No Periods, Period

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"Modess... because." -- Carefully unspecific advertising copy


Surfing the Crimson Tide. On the Rag. On the Blob. Serving L'Omelette Rouge at Phil Opian's Diner. The Red Knight is Requesting Lodging. Having the Painters In. Riding the Cotton Pony. Receiving a Visit from Auntie Flo. Falling To The Communistm. Liverpool Playing at Home. Walking Through a Field of Wildflowers in Soft Focus. Winning a Starring Role in a Period Costume Drama. Overusing the Red Paint at Camp Ovary. Closed For Maintenance. Surviving the Massacre at the Y. At Code Red. Staging a Production of Titus Andronicus in My Pants. That Time Of The Month... When I'm Not at My Best... Because My Vagina is Bleeding.

You know... menstruation.

This does not happen to TV and movie characters. It is rarely even indirectly alluded to. The only time this biological process is alluded to is under the following circumstances:

  • A pregnancy storyline.
    • When a female character misses a period, as an indication that this is about to occur.
    • A female character is trying to get pregnant.
    • At the other end, the onset of menopause halts menstruation, making it comically ambiguous with pregnancy.
  • As part of a Very Special Episode exploring a young girl's entrance into puberty.
    • Said girl may be horribly shocked when her period happens, thinking she's dying from some horrible disease. The likelihood of such a thing happening increases if the story is set pre-1960s, before sex-ed and frank public discussion of sexuality became the norm.
    • Alternatively, she will shock the adult characters by having read all the available books on menstruation or talked to the school nurse.
  • A setting with werewolves or vampires (or both) contains a brief reference to "times of the month" and a woman "smelling of blood." This connection is sometimes explored.
  • A girl is disguised as a boy and as a plot point suddenly has to conceal (or is outed by) her menstruation.
  • Something related to the period is played for comedy. This can include:
    • One or both members of a Sit Com couple work themselves into a frenzy of anticipation for a planned sexual encounter, but the woman goes "on the rag" just before it happens.
    • A woman's Time of the Month turns her into a rampaging PMS monster, inflicting pain and woe on any hapless man unlucky enough to fall within her line of vision.
    • A male character has to purchase period related products such as tampons or pads, resulting in funny awkwardness and embarassment.
    • A less common gag, typically seen in parodies of Very Special Episode-type stories, is that any discussion of the topic will cause all males in the room to flee in horror -- which also gives the writers an excuse to shift attention away from the conversation. This is sometimes invoked by having two women bring up the topic intentionally to make the men leave. Another common gag involves a male friend or family member having to purchase pads or tampons for the girl or woman.

Outside of mainstream television, this restriction is somewhat relaxed, but even so the topic is only mentioned in passing, if at all. Naturally, Dead Baby Comedies are happy to make jokes about menstruation, but usually only allude to the topic. With novels, it depends on the target audience; while adventure and romance stories usually avoid the topic like the plague, some 'serious' women's fiction treats the matter thoughtfully and in detail. In Science Fiction, it generally only comes up as a contrast to someone else's Bizarre Alien Biology. Transformation Comics often involve at least one throwaway gag on the subject, where a male-to-female Gender Bender either has a period and doesn't know how to deal with it, or panics over the possibility of not getting switched back in time to avoid it. Other than that, the topic is usually avoided in favor of the more... entertaining changes.

An Action Girl will never get a menstrual period (except in the rare case that it is mentioned in the form of an "I have PMS and a (weapon of choice)" line. Period. Nor does any other woman in an action-adventure story, unless she happens to be a sorceress, and her powers are somehow tied to her monthly cycle.

It's not hard to see why -- Sci-Fi and fantasy heroines probably couldn't even fit a maxi-pad into their skin-tight latex catsuits and Stripperiffic bikinis. When Auntie Flo comes calling on Alice the Barbarian, out on the field slaughtering Scythians in her Breast Plate and leather thong, what's she going to do? Most writers don't care, since they're male, but female viewers are going to have their sense of immersion dinged at least a little upon seeing such a character, especially if it's obvious that she has no change of clothing on her. Ah well. BellisariosMaxim, folks. However, there may be some truth in this, since serious female athletes will often experience irregular and/or fewer periods; the jury's still out on exactly why (body fat composition? stress? hormonal changes?).

