What is up with this contradiction?

[Caged Maiden]

I can't speak for what anyone should do, but I know what I like to do and I like to portray real things, in real ways, through real people. I like to make my characters uncomfortable and embarrassed, through characters who like to be that awkward or really secure person. I mean, in the scene I mentioned above, the mercenary isn't apologizing for anything, but he's being rather blunt and finds it humorous. I mean, just the night before or whatever, this proper young woman practically threw herself on him and while he enjoyed their interlude, he also likes her. One of his favorite parts of her is that he suspects she's rather a fraud in her role as a rich charge. She showed him that when they were in the sack. So it's a bit of fun for him, pressing her snob buttons, and over the course of his short game, he's kinda discovering her real traits.

Now that is certainly a larger theme to this story. But the issue of lice wan't, you know, important. It was simply the vehicle I chose at that moment. I used a few more colorful and entertaining (to me) ones during their first intimate encounter, but for propriety's sake I felt mentioning them here might be a touch inappropriate. (I know, right? Look at the shit I talk about and then ask yourself what I could find inappropriate)

Anyways, This feels like a good place to talk about vehicles (If anyone cares to hear what I'm saying. I don't want to sound know-it-all-ish). In a particular scene, say the one given above, I need to have a goal. I can't merely have the mercenaries and MCs sitting around eating, shooting the breeze about nothing, right? You know what, I'll make this a new thread, because I feel bad enough I hijacked this honest question to talk about all my oddities. Tom, my apologies. I'll begin a new thread. Thanks for opening this very interesting (and strangely satisfying) can of worms.

*trucks down to the thread machine and pops in her quarters. "Let me see...."

 

[Mythopoet]

Possibly, because depicting menstruation forces you do deal with the fact that it puts women at a huge disadvantage to men, as far as adventuring goes and that sort of thing isn't allowed anymore. But if the group contains multiple women and they are traveling for multiple months there's a high likelihood that the whole group is going to have to stall their journey every time one of the women gets her period. Menstruation isn't just gross, it's pretty debilitating. The pain can be very severe and the weakness that comes along with copious bleeding is not to be sneezed at. Logistically, it's just not good for a story narrative unless it's actually part of the plot and not just a bid for "realism". But then, I don't understand why anyone would want to read or write about these kinds of body functions just for the sake of realism anyway. Man, that's what I read to escape. (Especially when I have my period.)

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

it's pretty debilitating.

At the risk of TMI, I can vouch for debilitating. My wife had actually been hospitalized due to loss of blood and loss of consciousness from menstruation. Once we were married this did not happen anymore, but she did lose a lot of blood from the first birth. I'm talking about a large pool of blood on the floor as if someone had been murdered.


So, I'm writing about Addison Lane whose name means "awesome warrior." I think she can attract a female audience that hopefully includes my daughters when they're older. I want to write straight up adventures for her, where yes, her gender is a part of who she is…

…but I feel like I could potentially ruin what I'm going for if I let the readers know her too intimately, reading about bodily functions that are (perceived as) unnecessary.


I'm not saying I WILL ruin it. But the fear I would is my disincentive. The fear of this reaction:

Man, that's what I read to escape. (Especially when I have my period.)

 

[Jabrosky]

Possibly, because depicting menstruation forces you do deal with the fact that it puts women at a huge disadvantage to men, as far as adventuring goes and that sort of thing isn't allowed anymore. But if the group contains multiple women and they are traveling for multiple months there's a high likelihood that the whole group is going to have to stall their journey every time one of the women gets her period. Menstruation isn't just gross, it's pretty debilitating. The pain can be very severe and the weakness that comes along with copious bleeding is not to be sneezed at. Logistically, it's just not good for a story narrative unless it's actually part of the plot and not just a bid for "realism". But then, I don't understand why anyone would want to read or write about these kinds of body functions just for the sake of realism anyway. Man, that's what I read to escape. (Especially when I have my period.)

The good news I see is that this would only be a problem in a hyper-realistic fantasy setting, and it's my understanding that you in particular believe hyper-realism shouldn't be the only way to build a fantasy setting (and I agree with you there). I can easily see a herbalist making some kind of medicine that had the effect of suppressing menstruation, and they might not even need anything "supernatural" for the ingredients. Why, it wouldn't surprise me if, in our own world, more than one of the many thousands of plant species thriving in the tropical rainforests alone will someday yield just that effect.

But I agree with you that the OP question is a little odd, since menstruation is far from the only "gross" bodily behavior I haven't seen all that often in fiction. I would have thought it better suited to the other recent thread on gender, except that just got closed.

 

[Mythopoet]

At the risk of TMI, I can vouch for debilitating. My wife had actually been hospitalized due to loss of blood and loss of consciousness from menstruation. Once we were married this did not happen anymore, but she did lose a lot of blood from the first birth. I'm talking about a large pool of blood on the floor as if someone had been murdered.

Someone made a thread about realistically depicting menstruation in fantasy fiction. I'm not going to worry about TMI.

