THE PHEROMONES THAT CHANGED MY SELF IMAGE: Am I more or less confident? Only god knows…
Friday morning, I wake up with bloody guts…
This is a part of life that traumatized me so hard as a child, leaving me googling tube tying procedures at the ripe of age of 12.
I have come to terms with this function, though I will never be like one of those bitches that love getting a period cause it means they’re not preg. I would rather live in fear of pregnancy than have a period ever.
And don’t tell me to go on birth control, I am not one for altering the natural state of my hormones.
“Get a copper IUD”
Ur funny. If a doctor got within 10 feet of me wit an IUD with the intent to insert it in me,, someones getting bit by a 19 year old girl.
ANYWAY
A brief moment of grief waves over me and my now inconvenienced weekend.
I go about my day, buy a nice box of German tampons and mourn the chemical warfare that my vagina spent so many years fighting against American chemical filled barely FDA approved tampons.
Over the course of the weekend, I have experienced the male harassment of a lifetime. In all the years I have lived in Chicago, I have never been cat called more than in the 72 hours that I was bleeding in Berlin
It's important to note that when I got here I did not experience an OUNCE of harassment from literally anyone at all, I was genuinely blown. Either I was ugly and the Berliners weren’t into it, or cat calling is just not that much of a thing here. Or I was lucky.
The potency of the harassment meant one thing, Pheromones.
After the absolute face fuck that was the past weekend I decide to play inspector and read a bunch of biology academic journals on the topic, to figure out if there was a reason for my weekend to go the way that it did.
The foundation for human olfactory senses are built on the relationship between child and mother from birth, to adolescents when the portfolio of personal smells grows as the child is steadily surrounded by more people. The base of a subject preference is built off of the pheromones their mother releases- in utero through amniotic fluid( curated by genetics as well as the diet of the mother), and the diet during breast feeding. (“Olfaction scaffolds the developing human from neonate to adolescent and beyond”-Benoist Schaal 1, Tamsin K Saxton 2, Hélène Loos 3 4, Robert Soussignan 1, Karine Durand)
Pheromones do not hold a sensible odor but instead a chemical that is released through saliva and sweat that is sensed by receptors in the nasal cavity.
In the Japanese Journal of Physiology, “ Human Olfactory Contrast Changes during the Menstrual Cycle” by the Department of Biophysical Engineering at Osaka University, several studies were conducted to understand how olfactory perception is affected by the HUMAN menstrual cycle.
While many studies around hormonal olfactory sensation has been reported based off the studies of Rats, it is hard to necessarily find solidified answer for humans. As bodily situation greatly effects results.
These studies were done on women ages 19-32, none of which were taking oral contraceptives.
This article comes to the conclusion that Olfactory sensitivity changes through the menstrual cycle. During ovulation senses may be heightened but during or after menstruation, they may become more dull.
In the cases of a male musk, this leads researchers to believe that during ovulation, subjects may be attracted to the sent, but once menstruation has come into full swing, the scent may be repulsive.
***
I can not care to properly cite these at the end so you're getting it all now
To pair, Behavioral Ecology textbook, Vol 15 collaborates with Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyva ̈skyla ̈, Finland, Department of Mental Health and Alcohol Research, National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland, cDepartment of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Jyva ̈skyla and Department of Biology, University of California, Riverside, California, USA.
“Attractiveness of women’s body odors over the menstrual cycle: the role of oral contraceptives and receiver sex”
-Breaking down the assumption that men cannot sense female ovulation as human woman lack the ability to present ovulation status as an evolutionary adaption, here they proposed that human males may have counter-adapted(***out of horniness).
Aside from pheromones, surveys have been done regarding the smell omitting from the vagina created by discharge during ovulation and during the menstrual cycle. The male participants claim that during ovulation the vagina is virtually odorless or the scent is not severe, but during the menstrual cycle it is much stronger.
A similar study was done after extracting follicular and luteal phase odors from an array of women ovulating, and those menstruating. The men favored the ovulation smells, but this left the question of how this evolutionary adaption works outside of a controlled study where the male is given many options at once.
