17 Things Men Just Don’t Understand About Women’s Bodies
"PMS cramps feel like you're scraping the insides out of a pumpkin at Halloween."
1. PMS cramps feel like you’re scraping the insides out of a pumpkin at Halloween.
“I have used the following phrases to try to explain PMS cramps to my boyfriend, he looks legitimately horrified every time:
• you know what it’s like when you’re scraping the insides out of a pumpkin at Halloween? That’s what my uterus feels like right now.
• it’s kind of like somebody just stabbed me in the lower abdomen with a dull spork. Like one of those disposable plastic ones.
• it’s like my lady parts have come to life and decided to live without me. So they’re trying to cut their way out of my body from the inside….
• you know that sharp pain when you stub your toe? Like really stub your toe? Yeah, it’s kind of like that, but inside.
• that cringy feeling you get from nails on a chalkboard? It’s like that entire sensation, including the chalkboard, except contained inside my uterus.
• imagine there’s a tiny band of angry dwarves living inside your abdomen. Now imagine them trying to pickaxe their way out.
• it feels like there are hands clawing at my insides, but my insides are like weird, fleshy concrete. So they scrape and scrape until they slowly eat away at the walls.
• do you know what it sounds like when you tear a really heavy fabric? It’s kind of like that sound as a feeling.
….I don’t think they really grasp the actual feeling of period cramps, so I like to be descriptive. I think it helps.”
2. All the shit that comes out of our vagina.
“All the shit that comes out of our vagina. Like, what the fuck is this shit? Regular discharge. Then it changes during ovulation and it looks like fucking egg whites.
Then you get blood. Looks like a goddamn murder scene.
And sometimes for shits and giggles you get random-ass orange stuff! Or, if life is great, you’ll get an infection and it’ll come out in clumps. Who knows what fucking color it will be like then?
Oh my god. Vaginas are awful. Sometimes I really struggle with understanding how they’re attractive.
/end rant.
Please stop telling me to see a doctor. If I have clumps, I know I have an infection, obviously I will see a doctor. A little bit of blood for a short period time is totally fine if there are no other symptoms and it isn’t frequent. Daily discharge is fucking fine.
Changes in ovulation are expected, and actually tracking them is a real part of Fertility Awareness. Find your chill, please. These all can be things that happen to a woman, even if you haven’t personally experienced the whole list.
3. The terror of period shits.
“Yeah, this is gonna be a period thing. But a lot of men don’t know about period shits. Which is where your cramps cause unearthly diarrhea that smells like nothing you’ve ever smelled before. I don’t understand why it happens, but it does. You wonder why women feel so gross and unsexy during her period, haha.
Also how painful cramps can be. It’s crazy that women with serious cramps suck it up and go out into the world dealing with it. That shit can be insane.
I was confined to my bedroom once. I stumbled off to take a shower and almost fainted. I could hardly move. When I got out I practically crawled back to bed. That’s one of the worst pains I’ve felt.
Also that fucking sanitary products are seen as luxury items by the government so we can’t get them for free. Or more importantly homeless women can’t get them for free. Yet condoms they throw at people.”
4. Imagine you have your balls magically enlarged 20 times and then attached to your chest. Not fun!!!
“Boobs are more annoying to us than you think. If you have large boobs especially. when you sit at the table and lean forward they either get squished by the edge or they sit on top of the table which looks just weird. They can seriously give you back problems and finding the right bra is just awful and super expensive. You should look up how much bras cost; it’s not cheap and if you want to change them ones a day you need at least 7 of them, and if you work out not only do you then have to buy extra sports bras but they also jiggle and bounce around which is not only embarrassing and makes you feel awkward but it also hurts. Sleeping on the stomach isn’t fun and on the side they get squished again….Boobs are weird and I have this huge fear of breast cancer so I’m also checking for knots and stuff every time I take a shower. I hear guys say that if they could be a girl for a day they would play with their boobs and masturbate all day long, but they don’t think about how annoying and frustrating it can also be. Imagine you have your balls magically enlarged 20 times and then attached to your chest. Not fun!!!”
5. IF YOU DO ANYTHING that remotely affects your vagina, you’re at risk of a yeast infection.
“UTIs and all the shit that comes with our anatomy. IF YOU DO ANYTHING that remotely affects your vagina, you’re at risk of a yeast infection. Don’t pee immediately after sex? UTI. And maybe a yeast infection. Have sex the wrong way? UTI. It’s a bit hot outside? Yeast infection. Sweat a lot, yeast infection. Granted it doesn’t mean you’ll immediately get one, but as someone who frequently gets them, it fucking sucks.”
6. There’s no magical button you can push to give us an orgasm.
“How confusing and frustrating our bodies can be. I had an ex that would just get so mad that I couldn’t orgasm. I wanted to, but it’s not like there is some magical button you can push. Also, monthly hormone fluctuations OMG. One day my face is flawless, then a week before my period I break out. My mood gets messed up right before my period and I cry for no reason and eat lots of cereal for two days, then the flood starts and mood is fine. It’s as confusing and shitty for me as it is for you, I promise!”
