Period Fetishes are for Everyone

I’ve proudly got a period blood fetish. And a very messy relationship with periods.

Mar 26, 2025

Menses Madness

A uterus does not define anyone’s sex, gender, or personhood. Obviously, that would be bonkers. I’ve got one, and I’ve had a complicated relationship with the ole gal ever since she started bloodying up my panties the summer I turned 13. My first period turned up while I was at a family member’s wedding, and I thought I had dropped chocolate in my underwear (how? I dunno) because there were brown stains in the crotchal region of the gusset. Later that day, I showed my mom and she gushed “This means you can be a mom now!” and thrust a box of pads at me. Ahhhh I silently screamed and didn’t ask any follow-up questions. Not the most thorough explanation of what was going on down there, and my mid-90s public school health class wasn’t much help either. It happens, they admitted, now shut up about it.

Popular media at the time didn’t offer much help either. Friends, one of the most-watched TV shows at the time, had three femme lead characters, and the phenomenon of the period was only mentioned one time—left hastily (and regrettably) on an ex-boyfriend’s answering machine as an explanation for erratic behavior. Eep!

Advertisements were thus left as my primary source of information on the matter. (Thanks, capitalism!) Information that was inherently sanitized, compacted, and fed to me in tiny discreet applicators. Women playing tennis in all white; blue goo dripped onto handheld pads (red was just too real, I guess); applicators so small you could hide them in your sleeve—because “SHHH! You can’t let the boys know your pussy is bleeding!!” These ads largely shaped my understanding of periods. All the while buckets of clumpy raspberry jam were gushing out of me, ruining my clothes, and giving me gut-wrenching cramps.

My favorite advertisement tagline, brilliantly repurposed by Dry Cleaning in their song Scratchcard Lanyard, is from a Tampax ad that boldly states: “Do everything. Feel nothing.” It’s such a perfectly distilled Stepford-Wivesian summation of the message to period-havers, I can’t even be mad at it. Do everything, feel nothing, or if you do feel something shut the fuck up about it and gimme a pretty smile, baby; is dinner ready yet?

Last year, I got a tattoo on my shoulder of a disco ball on a tampon string (dubbed “tampon string green” by my tattoo artist) dripping with blood and the words “do everything, feel nothing” around it. It’s one of my most prized tattoos. (See photo at the top.)

Friends I went to school with talked about periods in hushed tones, but also not really. I had a few friends who were proud of their dainty three-day periods, and I was too embarrassed to inquire whether anyone else had globby seven-day monsters like me. Because what if they didn’t and that meant I was weird and gross?? Non-uterus-havers sure liked to joke about it, as I recall. There was that one oft-repeated joke (climaxing with a reference on South Park), that you shouldn’t trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die. I remember thinking, five days—if only.

As a small girl with a big flow, who spotted in between cycles, my period was always kinda just there. There meaning on my mind and in my pants, but never in conversation. Probably I should have seen a doctor and gone on regulating medication much earlier, but that would have required an open discussion of bodies like mine in my universe, and that just wasn’t there.

And periods, it seemed to me, only had downsides. So many decisions had to take vag bleeding into account—underwear choice; clothing choice; bathing suit choice; purse choice; going into water or just hanging by the side (don’t worry about me, guys, I like to watch!); casual sex choices; relationship sex choices; bedding choices (should I put a towel down?); etc etc etc. Just a bloody sword of Damocles hanging over my head, kinda always.

The intense shame I felt is perhaps not surprising given this context. When I started taking birth control pills in my early twenties and learned I could skip right past my periods, I was all in. In fact, while I’ve gone on and off at different times, I currently use birth control to skip my periods and it’s totally freeing. Not all birth control halts periods, but I take the kind that specifically does.

A few people in my orbit have recently decided to have elective hysterectomies, and it’s something I’ve often considered. I haven’t seriously looked into it yet, partly because their stories suggest our health care system isn’t exactly supportive of it. Doctors will flat-out say “No, you might change your mind and want baabiessssss!” And it’s no surprise that in the US, you’re going to be paying for that bitch yourself (and you don’t even get to keep that bitch in a jar after—lame!). It’s a procedure which, according to firsthand accounts, isn’t all that invasive and heals rather quickly, assuming all goes well. I’m all for taking control of your reproductive parts, especially now that it’s getting harder and harder, with pronatalist “your body my choice” creeps in positions of power.

