The L Word

You've probably already heard that the FDA approved a new birth control pill (you gotta love the FDA -- women may not have that many great choices of birth control, but they have a gazillion different pills to choose from). This pill completely suppresses the menstrual cycle for as long as you take it. It's called, wait for it, Lybrel. And liberated from your period is as good as it gets.

Critics of this pill say the period shouldn't be marketed as an inconvenience. OK, but then, marketed as what, a beautiful thing, like in the film strips from health class tried to trick us into believing? I mean, really, what woman in her right mind would buy any kind of marketing telling her a period is great, cramps are lovely, blood is fun. Sure, there's a nice ritual to becoming a woman the first time you get it, but that thrill is gone really fast. And anyway, when you're on the pill, you're not really getting your period, even on the standard 21-day cycle with the 7-day flow. It's all fake to make you feel like you're getting it. But really, you're not. So why go through the pretending?

Women have known for years they can skip the sugar pills of any oral contraceptive and go straight to the next pack, creating their own Lybrel pill without the marketing or expense of a new pill.

And anyway, it's been acknowledged for some time that what isn't normal is getting your period every month, every year, for decades on end. Our ancestors did not get their periods as much as we do. So please, let us all be Lybrels, and embrace the L word.