Blood Sugar — For Any Time of the Month!
Have you ever heard of a period party? Traditionally, it's a celebration marking the first period as a rite of passage. Blood Sugar ~ for any time of the month reimagines this tradition as a moment of care and celebration for menstruators at any stage of their menstrual lifecycle. Created by Sama Srinivas for her thesis, Let's Talk Periods: Practicing Menstrual Confidence Through Conversations, this period party and cake shop is all about “baking menstrual confidence into every celebration.”
As menstruators have conversations with people in their broader community, Sama wondered if we might adopt a new menstrual ritual. “Could period parties make those conversations more accessible?”
One of Sama’s interviewees mentioned that the ritual already existed in her daughter’s friend group. “My daughter is the last of her friends at school to get her period…All her friends have had period parties, and she’s wondering when she’ll be able to have hers.”
As menstruators have conversations with people in their broader community, Sama wondered if we might adopt a new menstrual ritual. “Could period parties make those conversations more accessible?” Sama says that she would love to go back in time and throw herself a period party for surviving a two month period! With period parties in mind, Sama founded Blood Sugar ~ For Any Time of the Month.
Why a celebration? “Celebrations are ritualistic and historically represent moments of care within a community,” Sama says. “Think birthday parties, coming-of-age celebrations, and more. They also allow for new kinds of celebrations to be easily accepted or adopted in communities of any age or experience.” Blood Sugar held its inaugural Launch Party, in an effort to create and disseminate a period party recipe that partygoers and viewers alike can steal, adjust, and tailor to their taste.
The party’s agenda included three cake tastings. The Seed: Reflecting on Early Menstrual Experiences, The Flower: Reflecting on Menstruation as an Adult, and The Fruit: Reflecting on Menopause & Relationships with Elder Menstruators. The physical design transformed the idea of traditional menstrual-related aesthetics. Using cake-stained bed sheets, clotty-looking jam, and cut fruits and melted red candles to remind participants of the physical experience of menstruation.
“Creating richer and more nuanced documentation of menstrual experiences can help shift the mental models and words we associate with menstruation on a regular basis,” Sama says. “And in turn, incorporate a new ritual into our everyday lives. We can build braver communities together.”
Process & Research
What is a period? “When the body menstruates, the uterus discards its monthly buildup of lining, Sama explains. “The lining takes the form of menstrual blood and tissue which flows out through the cervix and then vagina. You might already be thinking ‘ew, gross’ or ‘why are we talking about this’ and that’s okay.”
"You're not really curious about menopause. That's just something you assume will happen when it happens. But, I think it would be useful to see what my mom's experience was like. Because clearly I've inherited her cramps and other things, so I will probably have a similar experience."
– 25 year old menstruator
Sama shares that during a conversational workshop with menstruators in her community, they started to break down unconscious words they had learned about periods. Words like “dirty,” “embarrassing,” and “shameful” came up as they exchanged personal stories and played Pad Bingo.
One participant said, “Where I’m from, it’s seen as a time when you’re not supposed to touch certain things, because you’re going to make that thing impure. It’s also what people preach and it just keeps going from there.” She brought up the elephant in the room—menstrual stigma. Both the language and the communities using it create a culture—unfortunately a stigmatized one. “As we talked, it became clear that the more conversations they had, the more confident they felt,” Sama shared. “So I wondered, where do we need more menstrual confidence?”
“Everyone deserves to have a dignified menstrual experience. Do they feel confident that their environment promotes one? We might think this problem only exists in historically marginalized countries, but no. It exists here too.”
As Sama talked to experts in the field, she learned about an uncountable amount of unique challenges, needs, and experiences that menstruators face. One of the experts, Anmol Sharma, a Master’s graduate in Global Public Health, said something that solidified her argument that practicing menstrual confidence is something profoundly necessary: “Everyone deserves to have a dignified menstrual experience. Do they feel confident that their environment promotes one? We might think this problem only exists in historically marginalized countries, but no. It exists here too.”
“From pre-menses through to post-menopause, a menstruator faces a variety of new experiences that they should be able to confidently navigate,” Sama says of the project. “And what better way to build confidence than through celebration as a moment of care!”
To learn more about Sama Srinivas' work, take a look at the other thesis projects that make up Let's Talk Periods: Practicing Menstrual Confidence Through Conversations. Find more of her design work at samasrinivas.com.