A Sweet Polly Oliver stands a fair chance of subverting this.

Occasionally a writer will mention periods in order to point out the effect they can have on animals, since predators may be drawn by the scent of blood. Speaking of animals, this trope is actually justified for Funny Animals that are explicitly stated (or maybe just implied) to retain aspects of their species' internal physiology; human females are actually among the few mammals to even have menstrual cycles, as most female mammals will have estrual cycles instead (basically, going into heat and being able to get pregnant only at certain times, and simply re-absorbing the placental lining if they don't get pregnant, rather than shedding it messily.) Of course, if that's the case, then the series creator needs to find a way to justify that these humanoid animals with animal physiologies have human-like mammary glands.

Compare to Nobody Poops. Completely unrelated to No Punctuation Period. Also see Clingy Costume.

This trope is so common that only Aversions should be listed.

Contents

Examples:

Animation

  • And that's why the writers of Animaniacs created Katie Kaboom to explain to innocent little children why their big sister chucks a psycho for NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON WHATSOEVER once a month. ("I'm Not Overreacting!! I'm a Teenager!!")
  • The King of the Hill episode "Aisle 8A" was all about Hank's neighbor's daughter Connie getting her period -- and all the chaos that ensues because of it with Hank being the only person around when it happens.
  • As with other touchy subjects, periods are often fodder for humor in South Park. In the Halloween episode "Spooky Fish" Stan receives a visit from his Aunt Flo, leading to the inevitable jokes about her visiting his mother once a month.
    • In "The New Terrance and Phillip Trailer", Stan makes a deal with his sister to get her tampons so he can see the titular trailer, as she wanted to watch Buffy instead. The TV blows up, the boys run around town looking for another and forget about the tampons entirely, leading to them breaking in and being washed away by a tidal wave of menstrual fluid.
    • The infamous "Bloody Mary" episode centers around a statue of the Virgin Mary that miraculously bleeds out her ass. Under closer inspection, the Pope declares that the blood is coming from the vagina, and that there is nothing miraculous about that, because "chicks bleed out of their vaginas all the time."
    • In the movie, Bigger Longer & Uncut, Mr. Garrison remarks that he doesn't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
  • Drawn Together handles this with the usual grace and sensitivity when promiscuous Foxxy Love is surprised to see she's gotten her period. Implied, of course, is that Foxxy has never been non-pregnant enough to cycle normally.
  • The Robot Chicken episode "Slaughterhouse on the Prarie" shows what happens when She Ra: Princess of Power has her period while the usual problems arise. There were no survivors. (Or almost none, anyhow.)
  • During a flashback on Family Guy, Peter announces Meg's first period to the entire neighborhood during the middle of the night. Quagmire responds that though the news is very hot, he'll deal with it in the morning because now he wants to sleep.
    • In still another episode, Stewie reads a book that explains the menstrual cycle, and he reacts with extreme revulsion, saying "that's the most disgusting thing I've seen in my entire life!"
  • One episode of Beavis and Butthead ended up with Butthead going out to buy tampons to stop Beavis's nosebleed. However, he could only express it as "that thing you put in your thing when you have your thing."
  • Code Monkeys: The episode "Just One of the Gamers" contains the Sweet Polly Oliver variant. Mary disguises herself as a guy named Mitch and, while in the bathroom, runs into several situations where she has to come up with a quick explanation, one of which is a tampon on her shoe, which she explains as having been making out with a chick in the girl's bathroom.
  • American Dad: The episode "1600 Candles" has Stan and Francine, terrified at the fact that Steve has entered puberty, recall Hayley going through puberty and her first period. While her parents cower against the wall, Hayley screams, "What do you mean every month?!"
  • Sorceresses in the universe of The Slayers lose their powers during their menstrual periods -- which spells a great deal of inconvenience for Lina Inverse, who finds herself having to fight an important battle during such a time. (The only spell Lina was able to conjure during the battle was a weak light spell.) Interestingly, after this battle was finished, Lina's period no longer became an issue in the series. Either she became extremely good at scheduling her future battles around her monthly cycle, or the writers lost interest in using the issue as a plot complication device.
  • In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Asuka throws a major tizzy about getting her period, as she believes that it is interfering with her ability to synchronize with her EVA. Misato tries to pass this belief off to Ritsuko as the reason why Asuka is having trouble, though Ritsuko flatly states that the EVAs are not affected by that.
  • Averted in Lucky Star like most offhand subjects, where the main girls have a casual conversation about the potential embarrassment of one during the BeachEpisode. One even begins to suspect that another, a 17-year-old who looks like she's still in her early teens, has never had a single period.
  • The opening of Ghost in the Shell has Batou inquire about the unusual noise in Major Kusanagi's brain. She responds, "Must be that time of the month." Which is odd, considering she has a fully cybernetic body. The English dub replaces the line with "Must be a loose wire."
    • She makes this line in every continuity. It's implied that although the visible physical effects don't happen because of her artificial body, her brain-chemistry is unaffected, and will get periods, lack of required organs be damned.
  • An episode of A.D. Police Files involves a stern, capable businesswoman who's insulted by her male peers for allegedly letting her menstrual cycle affect her judgement. She has herself cybernetically altered to get rid of her periods, but finds that Cybernetics Eat Your Soul. Fridge Logic sets in when the viewer inevitably wonders how replacing your pelvis with machinery could be preferable to a hysterectomy.

