# What possible justification is there for suppressing/avoiding discussion of menstruation?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possible-justification-is-there-for-suppressing-avoiding-discussion-of-menstruation/1023830>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 9, 2025, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possible-justification-is-there-for-suppressing-avoiding-discussion-of-menstruation/1023830 "2025-10-09T16:10:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 54

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**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2025, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-possible-justification-is-there-for-suppressing-avoiding-discussion-of-menstruation/1023830/54 "2025-10-10T21:53:50Z")

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> [@doreen](#):
>
> with [dogs](https://www.webmd.com/pets/dogs/how-tell-if-dogs-heat) and other mammals, the bleeding is a sign that she is in heat and either ready or will soon be ready to mate \* , not a sign that she isn’t pregnant.

Yup. [I’ve told y’all this before,](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-signs/997074/357) but I remember as a child seeing the neighbor’s dog in a “diaper” every now and then, and our own female puppies leaving blood spots on the floor before we got them spayed.

I absorbed the message that the bleeding was a sign of being in heat and the diaper was to help ensure she didn’t get mated if they didn’t want to deal with puppies.

That was about all the information I was directly given concerning menstruation, and I remember when I learned about unwanted pregnancy as a middle-schooler, I thought _“Well for goodness sake, why are some people so careless? Just avoid sex for a while once you “go into heat” when the menstrual bleeding starts, and you’re guaranteed not to get pregnant! Couldn’t be simpler!”_

Fortunately, I had a seventh-grade sex ed class that clarified the time lag between menstrual bleeding and ovulation in the human, as opposed to canine, reproductive system, so I knew not to rely on my original assumptions about “natural fertility control” once I was old enough to test those hypotheses in practice.

But I have to wonder how many inadvertently pregnant girls and young women who grew up around pets and/or livestock made exactly the same natural but erroneous deduction that I did.

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