Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Period. Puberty. Panic: Let’s Talk About It!

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

In this episode of Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex with Dr. Sue & Charlie, we dive into the essentials of reproductive health, focusing on the teenage years and the transformative changes of puberty. We discuss why understanding the basics—like the reproductive system, the hormonal shifts of adolescence, and when someone can get pregnant—is crucial for everyone.  The conversation explores common misconceptions about reproductive health, emphasizing the importance of empowering people with accurate information, and highlights the role of empathy in bridging the knowledge gap. Whether you’re a parent, a teen, or just curious, this episode is packed with insights to help foster informed and respectful conversations. Tune in to discover why education and understanding are the keys to fostering a healthier, more informed future for all. If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestions

Hey everyone, welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to dive into the topics of sex and sexuality that you might be curious about, but don't always feel comfortable talking about. No judgment, just open, honest conversation. So zip down and let's get candid. Today, we're going to be talking about the foundations or exploring the foundations of reproductive health. But before we get there, hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. How's it going?

It's going well. I'm excited and frustrated to have to do this episode. Yeah, I thought you might be. Yeah. Well, but before we get into that, would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Sure. So I have a Ph.D. in human sexuality education. I have been working as an academic for forever. But in addition to the academic work, I also do a lot of work in the community. And I talk to basically anyone who invites me to. And a lot of who I work with in the community are often parents who've got a lot of questions about kind of what's going on with their kids and their bodies and all the stuff we should have learned um in school but didn't

so yeah basically talking to everybody wherever they want to never sit next to me on a plane and ask me what i do you're in for a very interesting ride but but that's me um and charlie is our curious co-host who's always ready to explore the ins and outs of sex relationships and all those taboo topics that we as a culture so very rarely talk about um but do you want to tell us a little bit more about you? Sure. Dr. Sue and I have been friends for several years, and we have always had these types of conversations around just kind of topics that aren't really talked about. And I am someone who enjoys challenging expectations and conformity, I suppose. And this is one of the ways that that I get to do that is bringing this podcast our conversations to light for others to

hear and kind of fumble through with us sometimes and normally this is where I throw my students under the bus so yes it is this time I actually want to throw some of my friends under the bus so for those of you who haven't heard the spiel before one of the reasons we started the podcast was I was getting really irritated at what my students were repeating that they were hearing on social media and podcasts and I would I would get critique what they were hearing and they're like well you know until you're ready to do one like what are we supposed to listen to and they were right but also my friends since we've started doing this podcast I've had a lot of friends who've been like hey I I didn't learn this to which my internal reaction is you should

have but we don't know what else we're to turn so we've had a I know I've been having a lot of private conversations with folks who are like hey can you can you talk about this or that and we've had some folks thank you to those of you who have been submitting show ideas the link to that is in the description and one of the ones that comes up is is about some very foundational stuff especially about what happens to our bodies yes so where would you like to start dr sue i don't know that's to you. That's your job. That's my job. I see. So when we do these types of episodes, I really, I like for us to have an understanding of what we mean when we say. So what will we mean when we talk about reproductive health in this episode, Dr. Sue? I think we're going to focus mainly on

kind of the teen years and what's happening with changing bodies because I get that question a lot from parents whose kids are trying to navigate that and they either never got sex ed in in school or got very poor sex ed in school and so they have a lot of questions about what their kids are going through and then because I by the time most of my students get to me they kind of have those basics down, but sometimes not. So I think talking about, I think really talking about what happens during that puberty time and then what you need to know as you age in terms of pregnancy or pregnancy prevention. So really talking about the menstrual cycle, which is oh so sexy to talk about. Yes. Not taboo at all.