Comic Books

  • Semi-subverted in Runaways, Nico has the power to manifest a magical staff whenever her blood is spilled, something which she finds very unpleasant since it forces her to frequently cut herself and she has never been a cutter. After one particular magical battle, another team member expresses confusion at the fact that she seemed to manifest her staff without bleeding this time, only for Nico to reveal that not all bleeding comes from knife wounds.
  • Averted in The Boys quite staggeringly.
  • Played with in Birds of Prey where at one point Black Canary tells her captors that if they plan on holding her for much longer that they'd need to get some "feminine products". Although it was a bluff in order to get them out of the room to allow her to make an escape attempt.
  • Played straight in Elf Quest for decades, until the original creators decided to take up the series again. When human girl Shuna is adopted into the elf tribe, it turns out she starts attracting a lot of unwanted attention from the tribe's wolves once every month. The elves quickly realize that human anatomy is different from their own, and that the wolves are getting worked up over Shuna's menstrual blood. They basically end up telling her to go sit in a corner as far away from the main tribe as possible during her period.
  • A plot point in The Sandman story "A Game of You", where menstrual blood is required for a spell and of the four women present, only one of them can provide it, because the other three are too old, biologically male, and pregnant, respectively.
  • Doom Patrol subverts this in their character of Dorothy Spinner. Grant Morrison wrote a stoy in his run about her first menstruation around the time her powers activated, which was a traumatic situation for her. When Rachel Pollack took over writing duties, she specifically tied Dorothy's powers to her menstruation and showed her buying tampons, as well as, on one occasion, disposing of one while grumbling that she was the only one on the team who had to worry about such things.

