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Author
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Comment
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(11/10/05 6:31 pm)
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Re: Cycles and Vampires
Glee, I'm not disagreeing that this happens, only I don't think there's anything particularly surprising about it--in fact, it would be bizarre if large proportion of women didn't have their menses at around the same time. My point, lost in the statistics part of it, is that, until I reach menopause, the chances that my cycle will overlap with any other woman's is one in two--about the same chance of me getting heads if I should flip a coin. That's because cycles last almost a quarter of a month in length, and then repeat. When you multiply that by a large group, then a large proportion of that group will have overlapping cycles. That's just the way it works, in the most random way possible--you get a lot of women together, then a very large proportion will have overlapping menses. In college, we'd all be in the bathroom together, kvetching about it, saying "must be the moon," or something along the lines, when it happened just as a matter of random events. In other words, given the length of time of menses, and the fact that they cycle, it is nigh impossible to have a large group of women together without overlapping cycles--the possibilities of that happening are miniscule.
Best,
Alice
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 11/10/05 6:37 pm
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gails
Unregistered User
(11/11/05 6:08 am)
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Synchronous Menstrual Cycles
Research has been done on synchronous menstrual cycles. You can find accounts online.
GailS
www.newscientist.com/back...s?id=lw892
psychiatry.jwatch.org/cgi...1998/501/1
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GleeDays2
Registered User
(11/11/05 7:12 am)
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Re: Synchronous Menstrual Cycles
That is fascinating, Gails! The first article does point out that the phemerone effect that causes ovulation to coincide most often happens among women with intimate living arrangements, such as lesbian couples, roommates, and, most often, mothers and daughters. It does state that:
"Menstrual convergence does not always occur and not all groups synchronise, probably because of the different competing influences encountered in different situations. In a group of unrelated women, it is not yet clear whether they all change equally to have common cycle lengths or a dominant woman's cycle is copied by others, although the latter is considered more likely."
There was a hospital featured in the news last year, where a large proportion of nursing staff were pregnant. Among all the hilarity, it was clear that these women, most of whom worked in the maternity ward, spent long hours each day synching their work together, so the strenuous demands of their nursing burden would be met.
It has been my personal experience that when I have been among women living their lives in tandem, with close relationships, our menses coincide. And I have known many sisters, cousins and close friends who got pregnant during the same cycle and delivered within days of each other. Glee
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Judith Berman
Registered User
(11/11/05 9:15 am)
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Re: Synchronous Menstrual Cycles
Wow, some other research I read a way long time ago and can't remember where was about night-time light, perhaps specifically moonlight in the study, and menstrual cycles. What I took away from it was that increasing night-time light (waxing moon) helped stimulate ovulation so that fertility would coincide with the full moon (brightest, and it rises at sunset so is also bright for longest). Artificial light and artificial darkness have interfered with this connection. At times when I've been living outdoors I have noticed a shift to respond to moonlight, but this could be purely because I was looking for it.
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(11/11/05 1:44 pm)
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Re: Synchronous Menstrual Cycles
Thank you Gail for the articles, and Judith, I'm curious about the study you describe. I wonder, however, whether there has been any studies actually documenting this phenomena--the studies you both point out assume it exists. One notes that the phenomena seems to happen only sometimes, and the frequency, from the brief description in the article is consistent with the phenomena occurring randomly (because, occurring randomly, it would be common).
I'm not trying to be cantankerous here--maybe the phenomena has some cause other than randomness, but I'm skeptical because it is completely plausible that it occurs randomly. I would love to see some data that isn't consistent with random occurrence (I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically).
My skepticism comes from two sources: first that even in animals that have cycles very closely linked to the seasons, such as horses, a herd of mares will not all come into estrus at exactly the same time--in fact, as breeders know only too well, you have to watch carefully to figure out when an individual mare will actually reach estrus, and there's a huge variation. Second, there are a large number of phenomena that everyone believes are true, but when someone actually sits down and measures the data, turn out to be false. For example, when you see a full moon rising, it appears larger than when it reaches its zenith. Speculation as to this phenomena ran from the mystical to analyses of the nature of our atmosphere. When someone actually measured the visual size of the moon at moonrise and at its zenith, it turned out the moon size was exactly the same. We do not see a bigger moon. We see an optical illusion because of the existence of the horizon. You can replicate this illusion using two wavy lines, one above the other on a piece of paper: one will look longer than the other when, in fact, they are exactly the same length.
Anyway, I'm distracting from the main point of the thread, and I apologize for that.