I also had periods that were much worse before I got married and pregnant. When I was a teen I'd sometimes have periods that lasted 2 weeks or more of constant bleeding. I often had to go home from school due to period cramps that were so bad I couldn't walk. And it's not uncommon for young woman to have irregular periods. My experience was that mine only became regular after I had my first pregnancy. Periods are serious business, is what I'm saying.

The good news I see is that this would only be a problem in a hyper-realistic fantasy setting, and it's my understanding that you in particular believe hyper-realism shouldn't be the only way to build a fantasy setting (and I agree with you there).

My understand is that the OP is talking about one of those hyper-realistic works. Which is why I'm saying if you really want to realistically portray menstruation, it's going to seriously disrupt your narrative at best.

 

[Sheilawisz]

You know, this whole conversation reminds me of a curious part in The Neverending Story.

There is a chapter, about half into the book if I remember correctly, when Bastian has already spent many hours hiding in the attic of his school. He wants to keep reading the book nonstop, but then he starts to feel the urgent biological necessity that we all know very well.

What to do?

Bastian is forced to put the book down and sneak out of the attic, carefully reaching the school's restrooms and returning to his hiding place as quickly as he could. Then he starts to wonder why all of the glorious, legendary heroes of the Fantasy stories he loves are never bothered with those needs, and he finds it pretty curious and funny.

The point is, we do not need to describe when our characters do such things, or menstruate, or whatever.

It can be done if it serves a purpose in your story, but doing it just for the sake of realism is not a good idea in my opinion. My Joan of England trilogy is full of female characters, and yet the issue of menstruation never crossed my mind while I was writing it... Why? Well, it was simply not necessary to feature that into the story.

 

[Sheilawisz]

I would like to add to this conversation something that I consider important, at least from a biological aspect and also from a Storyteller's point of view.

In case that you wish to portray menstruation in your Fantasy stories, you need to consider that not all women suffer from highly painful and debilitating menstrual cycles. It's a rather awkward thing anyway and many of us would choose to not have it if that was possible, but the severe effects (the ones that would be noticeable in a story) are not the norm in this.

Also, you should not assume that menstrual cycles are a female thing.

Actually, menstruation is restricted almost entirely to Primate species. Most species outside of the Primate family do not present menstrual cycles, so not all females have to deal with it. This is important for Fantasy writers, because many of us have created non-human species that are real in our worlds.

In the case of my creations, Aylar females do not have menstrual cycles so there is no way that this could be described in my Aylar stories, even if I wanted to.

 

[Mindfire]

Sorry to be nitpicky, but... primates are not a species. Whew. Okay. I think the twitching has stopped now.

 

[Jabrosky]

In case that you wish to portray menstruation in your Fantasy stories, you need to consider that not all women suffer from highly painful and debilitating menstrual cycles. It's a rather awkward thing anyway and many of us would choose to not have it if that was possible, but the severe effects (the ones that would be noticeable in a story) are not the norm in this.

It might be pertinent for me to point out that certain aspects of menstruation may be culturally influenced rather than biologically universal. I am referring specifically to the perception of premenstrual syndrome.

In all the controversy over the new DSM-5, it was inevitable that a long-standing fight over premenstrual syndrome would be revived. Eighty-five percent of women claim to have suffered from this disorder, but repeated research shows there's actually no relationship between daily moods and shifting monthly hormone levels. The debate is nothing new. In her classic 1993 feminist text The Mismeasure of Woman, Carol Tavris argued that the idea of PMS persists because it gives women an excuse to express anger and irritation in a culture that expects them to be unendingly cheerful and pleasant. (It also panders to the belief that women are irrational victims of their own hormones.) Being able to blame your socially incorrect emotions on chemical shifts is intoxicating: Tavris showed that even when confronted with evidence that menstruation doesn't affect mood, "Many women are highly resistant to the evidence that their beliefs and expectations about PMS might be influencing their symptoms."

But PMS is increasingly understood as a "culture-bound syndrome," a disease of societal expectations, not biological influences. Psychologist Joan Chrisler spelled it out bluntly in 2002: "It's convenient for women to use this … . The discourse is me, not me, my real self, my PMS self. It allows you to hold onto a view of yourself as a good mother who doesn't lose her temper."

Mind you, relating emotional swings to menstruation isn't quite the same as the physical problem of "debilitating pain" brought up here, but I wonder if there's still a connection between the perceived intensity of pain and belief in PMS. Being in a bad state of mind doesn't exactly help you cope with physical ailing.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Yeah Mindfire, from a scientific point of view I should have said Primate Order instead of Species or Family, but you know what I mean.

Female Aylars do not have menstrual cycles because they have a very different reproductive system, more similar to insects than to mammalian species. If you described human menstruation and human sexuality in general to them they would never believe it, and probably they would think that you are nuts for imagining such impossible things.

After all, we are Fantasy Storytellers and we can take some freedoms in our worlds.

I mean, we do not have to see Luna Lovegood saying: "Harry, I cannot go with you and your friends in this adventure because I am feeling terrible today, you know why..." just like we do not need to see Harry pulling down his pants inside some Hogwarts restroom in order to... you know what.