Fan Works

Film

  • She's the Man featured Viola posing as her brother Sebastian at a boarding school. At one point in the movie "Sebastian" tells "his" male roomies that the tampons in 'his' bag are used for nosebleeds.
  • In Ginger Snaps, Ginger getting her period is a major plot point; the blood attracts a werewolf which had been killing pets in the area and it attacks Ginger. At first her sister Bridget attributes the ensuing personality change to hormones...
  • A minor plot point in Pitch Black, the young "boy" traveling with our fleeing group is revealed to be otherwise when Riddick announces it is her menstrual blood attracting the monsters. They can smell it. Apparently, so can he...
  • In A Walk on the Moon, Anna Paquin's character Alison gets her first period, and when she tells her grandmother Lillian, Lillian slaps her. Alison asks why her grandmother did that, and Lillian says it's what her grandmother did when she got her first period. Alison hesitates a moment, then slaps her grandmother back... who then says she did that too.
  • In one of the Bridget Jones movies, the title character reflects that she's had three months of uninterrupted good sex -- then realizes that that means she hasn't had a period in all that time. Though the character had realized she hadn't had a period so it must be true, the statement itself would not necessarily indicate a missed period in the real world.
  • In My Girl Vada Sultenfuss, raised as she was without a mother by her undertaker father, was convinced she was hemorrhaging to death.
  • Emmaline from the 1980 version of The Blue Lagoon got a similar scare, having grown up stranded on the island with no adult guidance.
  • In Summer School, the character Pam House convinces her teacher, Mr. Shoop, that she should be allowed to leave class because of cramps. Another student character (Francis "Chainsaw" Gremp) specifically alludes to this trope by saying, "This menstruation thing? It's a scam! Women are so lucky."
  • In I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, one of the female characters beats up a gang sent to kidnap her. When one of the gang members asks if she is possessed by the devil (possibly due to her glowing red eyes) she replies simply "No -- cramps!"
  • In Clueless, Cher argues her way out of a tardy mark by declaring that she'd been "surfing the crimson wave". Whether she actually was or is just using it as an excuse is not clear, but it works. Arguably a subversion as this is entirely unrelated to the plot. However, it does serve as character development, we see here (and later) that Cher gains good school grades by argument rather than hard work (her lawyer father couldn't be prouder than if she had really worked hard).
  • In Lethal Weapon 3, after Lorna Cole has finished beating on five henchmen, she rounds on Murtaugh, apparently about to smack his lights out, until she registers it's him and stops. The following dialogue occurs.
Cole: "This PMS, it's murder."
Murtaugh: "I know. Been married 25 years, got two daughters."
  • In Sixteen Candles, the main character's sister got hers on her wedding day.
  • A blink-and-you-miss-it aversion in George of the Jungle: Ursula's overly-protective mother, worried about jungle fevers, asks the newly-returned Ursula about a variety of symptoms, including...
Mother: "Your mm-hmm-hmm?"
Ursula: (with a sigh) "Regular."
  • G.I. Jane When O'Neil (Demi Moore) moves from a separate accommodation into the common barracks, one of the other trainees is outraged and is especially disgusted to find a package of Tampax.
  • Played incredibly straight in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. At one point, Allen fantasizes about dating the Evil Queen from Snow White. When he suggests she may be cranky because she has her period, she responds, "I'm a cartoon character! I don't get a period!"
  • In Moving Violations, the relationship between the two strict motorcycle cops is implied when he tells her he got a promotion, and she replies that she got her period. They then clasp hands, suggesting that the latter is as big a relief to the pair (who do not want kids) as the former.
  • No Strings Attached: When Adam and Emma were forced to go a week without sex.

