Menstruating Men

Menstruating men were already known in Antiquity and therefore not only a medieval or early modern phenomenon. In his essayContradictions of Masculinity,³²⁴Dale B. Martin provides a useful overview of the ideas of male menstruation in Greek-Roman Antiquity and also a thesis regarding their meaning. In his essay, Martin examines the role played by contradictions in the image of masculinity in Greek-Roman Antiquity. First, he reveals two contradictions: on the one hand, the question of sex versus asceticism with regard to the image of masculinity, and second, the question of menstruation, which women defined as such in Antiquity, but which could also occur in men

medieval academics ‘Question-time.’” Peter BILLER: Views of Jews from Paris around 1300: Christian or “scientific”?, in: Diana WOOD (ed.): Christianity and Judaism, Oxford et al. 1992, 187 – 207, here 188.

323 Ibidem, 188.

324 Dale B. MARTIN: Contradictions of Masculinity: Ascetic Inseminators and Menstruating Men in Greco-Roman Culture, in: Valeria FINUCCI/Kevin BROWNLEE (eds.): Generation and Degeneration, Durham and London 2001, 81 – 108.

at the same time. Martin concludes that the contradictions uncovered in these areas strengthened rather than weakened the image of masculinity and enabled the guardians of this masculinity, the physicians of the higher social classes in Antiquity, to have a certain control and authority over the image of masculinity. According to the ancient medical view, menstruation does not occur in the ideal body, Martin argues, since the doctrines of ancient medicine state that the monthly bleeding involves a crisis that nature provokes in order to restore balance:

“Menstruation is one of nature’s way of creating a crisis by means of which the body’s balance is restored. […] In the best of all possible bodies, menstruation would not be necessary.”³²⁵ This means that the best possible, ideal body in the medicine of Antiquity managed or had to manage without crises, including, for example, healing nosebleeds, and thus also without menstru-ation. As a result, women could not have an ideal body, which was reserved exclusively for men.

Efficiency and masculinity excluded menstruation in an ideally healthy male body. Martin writes in this regard: “Efficiency is masculine; masculinity is efficient. So men don’t menstruate. But they do.”³²⁶

Consequently, not every male body automatically corresponded to the male ideal of health and some had to resort to the strategy of natural crises attributed to femininity in order to keep their body in balance. This raises the question of whether these men were regarded as effeminate and ridiculed as a result. Dale B. Martin asks himself this question and comes to the following conclusion:

“Were these men thereby stigmatized as effeminate? […] Unfortunately, we have no explicit information from the ancient world that could answer these questions. I know of no case in which bleeding men are explicitly labeled as feminized and overtly shamed by the flow.

Then again, we might imagine that such public labeling and discussion would have raised the contradictions of masculinity to such a level of explicitness that the result would have been uncomfortable or even intolerable for the men constructing the examinations and writ-ing our texts. […] Thus men who experienced nosebleeds, hemorrhoids, anal bleedwrit-ing, or expectoration of blood were thereby susceptible to at least implicit, if not explicit, suspicion of femininity.”³²⁷

An important point is raised here because the absence of explicit stigmatization does not auto-matically mean that this did not occur, at least implicitly. However, it is necessary to ask whether such an implicit stigmatization can be proven. Dale B. Martin must restrict his explanatory remarks here to the appropriate assumptions. Yet the context of the text could also provide an indication.

Consequently, the motivation and intention of the texts to be analyzed should not be lost sight of.

The fact that femininity was in part deliberately ignored when the discussion involved men suf-fering from bleeding – in part regularly – is seen in a passage fromHistoria naturalisby Pliny the

325 MARTIN: Contradictions of Masculinity (see n. 324), 101.

326 Ibidem, 102.

327 Ibidem, 103.

Elder. This passage is cited in both Dale B. Martin³²⁸and Gianna Pomata.³²⁹The former mentions it as a precursor for vicarious menstruation, which became known under this name in the Early Modern and Modern Age and in regard to which physicians assumed that menstrual blood sought another way out and therefore there were such alternative monthly bleedings (e.g. monthly nose-bleeds). In the Modern Age, the theory of vicarious menstruation offered a kind of back door to soften the strict separation of the sexes and ascribe female attributes to certain groups of men and thus deliberately effeminize them. Klaus Hödl, who dealt with the pathologization of the Jewish body during the Fin de Siècle, describes the situation as follows:

“The conflict that arose through the gap between the gender-identical and interest-based view of doctors on the one hand and the new empirical findings on the other was supposed to be bridged by the fact that the ‘Menstruatio-vicaria’ hypothesis became a way to establish a ‘rational’ foundation for social prejudices against ‘men with female characteristics.’ […] In this sense, homosexuals, Jews and even vagabonds, who were also ‘feminized,’ ‘suffered’ […]

from the substitute menstruation.”³³⁰

Thus, the male menstruation at the turn of the century regained popularity through the substitute menses despite the clear distinction between man and woman.