It’s common knowledge now, but worth remembering that the hyster of hysterectomy shares etymology with hysteria and hysterical, and means “of the womb.” When women get upset or make complaints, it’s not because they have legitimate reasons, it’s because their wandering womb is making them hysterical, or so the diagnosis went.

Period Sex is Red Hot

Just because I don’t want to have periods doesn’t mean I can’t find them sexy as hell. Have you ever wanted something during sex that you categorically do not want in real life? It’s a common sentiment, the taboo of it all makes sex feel exciting and subversive.

One element of having periods I miss is getting super horny on them. Not only was the blood extra lube, the particular hormone cocktail running through my body got me All. Charged. Up. Nothing eased my wandering uterus like a good old fashioned deep dicking.

Perversely, however, for years and years, I was so squeamish about period sex, I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of having it. Despite being Super. Fucking. Horny. So much denial, it makes me sad to even remember it. Inconsiderate (sometimes cruel) male partners weren’t exactly confidence boosting on the matter.

Post-divorce me finally said fuck it, and I dove head-first (or rather my worthy partners did) into period sex! And partner-wise, I found that enthusiasm for period sex could be a great sorting hat. It’s incredibly sexy when a partner not only “doesn’t mind” but is gungho about it. If someone is going down on me and not only doesn’t stop at the first speck of crimson, but instead laps it up enthusiastically—Ohhhmerrrgaahhhd! Yes please, I want to fuck you more!! Seeing my blood smeared on my partner’s face is one of the sexiest things I’ve ever beheld (*drippy heart eyes emoji*).

Given the goopy mess of shame surrounding my early experiences with periods, it’s no wonder I find it self-affirming for someone to see my period blood as sexual and desirable (and even consumable).

As a vampire enthusiast, I also just love blood. Not violence, but blood. Horror movies don’t scratch that itch for me (no shade if you love them), because typically when you see blood it follows violence (often violence against women). With vampires, blood can be sensual and sexy, and the hunger for it can be hornily-charged. When you add a velvety goth setting, the crimson bodily fluid becomes beautiful. And in the end, I truly think blood is just fucking beautiful. Especially when it comes from a pussy. So much so that I even wrote a bit of erotica centered around a vampire who consumes period blood (shameless plug, pun intended).

Am I alone in my period blood fetish? Certainly not. Indeed, period fetishes are trickling their way into mainstream culture. The TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has a great bit where the main character continually tries to break out into a song about period sex, but is always interrupted. The movie Saltburn (2023) offers many salacious dripping-with-sex scenes, including one where the main character greedily eats out a woman in a white dress having her period—a woman whose eating disorder is miraculously cured the next day? (Lot to unpack there, but whatever I found the scene super hot.) The novel The Pisces (2019) by Melissa Broder has a delicious scene where the main character’s mermaid boyfriend hungrily insists on eating her out and gorging on her period blood. The novel All Fours (2024) by Miranda July also gives us a tantalizing scene where the main character’s younger lover pushes a tampon inside her while she straddles him on a toilet seat.

You Seem Like You Might be Pluggin’

While I find periods and period blood super sexy, I still really like not having them. I’m a complicated gal, what can I say? As I said, I find it very freeing to skip my periods, but still, the pull of period blood is just too strong, I can’t stay away.

Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and sexual fantasy is her slutty half-sister. So I started DIY-ing my own fake blood—specifically, red lotion made from all natural ingredients that’s safe to get in my pussy and in my partner’s mouth. This isn’t a big stretch for me, since I already make and sell lickable massage oil candles (Lix Candles—shameless plug number 2), which are all natural and safe to get in your mouth and bits.

And I’ve been delighting in my fake blood lotion ever since! It’s allowed me to have my cake (or rather, red velvet cake batter) while not having it too. Blood on command and only in the amounts I want. And it’s proven to me that having a period blood fetish can be for everyone—anytime of the month

My fake blood lotion has helped me reconcile lingering shame about periods, my desire to control their inconvenience, and my desire to wallow in their sexy grossness. (Okay, I don’t actually think period blood is gross, but also I kinda do in the way kids like gross stuff.) Because in the end, it’s all about the freedom to be a little gross—especially during sex. Because gross is fascinating. Gross can be beautiful. Gross makes the patriarchy uncomfortable—and refusing shame is power. Gross makes me feel alive!

So, to all my hyster-sisters, -misters, and -inbetwixters (still workshopping that one), I invite you all to revel with me in the glorious messy goodness of period sex—real or imitated! Do everything and feel everything!

Just put a towel down.