Literature

  • The title character of the Stephen King's Carrie has her Psychic Powers start to manifest after a sickening incident in the gym shower, when she discovers herself menstruating and panics, thinking she's dying. Her classmates mercilessly torment her about it, and as a result, she has to be sent home. Carrie, of course, was ignorant about how her own body worked thanks to the efforts of her abusive mother Margaret, a religious fanatic with a pathological fear of sex.
  • In Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear, periods are given plenty of weight and discussion. The Cave Bear Clan (Neanderthals) believe that every woman is protected by her Totem animal, which resides inside her, and that on a regular basis her Totem does battle with a man's Totem. If her Totem wins, it is only injured and she bleeds. If her Totem loses, she gets pregnant. Consequently, there are rules requiring the separation of men and women when the woman is menstruating, lest another man's Totem animal be drawn into the losing battle.
  • In Judy Blume's book Are You There, God? It's Me Margaret, Margaret Simon and a group of her friends keep track of who has her period first. Margaret turns out to be the second last of the girls to get hers.
  • In Marion Zimmer Bradley's Hawkmistress!, the protagonist is a girl traveling in disguise as a boy. Her menstrual cycle catches her unaware and poses a large problem to her disguise.
  • Diana Wynne Jones' satiric book [[The Tough Guide to Fantasyland assures tourists to "Fantasyland" (i.e. characters in fantasy novels) that menstrual periods are suspended during one's stay.
  • Elayne in the Wheel of Time mentions that since bonding Birgitte in The Fires of Heaven, their "cycles" had synchronized.
  • Becomes a plot point in Stephen King's Wolves of the Calla, when Susannah's period keeps coming despite her being pregnant with a baby that was fathered by Roland, the Crimson King, and a demon.
  • Averted in A Song of Ice and Fire. One POV character, Sansa Stark, has a panic attack when she wakes up to find her bed drenched in blood and proceed to burn the bed and the clothes she slept in. When she has calmed down she's embarrassed over her behavior when she remembers that her mother had already had The Talk with her. Of course, the fact that she is alone, surrounded by enemies and set to marry the poster child for Teens Are Monsters as soon as she properly becomes a woman, and that she was asleep and her menstrual cramps manifested as her being stabbed in the abdomen in a nightmare, probably contributed to this reaction.
  • Twilight. WordOfGod says that that blood is "dead blood" and not nearly as interesting to Edward, but it's still kind of awkward. It also still gets the Fridge Logic going.
    • Leah, the only female werewolf (sorry, "shapeshifter that changes in wolves exclusively"), considers herself to be genetic dead end as her period stopped after she first changed into a werewolf. This is possibly because in Twilight werewolves/shapeshifters stop growing until they "give up" this ability. It is unknown if her period would return, however.
  • Somewhat humorously averted in Terry Pratchett's Thud!. Angua, one of the members of the Watch, is a werewolf -- no periods are mentioned, but there's a lot of PLT just before 'that time of the month'... the full moon.
  • In Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil, Lestat very much wanted to go down on a menstruating Dora. He eventually does, in front of other vampires. No one minds, including Dora.
  • Theodore Sturgeon's Some of Your Blood features a nonsupernatural vampire. You figure it out.
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany features a church scene in which a mischievous little boy leaves a Bible under his sister's seat... and it seems both the timing and the circumstances were bad.
  • Nerilka, from the Dragonriders of Pern series, illustrates the closeness of her relationship with her best friend by mentioning that, as teens, they would cycle in synchrony.
  • In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series, the Lizards are fascinated with human sexual behaviour (we breed like animals, having no need to be in heat to copulate) and as an experiment force captured humans to have sex with each other in order to see how long they'd keep it up. One of the protagonists is a woman who becomes pregnant while in this program and delivers a baby, a process that is described to thoroughly Squick out the Lizards observing this... but despite this and the fact that humans in this programs are kept naked and under observation all the time, not once is menstruation mentioned.

Music

  • In R Kelly's Trapped in the Closet, Officer James' wife claims she is acting strangely because "maybe it's that time of the month". Officer James is unconvinced, and no wonder: it is later revealed that she is three months pregnant.
  • Type O Negative's song "Wolf Moon" is all about this, complete with lycanthropic and vampiric references. Bloody good tune!
  • The song "Marry Me" by Emilie Autumn has a line about breaking a glass and slitting her own innermost thigh so that she can pretend she's menstrual to fend off her ugly husband's sexual advances (it was an arranged marriage).

Newspaper Comics

  • A Dilbert strip mentions this by implication. Alice wants a day off to see her doctor, and the Pointy Haired Boss refuses until she starts vaguely describing her condition as a "woman thing". The Boss quickly agrees and runs away with his hands over his ears looking panicked. Whether this was Alice's actual condition or just a method of getting her way is left unaddressed.
    • In another strip, Alice apologizes for her bad mood, saying that it's almost time for her "friend" to visit. Dilbert doesn't understand, and says that a visit from a friend should be a happy occasion. Alice is not amused...
  • Luann did the Very Special Episode version when the title character got her first period in the early '90s.

