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220 LIVING RESISTANCE Crossing the Menstrual Line David Linton It all began with Prince Charles. In 1993 “Camillagate,” sparked by a surreptitiously recorded telephone conversation between the prince and his lover, Camilla ParkerBowles , hit the international press. The two were heard engaging in sex talk, which included Charles’s gushing, “I’ll just live in your trousers or something. It would be much easier!” These words led to banter about Charles’s becoming a tampon and other absurd fantasies. I was struck by the randiness of their exchange and the surprising inclusion of tampons in their phone sex. It led me to think about how women and men handle the presence of the period in their sex lives, so I turned to the classic works—Alfred Kinsey’s two volumes on human sexual behavior—to find out what the pioneer sex researcher had found. To my amazement I discovered that Kinsey had skipped the topic entirely. Its absence inspired me to investigate further. So I owe it to the Prince of Wales and Dr. Kinsey for turning me into a menstrual scholar and activist. Though Charles has been roundly ridiculed and misrepresented for his tampon talk, I came to view him as an unwilling menstrual hero, a man who, at least in his private life, is not put off by the menstrual stereotypes.1 There are other menstrual heroes, most notably Jesus. In the book of Luke (8:43), a woman “had had a flow of blood for twelve years and could not be healed.” Today she would probably be diagnosed with menorrhagia or Von Willbrand disease, a rare blood-clotting disorder, but then, she would have been viewed as a perpetual menstruator, eternally unclean, contaminating, and forbidden to have contact with any man. In the story, the woman sneaked up behind Jesus to touch the hem of his garment in the hope of being healed. When Jesus sensed the contact, his disciple Peter, knowing that Leviticus decreed that, if the woman touched him, Jesus would have to go away and be cleansed, tried to deny her access. But then Jesus did what I have come to view as one of the most radical acts of his life. He accepted the touch and defied the taboo, telling the woman she was healed, and then turned to his other business. Unfortunately, this act of sexual liberality has not been passed on as effectively as Jesus’s many other admirable traits. And that fact testifies to the overwhelming power of the menstrual taboo, a set of tacit prohibitions that apply not only to women but to men, too. The menstrual cycle is commonly perceived as “women’s business,” a topic women should keep quiet about and men should avoid altogether. And men comply, rarely expressing interest in menstruation, except to gauge sexual availability or assess whether a woman is “PMS-ing.” When a man appears “excessively” curious about menstrual matters (which means curious at all) he crosses the menstrual line. Eyebrows are raised, questions are asked (“Why are you interested in the period?”), which imply that the man harbors an un- Crossing the Menstrual Line 221 seemly fascination or, worse yet, some sort of kinky, fetishistic fascination with a topic he should have learned to ignore. I’ve been crisscrossing that line for years. Though the Prince Charles story raised my curiosity, I don’t recall ever having the “ewwwww” response at the mention of menstrual blood, being put off by the sight of blood on my penis during sex, or shopping uncomfortably for menstrual products. And I don’t recall ever having dismissed a woman’s behavior or feelings because she was getting her period. But it wasn’t until I began researching and teaching menstrual studies that I can say I became a menstrual activist, someone committed to resisting the menstrual status quo. Eight years later, I’ve accumulated a full range of puzzled, skeptical, suspicious, distrustful, hostile, appreciative, bemused, and sometimes encouraging responses to my work. Each reaction, I’ve learned, presents an opportunity to think about the meanings of menstrual embodiment and what it takes to resist menstrual stigma. Admittedly, my position as a man, a straight man, has its advantages. And my status as a professor of communication studies helps, too. Though people rarely say this directly, I sense that once they get over their initial surprise at my interest, they really listen to what I am saying. I don’t have an obvious ax to grind...

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