I often get blood on the bedsheets. When I’m fucking someone and I’m due on my period, especially if they have a relatively long dick or we’re shagging in a position that gives depth, sometimes I bleed when we’re fucking. I don’t always notice, because it doesn’t hurt, so I often get blood on the bedsheets. It’s not the end of the world because humans are basically just weird bags of flesh and rocks and liquid, and sometimes when you’re shagging those liquids might spill out in ways that mean you have to do more laundry. It’s the cost of doing business, if you’re in the business of having lovely sex a lot of the time, and I don’t think it’s an onerous one. If the sex is good, then a bit of blood isn’t a huge price to pay – in fact, it’s a fucking bargain. I’m going to tell you two stories about blood on the bedsheets, each one involving a different man. And hopefully in doing so I’m going to illustrate one way to keep shame out of your bedroom, and show why I feel so strongly about banishing shame from my own.
Story one: euggh
This guy was relatively new to me at the time this happened: we’d been dating for about six months. He was a promising fuck, but there were elements of his approach to sex that alarmed me. In hindsight, they were almost certainly red flags, but at the time I wrote them off as the understandable by-product of a person who’s been raised in a society that tells us to be ashamed of sex, and our bodies. Most people I fuck are at least a bit like that, because most people aren’t lucky enough to have had the opportunities to examine their attitudes to sex in the way I get to by virtue of my job. So I’m pretty understanding when they let this shame bleed through, and in general my approach is to just offer reassurance and remind them that these things they’ve been told in the past are ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ are actually natural and fine. This guy found it tricky, though.
For example, one time we were fucking, and he was struggling to get hard, growing increasingly frustrated because his dick wasn’t doing what he wanted. No big deal. I kissed him and stroked him and whispered reassurance: explaining that a shy erection wasn’t a problem because I would really enjoy just toying with his soft cock and relishing the feeling of it in my hands and mouth. Instead of leaning into this gentleness, or saying we should stop altogether, he snapped his head up and barked:
“It doesn’t WORK like that!”
And I burst into tears. He had some gigantic hangups, and he made those my problem, and although I probably should have just quit things at that point, I was excited about this man and I figured I could show him a better way. So I redoubled my efforts to teach him that he was beautiful and good and not worthy of being shamed. Not only was it not a failing if he couldn’t get hard, nothing his body did (or didn’t do) involuntarily would ever be cause for humiliation or cruelty.
I explained that I have a rule about shaming in my bedroom: you’re not allowed to do it. Even if the person you’re pouring scorn on is yourself. You don’t get to tell me you’re unattractive or useless or rubbish while you’re wrapped in my arms in bed, that’s not allowed. And although the ‘punishment’ for breaking this rule is gentle kisses and reassurance rather than a scolding, I do try very hard to enforce it where I can.
Anyway. Onto the main story: blood on the bedsheets.
We’re in the bedroom, and we’ve recently fucked. This particular fuck was a fun, lazy morning one in which I got to come good and hard round his cock, before sitting with my back against the headboard and him between my legs, so I could stroke his head while he masturbated until he came all over his stomach. I used to love doing this so much: he found it difficult to come during sex so we explored a bunch of different ways to get him there if he wanted release, and this one was up there as my favourite. The sight of his naked body laid out in front of me, the horn of watching a hot guy beat one out, and the total abandon with which he managed to get stuck into that wanking… unngh. It was hot as all fuck.
Also very likely to result in blood on the bedsheets, because I’m sitting naked on them immediately after we’ve banged. It’s not the end of the world – they’re my bedsheets – and I’m very used to seeing spots or smears of blood after especially frantic shags.
He was not quite so chill, though. He saw the smears, panicked, and loudly declared:
“Euggh, what the fuck is THAT? Is that from ME?”
“No,” I told him, a bit alarmed. “It’s me – it’ll be blood.”
“But it’s BROWN? Is that shit?! Out of my arse?”
I told him again that it was almost certainly blood, but he continued:
“It’s disgusting though, it’s all over your bed! Euggh!”