not taboo at all we're so comfortable as a society talking about it and accepting it oh it's i i you know we so i do a lot of work with teachers who are currently teaching health in states in the new england area and we we talk about kind of what we went through and and how girls were taught about their periods and boys played basketball and that's as much as i say that as a joke when i say that out loud usually people nod their head at me like yep that's what happened. So we have girls who may or may not have learned a lot about their bodies and how they're changing. Boys who learned maybe something, but probably not much. And then they grow up into adults who don't want to have those conversations with female partners, sisters, mothers, whoever

it may be, because they have zero idea what's actually going on. And yeah, as a culture, we just don't. We don't we don't want to expose men to that. And I've heard that on social media a bit Like, we're exposing men to women's periods. It's not like it's a disease. Like, we're not exposing them and they're going to get it. But why shouldn't we understand how all bodies are working? Right, exactly. And to expand on that a little bit, you know, there is messaging out there that in pop culture or what have you that perpetuates some of the myths. you know for instance I was watching a show the other day and one of the people on the show talked about how when she is on a long trip or at an event she'll wear a tampon so she doesn't have to pee uh yeah I and this this was a I think you just broke my brain yeah um and there are and so then And it was interesting because I saw that episode and then on social media, there was kind of those, you know, people in the streets reels where young men thought that women, if they have a tampon in, they don't have to pee.

Okay. We need to talk about that. We need to go. We need to dive in. You hurt my brain. So we need to address this before because I don't want that being the soundbite. Although whoever's going to want to take a soundbite is going to take one. Women do not pee and have their period through the same tube.

They're different tubes. So women have a urethra that goes up to their bladder and that is what they pee through. And you could not get a tampon in there. The vaginal opening is where the blood comes out when she has her period and that's where the tampon goes. so peeing has nothing to do with your tampon unless you're peeing and the tampon string gets wet i mean that's something different right but they are two completely different tubes yeah two different functions yeah and that's different i didn't mean to break your brain so early in the episode thank god we don't have video um so no one can see this

men and boys do use the same tube to pee and have sex through so so boys are going to pee through the urethra that's also where semen is going to come out of and so when we yes so so so that is that is that is different and when we talk about boys and girls um i just want to be really clear we're talking about sex assigned at birth um we are there are people who identify as male who do have a vagina and get their period um there are people who identify as female who have a penis just for the ease of language we're going to when we talk about male we're talking about someone who has a penis we're talking about sex assigned at birth but yes boys and men do actually pee and have sex through the same tube girls and women do not ouch my brain

i uh was absolutely floored when i saw that episode i i've seen i was like store this and bring it up oh yeah thanks thanks for the thanks for blindsiding me with that yeah you're welcome for the warning so the one that i've seen a lot on social media one of my students i love when my students forward me stuff because that's when i know that they're really thinking about this not just like viewing it but they're really thinking it and challenging that so um former current students if you're listening to this feel free to always send me stuff um someone someone brought to class one day it was a guy saying well if you don't really want your period it's that miserable then just stop having it okay and you can through hormonal methods of contraception you

can sure but it's not it's it's not it's not it's not something we can control like that it's you just can't think it and make it stop yeah well that period really sucked i'm not gonna do that anymore yeah next month i'm gonna skip that yeah i mean you can you can there are hormonal methods of contraception that will stop you from getting your period so that is an option but it's not like a oh i'm just gonna flip that switch and never get my period again yeah um i think it's important to uh preface this episode as well to say like there's we're not medical professionals and so there's you know medical we're not giving medical advice or anything like that yes i think that's important with this particular discussion since we're talking physiology a little bit though

everything we have said is true yes that is background in physiology so i can't give you yeah all right so foundational understanding of reproductive health i feel like we just already started this why are you suddenly becoming all serious just throw another break yeah um so where to begin i have no um i guess we should we should keep talking about periods because we're already talking about it yeah and so um what are periods dr sue oh okay oh we got very serious there yeah and what what happens and all all of those good things all the fun things all the delightful monthly things i'm not going to talk about the fluctuation in hormones and how that happens i mean if you want to know about that ask a very specific question but i feel like

that's when people start eyes glazing over um and that stuff is easy to find online and most sources going to be pretty reputable with that but essentially there's this there's this as a woman's getting her period there's going to be this huge change in hormone levels which is why she's suddenly crying at things that she doesn't normally cry at and it's there's a whole lot of of emotional side of this and I like to start with that because I feel like sometimes when we talk about menstrual cycles and your period we just focus on like the bleeding and we forget that it's happening to a human and for that human like there's there's changes happening there's some bloating happening there's may have some some sleep issues and they're emotional for reasons

