Sometimes I think about how women were considered property not even 200 years ago

Sometimes I think about how women were considered property not even 200 years ago

Sometimes I think about the way that lives in my body

and in the messages I’ve been taught by people older than me

Sometimes I think about how in 1973 women still couldn’t open a credit card

And I think about the way women struggle with money, feel shame about not knowing things about money, as if it could have ever been their faults

I think about how I put menstrual blood on my face and people freak the fuck out

I think about how women in other countries are still property and are forced to drop out of school when they bleed

I think about how I don’t want to stuff myself up with foreign objects, how I don’t want my pussy to not be able to breathe all day in underwear that try to absorb my blood and often fail, and how inadequate I used to feel when my blood soaked through my clothes in public

This entire period, I’ve been free bleeding.

I have super heavy periods, so this isn’t casual – it means that my first entire day was spent not moving from bed at all, soaking into special blankets that surrounded me.

My boyfriend brought me each meal, brought me tea, anything I asked for

I spent the entire day writing, 5x more than usual. It poured out of me.

I felt the blood each time it came out of me. I felt it dry on my skin.

I felt it get on my thighs, my butt, while I moved around.

It took some moments to adjust to the feeling of the blood just leaving me, covering me, without anything to control it.

I had the best day.

My body felt supremely relaxed, as if this is all it’s ever wanted forever.

There were no feelings of “oh no, it’s getting where it’s not supposed to,” or “I have to change these underwear/cup/pad” (I haven’t worn tampons in ages) because it was allowed to go everywhere.

I started thinking about choice.

What if blood was not shameful

What if blood was not considered disgusting, or dirty

or an annoyance

What if women’s health was studied, ever

What if women who wanted to go into the world had the option to do so, and women who wanted to stay home could stay home, get paid, and bleed all over whatever they wanted

What if I was able to touch my own blood without getting my accounts banned

How could you think that you would naturally know your own value, when you were not allowed to own a credit card until 1974?

When the man running your country sexually assaults women, when brock turner barely goes to prison, when your right to your own organs is viciously debated?

I want every woman to have the choice to be as feminine as she wants, to submit to her partner when she wants. To set boundaries with the world around her. To realize her pleasure is paramount.

To claim the value she gives to others daily, often without them realizing it.

To understand that she does not know what she’s worth because all of her ancestors were property

And that she can opt out of that story whenever she chooses.

 

If you liked this piece, you might also enjoy: 

– My body can grow babies and I can kill them if I want to

– You were never a virgin and nothing was ever taken from you

– Tell your partner when you self-pleasure. Not because he owns your body, but because you do

– This is how to feel safe embodying your feminine energy

– Once, he wrapped his hands around my neck