PMS

It always bewilders me how many men here are unaware of PMS. Yesterday we were talking about various things, including mid-life crises and the like...when we somehow came across the topic of women and their monthly mood cycle. Most of them, with the exception of my funny Chinese student Liu(who nodded violently in agreement when I drew an example of a typical mood chart of females on the whiteboard), had no idea about the 'time of the month' I asked them, "aren't there jokes about a woman PMSing or something like that?" To which they replied, "ha ha, no way."

Women back in the West complain about how society's light take on PMS makes them even more miserable, but they've never considered life without PMS awareness. Perhaps this means every time a woman gets irritated, bloated, crampy, suffers from severe headaches, or goes on a chocolate binge...her man just thinks she is having a bad day? As for me, I'd rather my guy know just when I'll be edgy and best left alone...which do you think is better, or doesn't it matter to you? A man ignorant about PMS or one who knows it will enough to be a woman himself?

Interesting. For me that is such a unique thing about Japan. Porn anime and other racy magazines are read openly in public transit, yet the talk of sex or anything somewhat related, is off-limits. Sex-related things are ubiquitous (obvious in soaplands, red-light districts, gropers on trains, so-called snack bars, piles of adult DVD shops, hostess entertainment) yet it is all at the same time, considered dirty and almost repulsive. Maybe repulsive is a bit extreme but you get the picture. Some foreigners think of the Japanese as repressed in that sense. I do not necessarily agree with that, per se, however I do think it should be further probed by researchers and scholars alike.