they cannot pin their like they can't pin something on what's happening until they realize oh yeah i'm getting my period um the emotional that emotional sweep they're feeling is is real for them and we have to kind of keep that in mind so if we were to cut a woman's head off which sounds horrible but if we were to cut a woman's head off and we just looked at how her body worked everything about her body is designed to get her pregnant and so that's that's really when the menstrual cycle happens it's that there was no viable that's that's a whole other conversation we have but essentially that there's there's no viable um embryo and so the body is going to slough off that inner lining it's going to get rid of that inner lining of the

of the uterus and that's that's what the blood is um and so it's getting rid of this lining that was kind of preparing for a possible pregnancy so our body's got to get rid of all this stuff that it's been building up and that's when we talk about blood that's that's where the blood's coming from because i've had people be like well why is there blood and i'm like well that's actually a great question i don't know if we explain that so well um it is the inner lining of the uterus sloughing off and coming out and i think that's very important as well because you know there there can be jokes out there about you know i think there's um a south park episode early on whereas yeah um it's a it's a joke you know any any anyone that can bleed for five days

and not i kind of joke that's an old ronald williams joke yeah yeah rest in peace yes um and and i think it's important to point out that while there is blood present it is not like a stream of blood similar to like cutting yourself right you're not just necessarily image emerging yeah um it's it's lining its tissue right yeah and i yeah although i did have one woman describe her period to me as essentially a murder scene and i'm like okay that's a lot but it's it's not usually going to be that kind of i think it's a good idea that we're not talking about someone is cut open and they're just bleeding continuously it's just this lining coming out over a matter of days and it doesn't happen like in five minutes it's going to happen over a matter of days

so yay blood yeah so i think the thing that we don't talk to everyone about enough and and i think for the parents and i i parents who are my generation are just maybe a little bit younger than me whose kids may be going through this we didn't learn about things like menstrual cups and period underwear and period swimwear because those things did not exist so i feel like maybe we should give some information on that um so it used to be that we had pads just pads then we had tampons that that people could wear and there's a whole health piece to this and i don't i don't want to get bogged down in kind of that health side of it but tampons do need to be changed regularly there's

there's there's health issues if you don't um but then there are period cups and i know that when i was that age those things did not exist and so for people who are parenting now when those didn't exist for them they may have no clue um so for those of you who may be having kids who are going through this or just want the information there are menstrual cups that you can insert they don't absorb blood they catch blood so it's a there's not the same health risks as we see with tampons they are so are tampons and pads they are covered by fsa hsa so flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts they are they're covered those products are covered um so there are options there's also i mean the big thing that that i was told when i was that age was like oh you

basically can't function in society because you may leak and that'll be embarrassing and don't ever wear white or don't ever wear white after labor i don't know whether the rules came in about what you could wear um but now there's period underwear that people can wear um instead of using tampons and cups and pads um that will catch some of that that that underwear does need to be changed about every 8 to 12 hours um but there's also period swimwear i mean i still hear parents to this day who don't know about it who are like oh my kid can't go swimming they they they have their period i'm like they very much can go swimming if they have period underwear, which is designed to absorb any leaks that may happen. So there's just a lot that's

changed. Periods themselves haven't changed, but there's a lot that's changed around kind of care and addressing it that I think a lot of parents didn't learn about because it wasn't a thing back then. Yeah, I don't have much commentary to add to that. I don't think I like the options as someone who is of a similar age, who didn't have these options for menstrual care growing up, you know, using a tampon for the first time was extremely painful. And so having these other options to take care of yourself where there's less health risk versus using a tampon is nice. Yeah. And that and that your life doesn't have to be over like your social life doesn't have to be over because you have your period, you know, with the period underwear and the period swimwear, you can still do the things that you want to do. I find sometimes with parents, some parents, some friends of mine who are parents, that there's this they were warned like your life will essentially stop during your period, that they're kind of building that up for their kids. It's like, oh, you're going to get your period and it's going to be horrible and you won't be able to function.

