Would I stop menstruating if I could?

I can and I have stopped menstruating in the past.

Even before Seasonale came out marketing the pill in a way targeted towards people who only want to have four periods a year, women have used regular birth control pills to modify their cycles or even skip their periods. Women have even gone so far as to EXTRACT their menstrual fluid and tissue with a syringe and tubing, sucking it through the cervix into a mason jar, in order to take period-free vacations (among other things).

In my case, I started getting injections of Depo Provera which soon stopped me from menstruating. It wasn't for "convenience" or because I found menstruation an icky process, it was because I had really really really bad cramps. I was around nineteen years old and stayed on it for a couple of years. I thoroughly enjoyed it while I was on it, but when I was ready to "get back to 'nature'", I was VERY ready. I felt like something was really amiss, was having weird short-lived but thoroughly unpredictable stabbed-by-icepick headaches and sudden abdominal cramps, so I stopped getting the shot.

Without the estrogen-suppression, my breasts suddenly grew an additional cup size and I began discharging a thick clear goo from my pussy that was almost as strong as taffy -- I could stretch it about a foot between two hands before it would break; apparently I was ovulating as though the survival of the entire human race depended on me. It was a fun experience to see estrogen's effects intensified, but not one I'm interested in repeating. I don't need bigger boobs or to pop a handful of eggs, and no one warned me that would happen when I stopped taking it.

There are many things I enjoy about my periods, especially now that I work at home for myself on my own schedule; I love babying myself, I love witnessing and experiencing the miracle of my body and the crazy things it can do, I love the warmth of it, and sometimes I even enjoy the pain when it's not too bad. It makes me feel very alive and very rich, that my body is DOING this bizarre miraculous thing and it can afford to give up all of this luxurious red (and purple and brown) fluid and tissue and be HEALTHY and thrive. I enjoy the duality of feeling very powerful and potent, while at the same time submitting to "nature" or something bigger than me that has a plan for my body that operates independent of my will and intelligence. I like having my awareness being pulled out of my head and into my body, into the physicality of menstruating. I enjoy the reminder that in this way I am different from men and initiated into certain mysteries that they can only observe, worship, covet, enjoy and/or fear. I'm not saying women are superior to men (God knows how much I worship, covet, enjoy and fear the cock myself), just that in some ways we are different and it's sometimes fun to relish having something the other gender doesn't.

While I love menstruating, I also love *not* menstruating. I would never completely give up my periods by choice, but I think it's healthy to take breaks from them or to have bigger priorities that would benefit from the convenience of not menstruating. I haven't had a break from them since my depo provera experience over ten years ago and I think it's high time I took a few months off. It's an exhausting energy-consumptive process, and I see no reason to do it every month (unless it's for religious reasons and part of rituals and worship) -- it's excessive, it really is, and I probably have AT LEAST twenty more years of them so I don't think I'll be missing out on a whole lot if I take a break every so often.

While I cannot identify with women who absolutely HATE getting their periods, I can tolerate and respect their perspective on it, since they are the ones who have to endure them. If menstruating is just a big messy hassle to you, I think it's great if you give it up. What I canNOT respect or tolerate are MEN telling us it's unnatural to "fuck with nature" in this way. Catering to menstruation fetishists gives me access to a few people with really obnoxious opinions who warn us "girls" that we'll "pay" for choosing to give up menstruation. I love it when men are all for "fucking with nature" when it comes to anything like Viagra that will make them longer/stronger/harder, but if it has to do with women-only phenomena like pregnancy and menstruation, they think we should stay "natural".

One guy on a flow forum pondered, "What will happen to all the guys who get off on women having periods? More alcoholism, drug abuse, depression?" Jesus H. Christ! Let's ponder, on the other hand, what happens when women *don't* fuck with nature by using the pill or other supposedly "unnatural" means of controlling their bodies. I, for one, was suffering from debilitating cramps at one time: depo provera and cessation of menstruation solved that problem for me. And while we're on the subject of depression, about two or three years ago my pms started getting worse and I experienced horrible mood swings and depression in response to my hormones fluctuating during my cycle, to the point of feeling suicidal at times -- if I didn't know that it was my body fucking with me and that there was a chemical/hormonal reason for it I would have been seriously frightened. I finally got back on the pill and that problem is GONE. So. I don't feel a morsel of sympathy for guys who claim that their own mental well-being suffers when women don't "go natural" to indulge male whims and fetishes. Try having PMS sometime -- your sadness at losing some jerk-off material is nothing in comparison. My experiences with severe cramps and pms are not unusual -- they're quite common, and I'm really thankful to have the option not to suffer from those things.

The whole "it's unnatural!" argument against period suppression is stupid anyway; it is in our nature to try to DOMINATE nature . . . mankind has evolved to find ways to not be at nature's mercy. What could be more natural, then, than a woman controlling her body's cycles? I'm not saying that I celebrate people exploiting nature in abusive ways, but I am saying that it's obviously "natural" to try to have control over our lives and our bodies. There's a moderate way of respecting and appreciating nature while still seeking out and taking advantages of opportunities to insure our own survival and happiness. We're beyond the point of needing every woman barefoot and pregnant in order to "survive". Hurricanes, tsunamis, tornados, and earthquakes are all "natural" . . . but it's also natural for us to run like hell when we see those things coming. Bowing to nature's every whim is suicide, and science is researching the probability that one woman having five hundred or so periods in her lifetime is hard on her body, and heightens the risk for all sorts of problems (like cancer). Everything in moderation. It's probably not healthy to not menstruate at all, and it's probably not healthy to menstruate OVER and OVER in vain just because nature tells us to do so.

One of the reasons I'm reluctant to skip periods while on the pill is I'm afraid it will make my pms last until I finally decide to menstruate again. While my pms is less severe on the pill, it's still there and I'm still bitchy . . . if I keep taking pills to stave of my period, will I then be in a state of perpetual pms? I should ask a doctor about this or do some more research on it.

Of course, another reason I haven't experimented with skipping periods is that I like making period porn; not menstruating kind of limits opportunities to shoot it, you know what I mean? It's also disappointing to me that my flow is reduced on the pill, and I don't have many hunks of gloppy flesh coming out. Oh well, it's a compromise I can live with -- greater emotional stability in exchange for some of my rich decadent flow.

If you're interested in reading other women's answers to the question, "would you stop menstruating if you could?" check out the huge collection of responses at MUM (the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health).