“In our study, male raters preferred odors of women whose menstrual cycles were near ovulatory phase. This finding indicates that men can use olfactory cues to detect the reproductive status of women. Female raters showed a trend for this relationship, suggesting that women may also have the ability to detect the reproductive status of other women”
***
Okay this was very interesting but…
Does this mean my ovulating smell is not sexy but my Menstrual smell is?
I am the odd duck of menstruating people?
Maybe…
-They later note that time of ovulation is specific to the individual and there is no true generalized time in the menstrual cycle that it can occur-
***Okay but there is no way I ovulate while I’m bleeding… that defeats the whole point.
Maybe this just means I have an especially yummy smelling period. To anyone that has fucked me on my period… Was I sexier then?
***(IM NOT A SCIENTIST I JUST KNOW HOW TO READ)
Ive accumulated a list of all the incidents that I felt noteworthy.
-60 year old man buys me a beer
At Alexanderplatz, I tell him I don’t speak German, and put my headphones back in and ignore. He walks away. Not even 5 minutes later he comes back with a beer.
“I bought this for you”
“No thank you, Im okay”
“No I bought it for you take it” he says while shoving the beer in my face
Excuse me sir. What the fuck was I supposed to do? If I took the free beer (which would have slayed) I would have had to talk to him and sit there
After 5 minutes of back and fourth no thank yous he finally walks away and drinks the beer by himself while staring at me from across the plaza.
-Pantsing Threat
Not sure if this one was a form of sexual harassment or just strangeeee Mfers
But I was enjoying my walk down Karl Marx Strasse, staring at myself in my phone making tiktoks because I have no room to care about how stupid I probably look.
And a man yells in my face and motions that he is going to pull down my pants… but he doesn’t. I almost wish he did that would have been way more interesting. Like why talk about something if you can do it.
-The Tripping Attempt
Also not sure if this one is considered harassment or just public bullying but while turning a corner on the street, a man and all almost run into each other, but I saw him before he saw me- being THE NICE HOSPITABLE PERSON I AM- moved out of HIS way. As we actually pass each other, he sticks out his foot to trip me…
ARE YOU KIDDING ME
THAT IS A FUCKING JOKE
I look back at him in complete disbelief, he meets me gaze, I say “you’re a cunt, fuck off stupid faggot” making sure that it was loud enough for him to hear me. He quickly turns away and walks faster.
NO WAY
A fully grown man just tried to trip me on the street.
After I moved out of HIS way
Im sorry but that fagot should have moved out of MY way.
Chivalry is dead and gone six feet under…
He looked like that fruitcake Dwight from walking dead that killed the hyper nervous nurse girl
Such a fucking crime…
-Man in About Blank needs a shoulder to lean on
In the club, dancing(duh), a man about 6 foot 5 inch dancing(waddling back and fourth) next to me, every 5 seconds of so he looks over at me. So I look back and smile a little to be polite( in at why the fuck do you keep looking at me) way.
He grabs my ears and says
“Can I put my hand on your shoulder”
“WHY”
He puts his hand on my shoulder anyway
I pull away while laughing cause WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK like bro you got a soli foot on me what kind of support is my shoulder bringing you. At least he asked. But I guess that doesn’t matter when he does it anyway…
“Its not a sexual thing Promise”
“K but why”
Puts his hand back on my shoulder…
Can someone please tell me is this is a type of raver camaraderie, community, nice friendly thing that I just don’t know about… I have a hard time believing that it is but its my only hope.
WELL god damn, the men of Berlin could instinctively smell my fertility and wanted to inpregnate me I guess. whether they knew it or not.
Im curious how this function may adapt if the interest in procreating decreases as steadily as it has been with millennials and Get Z coming to child bearing age.
In my ideal future-topia, men will lose this skill and women ability to sense another woman’s menstrual status will increase.
With the declining interest in procreation, I hope one day menstruating people can evolve to be able to turn off their ovulation without the hormone deficiency , allowing them to pause their fertility without facing the symptoms of menopause.
I hope this was interesting for someone- I had fun
Shake Ass, Bleed Fast, Ovulate Last
FAME💋
