i wish this was all the blood the world has to see in 2025
I’m here to share a reflection that came to my mind a couple of months ago while having a tremendously violent, painful and abundant period. I was lucky enough to have a painkiller right there, accessible; a hot water bottle and a bed to sooth me out. When the pain was gone, I then saw the blood clots that were filling my cup at a vigorous rhythm. I find those clots beautiful, heart shaped, like tiny organs coming out of my body. Then I thought about how period blood, despite its beauty and profound colors, is still stigmatised and considered disgusting for so many people. This reality makes me so angry. But actually, the reality that makes beyond angry is the following fact: we stigmatise period blood whenever it’s captured by a lens and shared on media and social media, but if that same lens captures the blood shed happening in every corner of the world today, as I write, we watch it with a scary naturality.
Period blood is the most natural blood to be seen outside of the body. And yet, we find it more shocking to be captured than the blood caused in the most antinatural way, by humans murdering other humans. We are witnessing genocides, femicides, suicides, ecocides every day. People being expelled from their homes, killed, exploited under inhuman conditions. And yet, here we are, watching all that blood without being shocked, to then censor menstruating people that share their insides.
I just wonder how many people having their period right now have no painkillers, no bed, no home. How many have to keep going to work under extreme conditions, how many get infections during their period because they are mutilated, how many have a paralysing pain that is never considered real in their environments. How many people are fleeing or travelling while on their period. I don’t think my imagination or empathy is large enough to think of every possible scenario to be menstruating. But you understand the train of thought.
It’s a very simple counterpoint, maybe a bit too simple, or too naïve, or too narrow. It doesn’t really matter these days. The reality is, nevertheless, that I really wish period blood was all the blood people in the world had to see in 2025 and onwards. I wish every single person having their period had the time to look into their blood and their body. I wish all the people that don’t have periods found that blood beautiful, and would consider that type of blood the only blood to be witnessed in our lives (except if you work in a medical environment of course, help improve other people’s health). Since that’s very utopic, a more realistic alternative would be to look at the blood being spilled around the world with the same disgust and horror as when looking at period blood. That would already be a step ahead. Small steps ahead towards more humanity. To go further, I have no answers or solutions to propose. From here, I can just claim to stop the global bloodshed and embrace menstruating.
