For a week every month, I feel like a man. And, just to clarify, I mean that in both senses of the phrase.
Once a month, around the middle of my cycle, I get a hormonal surge. For the few days before I ovulate, and the couple of days after, my libido goes through the roof. While not every woman notices this fertile period (the pill, stress, depression and lifestyle factors can affect hormones), for many women it͛'s very distinct.
I don't suffer badly from PMS these days, but I do suffer terribly from libido. It's a huge distraction. For those few days, I think about sex a lot. And let me tell you, it's highly irritating. I'm a busy woman. I need to stay focused. I don't have time for sexual fantasies.
But you know what else it is? It's illuminating. Because every month it occurs to me that this is how many men feel all the time. Distracted by sex. Fighting off fantasies as they work. Wondering when they're next going to get laid.
I always breathe a sigh of relief when my hormonal surge ends. My life returns to regular programming and I can focus entirely on work and family. But many men – poor men – cannot. Their libidos hang around all month. How on earth do they manage to walk around with those things? How do they get anything done?
Earlier this week, Jane Caro wrote a brilliant piece on the disgust many men feel about women's menstrual cycles, and the taboos surrounding bleeding and breastfeeding. She theorised that women's bodily functions are an uncomfortable reminder (to men) that human beings are not special… Far from being made in the image of the divine, we're just another animal subject to our biology.
I agree with this theory. But I also have a theory of my own. I think men's disgust at women's menstrual cycles, and their hysteria (word used deliberately) about women's hormones and moods, creates a nice diversion. It detracts attention from the impact that hormones – particularly testosterone – have on men.
Of course, men's libidos differ, as do women's, but it is well documented that males, on average, have higher sex drives than females. They think about sex more frequently, masturbate more often, are more easily and consistently aroused, and are far more likely to visit sex workers.
Transgender men report a huge surge in libido when they start taking testosterone. And priests are far less likely to honour vows of celibacy than nuns.
Furthermore, though a man's libido can fluctuate over time, it is not cyclical. His hormonal surge can last all month. Now, that doesn't for a second excuse predatory sexual behaviour. I don't grab men's arses when I'm ovulating, and no man should be grabbing pussies just because his testosterone is pumping.
But it's not surprising that certain alpha males (Trump? Putin?) turn the focus on to women and our supposed delicate hormonal balance.
It's much easier to deny a woman access to the nuclear codes in case she blows up the world in a fit of PMS, than to question a man's right to start a war when he can't stop thinking about breasts.
It's a ruse, a deflection from the truth of humanity. Because we are all impacted by our oestrogen and testosterone. We are all but flesh and blood and hormones. And while men don't menstruate or breastfeed babies, they do spill plenty of bodily fluids; and not just for a few days each month.
We are all just products of our own biology. We are all desire, love and fear. And, as I note so keenly in the middle of my cycle, we are far more alike than we are different.
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