Period Pain: Let’s Remove the Stigma
By Madeline Riske // April 2024
You’ve heard of walking in someone’s shoes but how about experiencing someone’s period cramps? CEO Lux Perry and cofounder of Some Days, a Canadian period pain relief company, has garnered millions of views on TikTok with their videos of people trying out their electric period pain simulator. The videos are intentionally comedic, with non-menstruating people doubling over in pain at the low levels of the simulator while menstruating people sit beside them, unbothered.
While these clips are playful, Perry’s mission is extremely real. She hopes that her viral videos will help remove the stigma surrounding conversations about period pain. According to a study by the BMJ, about 80% of women report being less productive at work or school while on their periods. This means that students and workers around the globe are silently dealing with pain each month, and yet many spaces rarely discuss this issue.
Lux’s videos ask us to consider how, for many menstruators, period pain is a regular, monthly occurrence caused by the uterus contracting to assist in shedding the uterine lining, and hormonelike substances cause uterine muscle contractions. This is a bodily function that no surgery can remove—and yet menstruators are unable to talk about it which can cause great impacts on the lives of menstruators. Endometriosis, a condition that Lux has herself, causes tissue like the uterus lining to grow outside the uterus, can cause debilitating pelvic pain that Lux says impacted her ability to attend school or her job.
Still, Lux has a hopeful outlook on the public perception of period cramps. “I’m surprised by the compassion men display,” Lux says when asked how men react to their experiences with the period pain simulator. Men who experience this period pain “firsthand” through the simulator have their eyes opened to the reality of period pain, and I think the next step is encouraging non-menstruators to have this empathy with the menstruators in their lives, even without trying out a simulator. Lux’s videos are a good start to opening up the conversation about period pain, and I can only hope that by having more conversations about the impact of periods, we can create an empathetic environment in which we allow menstruators to listen to their bodies and provide them with the resources to do so.