on girls' matters

[sarea]

corianderstem posed a question in her LJ that got me reading this article about the origins of The Pill that are really, really fascinating. It's a long article, but goes quickly because it's so interesting.

I did, however, want to point out one particular passage:

All told, Dogon women menstruate about a hundred times in their lives. (Those who survive early childhood typically live into their seventh or eighth decade.) By contrast, the average for contemporary Western women is somewhere between three hundred and fifty and four hundred times.

*weeps* 350-400 times?! Compared to 100?! I hate Aunt Flo. I do not want to see her 400 times during the course of my life. Of course, Dogon women also give birth 8-9 times during a typical lifespan and spend the rest of their time breast feeding, which is probably not the trade off I want to make. Probably.

Also, msscribe, I love you dearly. I will try my darndest to have some fic ready to send to you. Please feel better soon. You're in my thoughts. (For those of you who may be friends with Dionne but who haven't seen Liss's post, go here.)

Comments

[akscully.livejournal.com]

Then the time period is stretched out even longer. And with nine kids, do you think you can afford to hire a nanny? All I'm sayin' is that some (relatively) momentary discomfort is nothing compared to either going through nine pregnancies, bringing them to term and having to raise nine kids to not be pyschotics and be able to function properly in the world or going through nine pregnancies, possibly losing some and having to deal with six kids and severe emotional pain.

Cramps. They ain't that bad for me.

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

Dude, in a world where I would have 9 kids, I'd also be a pureblood witch married to Draco Malfoy. And throw in a pony while you're at it. So yes, I think we'd have enough money. And each one of the pregnancies would be problem-free and precious, and they'd have names like Astral and Pierre. And with us as parents, they so won't be able to function properly in the world, but they'll have tons of money with which to assauge that pain.

[akscully.livejournal.com]

I've always wanted a pony.

Astral, huh? Yeah, no amount of money is going to make up for that pain. Why don't you name 'em Jackass One, Jackass Two, etc, etc and be done with it?

"Jackass Five, come here! Mummy needs her medicine!"