Best,
Alice
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 11/11/05 2:21 pm
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(11/11/05 2:02 pm)
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the pill
Also, given the number of menstruating women in any group who are likely to be on the pill, and thus unable to synch...
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gails
Unregistered User
(11/11/05 4:32 pm)
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Synchronous Menstrual Cycles
---“I wonder, however, whether there has been any studies actually documenting this phenomena--the studies you both point out assume it exists. One notes that the phenomena seems to happen only sometimes, and the frequency, from the brief description in the article is consistent with the phenomena occurring randomly (because, occurring randomly, it would be common).”----
I’m not sure what you are looking for in terms of study documentation. A search of “social regulation of ovulation” provides 150,000 hits.
This transcript from “The Health Report” provides an interview with Dr. Martha McClintock in which she describes her research and findings regarding, among other things, the social regulation of ovulation. It is commonly referred to as the “McClintock Effect,” so she is something of an expert in the field.
www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8...s11122.htm
Summary: Past research has indicated that women who live together tend to menstruate at the same time or close to it. Dr. Martha McClintock, who did the earlier work on this, has now done an experiment in which she took pheromones from under the arms of one set of women and wiped them on the upper lip of another group of women whose cycles have been re-set as a result.
Later:
Martha McClintock: I first started working on this now over 25 years ago when I first noticed that women who live together have menstrual cycles that synchronise. It's been a long series of studies looking at animal models and doing computer simulations, and so this now really represents the culmination of that long line of research, where we were able to specifically test the hypothesis that pheromones might mediate that original phenomenon that I discovered a long time ago, namely that there are pheromones which regulate the time of ovulation, and under special circumstances that can bring about the synchrony phenomenon.
And later still:
Martha McClintock: I noticed the phenomenon in a dormitory in an all-women's college, and what happens is that women who spend time together in close proximity, going to classes together, or being friends, or not even being friends, but just sleeping together in the same room, being room-mates, have over time, and it takes about three or four cycles, their menstrual cycles become non-random, and they become closer in time than you'd expect randomly.
Norman Swan: And you thought that was due to pheromones back then?
Martha McClintock: Well it was one of the ideas, because one of the things I did was I then took random groups of women, in other words took the exact same data, and analysed it as if they were just living in random groups, and what I found was that there was more synchrony among the women who were actually spending a lot of time together, so what that means was I could rule out a cause of something like common living practices, or the weather, or eating food together in the common cafeteria, because this showed that what was being affected was the menstrual cycle on the basis of their social interactions. And that's what was really so exciting. Because there it was the first demonstration that social behaviours regulated the menstrual cycle, which before then had really been thought of as a deeply embedded biological phenomenon that wasn't affected much by the outside world
Norman Swan: So there could be something in the air?
Martha McClintock: That was one of the ideas, and I had that idea because there are plenty of animals which show a similar phenomenon, and there with the animals, you can clearly show that it's mediated by these pheromones, these airborne chemicals.
Norman Swan: What animal studies have you done?
Martha McClintock: I've studied rats, and had them live together, and found that when they live together, their cycles synchronise and when we moved them to live in singly housed cages, that synchrony dissipates, and then we had them live where they only shared a common air supply, and we found that they synchronised to the same level as the rats that were actually living together. So we knew that an airborne signal was sufficient to enable the ovarian cycles to influence each other within this group, that I would call a social group except it really was an olfactory group because they only shared an air supply.
Hope this helps,
Gail
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gails
Unregistered User
(11/11/05 4:59 pm)
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Synchronous Menstrual Cycles
This is, of course, a scientific theory. It has been challenged. I'm sure that if you wanted to check McClintock’s protocols and results, you could find them somewhere.
Best,
GailS
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GleeDays2
Registered User
(11/11/05 5:09 pm)
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Re: Synchronous Menstrual Cycles
Gail, you've really done your homework - nice work!
Alice, no need to apologize - this discussion is actually right on topic as far as I'm concerned. Goddess lore and legend zeros right in on the connection between the moon and women's cycles. (Although originally, in many of the oldest religions, the sun was female and the moon her weaker male son/lover. Only when the Indo-Aryan-Greek pantheon and the Hebrew God became culturally dominant, did the sun became male and the moon female.)
Veronica, good point. Since menopause I've been on hormones, so who knows what my "natural" biological rhythm is these days LOL. Or anybody else's for that matter.
