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Menstrual Menace: Difference between revisions
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Here's a riddle for you.
It is something that polite people do not discuss. It is something that most television shows [[No Periods, Period|do not dare to mention.]] It is something that [[Women's Mysteries|half the world can never know or experience.]] It is something that [[Most Writers Are Male|more than half of the writers in the world]] can never truly understand. In [[Speculative Fiction]], it creates the [[Monster of the Week]] and brings about [[The End of the World As We Know It]]. What is it?
If you guessed "an [[Eldritch Abomination]] from beyond the stars", <s>correct</s> wrong. The correct answer, as you know if you cheated and checked the potholed links or just ''read the title of this article'', is...menstruation.
In most fiction, [[No Periods, Period|periods are rarely mentioned]]. [[Speculative Fiction]] does likewise. But on the rare occasions that [[Speculative Fiction]] does mention menstrual periods, the characters should tremble. SF periods serve as the trigger for every supernatural menace you can think of. Gruesome [[Body Horror]] is the favorite, but a period can also serve as a source of great power (and [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|great insanity]]), a magnet for [[The Fair Folk]], a gateway to a hell dimension, or even a semi-sentient [[Reality Warper]]. Periods cause all sorts of supernatural evil, and never cause supernatural good (aside from the occasional [[Puberty Superpower]], or [[Un
The [[Menstrual Menace]] is particularly popular as a [[Monster of the Aesop]]. Any monster evolving out of a girl's period will serve as an object lesson of how to deal with the [[Incredibly Lame Pun|pain of puberty.]] If the moral is that [[Growing Up Sucks]], the whole cast will be dead or insane by the end. At the more idealistic end of the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]], defeating the [[Menstrual Menace]] will be an [[Anvilicious]] moral about the importance of [[It's All Junk|abandoning childish things]].
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The belief systems of some cultures have often incorporated a strong positive or negative supernatural significance to the phenomenon of menstruation.
This trope is for supernatural horrors only; for trouble caused by mundane periods, see [[No Periods, Period]]. Compare [[Women's Mysteries]]. See also [[Hysterical Woman]] and [[All Women Are Lustful]], two beliefs brought on by this very trope.
{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* In the [[Whateley Universe]], superpowered mage Fey has her first case of PMS in her first few weeks at [[Super
** For bonus points, all the magical fun ''also'' triggers menstrual discharge in every other girl in the dorm. Including the ones who had just finished with this month's visitor.
* Inverted in a couple of instances in the ''[[Paradise]]'' setting, in which humans are being changed into [[Funny Animal|Funny Animals]]. Men who are Changed into forms that have a mating season in the fall, such as moose, elk, etc., display extreme irritability and possessiveness during that time of the year, and are prone to losing their temper over the slightest provocation (especially regarding [[Not What It Looks Like|what appear to be advances]] toward their Significant Other).
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[[Category:Gender and Sexuality Tropes]]
[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
[[Category:Menstrual Menace]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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