I'm like this. We need to break that cycle. We need to break that cycle for a couple of reasons. One, it's not true. You can still wear whatever you want to wear. Again, if you don't know what period underwear and period swimmer are, either Google them or reach out to us. But also, if you build them into thinking it's going to be this deep, horrible thing, then A, they're going to believe it. And B, they're less likely to reach out if they are having horrendous amounts of pain. what we are learning now and the conversations we're having now, and I love this. You've seen the period, the cramp simulators? Yes. Yeah. I love that we're talking about this because it was like, yep, you're going to have cramp and it's going to suck. And now we're talking about

the fact that cramps are almost the equivalent of heart attacks. Like sometimes the pain is that intense. These are conversations we didn't have way back in the day. And so we need to let women know that if you are incapacitated because of your pain, that is not okay. And there are things that we can do, either hormonal methods of contraception that will ease some of those symptoms or pain management that we would do for anyone else who's going through massive amounts of pain. But when we're like, yeah, your period is going to happen, it's going to suck and you're going to be miserable. That person is less likely to say, I'm in a lot of pain and I don't think it's right because it's been built up to be this miserable experience. Yeah. And that pain piece is

especially early on when, um, when you're first going through your first several cycles or the first couple of years of cycles, um, that can be something that's foreign. You know, I remember several days where I had to stay home from school on the first or second day because it was practically paralyzing. Like there was only one position that I could lay in, in bed that felt comfortable, that eased it. Um, but that not necessarily being seen as a reasonable accommodation for a sick day. Yeah. Um, you know, the, the expectation of just get through it. And then what that does, I feel as well is if there is that level of pain consistently, there isn't meaningful conversations or steps to take to understand why it is so painful every

single time, because that could be a precursor to some condition that needs to be managed early on for a healthy lifespan, right? Yeah, that could absolutely be masking something else that we need to know about. And so I get it. I mean, I get that that's what we were told. And so we're repeating the story that it's this horrible, horrible thing. It is uncomfortable, and it can be painful. But I think we need to start having more honest conversations about what it could look like, that you could function well, and you may have to take a day, and that's okay. And you should be talking to your doctor if you're in debilitating pain. And I think that only happens when we start changing how adults are talking to kids about what this is going to be like.

Yeah, absolutely. This, by the way, is one of the reasons I think we should absolutely never separate boys and girls during the period puberty thing, like when the boys are playing basketball. I think boys and men need to understand what girls and women are going through during their period. One, you may have to at some point have to buy a period product for a partner, roommate sister mother daughter yeah whoever it may be i was getting the daughter separately but okay i was gonna get there in a minute sorry but what when we understand what people are going through it it creates empathy and that i think that's it having that empathy helps us to connect

with other humans and then we maybe positions where we have fathers who are being asked to either single dads or not single dads who are being asked to run out to the store and get these things or to be understanding when someone is not functioning to their fullest capacity because they are in pain or they haven't slept or they just feel like crap or they have them you know they want to eat the bad foods because that's what their body's craving so so whether you see yourself as being a father at some point or not i still think it's important for boys and men to understand what women are going through because we should understand what humans are going through and that's that's just a great way of creating empathy making space for it yeah yeah

more the more you understand the more you know we didn't rehearse that by the way we're definitely the same generation um so i guess what what would that kind of foundational education look like in your perfect world the perfect world where i create a health and sexuality educational program for all people yeah across the age groups yeah i think it's important that we're just that we don't separate out boys from girls i know that was a thing i know in some places it still is a thing um but i i think that it it helps normalize what's happening to bodies and it it gives people a chance to ask questions and hear answers that they may not do like if you're in a group of boys you may never get that chance to ask a girl like is it really

that horrible and like what can we do and what you know what is that like and i think it takes away some of the mystery so for me i would i would never separate out by gender i also think that's not really inclusive for folks who are non-binary when we start putting boys in one room and girls in another so for me it would be everybody and and boys are going through some changes at this point that i think girls don't understand um they're having their first ejaculation like that if you don't know what that is and suddenly there's a ton of stuff coming out your penis I mean it's not blood but if it is blood please go get that checked out but it's like what is this stuff and suddenly they're having erections with like the slightest gust of wind and their