I think that trying to be too realistic and detailed in Fantasy is wrong, but others might think differently and that's okay.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

we do not need to see Harry pulling down his pants inside some Hogwarts restroom in order to... you know what.

But… but… if we don't see Harry doing that, then readers have no choice but to assume he's been holding it throughout all seven books, which span seven years.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Indeed Legendary, and that would be an awful long time for a character to be so badly constipated!

I have a good example of a successful story with loads of female characters, in which menstruation is never mentioned: I have not read the books yet, but I watched every episode of the TV series based on The Worst Witch.

The story describes a school for witches, a lonely castle situated on top of a mountain. All of the students are teenage girls, some of them young enough to be dealing with their first period, and yet this situation does not show up either casually or plot-wise in any of the forty episodes of the series.

I can understand if menstruation is featured in Gritty Fantasy stories that intentionally depict total realism, or if it serves some purpose in the plot... Personally I would not do it, but only because my stories are not like that.

My way of storytelling involves treating my characters as people, focusing on who they are instead of what gender they belong to.

 

[BronzeOracle]

Yeah Mindfire, from a scientific point of view I should have said Primate Order instead of Species or Family, but you know what I mean.

To be hyper nitpicky, what you said was perfectly correct! Actually, menstruation is restricted almost entirely to Primate species. That can mean multiple species, not just one - even a whole Order.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I watched Big Hero 6 with my daughters, and I loved it. That was aimed at a teen audience, and there was some mention of what teens go through. Example: the robot tells the boy he'll grow hair on his face, chest, armpits and--that's where the boy becomes very uncomfortable and interrupts. I think that's a good example of acknowledging puberty exists, and using it in the plot in a way that's appropriate for the intended audience.

And I hope my point of how this applies to us as writers is implicit because I'm typing on my wife's phone, and I have to one-finger-type, and my aim is bad. Black Dragon may be wondering about the "Legendary Sidelick," who tried logging in using my password moments ago.

 

[Penpilot]

But… but… if we don't see Harry doing that, then readers have no choice but to assume he's been holding it throughout all seven books, which span seven years.

So what you're saying is that we can all legitimately say that Harry Potter is full of S--t.

 

[FarmerBrown]

I just read the whole thread!

For me, part of making my characters real is giving them real problems. Migraines, anxiety, disabilities, irritable bowel, and yes, menstruation. For most women, it’s a problem, or at least an inconvenience. You don’t need to add real problems to characters to make them real, but for me it gives them another level of relatabilty, which can enhance the story in some cases. Real people also have migraines, anxiety, disabilities, IBS, and real women usually menstruate, though the severity of symptoms and blood loss varies. All those things can influence a character's personality and actions in ways that are understandable to the reader. But if that’s not the kind of storytelling the author is going for, then there’s no need to mention it just to make a point of mentioning it. Pretty sure most comments on this thread lean towards that. In the OP’s book, I think that’d be a great time to add another layer to the characters by describing the personal discomfort they feel while healing others. It would've been an excellent way to add contrast and depth (and I say this without knowing anything about the story but what was supplied), so the throwaway mention of menstruation is worse than not mentioning it at all.

My issue with lumping menstruation in with other bodily functions is that it’s not a daily event, it usually does influence a woman/character’s demeanor and abilities, and while the logistics of the event are somewhat similar to urination and defecation (removing ‘unused’ material), the actual event is involuntary and women need to constantly monitor the situation to avoid a mess. They can’t go behind a bush to expel a uterine lining in one go. If there’s a female character between ages 10-50 in a book, there’s a good chance she’ll get her period during the story, and at the very least it’s an opportunity to add a little complexity and realism to the tale.

 

[Devor]

I have a question. And don't get me wrong, I know it's fantasy, and you can do anything. But a lot of the stories that shoot for "gritty" and "realistic" and leave out menstration also seem like the stories that might have people comment on menstruation if it was included, and very negatively at that, because that would be "gritty" and "realistic" for a setting like that. I mean, in history, there was a huge stigma about a woman being "unclean." If menstration was part of the story, it stands to reason people might talk about it.

Wouldn't that . . . bug you?

 

[cupiscent]

Makes it a more interesting story point, frankly. The woman in the party can't let anyone else find out that she's menstruating because they'll all be complete dills about it. Sounds familiar. But women have - and have always had - ways of managing their business such that it doesn't get in the way and isn't actually noticeable (note that the first historical "calendars" measured 28-day cycles). After all, work doesn't stop for four-to-seven days a month. It's just one more thing we have to deal with - so a story of a woman that's including other gritty details but not that one... yeah, it rings a little hollow.

 

[Clinton Seeber]

That's a really good point. I'm working on a fanfic right now set in early First Age Middle-earth, with a female MC. Menstruation is definitely going to be an ever-present issue.

You're trying to write a story set in JRR Tolkien's world? How could you possibly do justice to anything Tolkien? To me, this borderlines on blasphemy. I can imagine you pulling that off well about as much as I can imagine Tolkien writing about "menstruation".

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I have just discovered the lowest brow thread that I have ever seen in my life. I can't believe anyone is taking this seriously.

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