Sex during menstruation isn't everyone's thing. Is this a genuine preference based on the impact on bodily comfort, mood and libido (or a worry about the practicalities), or do we unconsciously go on a socially-enforced sex sabbatical each month? There's so much historical negativity around this recurring fact of life for women, though thankfully the free bleeding movement and more open conversations are changing this. From sensing the impending arrival of a period to the intense peak and sticky demise, are we missing a trick if we don't at least try and navigate our way sexually through the flow?
I’d covered the skin of my hands before, at school. Chalk powder in primary colours from circular pots mixed with water, or ready-made poster paints in large plastic bottles congealing around the lids, even Tipp-Ex on occasion (although this we usually reserved for our nails in idle classroom minutes), would be brushed on, first to the back of the hand, then between the fingers, and finally the palm. The application created, for a time, a tickling and pleasantly cooling sensation, but one which would mutate to a claustrophobic dryness, the initial shine fading to a dusty appearance, then cracking and crumbling. This would result in a growing urge to seek out one of the Belfast sinks in the corner of the art room, semi-subterranean with high rectangular windows, and the relief as the encased skin was released from its mummification.
I thought all this as I contemplated my right hand, slick with menstrual blood and raised aloft as I leant on my forearm for fear I’d spread it on the white sheets. I felt immobilised, partly by fascination and also due to my positioning, horizontal, engaged at the core in the attitude of sex, my left hand busily attending to turning off the thrumming device between our legs, itself taking on its own ruby layer.
The blood began to dry, making my skin taut and slightly hot, darkening but retaining a curious oily sheen, like the inky surface of a slack tide in the evening light. It held my attention, prompting my rapid recollections, before I arrived back in the moment. It was too late, the edge of the bed bore a partial handprint, it would turn to the colour of rust unless quickly soaked in cold water, so I made an effort to move, reversing in an awkward coil away from my lover.
Towels had saved the bed from becoming any more of a primal canvas. These I’d later plunge into the bath, shaped like a paragraph symbol, saving them from total ruination. First I went to the basin of the nearby shower room, rinsing the blood off my hand and watching it swirl away, diluted and innocuous, down the plug hole. I then washed my body, but would afterwards forget how or where, and would remember only his torso, flesh and hairs saturated with me.
We hadn’t explored this state before and it was an unspoken truth that the stark sight of it challenged both our senses, to greater or lesser degrees, to accept that there was nothing wrong, no pain or danger, but simply the blunt results of sex encompassing the full spectrum of female fertility. The practical steps to contain it served as a tool to prepare for and process this new experience, where foreign fluids would have such a bearing on feelings, corporeal and cerebral.
The image of my right hand, receiving its coating when harboured roughly between us, would stay with me. This was no outstretched limb of Adam, waiting for the divine breath of life, but instead a display of an earthy, inner force, vital in essence but bringing with it a waning energy that mirrored our tired and spent muscles. I couldn’t yet collapse or relax, but allowed myself the opportunity to stare, startled then contemplative, retrieve memories and then return and asses the now.