Dear Em & Lo,
For the past two weeks I have been sleeping with a guy I met here at college. The boundaries of our relationship have been well-established: late night phone calls for no-strings-attached sex. We’re having a great time, and I want to keep this thing going. However, the last time we were together I had one of my most embarrassing moments: I got my period during sex. Although he seemed to handle the situation relatively well, he hasn’t called me since. I am worried that what happened was more of a girlfriend-type situation than a booty-call type situation. Was that a deal breaker for him? This is an incredibly awkward situation for me, as we know many of the same people and I fear that he has given up on me and that this can only reflect badly upon myself. Should I contact him? Apologize? Buy him new sheets? Help!
— Crimson Tide
Dear C.T.,
We have so many questions…
First, how does you unexpectedly getting your period reflect badly on you? We’re sure you didn’t plan to turn his bed into a crime scene, right? Sometimes these things happen. Your period is part of life. Heck, it’s part of your sexuality. And have you seen the stuff that comes out of the end of his dick when he ejaculates? Not exactly flowers, either. If you wanted to win the Nice Booty Call of the Year award, you could have offered to either help him clean the sheets (he may not have the experience we ladies do with getting out blood stains) or buy him new ones. But how many guys do you know who offer to clean a woman’s sheets when he spills his seed all over them, huh? It’s just not that big a deal.
Next, if this is a mutually understood, agreed-upon, and pleasurable booty call situation for both of you, why are you waiting around for him to call you? If you want to keep making sex appointments, call him. If you want to find out if this is a big deal for him, just come right out and ask him. You guys are getting naked and poking each other’s holes, for crying out loud. That’s pretty intimate stuff, menstrual blood or not. We think your relationship, however casual, can handle a frank discussion about the functions of those bodies that get undressed and roll around together.
Finally, assuming it turns out that he does think it’s a big deal, why would you want to be with him? He doesn’t have to lap it up like Edward Culllen from Twilight, but if he’s so grossed out by your period that he’s willing to give up a good booty call arrangement, then he’s an unsympathetic, immature baby who doesn’t understand the first thing about female anatomy (which probably makes him suck in the sack, anyway) and he doesn’t deserve your amorous attention. But rather than giving him bloody hell (which would be our first instinct), we guess you could rise above it all and try to gently explain why it’s just not that big a deal, making him a better future booty call and boyfriend for girls to come. After all, he is still in college. Maybe he’s never had a good woman tell him this before.
Of course, you need to consider the possibility that his not calling has nothing to do with your period at all. You’re in college, you’ve known each other only two weeks, you’re having casual sex, he’s a guy — it’s kind of a miracle that you’ve gotten together more than once! He might have just moved on to have casual sex with someone else, period.
Seeing red,
Em & Lo