In regard to the ancient theories on vicarious menses, I find that such an idea of alternative bleeding surfaces more in the medical work De medicina, book IV, by Celsus than in Pliny the Elder, namely when the former states: “Often women, in whom the blood is not being given out through the menses, expectorate blood” (II.2).³³¹With regard to the Pliny passage, Gianna Pomata points out, above all, that this was read in the 18th century as a sign of longevity due to periodically occurring bleeding. Since this passage therefore played an important role not only for Antiquity, but also for the Early Modern Age, it will be reproduced here in its entirety:

“In the human race alone a flux of blood occurs in the males, in some cases at one of the nostrils, in others at both, with some people through the lower organs, with many through the mouth; it may occur at a fixed period, as recently with a man of praetorian rank named Macrinus Viscus, and every year with the City Prefect Volusius Saturninus, who actually lived to be over 90” (XI.90(38).223).³³²

328 Ibidem, 103.

329 POMATA: Menstruating Men (see n. 318), 115.

330 Translation by Henry Whittlesey Schroeder; “Der Zwiespalt, der durch die Kluft von geschlechtsidentitärer und interessenbedingter Ansicht der Ärzte auf der einen Seite und neuen, empirischen Erkenntnissen auf der anderen Seite bestand, sollte dadurch überbrückt werden, daß die ‘Menstruatio-vicaria’-Hypothese zu einer Schiene für eine

‘rationale’ Fundierung der gesellschaftlichen Vorurteile gegen ‘Männer mit weiblichen Charakteristika’ wurde. […]

In diesem Sinn ‘litten’ Homosexuelle, Juden und auch Vagabunden, die ebenfalls als ‘verweiblicht’ galten […], an der Ersatzmenstruation.” Klaus HÖDL: Die Pathologisierung des jüdischen Körpers: Antisemitismus, Geschlecht und Medizin im Fin de Siècle, Vienna 1997, 216.

331 “Saepe feminae, quibus sanguis per menstrua non respondit, hunc expuunt.” CELSUS: On Medicine II, trans. by W. G. SPENCER, vol. 292, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge 1935, 392–393.

332 “[P]rofluvium eius uni fit in maribus homini, aliis nare alterutra vel utraque, quibusdam per inferna, multis per

The quote can be found in book 11, which deals with zoology. Initially, it discusses animals and then the human being is cited for comparison in this regard. Female human beings are not mentioned specifically and, in my opinion, were not supposed to be mentioned either. The point is that of all male creatures only the human being /man,homo, knows bleeding. This animal-human comparison is deliberately not linked to female menstruation by Pliny the Elder in my eyes, even though later authors in the 18th century established this connection.

In Pliny’s natural history, female menstruation is treated in detail in various places so that silence in this regard can certainly make you wonder. The fact that he does not establish the link to women and female bleeding therefore suggests a deliberate strategy. Instead, the bleeding,profluvium, in Pliny is a unique aspect of the human being in this context and shows a difference (superiority?) in relation to animals. Only a human being has the possibility – as a human being /man – to regulate and cleanse his body by bleeding from different orifices, the nose, the abdomen and the mouth.

For Pliny, examples of male menstruation seem to be better suited for this differentiation than female menstruation because the former are apparently easier for him to put into a positive light.

Both men cited as examples are mentioned by name and hold high positions. One is a praetorian, a particularly male and warlike model of man; the other a prefect of the city, an equally prestigious office. In addition, the city prefect is cited for his old age, which the reader is evidently supposed to attribute to bodily self -regulation, the annual bleeding. The longevity can therefore be seen as a further indication of the positive connotations in male bleeding.