As I say, red flags. I like to try and believe the best in people, so I gently explained what I’ve told you all here: I bleed sometimes during sex, it’s no big deal. He still looked sceptical, though, and his instinctively aggressive, shaming response to a surprise stain on the bedsheets gave me pause. Would he react in similar ways in the future if something leaked out of me involuntarily? What if we were having other kinds of sex, where different liquids sometimes occur? If I suddenly came on my period while riding him and left his cock smeared with uterine lining after the dismount, would I get told off? Hmm.
I calmed him down, but he maintained that ‘euggh’ expression until he’d disappeared to go and shower. I changed the bedsheets straight away and from that point on I found it much harder to enjoy that lovely hot-wanking finish to our fucks. We still did it, but I sat awkwardly on a pillow that I could flip over once he was done, not focusing as much on the joy of our closeness and touch, but constantly worrying instead about the wetness between my legs. What smears I might leave behind when I stood up.
Shame.
Story 2: lol
This one’s more recent. And yeah, I’m about to directly compare one guy with another. I try not to do this too often, but the difference in response is so stark that I haven’t been able to shake it from my mind.
In this recent story, we’re fucking on his bed. This particular man is bold in his bedsheet choices, by which I mean everything’s white. Pure, crisp, snowy linen of the kind that would usually scare the daylights out of me, especially if I was due on my period. A perfect expanse of pristine white: we fuck on it like animals. Brutal, deep, intense sex like he’s trying to inject his cum straight into my soul.
I bleed.
I don’t notice it at first, and nor does he. It’s only as I’m getting dressed that I notice a telltale smear of rusty red/brown where someone’s hand has tugged the duvet, then I pull the cover back to see more smears and a droplet or two. Oops.
I call him in and let him know, say “sorry” with a sadface and “I appear to have fucked up your sheets.”
His response is to laugh, give me a hug, and then pop to the cupboard where he keeps his laundry supplies. Grabbing a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, he launches in to a nerdy ramble about this time he spent watching cleaning videos on YouTube so he could learn how to deal with cunt-blood on fabric.
It warmed me to my core.
As I say, I rarely do direct comparisons between two people – everyone’s unique, after all, and as well as bringing our own personal brand of ‘sexy’, we also bring our own flavours of fuckup. I’m sure the first guy’s response was informed by difficult moments in his past. There was certainly a defensiveness to it that belied a person who had previously had body shame or sex shame hammered into them. If you have these feelings too, it’s not your fault: chances are they’ve been injected into your worldview by people who had it forced on them in turn. You’re not a bad person if you struggle with this kind of thing, but understanding it and changing your behaviour is important in breaking that cycle.
That message is important, I think. And it’s why I felt the comparison was warranted in this case. Sometimes you need to see both ends of the spectrum to understand why the right choice is so powerful. I can only appreciate the beauty of the second guy’s response because of the way the first guy had been, and the aching anxiety it had planted in me from that moment on.
Watching the second guy merrily spraying hydrogen peroxide all over his bedsheets like he was proud to have the chance to show off his trick made me realise that even though I’d have told a stranger – and told you lot – that I never feel shame about getting blood on the bedsheets, I’d clearly still been carrying a little parcel of it from before. Humans are just bags of flesh and rocks and liquid and self-doubt, and tucked away somewhere among all that mess was a worry that my blood might freak a guy out. Might cause him to puncture the post-sex afterglow with spiky words and ‘euggh’s and interrogation.
When he’d finished spraying, and I’d finished getting dressed and mumbling apologies, this second man came over to where I was sitting and looked down at me with calm, kind sincerity.
“Now,” he told me, adopting a tone that was half-stern half-joking. “You are not allowed to apologise for getting blood on the bedsheets. Nor are you allowed to feel bad about it. Would you like to know why?”
Me, meekly, hopefully: “Yes, why?”
“Because I really like getting all up in your cunt.”
I grin.
“I also really like it when you go to sleep with no knickers on so I can ravage you first thing in the morning,” he continues, now pulling me onto my feet and into a hug. “If the price of naked sleeping is that sometimes we’ll get blood all over the bedsheets? Then as far as I’m concerned that’s a fucking bargain.”