Conversations we should have

I've spent the weekend thinking about taboos, and how even when we think we've broken something down and we acknowledge it or talk about it, really we aren't.

This was brought about by the fact that after around six months of things being relatively normal, my hormones have gone bat-shit crazy again. This kinda proves what the doctor and I were thinking earlier this year – the down-hill slide to menopause has begun. Not a lot that can be done at this moment – some months everything will work like clockwork, some months it won't. When it's not working more often than it is, then we can discuss ways to deal with it.

I had a whinge on Twitter and a few women whinged back, but still it didn't stop the sense of aloneness and isolation. Saturday night, it occurred to me how ridiculous it is that we still don't talk openly about menstruation.

It's not like none of us know it's going on. There's a massive amount of shelf-space in both supermarkets and chemists dedicated to it. Some of the most awful advertising in the world is devoted to it.

However, it's still something that there seems to be a sense of shame in discussing, particularly in mixed-company. To my mind, that's the wrong way to approach things. Hiding it leaves it open for the sort of narrow-minded ridicule that you get – men thinking they can ignore a woman's anger cause it's just 'that-time-of-the-month' or women not getting promotions cause they're 'emotionally-unstable'. Not to mention it's a prime reason behind all those bouncing women on commercials, cause we have to make the uncomfortable thing look nice. Heaven forbid we talk about the smell, or the cramps, or the breast tenderness, or the weight fluctuations or the fear of staining (although there is that ad with the woman with the white skirt and let me tell you, even with the staining issue solved, she wouldn't be bouncing around the office like that – and where is her swollen stomach?). And that's just for the lucky women who pretty much sail through menstruation – for some it's like hell arriving every four weeks.

And in not talking about menstruation, we then don't talk about menopause. So for women like myself, who have luckily pretty much sailed through my nearly 30 years of menstruation and suddenly find themselves under attack from their hormones, it all comes as quite a shock. Sure, I knew about the hot flushes, but I didn't know that for days on end I'd just want to cry all the fricken' time. Or that I'd get so bloody tired – not from lack of sleep, but just so lacking in energy that sitting and watching tv requires too much effort.

And let's face it, menstruation is just one of the taboos that we might think we're open about but we aren't. Sexuality is another biggie. We believe we've gone through this revolution and that women can be as open about their sexuality as men can, but we can't. We can only be open about sexuality that matches a man's, and that only in certain situations. And because there's this limit on the type of sexuality we can talk about or the way it can be discussed, sexual needs that don't fit can't be talked about. So we have all this uncomfortableness over same-sex attraction, or people who require specific things in order to be aroused (not porn – porn is relatively accepted, but what about sado-masochism, for example? Or swinging?)

Because we're uncomfortable, we deal with this things by blocking them out, or ridiculing them, or judging and then punishing those who have that different life.

Death is the big one. To my mind there's just three things that are guaranteed in anyone's human existence – that you're born, that you'll fall in love and that you'll die. It's one of the most natural things that we'll do. So why are we so scared of it? Why won't we let people who no longer have quality of life choose the manner and time of their own death? Why when someone has died is the conversation with their loved ones, the time afterward, so friggin' awkward? We should know what to do, know what to say. We shouldn't be scared of death but acknowledge it as natural. I think that maybe if we did, we'd actually find living a more fruitful thing, cause we'd be all determined to do what we could in whatever the time we have and not pretend death isn't coming by not worrying about what we do when alive.

This is one of the most important aspects of being a creative person – opening up these conversations. I'm not sure I've got anything particularly insightful to say and I don't want to be some sort of expert, but the conversation simply can't be had unless someone says the first words.

I truly do believe that this world would be a happier, more accepting place if we could just have these conversations, and be upfront and honest about things that are an unavoidable part of being human.

So, what do you think?