Real Life

  • Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard wrote of a coworker of his at a newspaper who never showed up on time. This man, named Robinson, "always had a great excuse," but eventually the managing editor of the paper grew frustrated enough to threaten Robinson's firing the next time he was late. Of course, Robinson was late the next day, and the editor fired him, then demanded an explanation. Robinson said, "You know I've been married eight years and have seven children. This morning was the first time in our marriage my wife had a period, and I had to fix breakfast for the kids because she was too sick to get out of bed." Grizzard concludes his story by saying "Robinson didn't get fired."
  • The Kumari, pre-pubescent girls worshipped in Nepal, are considered to be incarnations of a badass goddess. The goddess is thought to leave a girl's body the very moment she starts menstruating, and a new girl is chosen as Kumari.
  • Probably one of the greatest wishes of every female human between the ages of 10 and 60.
  • Achievable with birth control pills. In fact, standard birth control pill regimens are designed to avert this by having placebo pills for one week out of the month to give something like a natural period. Lately birth control products designed to give fewer periods or none at all have entered the market.
  • Some female elite athletes, when in peak physical condition, no longer have periods.
  • Similarly, many female supermodels, because they're so thin and malnourished, stop having periods. Needless to say, this is not a good thing.

Religion and Mythology

  • At least one Bible story mentions Rachel, wife of Jacob, faking a period so she can get out of having her saddlebag searched. (Since this is before the days of tampons and maxi-pads, one can see why the guards searching her were hesitant to press the issue.)
    • Also, the ancient Hebrews regarded menstrual blood (and the woman shedding it) as ritually unclean, making it even easier to understand.
    • Judith pulled the same stunt when she and her maid infiltrated the army camp of the Assyrians to assassinate their leader Holofernes, hiding his severed head under their period rags as they left the camp, ostensibly to wash but actually to bring back the trophy to their own people.
    • In fact, when the apostle Paul tells us that all his good deeds and general funkiness are "as dirty rags" compared to his faith in God, this is the kind of rag he's referring to. The same applies for Old Testament prophets.
    • As a matter of fact, if you've ever wondered what the Jamaican insults "Bumbacloth" and "Bloodcloth" come from... look no further.