"Blood is the life" has so many applications and explanations. Much more can be said in the present discussion. But, it does not have to stay here. If anybody else has another aspect they'd like to explore, I'm all ears. Glee
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avalondeb
Registered User
(11/14/05 4:10 pm)
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Re: Synchronous Menstrual Cycles
journals.iranscience.net:...p@id=lw892
More on "menstrual synchronicity", from New Scientist Magazine.
I have personally experienced that yes, this does work. Of course, because of the pill regulating many women's cycles, it doesn't work with everyone.
I worked in an elementary school for 15 years. 75% of the new female teachers complained how their cycle changed drastically once they joined the staff.
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gigi
Unregistered User
(11/14/05 7:27 pm)
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blood
Wow!
You all have done so much research! It just boggles the mind. I do suppose though that the interlapping explanation works to.
I was amazed by the the fact was that if your cycle last six days it essentially is a quarter of a month. And if you include the PMS then essentially its half a month.
Hmm.. Kind of puts the female thing into perspective. Even though we have evolved we still are essentially made for the procreation of our species. Just makes you think....
Then again Darwin did say that only those who produce offspring actaully succeed in life... I just seem to forget that Darwin's Laws apply to humans.
Any more taboos about menstruating women. ?And isn't there a rule that you can't have sex when your'e menstruating in religion? I want to say its in Catholicism ...I do know its forbidden in Islam...
And (a bit off topic) A woman can become pregnant any time in a month right? Even on her period?
I got into an argument with my brother on this. (Strange I know) He was taking an indepth biology class and he bet our neighbor 25$ that women can get pregenant only 2 days a month.
I thnk he got so lost in the facts that he lost sight of the actual fertility of a female. He thinks that becasue of the ovulation lenght and that sperm can only live in a women's body for 72 hours that a women can
become pregnant only 2 days. I know this is wrong but can anyone explain it.?
much thanks and just Bravo to everyone with the research.
:rollin gigi
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Anuda
Registered User
(11/14/05 8:02 pm)
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Blood and Sex
Wow, good discussion. Lots of interesting stuff on here!
Anyway, the first thing that comes to MY mind when I think of blood is actually sex. If you want to do anything on blood, you definitely have to read Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. They're excellent. The vampires' taking in of blood becomes increasingly erotic--there are no boundaries. Vampires themselves sort of lose their gender (their sexual organs no longer function--everything they experience is through the blood act), while the humans being fed upon generally have an intense erotic experience (e.g. 'male' vampire sucks a young man in the first book, and he gets an erection). Menstrual blood becomes sexual too, and in a later book (though some of you may be grossed out by this), the vampire Lestat eats the blood of a menstruating woman. Blood is power, fertility--the more ancient the vampire, the stronger the blood (and thus powers) it has. These books are great, because Anne Rice's ideas encompass all the subconscious ideas we have about blood. Another one to read is Bram Stoker's Dracula--when the innocent, virginal Lucy becomes weak after many visits from Dracula, many men must donate their blood to her in order for her to survive (this also becomes sexual, as her fiancee is somewhat disturbed by the idea of all these men 'possessing' her by having their blood in her).
I think you probably just need to look at what blood means to our culture today...blood is ancient power. We try to forget what we are with all our standards of cleanliness and sanitation, but we are earthy, savage beings. Blood is sacred because it shows us what we really are--sexual, violent, agressive--but blood is also familial. We are 'sisters by blood' if we are of the same parents. Blood is something we share with those close to us. Blood is intimate. Blood is you, and if someone is possessing you (your blood), they have an awful lot of power over you. So I think that blood is really a form of raw truth about ourselves.
Hope that gives you something to chew on!
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Judith Berman
Registered User
(11/14/05 8:09 pm)
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Re: blood
Women don't always ovulate only once or on schedule. In fact, increasingly it's thought that many pregnancies start out as multiples and the twin is shed usually early in pregnancy.
Alas, if your brother was right, the rhythm method would be a pretty good form of contraception.
Re menstrual taboos: many cultures have some kind and they aren't
all the same. Hunting cultures do often have some variation on not
touching the hunting implements. You could check the Human Relations
Area Files under that topic (www.yale.edu/hraf/collections.htm),
but you need access through a subscriber.
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(11/14/05 8:33 pm)
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procreatioon
"Kind of puts the female thing into perspective. Even though we have evolved we still are essentially made for the procreation of our species."
Eh, so are men.
A woman can become pregnant any time of the month because ovulation is not always regular and predictable. So, on the one hand, you can only pregnant while ovulating. On the other hand, ovulation can happen any time--some women are more predictable than others.
