Everyone has their own limit when it comes to hygiene standards, but for a successful friendship or relationship, those standards need to be pretty much in line. After all, most “horrible roommate” stories come from one person having generally much lower requirements for what might be considered “clean.”

A man asked the internet if he went too far for calling his girlfriend “gross” after she left a used pad on his bathroom floor. We reached out to the boyfriend in the story via private message and will update the article when he gets back to us.

Calling your partner “gross” is a pretty big statement

Image credits: stockbusters/Envato elements (not the actual photo)

But one man decided that it’s exactly how he felt when he found his girlfriend’s used pad on the floor

Image credits: Ilona Baliūnaitė/Bored Panda (not the actual photo)

Image credits: LenaMeringue

Human societies are often very weird about periods

Image credits: Sora Shimazaki/Pexels (not the actual photo)

Setting aside this man’s distaste for seeing used period products on the ground, it is unfortunately true that many men do shame women both for having a period and for using something to keep themselves clean. Indeed, menstruation carries a long and pretty horrible stigma in many cultures.

Generally, this is the result of a lack of information. Boys and young men in many cultures are just not taught what a period is. This “aura of secrecy” then leads them to develop a sort of fear or at least unease when confronted with it. Even worse, a common “source” of this kind of information might be one’s peers. This can even lead to men having absolutely distorted views on what periods are and why they happen.

It’s pretty easy to see how a group of young people might not develop an effective curriculum for teaching about female bodily processes. Even less so if the group is exclusively male. Unfortunately, this stigma runs so deep that even mothers might not effectively educate their own daughters. One study in Nigeria found that only half of the women they interviewed had learned about menstruation from their mothers. Remember, these same mothers are also subjected to the same stigmas that might be prevalent in their society.

This creates a horrible cycle, where many girls feel shame about their periods and possibly their entire bodies, while, in their minds, not having anyone to turn to. This also means that these same girls are unable or unwilling to educate their male peers, just perpetuating the ignorance and stigma around periods as a topic. It’s not exactly fair to put “educating men on periods” as a responsibility for girls, but learning from peers is one of the more effective methods. Otherwise, more stubborn folks will just internalize the urban legends they grew up with and simply never move on.

There still are some general hygiene norms that need to be kept

Image credits: Sora Shimazaki/Pexels (not the actual photo)

Fortunately for all involved, the man in this particular case isn’t disgusted by periods as a concept. Indeed, if we take his words at face value, he has fully accepted them. After all, if you live with a person who has a period every month, then you have to get used to it quite quickly. However, the crux of this story isn’t the period itself, but how the girlfriend cleans up after herself.

After all, if we were discussing any other body fluid other than blood, “leaving” it on the floor would be unacceptable. All of us, for example, urinate. We might not want to be around a person while they are urinating, but we do not judge them for this quite necessary act. Doing any of this in the shower is a sort of gray area that each household needs to figure out independently. However, if someone does it, again, for example, on your floor, it’s probably worth calling them out.

It is understandable why she might get offended at being called “gross.” It’s not exactly something most of us are ok with being called. It’s quite possible that she is entirely aware that this isn’t something one does normally. After all, it seems like it’s the first time she’s done something like this, at least in front of her boyfriend.

However, as he mentions, she is undergoing quite a bit of stress. However, at the same time, she does definitely have some issues, for example not showering enough. It’s one of those sad parts of life, that people with body odor generally can’t smell themselves, for the most part. He has clearly communicated this to her, including refusing sex until she showers, so she must be at least partially aware. But leaving used pads on the floor is gross, no matter how you spin it.

Some folks had more questions

But most thought he was being reasonable

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