Sumba, Indonesia
In Sumba, women keep their cycles secret, which makes men see them as deceitful. Women from Sumba believe that because of their secrecy, they will always have control of the men. “Men will never know how much we really can do to control these things. We have all kinds of secrets, and they should always believe that we can control even more than we really can”.
Women are supposed to avoid intercourse while menstruating. It is believed that sexually transmitted diseases are the results of women deceiving men and having intercourse while they are menstruating. Gonorrhea translates as “disease you get from women” in Sumba; it has become a social problem. When a man would get this disease, they only way they believed a man could rid himself of painful sores was to pass it to a woman, the reasoning being that a woman’s body can absorb infection and purge it during a cycle.
Read more about this topic: Menstruation And The Origins Of Culture/Archive 1