I don't know that we try to forget what we are with cleanliness and sanitation--more like we try to live longer by decreasing our chances of illness and epidemic.
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gails
Unregistered User
(11/14/05 9:20 pm)
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STM
Some studies show that the Sympto-Thermal Method (STM) is effective, if you know what you are doing and if you have the discipline to adhere to the method. Those are two big ifs.
From www.serena.ca/eng/stm.html
The Sympto-Thermal Method (STM) is an effective, co-operative, scientifically based and inexpensive method of natural family planning. Awareness of a man's constant fertility and the woman's cyclic variations allows a couple to understand and accept their shared fertility. The STM can be used throughout a woman's reproductive lifespan, including situations such as breastfeeding and the premenopause.
Daily observation of the woman's basal body temperature, cervical mucus signs, changes in the cervix, and periovulatory symptoms are made and recorded on a chart. With some teaching from a Serena teacher couple, couples will learn how to chart and interpret this information in order to identify the fertile and infertile phases of the menstrual cycle.
Charting records information about the menstrual cycle. It allows one to:
discern the period of ovulation
identify the period of natural infertility
predict the onset of menstruation
follow each cycle as it unfolds
discover menstrual irregularities
detect possible causes of infertility
observe the re-establishment of ovulatory cycles after contraceptive use, breastfeeding or pregnancy
confirm early pregnancy
recognize the approach of menopause
I hope that no one is taking the bet that a women can only become pregnant during two days a month. Even if it were true, the trick is determining which two days.
GailS
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(11/15/05 12:32 am)
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misc, TILL WE HAVE FACES
Coming in late....
As for blood not containing DNA -- we know that, but the ancients didn't. Many expressions equate 'blood' with 'heredity'. Of the same blood ... of mixed blood ... pure blooded. Also many of the behavior and psychological characteristics we see as cultural, were not so long ago considered racial -- as 'it's in her blood' ... 'bad blood'.
In recent centuries, I think some expressions equating 'good blood' with 'good breeding' were somewhat metaphorical, and the speaker was not really thinking of something red and gory. But what was referred to was still something quite important: perhaps more important than literal blood.
As for the ancients and blood sacrifice pre-Christianity, for a different perspective you might take a look at C. S. Lewis's historical novel TILL WE HAVE FACES.
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Judith Berman
Registered User
(11/15/05 1:33 pm)
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Re: procreatioon
Quote:
I don't know that we try to forget what we are with cleanliness and sanitation--more like we try to live longer by decreasing our chances of illness and epidemic
That's how WE think of it now. Nature is or can be polluting. But not all peoples have viewed it this way... the conclusion of vol. 3 of Levi-Strauss' epic work on New World myth ("The Origin of Table Manners") was that table manners (standing in for the whole realm of etiquette in relation to the natural and spirit worlds) are frequently to protect nature from being polluted by US.
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(11/15/05 2:57 pm)
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sanitation
Yes, I understand that the idea of nature as polluting is a cultural construct; but the spread of cholera through water mixed with sewage is not, and surgery is nowhere near as fatal as it once was is due to scrubbed ORs and disinfected scalpals (as well antibiotics, obviously). And that's not even touching on the importance of clean needles.
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(11/15/05 7:15 pm)
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Re: sanitation
"Alas, if your brother was right, the rhythm method would be a pretty good form of contraception."
A friend of mine told me that in college, they had a name for someone who used the rhythm method... "Pregnant" :lol (With no intention of disparaging STM, when done carefully.)
Best,
Alice
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Judith Berman
Registered User
(11/15/05 8:39 pm)
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Re: sanitation
I'm certainly arguing that all scientific knowledge is a cultural construct! But I had thought the discussion was about cultural constructs. And certainly how we frame scientific questions and the meaning of answers to those questions is cultural.
In fact, though, both views are right: nature can be polluting, and we can damage nature.
Regarding science and cultural constructs, there's a story Barre Toelken tells about a situation on the Navajo rez where government ag types wanted to get rid of some prairie dogs regarded as pests. The Navajo said, "But there will be no one to cry for rain, and the crops won't grow." The aggies killed off the prairie dogs and the crops didn't grow. In fact the patch of land turned to sterile desert. Turns out prairie dog activities were contributing crucially to soil health--making it possible for the soil to retain water. The Navajo understood precisely the connection between cause and effect, but framed it in myth (the original story about the prairie dogs) and metaphor.
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