The History of Periods
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
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What Caused Menstruation?
It was a way of keeping women under control by demonizing like this absolutely normal bodily function. It's long attracted supernatural superstitious elements to it, but not in the actual body itself. Not until people started performing autopsies. Before then, you know, there was definitely a cyclical nature to it where what woman was pregnant and didn't get her period. She wasn't pregnant. She got her period. And so people understood pretty early on how it was connected,. But it wasn't until autopsies were being performed where people could go in and be like, Oh, okay, there's an ovary. And oh, this is how it works.
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