Television

  • That 70s Show The Seasone Five episodes "What Is and What Should Never Be" and "Ramble On" has Kitty mistakenly believing she's pregnant because she hasn't had a period for two months, but it turns out she's started menopause, resulting in this being a Running Gag throughout the fifth season.
  • A later episode of According to Jim finds the main character dealing with one daughter's jealousy over the other daughter's getting her first period.
  • In Babylon 5, after transforming into a partially human form, Delenn gets help from Ivanova in managing her new head of hair. Later, as the two of them are boarding a lift, Ivanova volunteers to help with any other "questions". Delenn asks her about "these odd cramps" she's started having. As the doors close, Ivanova gives Delenn a look of sympathy with overtones of "Oh, no...."
    • As well as a quick cutaway gag, it also served as an important piece of plot foreshadowing by suggesting that her hybrid Human/Minbari form had a fertile Human reproductive system.
  • In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon goes shopping with Penny, and observes that she only buys one months' supply of tampons at a time. He suggests that if she buys in bulk, she'll save money -- 'they don't spoil'. He eventually starts marking her periods on his calendar.
  • Blake's Seven In one of the early episodes, a prison guard tells Jenna that the prison ship doesn't have any "female facilities." Three guesses to what he's referring to.
  • Blossom The first episode of revolves around this, as the writers decided to get that issue out of the way early (and work a Phylicia Rashad guest spot in). On the DVD commentary, the creator said this is why the Disney Channel never ran the show.
  • It isn't surprising that The Brady Bunch would decline to delve into this subject, considering how squeaky-clean it is.
    • Same with Full House, although it's a pretty glaring example, as one of the three girls (DJ) definitely reached the age of menarche during the course of the show, and Stephanie likely did as well.
    • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this trope was in place, despite the overwhelming percentage of the main cast being female. Only twice were periods ever referenced in seven seasons: Xander going through Buffy's purse in search of a stake and being horrified to discover a tampon, and Willow telling Oz, in response to discovering he's a werewolf, that "for a few days a month, I'm not so fun to be around, either."
  • In a CSI: Miami episode, a teenage girl disappears from her bedroom in the middle of the night and the only sign of a struggle is a small pool of blood on the sheets. It took the CSIs a disturbingly long time to figure out that the girl had started her period during the night.
  • In a later episode of The Cosby Show, youngest daughter, Rudy, gets her first period. Her mother, Clair, declares a "Women's Day" to celebrate it and to answer any questions Rudy might have. Rudy doesn't want to talk about it.
  • Dark Angel had an episode where Jessica Alba is acting like a cat in heat... You know, due to her feline DNA and it being that time of the month. She had a three-month cycle, and it got mentioned several times. No mention of an actual period though. Maybe she's got an estrual cycle instead.
  • In the first season of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Dr. Quinn's 14-year-old adopted daughter Colleen gets her first period, and since her mother died in the premiere, she is totally ignorant about what is happening to her. In a perhaps not unrealistic portrayal given the show's setting (late 1860's), Colleen thinks she is dying because she's "been bleeding for three whole days", leading to her being told the "facts of life" by Dr. Quinn's own mother, who has come to visit. Almost a Very Special Episode, but partially subverted by the medical doctor adoptive mother of a teenage girl's obliviousness to the situation, even though it is revealed later in the episode that Dr. Quinn was 14 when she got her first period.
    • Toward the end of the series, poor Colleen suffered more menstrual trauma when she grew frightened about missing several periods, thinking that if Dr. Quinn knew, she would think Colleen was pregnant. Subverted in that instance by Dr. Quinn's explaining that a woman's cycle can be thrown off by emotional or stressful situations (Colleen was studying to attend medical school).
  • Referred to in an episode of Friends where Joey and Chandler are trying to guess the contents of Rachel's handbag; Chandler whispers something in Joey's ear and Joey replies 'no, not for another two weeks'.
    • In another one, the others ask Joey if he has a particular date available. He looks through a schedule book and says that he's free. Then he says, "Hey, that's the week I get my period." Awkward silence. "...this isn't mine."
  • House MD: A 6-year-old patient presents with menstrual bleeding; the team wonders if she might have cancer, prompting this exchange:
Cameron: "If menstruating is a symptom of cancer, I should be getting chemotherapy right now."
House: "Now that's ridiculous. You're way too skinny to be menstruating."
  • iCarly: Spencer had to go a drugstore once to buy some "supplies" for Carly. They promise never to speak of it again.
  • An episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit had a serial rapist that kept track of his (numerous) victims' menstrual cycles, because his entire intention to raping them was to impregnate them.
  • For the most part, Lost kept to the rule, rather than delving into the inconvenience of twenty or more female survivors being trapped on an island with no feminine supplies.
  • Married With Children: Al's worst nightmare comes to pass when Peg, Marcy and Kelly accompany him on a camping trip to a small cabin where they all get their periods at the same time. This, of course, compels them to act like PMS-crazed mini-Godzillas until just before the trip ends, when they become serene and calm once more.
  • An episode of Murphy Brown had the title character acting crabbier than usual, leading to Miles asking the question, "Is it the 18th already?"
  • The Nanny suprisingly has a number of these. For example, using the words female problem to repel men from the room, intentionally or not. Max also mentions once that he was counting back twenty-eight days from the last time Miss Fine was mad at him, only to learn that she still has a week (Niles comments that it'll give him something to look forward to).
  • When Sally had her first date on 3rd Rock From The Sun, Dick arranged for a practice date with Harry. When Dick suggested she tell Harry something personal about herself, she launched in with "once every lunar cycle, my uterine lining sloughs itself and..." before Dick interrupted to say "that may be too personal."