7. Random boob pains.
“Men have heard horror story after horror story about period cramps, but I feel like they know nothing about the second most painful lady trouble: random boob pains.
You see, period cramps are debilitating, but they’re at least consistent. Just take some Tylenol at that time of the month and most the pain is gone. Boob pains, however, strike at the least expected times. And when they get you, they get you good. I’m an eighteen-year-old girl in perfect health and I’ve been convinced on multiple occasions that I was going into cardiac arrest just because my boobs couldn’t catch a break.”
8. Vagina insecurity.
“Vagina insecurity. My vagina doesn’t look like your archetypal porn vagina where the inner lips aren’t visible and are tucked away behind the outer lips. Even though the rational part of me knows that I shouldn’t care, I’m still insecure that my vagina isn’t as attractive to my partner because of what we’re conditioned to like as a society.
9. Periods are just a drag.
“How stressful and involved it can be to have your period… there’s always the worry about bleeding through, having pads/tampons when you’re out, being able to find a bathroom, etc. when I’m on my period, I have to plan my days around that and I am constantly aware and thinking about it. it’s just a drag.”
10. People with penises can not even BEGIN to imagine how horrible periods are.
“The fact that periods are taboo….
People with penises can not even BEGIN to imagine how horrible they are. But what really grinds my gears is how easy managing a period would be if we all just treated them like they were a completely normal thing.
Think about it like this—roughly half of the population of the world experiences a week out of the month where blood comes out of their nether regions. So if you are a human person and you know a human woman, chances are they experience periods. So it’s so fucking baffling to me how women are supposed to hide the fact that they’re on their period.
I’m a high-schooler and it’s insanely frustrating to have to sneak out of class hiding a tampon up my sleeve because Mother Nature decided to say ‘fuck you’ in the middle of science. It’s hard to grit your teeth and tell your male friend that you have a stomachache when you’re battling cramps that feel like someone is stabbing you with a blunt knife. Occasionally, you have to plan your entire day around changing out your pads or tampons. And let me tell you, it’s fucking traumatizing when you first get your period. I was 13, a child, and suddenly it was like someone had told me they had just killed someone and I couldn’t tell a single male on the planet. It’s treated like a huge secret.
I wish we treated periods like a bad cold. Something everyone gets once in a while and it’s completely normal to talk about.”
11. The physical and emotional horrors of having a miscarriage.
“Having a miscarriage isn’t quick and you usually won’t be admitted to hospital when it happens. The bleeding can last for up to two weeks if you’re one of the ‘lucky’ ones and your body handles the whole thing itself. That’s two weeks of heavy bleeding at home, being reminded constantly of what’s just happened.”
12. How birth control can fuck up your life.
“How invasive birth control is on so many real and everyday levels whether it’s the pill, IUD, other implants, shots, etc. It’s not just something you take and forget. It can fuck up your life. Also, how little money goes into research for male birth control.”
13. How much of a backache you can get carting your boobs around with you.
“How heavy boobs are and how much of a backache you get carting them about with you.”
14. Misogyny in healthcare is killing women.
“Misogyny in healthcare. It’s been well documented, and it is killing women. We get written off as hysterical females even when it comes to presenting with symptoms of cancers, heart attacks—you name it. It doesn’t just affect our reproductive choices, although that is a completely valid issue as well. We are frequently disbelieved when it comes to pain. Accurate mental health diagnoses are difficult to get because again—hysterical female. It really affects all areas of medicine.”
15. Being fat as a woman means you’re dehumanized.
“Being fat, as a dude, means you’re desexualized. By societal standards, you won’t be as attractive.
Being fat, as a woman, means you’re dehumanized. By societal standards, you won’t be as attractive, which means your only value is gone, and you’re considered worthless.
A fat man can still be considered a great guy, funny, a hard worker, even strong and powerful if he’s fat like a linebacker. Even sexy, to some people, in a ‘bear’ type of way.
A fat woman? Pathetic, disgusting land-whale, how dare she go out in public, she should just go ahead and kill herself already.”
16. The perils of getting fucked while you’re constipated.
“If you have to poo sex is pretty unpleasant and you don’t often want to tell the guy you’re dating ‘Sorry, I’ve been a bit constipated lately, not in the mood’ But, when you’ve got a duke in your poop chute—I mean, you’re poop chute is right next to your hoo-hah. Sometimes you can literally feel the guy pushing the poo you’ve been wanting to get out right back inside you—way back up into your guts—and it feels terrible. There’s no way you’re going to get off and you’re wondering if he can feel the poo. It’s very awkward, but hey, your penis is taking up valuable space in there, mk? We appreciate this, but it’s also problematic some of the time. It’s also a problem a lot of women wont feel comfortable discussing with you, so if she’s not in the mood—there’s a lot of reasons why—but it could also be that she hasn’t had a good poo lately and doesn’t feel like having a conversation about how having it shoved further up into her GI will be unpleasant.”
17. The horrors of having massive boob hair.
“My boobs have massive boob hair (length of eyebrows) and I have to pluck it monthly and it hurts : (”