hormones are all over the place same way women same way women and girls experience that hormonal change men are going to experience a hormonal change excuse me boys at that age are going to experience a hormonal change and and so for me I think it's important that everyone's kind of learning what everyone else is going through yeah so yeah and and it creates that that um everybody's working with the same language almost right yeah or has access to it yeah which is important as well to to name the things the experiences so you can communicate i i'm i'm laughing because i know we we've already done our thing on on language and i had a friend react very strongly when i was talking about what they were calling body parts pennsylvania and virginia i got

a very amusing text when they heard that and so and and so naming things and using the proper terms is super important um understanding what humans are going through is super important understanding that change is happening and that and that's a really weird time like just the kind of changes that are happening and and not always having the words and not always understanding that like you feel really really strongly one way and don't get that it may be an emotional uh excuse me a hormonal shift um just helps us understand what we're going through and what someone else may be going through i think too for parents and and guardians that may be listening it's important to try and recall what you were going through and what you were feeling

at the time so you don't perpetuate some of the reactions that and attitudes that you got when you were going through all of this yeah I'm I'm assuming you grew up at the are you there god it's me Margaret um I not the movie yeah no I did not get that book but yeah so I'm slightly younger than Dr. Sue yeah yeah um but but I did get messaging um you know from from one of my parents um going through these changes um where where I was told you know PMS is not automatic and it was a way for them to you know looking back it i think it was a way for them to deal with my fluctuating person personality yeah and i i always joke that i'm amazed um the kids survive puberty like their parents are just like i can't i can't do this anymore

um but i think it's important to like you said to remember what that was like because it's scary And as much as we tell someone there is going to be blood coming out of your vagina, when it happens, it's still terrifying. And if it happens in a way that other people see it on your clothes before you do, that's that's something you're not going to live down for a while. And especially like I always I'm always so thankful that there was no cell phones and camera. I mean, there were cameras, but not ones we carried around everywhere, that there was no cell phones and social media when I was when I was that age, because someone snaps a picture of you now with blood in your in your pants. That's going to follow you around. And that that's a whole different level of bullying that. yeah yeah so that's yeah that's what happens during puberty I feel like we should go into kind of pregnancy from here but I don't know if this is just becoming too much like a school lesson I'll let you feel us out on that one yeah I think what what we had hoped to do here is um is give some of this foundational knowledge for parents and guardians and and whoever else

may be listening to understand like just to understand it a little bit better to start to find the language and maybe seek out the resources um so i think i think that's probably the next logical step in this in this conversation yeah you know because when you start when girls start menstruating that means something and I don't know if this is too I don't know clinical but um is is it true I have heard this and so not being the professional here um when a girl starts menstruating that means her body physiologically has reached a kind of um point it's like i never mind where she could get pregnant yeah yeah and it's like a balance of like um body fat and and other i don't know other things decided that it's possible yeah

that yeah the body can now how as a pregnancy um it's true but going with me on that clumsy Yeah, you're actually it's true, but it's not. There's actually it's it's actually before her period that she's capable of getting pregnant because women are capable of getting pregnant when they ovulate. And so she's going to ovulate before she has her first menstrual cycle. So she could actually get pregnant before she ever gets her first menstrual cycle. So that's very important that we said that. so that that is so it's slightly true that once she starts getting her period she i mean once she starts getting her period she can become pregnant but it's also slightly untrue and that she could have actually gotten pregnant and that while she was ovulating in that window yeah yeah first ovulation yeah yeah so i think that's something we kind of forget um is that it your cycle doesn't start with your period your cycle starts

as you begin the process of starting to ovulate you're going to notice the the period um but yes technically the period is the end of that cycle yes that's the end of the cycle yes well it's technically the beginning i mean when we start counting see now we're getting into numbers yeah you start counting your you start counting your cycle the day you start bleeding um but on your very first one there's nothing there's no marker for you as a human to know what's happening but your body is very aware that it has started your first menstrual cycle you're not going to know until you technically start your second menstrual cycle which is when the blood starts got it okay okay pregnancy so i i think i think i just want to do a little bit and because and this isn't just