Theater

  • Jeff Dunham has joked about "that time of the month" on several occasions.
Jeff: "Does your wife have any super powers?"
Melvin: "Well... once a month, she becomes evil and I cannot defeat her!"
  • Margaret Cho claims she was ambivalent at first, but now talks about it all the time. "If RichardPryor had a period he'd talk about it."
  • Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene Five, William Shakespeare, in the words of the Countess Olivia: "If you be not mad, be gone; if you have reason, be brief. 'Tis not that time of moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue."
  • Baby, a musical which follows two pregnant couples and one who is trying but failing to conceive starts with the "trying" couple believing that the woman has gotten pregnant because her period is late. When they see a fertility specialist, he explains that her overachiever jock lifestyle is the cause of her missed periods and that she should simply reduce the number of miles she runs per day to smooth things out.
  • In Grease, one of the female characters has a minor crisis because her period is late and she doesn't know how to tell he boyfriend she might be pregnant. It is referred to in 50's euphemisms: Menses is "having a visit" (presumably from Aunt Flo) and the possible consequences of its lack are simply "PG".
    • At the end of the show, she discovers she isn't "PG" when she asks her boyfriend if they can stop at the drugstore becuase "she's getting her friend".
  • The musical Quilters, about the life of pioneer women in the 19th century, has a sequence where four girls just entering puberty ask each other "Have you?" The first girl who answers yes has the other three run out on her yelling "Ewww!" then prays to Jesus about all the various ways "the curse" is making her miserable and how she wants it to go away. But then two more girls get it, and the fourth is left to pray about how she wants it to happen already.

Video Games

  • One dialogue in the middle of the first chapter of A Dance with Rogues references the PC's period, much to Anden's embarrassment. It comes up a bit more often in the second chapter.

Web Comics

  • In Boys vs. Girls, a Boy talked about it here. It happens to be the Girl's Berserk Button.
  • In Misfile, Ash does get periods, and is understandably horrified and irritated when she does, given that she's supposed to be a guy. The first one was a major plot point; subsequent flows less so.
  • SomethingPositive, as the main gag here, here and here, but also used as a throwaway line here.
  • In Order of the Stick #29, Haley temporarily splits from the team and discovers a treasure hoard, which she promptly appropriates for herself. Roy attempts to call her on this, finally demanding to know what is in the large bag of holding (labeled "Haley's Loot" and with gold glittering on top) beside her. Haley calmly responds 'feminine products', to which Roy's reply is to swear loudly and storm off.
    • Later, in #380, Sabine (a succubus-like demon/devil) excused herself claiming it was "That time of the century". Her friend was somewhat surprised, but chose not to press the issue. ("The red knight is requesting lodging" is probably as good as euphemisms get, by the way).
  • Girl Genius plays this straight. In all the time that has passed in the comic there has been no mention of any of the female characters having a period.
  • In Sluggy Freelance a spell causes people to start singing about every little thing Gwynn does. Yes, everything.
  • This XKCD comic uses this to set up a horrible pun.

Web Original

  • So far averted in the Whateley Universe; this may in part be because for some of the protagonists, who have only recently turned female as a side effect of their mutation, their first period is a pretty big deal.
  • Subverted in The Guild, when in the second season it's revealed that Codex's harmless Stalker With a Crush Zaboo has printed up a calender to keep track of some rather personal information. She's...not happy.
Codex: "You laminated my cycle?"
Zaboo: (innocently) "Kinko'ed."
  • Totally subverted in the YouTube High School Musical parody Private High Musical, in which the first musical number is called "First Period", and it's about Sandy getting her first menstruation in front of the whole class... on her first day at school.
  • This was Averted only once in the entire twelve year history of The Butlerverse, in a story in which the happily married superhero Geomancer and his wife were trying to have a baby. Except for that single storyline, the subject of menstruation was never mentioned. Ever.


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