Periods are a messy business. Menstrual blood is a topic often limited to hushed conversations among friends and commercials using blue dye to promote the absorbent quality of certain sanitary products.
I am one of the 58 percent. For over a decade, I have used oral contraceptives to treat polycystic ovarian syndrome — or PCOS — a hormonal condition impacting an estimated 10 million women worldwide. My periods began when I was 11 years old, and it was immediately clear that something was off.
Rather than having the monthly cycle described by the illustrated pamphlets in my health class, I noticed that the bleeding would only come every three months or so. When it did, it would last for weeks on end. At first, I was too embarrassed to mention anything to anyone. Like many young girls, I absorbed the cultural message that what was happening to me should remain in secret lest I make anyone uncomfortable. Of course, over time, as the soiled pads began to stack up in the bathroom trash can, my mother took notice and gently suggested that we go to the doctor.
It was in the doctor’s office that I received my diagnosis. There were tiny cysts on my ovaries caused by a hormonal imbalance. If left untreated, I ran the risk of fertility problems, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, endometrial cancer, obesity and sleep apnea. I also learned that there was an a relatively easy solution: birth control pills.
This should have eased my tension, but instead, a cloud of shame enveloped me. I was a good church girl. I was president of my youth group, a Bible Bowl champion and a member of the junior usher board.
What would people think if they ever saw me taking these pills? What would my friends think of me? Would I be branded a whore?
These worries were compounded by the fact that I was not just a good church girl. I was a black girl. Growing up in my small predominantly white hometown, the expectation was set early that I like so many other black girls would get pregnant and dropout of high school. You see, it’s rare that black girls are able to hold on to their girlishness. With the hint of the first curve of their hips, we become sexual objects to be consumed by leering eyes and wandering hands. Unlike our white peers, we are not viewed as precious objects to be protected.
The image of black women as sexually promiscuous Jezebels looms large in popular culture, and it dates back centuries. Take, for example, the horrific story of Sarah Baartman, the so-called “Hottentot Venus” whose black body was put on display for public amusement in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Today, we are inundated with images of modern-day Sarah Baartmans. Black Instagram models like Lira Galore and the Clermont Twins are fetishized for their curves while at the same time being pushed to the margins of a fashion industry defined by white beauty.
There are real world consequences for these cultural images. Approximately one in five black women report experiences of sexual assault, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black women are also the most likely group of women in America to become a victim of homicide.
Christian scriptures tell the story of a woman “with an issue of blood” (Matthew 9:20–22; Mark 5:25–34; Luke 8:43–48). While the text does not go into detail about the specific nature of her illness, today many assume that she, like I, was suffering from prolonged menstruation. Isolated and deemed “unclean” by the cultural norms of her day, I imagine the pain she must have felt being shunned by her community. After trying everything to heal her body, she goes to see Jesus, believing that if she just touches the hem of his garment, she will be made whole — and she is.
Today, I am a clergywoman in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. I often have the opportunity to teach and preach to young women asking deep questions about their faith and their bodies. Young women reaching, like the unnamed woman with the issue of blood, to be made whole and free, to be whom God has created them to be.
It took me years of counseling to dismantle the bad theology that caused me to question receiving the care I needed. Yet, the current debate around mandating contraception to those in need of it is a symptom of a much deeper problem. As a teen, I believed that my worthiness as a Christian woman was tied to my ability to perform what I now recognize as toxic femininity. It is a vision of femininity that is shaped by the male gaze and rooted in a theology of submission that fears women’s sexuality. At its core is the belief that women’s bodies cannot be trusted and therefore must be controlled even to the detriment of their own health.
To be clear, as a Christian I believe in cultivating a sexual ethic within the Church that honors the sacredness of the body and the deep relationality that it forms during sexual acts. However, many churches have done a poor job in naming the way that our silence and shame around sexuality can foster violence, exploitation, infidelity, assertion of power and the treatment of persons as objects. Sexuality is a God-given gift. Its purpose is to enhance human wholeness and fulfillment, to express love, commitment, delight and pleasure, to bring new life into the world and to give glory to God. Rather than attempting to police it in the name of religious freedom, it is time for the faithful to get real about the messiness and, perhaps in the process, become whole.