for kids and this isn't just for parents this is for anyone who is capable of getting someone pregnant or getting pregnant i think there's a lot of confusion about how long sperm and egg can live so does that sound like a good place to bury yes um so egg once an egg so ovulation is the body's process of like getting of getting one egg ready to be released and it gets released and hopefully it goes into the fallopian tube and everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, anatomy. That egg can only live for about 12 to 24 hours, is only viable for about 12 to 24 hours. After about 12 to 24 hours, it's going to basically break down and not be viable. Sperm, on the other hand, our friendly sperm, sperm can live, we usually say up to five

days inside the body which is important because if it's outside the body it's got it it can't it's got nothing unless it's being frozen when you say inside the body what do you mean so once it's been ejaculated into someone else's body okay thank you not thank you not inside their own body so once it's been a jet like if you're ejaculating all over like i don't know your bed sheets it's not going to live for three to five days right um if you've ejaculated into a body it can survive we usually use five days i mean there's always like this this is my fear with doing numbers this is always going to be like this one case that was highlighted on i didn't know i was pregnant where the sperm survived seven days that's that's not the normal the

normal is that it can survive up to five days so if you ovulate if a woman ovulates on let's just pick an even number december one because i like even numbers but it's technically an odd number whatever if she's ovulating on december 1 technically that egg is only going to be viable for 12 to 24 hours so depending on when on the first it could go from the just the first or the first and the second but if she had sex vaginal intercourse let me be very specific there she had vaginal intercourse three days before she could actually get pregnant from that because the sperm may still be hanging out trying to find an egg and cancer five days is usually what we use I don't think most people know that. I don't think they do. And I think people start to

understand that when they are on a journey to get pregnant. Yes. And so that could be well into your 20s or 30s before you actually understand that. And so that's why I think this episode is really important for parents and caregivers and whomever else is listening. is understanding that cycle and what that can mean if you're having vaginal intercourse and the risks. When I talk about it in my class, most of my students do not want to become parents tomorrow. They want to be parents.

The majority of my students still do tell me they want to be parents, just not like now. So the way I talk to them about it is to kind of talk about you know that five days before ovulation and here's the thing she doesn't really know when she's ovulating her body does but she doesn't know so women are going to ovulate 14 days before the start of their next menstrual cycle but that menstrual cycle can be thrown off by lots of things stress being around other women who ovulate certain medications drop in body fat so she may think she knows but her body may be counting differently and so when we take a look

at when I talk to college students and anyone who does not want to be pregnant I explain that there's a much bigger window when you kind of have to avoid sex or make sure that you're using some kind of protection because it's not really just the five days because you don't know what day she's ovulating so and by protection in this context we're talking contraception you should for health reasons yes we're talking about some kind of barrier method and or hormonal contraception which if she's on hormonal contraception she's not ovulating if she's using it correctly so that's not an issue yeah but using some kind of barrier method or non-hormonal contraception so yeah yeah it gets complicated it does there

it it gets complicated but i i also feel like it feels that way because there are just these gaps in some of these very basic understanding of steps and context right like that that message that we touched on earlier um that a girl has actually obviously has started her first menstrual menstrual cycle um before you see the the period like just an understanding of that yeah and then is major in my opinion and then the question i get a lot i get a lot of these questions i get a lot and i always joke that i feel a little like dr seuss when i'm answering like you can't get pregnant on a plane you can't get pregnant on a train you can't get pregnant because it's always like can I get pregnant if this or that or then so and I don't think we can

go through all of them right now but one of the questions I get a lot is well if she's on her period she can't get pregnant right and I'm always like not necessarily you could be having your menstrual cycle and the fact that you're bleeding and actually be ovulating that is that's a very short cycle in general um we have this tendency to say that women's entire menstrual cycles are 28 days and i really wish we'd get rid of that because it screws up the math and it's very confusing for people when we start talking about the fact that that's not what most women's cycles look like um i think it's like 98 we all know i make up my percentages of women are going to have have menstrual cycles and i don't mean how often they bleed like that bleeding is usually on

