When was your first?

There's an affliction that strikes all women, a gift they all receive. An onset, if you will, one that has for centuries remained very private. But one young woman wants to make it very, very public, at least for those women featured in her new book, and one reviewer - Abigail Zuger, M.D. for The New York Times - wants to uphold that book as nothing short of miraculous, a contribution to the canon that is "likely to sell briskly for centuries to come." (find her article here). What might the young editor's subject matter be? Why, a woman's first period, of course!

In her oh-so-cleverly entitled The Little Red Book, young editor Rachel Kauder Nalebuff (an eighteen year old who will enter Yale in the fall, obviously) presents the stories of 92 women's first period. That seems fine, somewhat sappy, and largely unremarkable - like a Chicken Soup for the Menstruating Soul - but Dr. Zuger's review lays the saccharine praise on thick, celebrating this as a remarkable breakthrough in wo-munication. It would seem that being able to read about this evidently verboten subject within the confines of a little red binding will be a rewarding experience for every woman - ever - and will cause in them "the urge to buy it for every female preteen in sight." Really?

Honestly, I can't say I care to know how Cecily von Ziegesar (of Gossip Girl-creating fame) experienced that first visit from Aunt Flo. But that, Dr. Zuger would seem to imply, is merely my irrational fear of menstruation talking. In this assertion, she has a partial point - it doesn't make intuitive sense that something all women experience should have such a gag-order surrounding it. On the other hand, it's gross. Period. (whoops, pun). Besides, in my experience, embarrassed refusal to talk about the p-word isn't so much the case. It may not be something all women - no matter their age - are comfy with discussing, but I don't find that it never makes an appearance, or that everyone around me shudders when it comes up in conversation. And yet, even as I type that word - menstruation - I get a bit of the ick. What is it about periods that makes me regard the attention lavished on them in this book with disdain and boredom on the one hand (oh, puh-leeze. Like you said, ALL women deal with this. Yawn.) and a bit of discomfort and disgust on the other?

So what do you think? Do you suddenly feel the urge to post your own first period story? To then disseminate it to all the pre-adolescent girls you know? To bind it into a little red book? Are you going to rush to Ms. Nalebuff's accompanying website on menstruation (oh, the solidarity!) and join in on the fun? [KFF]