The history of intentional menstrual suppression is often assumed to begin in the 1960s, with the advent of effective oral contraception. This article, however, demonstrates that in the Roman Imperial period, despite widespread belief in the importance of menstruation for maintaining female reproductive health, there was already a diverse marketplace for menstrual suppression techniques. By reading sources against the grain and engaging in critical speculation, this study investigates the available methods, who may have sought them and why, and how their use might reinforce or challenge gendered norms and power dynamics. This study focuses primarily on three sets of sources: Galen's medical treatises on bloodletting, the pharmacological compendia of Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides, and body amulets to regulate vaginal blood flow. It proposes that individuals engaged with these technologies not only to normalise excessive periods, but also to delay, minimise or eliminate menstruation for convenience.

Menstruation is part of women’s normal life, which requires basic hygienic practices. Managing hygiene can be affected by several factors and situations such as natural disasters. Focusing on ‘super flooding’ in Pakistan’s Sindh Province, we pay attention to how this ‘natural disaster’ has affected hygienic practices of menstrual cycle of women. The study meticulously examines the dynamics of menstrual hygiene management, encompassing the nuanced encounters with feelings of shame and embarrassment among girls and women situated in flood camps, schools, and community shelters. It also intends to highlight women’s challenge and embarrassment to participate in the distribution process of essential resources such as pads. The insights garnered from this study hold potential relevance for various stakeholders, including policymakers, healthcare practitioners, and researchers, offering a nuanced comprehension of the intersection of menstrual hygiene, climate change, and well-being of women.

This study examines a collection of expressions for the taboo topic of menstruation in Dutch, German, and Mandarin Chinese. A model for the identification of conceptualization patterns in taboo verbalizations is set up, analyzing each expression according to the X-phemistic mechanisms and, if applicable, the metaphorical source domains or metonymic vehicles at its origin. The various conceptualizations of menstruation are approached from a socio-cultural perspective; variation in conceptualization is examined through a correspondence regression analysis with three speaker-related explanatory variables (L1 and associated cultural background, menstrual experience, and age group). The underlying interest is linguo-cultural as the study aims to verify whether dominant menstrual attitudes are reflected in the linguistic conceptualization of menstruation within each socio-cultural group. Such correlations are indeed found, although the youngest age-group shows some unexpected linguistic behavior.

The substantial strain that women are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic can affect their menstrual cycle and further impair their quality of life. In low- and middle-income countries, this strain is exacerbated by: cultural taboos and poor education related to menstruation; ‘period poverty’; unavailability of menstrual hygiene products; and poor hygiene facilities. We suggest actions that governments, healthcare professionals and individuals can take to address these factors and minimise the psychological impact of COVID-19 on women's physical and mental health.

Female bodies as sexual and reproductive are subject to much scrutiny in Western societies and the church. Mysteriously missing from discourses related to such scrutiny is the reality of menstruation and its place in theology and females’ lives. From within a feminist theological perspective, this article aims to recover menstruation and menstrual awareness, and to advocate for the positive possibilities of widespread recognition and acceptance of, and engagement with, these realities to advance female presence in sexual theology and related discourses. In engaging contemporary social discussions, Jewish and Christian histories of menstruation, contemporary sexual theologies, and varied feminist theologies, this article proposes a robust view of menstruation in the sexual lives of faithful females.

Our aim in this study is to describe the characteristics of sexual development in twins and estimate the role of heritability and environmental factors as causes of certain sexual disorders. Two hundred and ten adult same-sex twin pairs (92 monozygotic [MZ] female, 41 MZ male, 55 dizygotic [DZ] female and 22 DZ male pairs) were involved in the study. Data were collected in 1982 by self-administered questionnaires that included items on sexual maturation, sexual life, contraception, mutual sexual activity within twin pairs and alcohol use. The ratio of married to unmarried twins was nearly the same in MZs and DZs, with the exception that the divorce rate was higher in MZ female twins (14%), and DZ and male twins were slightly more likely to be single. Menarche was later in twins compared to non-twin Hungarian women. 57% of MZs experienced menarche within 3 months of each other, 77% within 6 months while it occurred for 30% and 43% respectively in DZs. The first seminal emission indicated some delay in male twins compared with the Hungarian general population sample. MZ first kisses occurred later than DZ's first kisses. The same was true for the first petting, masturbation and first sexual intercourse. Anorgasmy is 27% heritable but the estimate is not statistically significant. Concordance rate for premature ejaculation in MZs was greater than in DZs but the structural equation model showed significant misfit. Age at menarche appeared to be strongly heritable.

Gender specific discrepancies on psychometric examination are often interpreted to reflect static differences in cerebral hemisphere specialization, but dynamic alterations relating to circulating gonadal hormones may also be relevant after puberty. The often cited inference of a right hemisphere advantage in males and left hemisphere advantage in females derived from small but reliable differences on spatial tasks and verbal tasks, for example, may to some extent relate to gender-specific differences in circulating gonadal hormones. Performance fluctuations on other higher order cognitive tasks through the menstrual cycle tend to support a temporal association between alterations in cerebral laterality and hormone fluctuations. A potential left hemisphere advantage after menstruation when estrogen and progesterone levels are high in contrast to a right hemisphere advantage at menstruation when estrogen and progesterone levels are low has also received support from shifts in visual field perception. The present investigation continues this line of work by measurement of prospective changes in unirhinal olfactory acuity in the menstrual, ovulatory, and midluteal phases of the menstrual cycle in 11 healthy women who agreed to blood assays of estradiol and progesterone prior to completing a modified version of the Connecticut Chemosensory Perception Exam (CCPE). The CCPE detection of n-butanol showed a clear pattern of changes over the menstrual cycle marked by an asymmetry favoring the right nostril during menstruation when estradiol and progesterone levels were low, an asymmetry favoring the left nostril during ovulation when estradiol levels were high and progresterone levels were low, and an absence of asymmetry during the midluteal phase when estradiol levels decreased and progesterone levels increased. Preliminary correlation analyses revealed a potential competitive influence of estradiol and progesterone on this apparent shift in cerebral laterality. There is thus sufficient evidence to conclude that dynamic changes in relative cerebral hemisphere advantages have a temporal relation to fluctuations in circulating gonadal hormones and to suggest the value of additional investigation of more specific causal relations. (JINS, 2001, 7, 703–709.)