3.2 Menstruation Ideas in Antiquity

Male bleeding is not necessarily associated directly with female menstruation, although physical concepts of masculinity and femininity could range very widely in Antiquity. A prime example in this context is a passage from the table talk in Plutarch’s Moralia in which Apollonides, Athryïtus and Florus discuss the question of whether women are warmer or colder than men in their temperament, their constellation of fluids. The doctor,ἰατρὸς, Athryïtus of Thasos introduces the discussion and argues that women have a warmer constitution than men and gives five arguments for this. These are refuted in a second step by Florus. For example, Arthryïtus cited the female menstruation as proof of the warmer constitution since this indicates too much blood, which in turn is caused by strong bodily heat. Florus, by contrast, sees menstruation as proof not of a larger amount of blood and thus more heat from the body, but rather of qualitatively bad damaged blood from which the body must be cleansed:

“And the monthly menstruation is indicative not of a quantity of blood, but of corrupt and diseased blood; for blood’s unassimilated and excrementitious part has no position and no structure in the body and so is eliminated by its lack of vitality, its faint heat causing it to be completely dull and murky. The fact that women are apt to be seized with chills and shivering

ora stato tempore, ut nuper Macrino Visco praetorio viro et omnibus annis Volusio Saturnino urbis praefecto, qui nonagensimum etiam excessit annum.” Pliny the ELDER: Natural History III, trans. by H. RACKHAM, vol. 353, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge 1938, 572–573.

during their menstrual periods shows that the blood which has been set in motion and is now being eliminated from the body is cold and unassimilated” (651D– 651E).³³³

Florus defines menstrual blood as corrupt, diseased, dull and murky because it contains too many excrementitious and unassimilated substances. These would be excreted from the body due to their lack of vitality. In contrast to Athryïtus, Florus even assumes that menstrual blood is particularly cold because women would often suffer from shivering and chills during their period. Even though Florus does not have the attribute of a physician, he clearly defends the opinio communis in this chapter, although it can be seen in the initially presented assumptions of Athryïtus that other, greatly deviating conceptions of the body were conceivable and discussed. The medical ideas of Antiquity as well as those of later ages are therefore hard to compress into a rigid structure since they are characterized by their dynamism and their different doctrines and schools, which were repeatedly marked by change and discussion. Different doctrines and associated medical ideas could therefore exist simultaneously without provoking conflicts.

That is why there is also no need to develop a general theory about ideas of menstruation in Antiquity, but rather it is better to take up the various ideas and consider the questions that were specifically discussed in this context. In the following, I will trace the aspects of menstruation that were debated by the authors of Antiquity, especially against the backdrop of an attempt at a definition.

In this context, the question of the cause of female menstruation should probably be asked first. In theCorpus Hippocraticum, four characteristics are mentioned, with the emphasis being placed on the difference between women and men. In his essayMenses in the “Corpus Hippocraticum”, Luigi Arata³³⁴correctly pointed out that theCorpus Hippocraticumis not a uniform work representing the school of Hippocrates (c. 460 – 380 BCE), but rather a number of authors whose medical opinions could be quite different. Three authors who, according to the study by Hermann Grensemann,³³⁵ are referred to as A, B and C, address the subject of female menses. According to Arata, the older authors A and B were mainly concerned with describing the symptoms and appropriate forms of therapy. The youngest author C, by contrast, concentrated primarily on the definition of female physiology and developed his own system:

“Conscious of having founded a new science in the treatment of ‘disorders’ specific to the uterus, he demonstrated a depth of thought that can be recognized in few other Hippocratic scientists.”³³⁶

333 PLUTARCH: Moralia VIII: Table-talk. Books 1 – 6, trans. by P. A. CLEMENT/H. B. HOFFLEIT, vol. 424, Loeb Classical Library, London and Cambridge 1986, 235.

334 Luigi ARATA: Menses in the Corpus Hippocraticum, in: Andrew SHAIL/Gillian HOWIE (eds.): Menstruation, Bas-ingstoke et al. 2005, 13– 24, here 13.

335 Hermann GRENSEMANN: Hippokratische Gynäkologie: Die gynäkologischen Texte des Autors C nach den pseudo-hippokratischen Schriften De Muliebribus I, II und De Sterilibus, Wiesbaden 1982.

336 ARATA: Menses in the Corpus Hippocraticum (see n. 334), 14.

3.2.1 Causes

When reference is made below to theCorpus Hippocraticum, it involves views that the Hippocratic author C defended. According to him, the differences between woman and man, against the back-drop of which the causes of female menstruation are discussed, can be caused physically, but also culturally. In the introduction to the first book on female diseases,De muliebribusC 1 (I 1), he ini-tially speaks of the fact that women have more permeable, “porous flesh” and are more tender, but also warmer than men due to their constitution. When Athryïtus refers to the warmer constitution of woman in Plutarch’s table talk, he is probably referencing this Hippocratic doctrine. According to author C, women’s tenderness and permeability caused them to absorb more moisture than men whose flesh is more solid. To illustrate this assumption, he draws a comparison with the moisture absorption of different fabric structures, in this case wool in contrast to a solid cloth:

“Thus, if someone sets both some clean flocks of wool and a clean densely woven carpet of exactly the same weight as the flocks over water or a moist location for two days and two nights, on removing them he will discover, on weighing them, that the flocks have become much heavier than the carpet. This happens because (sc. moisture) always moves up away from water present in a wide-necked vessel, and flocks, being porous and soft, take up a greater quantity of what is moving away, while a carpet, being compact and densely woven, becomes saturated without accepting much of what is moving toward it. In the same way, a woman, being more porous, will draw into her body more of what is being exhaled from her cavity, and more quickly, than a man does. Also, because a woman’s flesh is softer, when her body fills up with blood, unless the blood is then discharged from her body, the filling and warming of her tissues that ensue will provoke pain: for a woman has hotter blood, and for this reason she herself is hotter than a man […].”³³⁷

Permeability, tenderness and greater warmth thus characterize the constitution of a woman in contrast to a man in Hippocratic author C and lead, according to him, to the fact that this consti-tution is dependent on the monthly bleeding so that too much blood will not accumulate in her abdominal cavity. Through the analogy of the different tissue structures and observation of their moisture absorption, he tries to support his position and make it clear to the reader in a visual form.

Men, by contrast, would not need such bleeding, as their more solid constitution would reduce their absorption of blood or they would only absorb as much as their body could also consume again. This is where the final, culturally determined distinction between man and woman comes into play: “A great amount of this is also due in a man to his exerting himself physically more than a woman, which consumes a part of the exhalation (sc. rising from his food).”³³⁸Not only the physical constitution but also the different levels of physical activity assumed for men and women

337 HIPPOCRATES OF COS: Diseases of Women I-II, trans. by Paul POTTER, vol. 538, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge 2018, 11 –12; see also the Greek original and translation in: GRENSEMANN: Hippokratische Gynäkologie (see n. 335), 88 – 89.

338 HIPPOCRATES OF COS: Diseases of Women I-II (see n. 337), 13; see also the Greek original text and the German translation in GRENSEMANN: Hippokratische Gynäkologie (see n. 335), 90 –91.

provide an explanation for female menstruation. In a certain way, if one continues to follow this line of thought, the possibility of male bleeding remains open, although it is not explicitly mentioned.

This is because if a man does not work hard enough and consequently does not consume enough blood, it will also collect in his body, although, according to Hippocratic author C, he will suffer less from such blood accumulation due to his firmer constitution.

Aristotle, by contrast, has a different opinion on the causes of menstruation in his work Gen-eration of Animals, De generatione animalium (738a). Although he also assumes that the blood is congested, he does not attribute this to the excessive absorption of moisture, but rather to excess in the consumption of food, which the female body cannot process properly due to its natural cold quality:

“When these [blood-vessels that flow into the uterus] are overfull of nourishment (which owing to its own coldness the female system is unable to concoct), it passes through these extremely fine blood-vessels into the uterus; but owing to their being so narrow they cannot hold the excessive quantity of it, and so a sort of haemorrhage takes place” (738a).³³⁹

Aristotle compares this to a disease, suffering from hemorrhoids, in order to describe female menstruation. This also fits another passage inHistory of Animals,Historia Animalium(582b), when he speaks of the fact that all women would generally suffer from physical weakness during the monthly bleeding.³⁴⁰Furthermore, he localizes the menstruation more precisely by describing the uterus and its veins in detail rather than speaking of the abdomen in general terms like Hippocratic author C. The main cause for Aristotle is clearly the colder constitution of the woman because excess food reaches the uterus since the female body has not converted it into blood in time due

Aristotle compares this to a disease, suffering from hemorrhoids, in order to describe female menstruation. This also fits another passage inHistory of Animals,Historia Animalium(582b), when he speaks of the fact that all women would generally suffer from physical weakness during the monthly bleeding.³⁴⁰Furthermore, he localizes the menstruation more precisely by describing the uterus and its veins in detail rather than speaking of the abdomen in general terms like Hippocratic author C. The main cause for Aristotle is clearly the colder constitution of the woman because excess food reaches the uterus since the female body has not converted it into blood in time due