average three to five days um but the entire cycle for women can fall anywhere between 18 and 35 days so if she's on that 18 to 19 range she could be having her period but also ovulating so yes she could get pregnant i've heard people say like it's the safest time to have sex i'm like not necessarily safe if you're trying to avoid pregnancy yeah i feel you gotta throw that Important clarification. And I think while we're talking about this, we should throw out period tracking apps, which we touched on in an earlier episode, our abortion as healthcare episode, but being mindful of what you use to track your cycle. I think it's really important that women track their cycle and potentially their male partners if they're into it I don't I don't think this needs to be a female thing I think you can be a partner thing I think that if suddenly you're having really so so when a girl first starts getting her cycle it's gonna be all over the freaking place right it's gonna be like 18 days 35 days like it's just all over the places her body settles into a cycle but as you're getting older if suddenly you notice that your periods are starting to get starting to become really erratic and they weren't before that could be a sign that something's going on and so i think it is really important that people are tracking their periods and in the past

i've been like hey period tracker apps really cool way like i don't love a lot of the period tracker apps beforehand because they were like pink and flowery and not every girl cares about pink and flowers um but now with the changes to legislation around abortion and miscarriages and privacy because we have seen apps that give up their data i i i kind of push people i still think it's important to track use use an old-fashioned calendar pen and paper calendar I would be really careful using apps because that data is not between you and your phone. It is potentially being given to outside sources. And if you are living in a state where you become pregnant and you don't want to be and terminated, if they can prove that you knew that you were pregnant, they could potentially hold you accountable, especially if it's in a state where it's illegal.

yeah yeah i thought that would be this would be a good point to a good space to bring that up yeah or reiterate it it's it's interesting because i'm hearing a lot of teenagers right now and women in their 20s you know you go to the doctor and they're like oh when was the last period and what we're hearing now is pushback we're hearing women say i'm regular and that's all you need to know because they don't necessarily trust their doctors anymore and i i know we've talked about this before i really do think we need to do a whole conversation about medical staff and what and what they know about sex um health care professionals and what they know about sex um but we're starting to hear more and more about pushback where people are not giving the date of

their last period they're simply saying i'm not pregnant or it's not possible i'm pregnant if that's the concern because there are medications that if someone is pregnant you want to avoid um but when people are asking about their last period the response they're getting is it's regular like that's if that's what you're asking if you're asking if i'm regular i will tell you that i'm regular or i will tell you if i have concerns but there is zero reason that you need to record in my official records when my last date of my last period was yeah let's get super serious thanks for that yeah you're welcome i'm going back to the foundations of reproductive of health is there is there anything that um that we want to kind of point out at this

at this juncture i guess point out at this point um i i think if you're a parent and you've got a kid who's going through puberty male or female if you've got a kid who's going through puberty don't kill them and and just remember how how confusing it was at that point um and and learn what you don't know because you may never have been taught how the menstrual cycle works you may never have been taught about the hormonal changes. You may never have been taught about menstrual cups and period underwear and period swimwear. So I think that there's a piece where parents need to make sure that they know what's going on. But I also think that there's a place where if you can manage not to kill them while they're driving you nuts, remembering just how

scary and overwhelming that time was. So I think that's the kind of the piece for parents and caregivers. And then as you're getting older, if you're engaging in vaginal intercourse with someone of, I guess, vaginal intercourse, we're assuming people of different body parts, just learning about how these things work. Because if you are trying to get pregnant or not to get pregnant, understanding the cycle can be really important for you. yeah all right anything else yeah i think we're um yeah so there there is our foundational episode on reproductive health i want to thank you all for joining us on this episode of unzipping taboos candid conversations about sex we hope today's episode sparks some new thoughts some curiosity

and can open up conversations worth having. Remember, your curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships and sex health. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave us a comment, leave a review, and share it with someone who might need to hear this. And I know you usually do our outro and I'm interrupting you and that's totally throwing you off your game. Folks, we really value the comments and suggestions and questions

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