrual cramps, I find myself more and more turned on during my period. Even on Day 1 of my cycle — a time in the past when I would have found the idea of becoming aroused absolutely undesirable, if not impossible — I am often ready and raring to go.

For the first time in my life, I want to have period sex.

There is an aching tenderness in my body at that time of the month, making it exquisitely sensitive — when pain and pleasure are so close together, it’s hard to tell the difference.

I can only imagine what it would be like to be touched, caressed, penetrated when my body feels so deeply open and unguarded, so in tune with the earthbound, vital energy that grips me at that time of my cycle.

I can only imagine the slip of all that liquid. Yes, it’s true, it might not necessarily be pretty or even sexy in the conventional sense. Menstrual blood is never consistent, never straightforward. It comes out in different colors, different textures, different viscosities.

And yes, it’s nothing like the sweetly floral, slippery discharge a woman releases during ovulation. That’s the liquid that summons life, thin and fresh and intoxicating, ready to receive seed and make a baby.

Menstrual blood is the other end of the spectrum, the death at the end of the cycle, the release of the nourishment gathered for the baby that never came. It can be thick or thin, can feel watery or sticky, and it smells earthy and metallic, like a layered forest floor.

This blood, despite what we’ve been taught — is just as valuable as that revered ovulatory discharge. This blood comes from the place inside me where all of life began.

It is, quite literally, the alpha and the omega, the beginning of all, the end of all. We were born covered in this blood. It nourished us and kept us alive in our mothers’ wombs. It followed us out of her in a great, membranous puddle, still attached to our bodies.

There’s nothing to shudder about. There’s nothing disgusting about it.

What an honor, in fact, to be invited into a woman’s body at this time of the month, when she is so emotionally, physically, and spiritually connected to the energy of life and death. What an honor to be anointed again by the blood from which we were born.

I can only imagine having a partner who would be that open, that reverent.

Perhaps, though, the ultimate fantasy of period sex is simply the high of experiencing that kind of acceptance from a lover. To be so fully embraced that no part of me could feel shame.

I’m an animal, you see. I’m not trying to be provocative or even cute. I’m simply stating a fact. I’m a Homo sapien, a mammal, member of the kingdom Animalia. I struggle with many of the constructs of the human world that we have designed to remove us from that truth —the things that make us forget that we are just animals: hairy, smelly, and bloody.

Sex is maybe the only place where we can really let loose, set our animal selves free for a fleeting moment. Pursue the most vulnerable and impolite pleasures, say things not fit for the dinner table or the boardroom, make noises that we wouldn’t dare utter in any other circumstance.

I admit that the idea of period sex speaks to some of my most carnal fantasies.

Let’s stain the bed like animals. Let my blood smear across your hips. Put your hands in it and paint my belly and breasts with red streaks; call me your feral warrior queen.

Let our fucking look like a cataclysmic battlefield, stained with the color of our single-minded desire, our desperate spiral into and out of the underworld.

And when we’re done, we can take a shower together, letting the blood run down our bodies, pooling around our toes, swirling pink into the drain. We’ll kiss as the water rinses us clean, both of our bodies still thrumming with blood: yours on the inside, mine on the outside.

Looking back at my past, it is painful to remember how so many men have made me feel ashamed of my period, who have defined my sexuality around it, away from it.

But my period is part of my body, part of my sexual functioning, part of me. It’s a beautiful act of creation and death that happens over and over again, a never-ending cycle of desire and release.

Yet my blood has been reviled.

Interestingly, the liquid man makes has always been revered. Every sexual encounter I’ve had has literally revolved around semen and a man’s insistence that I receive it in the way he desired. In my mouth. On my face. On my breasts. In my vagina. Across my ass.

I wish I had been equally insistent. I wish I had been with someone who accepted every part of me the way I have tried to accept every part of my former partners.

So for now, this remains a fantasy that I can only hope to one day realize. I understand it might not be easy. We’ve been conditioned to treat menstruation as something disgusting and shameful. It might take a while to undo the damage that’s been done, to be able to look through another lens and see the potential beauty and raw elation of period sex.

I’m thankful for all the women out there who are speaking out about this, who are letting men know that yes, some of us are really aroused during our periods and we really do want to have sex at that time of the month. And yes, it’s both beautiful and messy as fuck, like all good things are.

And I’m grateful to the men who are open-minded enough to read this, and for the ones who are already loving and fucking their women during their periods.

Maybe, in the end, that’s the real fantasy to me: To have someone who says to me, “Yes, I want you. I want you every single day of the month, blood or no blood. I always want you.”

© Yael Wolfe 2019

Here’s a great perspective by Meaghan Ward: