What If We Did A Little Less Ovulation Discourse?

 
 

By sTACY LEE KONG

Image: BBC

 
 

You know when you like a post on social media, but then you keep reading—or you just think a little harder about what it’s saying—and you have to un-like it, because you don’t actually agree, after all? Because I find myself doing that a lot with tweets about ovulation horniness. 

Like, yes, I also laugh at the obviously-exaggerated-for-effect jokes about feeling feral during ovulation week and random attacks of baby fever (with bonus unhinged gifs), but then Lorde gives interviews about how the first time she ovulated after being on birth control for ten years was “one of the best drugs [she’s] ever done” and I immediately experienced full-body cringe. Because the idea that women become irrational, hysterical and melodramatic because of their menstrual cycles is not only archaic, it doesn’t feel unconnected to a bunch of things I think are objectively bad, like right-wing anti-contraception propaganda, pronatalism, bioessentialism (a.k.a. biological essentialism or gender essentialism)—and perhaps even fascism. 

So, not to ruin the joke, but ovulation discourse has very quickly become one of those things where I know it’s not really meant to be taken seriously, and yet I cannot help but take it seriously. Hence, this newsletter!

Bring back sex ed

First and most importantly, we need to know more about how our bodies work. Because babes? There is no such thing as “ovulation week.” Briefly, the menstrual cycle has four phases: menstruation, follicular, ovulation and luteal. But it’s not as tidy as it sounds—they actually overlap, they don’t happen one after another. So, the first day of your period is the first day of your entire cycle, and also marks the beginning of the menstruation and follicular phases. Ovulation is the third phase; it’s the 24-hour-ish period when your ovaries release an egg, and it usually happens around day 14 of the typical cycle. Then, from day 15 or so to the next time you menstruate, you’re in the luteal phase. So yes, I know your health tracking app highlights six days out of the month as your most fertile period, but that doesn’t mean you’re ovulating for all of that time. In fact, what the internet refers to as ovulation week is the seven-day span leading up to ovulation, which is when you’re most fertile—but that’s actually the follicular phase.  

I’m not saying that to be pedantic; in an age of rampant misinformation, I do think it matters that we use the right words. And while we’re at it, it’s also important to realize that every person’s cycle is unique. I used words like “about” and “ish” and “or so” in the previous paragraph because it’s genuinely not possible to make sweeping statements about exactly when each phase of the menstrual cycle occurs, since that depends on the length of your cycle, which varies from month to month and person to person. What’s more, everyone’s hormones affect them differently, which is why some of us would have no idea when we’re ovulating if our apps didn’t tell us, while others might, yes, experience heightened desire. And a lot of people—up to 40% of those who ovulate, according to the Cleveland Clinic—experience ovulation pain, also known as mittelschmerz, which sounds like the most irritating way to know where you are in your cycle. 

Let’s learn about embodied misinformation

The thing is, I do get why people want to celebrate, or at least acknowledge, ovulation horniness. There’s still lingering stigma against women claiming their sexuality at all, much less publicly talking about their desire. Women’s health, and especially reproductive health, have historically been undervalued, under-studied and steeped in shame, so in the absence of peer-reviewed studies and doctors that take us seriously, we’ve just had to depend on our own observations about our bodies. (Especially if we’re racialized, fat, disabled, gender nonconforming or otherwise marginalized, since these factors often profoundly impact access to healthcare.) Also: our bodies do look and feel different at different times during our cycles, because we inhabit corporeal forms that are affected by various external and internal forces, like hunger, lack of sleep, injury and yes, hormones. Plus, the world has been designed with cis men’s biology in mind, so the impulse to emphasize the validity of other biological realities is extremely understandable.

But. Ovulation discourse is still part of a growing body of scientifically shaky health and wellness information often perpetuated by divine feminine wellness influencers and cycle syncing advocates. Which brings me to two concepts that I just learned about, and that I think are applicable here: embodied information and embodied misinformation. According to a recently-published study in the journal Information Research, embodied information means “internal information about a person's health status that they access through interpreting their own bodily sensations,” while embodied misinformation refers to the misinterpretation of those sensations. “Learning how to read one’s own body requires significant information work because it is possible to be wrong about what the body is saying,” the study’s authors note. “When that is the case, embodied information can contribute to the formation of false beliefs about how bodies function, thus creating a situation of embodied misinformation.”

Cycle syncing is a great example of this; the premise of this softer, cuter version of biohacking is that it’s possible to optimize your life by adjusting your workouts, diet, sleep schedule and even work tasks based on your hormonal peaks and valleys. I first noticed this type of wellness content a couple of years ago, and at the time, there wasn’t a lot of research investigating its effectiveness, which created an information vacuum that could be filled by self-styled fitness and wellness experts who argued, among other things, that the higher estrogen levels that occur during the follicular phase lead to higher energy levels and better results from high-intensity workouts. But now, research is beginning to roll out and that doesn’t seem to be true. Which is to say, it’s totally legit that some of us feel more or less tired at different points in our menstrual cycles, but that doesn’t mean what these wellness influencers say it does. In fact, according to a new study from McMaster University, “exercising at various points in the cycle had no impact—positive or negative—on the synthesis of new muscle proteins.” 

Bioessentialism? Really?

It’s not just the misinformation, though. It’s also the bioessentialism. This belief system states that a person’s characteristics, behaviours and/or abilities are intrinsically linked to their genetics. It treats sex and gender as the same thing—which we know they’re not—and reduces people to the most basic expression of their DNA, which I find… kind of dehumanizing, actually. Like, on a very superficial level, I thought we were past that thing where society blamed our valid emotional responses, like anger or sadness, on our hormones, and I absolutely do not want that to make a comeback. (PMS jokes are not it.) But also, have we thought through the implications of classifying biology, and especially reproduction, a fundamental aspect of womanhood? 

As Róisín Lanigan put it in a recent column for The Observer, “I’m wary of this kind of thing. And by ‘this kind of thing,’ I mean an odd, woo-woo, mystic approach to what is just old-school conservative bioessentialism—reducing bodies to nothing more than vessels for whatever stage of the menstrual cycle they happen to be in—for various reasons that are all more sinister than the last… The ovulation-makes-you-crazy lobby are essentially just small-c conservatives in pink clothing. This is the same ideology telling you that putting hormones in your body is unnatural, that it stops you being a ‘real woman’ and that ceasing to do so will make you natural and whole. It’s the voice that says that you shouldn’t have to pay your taxes or even get a job because you’re ‘just a girl’; one who needs a 6ft 5in boyfriend with a trust fund and a job in finance. It’s a form of Barbified bio-essentialist propaganda, repackaged as Just Girly Thing memes.” 

I do love some woo-woo things, to be fair. But I do not love being reduced to my body, as if my thoughts, experience, personality, desires and beliefs have no bearing on my behaviour. Also, the idea that I don’t have the autonomy to control my sexuality or reproduction, even just as a joke, feels extremely icky. And let’s not ignore the other implications of this line of thinking, particularly what it says about who ‘counts’ as a woman—and who doesn’t. Because not every woman has a menstrual cycle. Not every woman ovulates. ‘Womanhood’ encompasses an expansive range of experiences! But we live in a world that is rapidly trying to narrow its definition, to scary, sometimes tragic, effect. 

If there’s anything I like less than the idea of leaving my reproductive decisions to men, it’s leaving them to chance

I definitely see parallels between the little jokey jokes about feeling feral one week out of every month and even more troubling ideas that are spreading across the internet, like, those of us who menstruate are less capable while we’re menstruating, which is really just a half-step away from the idea that we’re less capable in general. Or, we shouldn’t use hormonal birth control because the rhythm method is more ‘natural’ (and also the least effective method of preventing pregnancy, but nbd!!!). Or the backlash to body positivity, which has now flooded my feeds with the idea that we should all be striving to take up the least amount of physical space possible, ideally by restricting what we eat to the degree that we are physically incapable of defending ourselves. Which is why this is one of those times where it’s worth considering who benefits from this type of thinking. Who wins when we willingly abdicate control over our behaviour, and by extension our lives? Because someone’s benefitting. But it’s definitely not us. 

@gettothepointbro

I AM IN LUTEAL PHASE SINCE I WAS BORN

♬ original sound - get to the point bro

So sure, that French TikTok creator who described the stereotypical luteal phase was hilarious. But the sheer amount and variety of messaging around biology, pregnancy and womanhood right now is not cute, and I don’t want us to buy into it.

Honestly, I want to be in perfect, complete control of every aspect of my life which I understand is a) not possible and b) not the case for everyone, but like… the status of my reproductive system? I will definitely be using all the tools at my disposal to maintain control over that, thanks very much.

P.S., Have You Ever Wanted to Work Together? Because We Can Do That!

Some of you may already know this, but: in my non-Friday Things life, I’m a magazine editor, and for the past 18 months, I’ve been editor-in-chief of 3, a new Canadian lifestyle magazine produced by St. Joseph Communications. But, I just wrapped up my fourth and final issue and am transitioning back to freelance. I’m going to be announcing some really fun new projects in the next few weeks, but I’m also available for editorial and creative direction; consulting on editorial strategy and brand building; speaking; and the hands-on work of storytelling, whether that’s editorial, brand or something else entirely. If any of that sparks an idea for a possible collaboration, get in touch: stacy@fridaythings.com!

💫 Out Now: Friday Talks Episodes 4 💫

This week’s episode of Friday Talks is one I’m particularly proud of: I sat down with Jerry Flores, associate professor in the department of sociology at the University of Toronto, and journalist and television personality Nam Kiwanuka to talk about what it means to be a refugee, the pros and cons of gratefulness and how this all interacts with rising anti-immigrant sentiment.

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HealthStacy Lee KongLorde, bioessentialism, ovulation, ovulation discourse