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As a guy growing up in the 1960s, no one told you these things. I first learned about menstruation when I was about ten years old and it was in a most unusual way.
I was at my 6th grade girlfriend’s house and her little four-year-old sister was playing store with me. She would pick up things around the house and bring them to me to pretend to ring up for her.
One thing she brought was a bottle of pills that said “stops menstrual pain.” Being the sort of straight-A student who was always fascinated to learn new words, I made a note of the word “menstrual” and looked it up later in the dictionary when I got home. What. The. H…????
You mean to tell me that this is something women—and even teenage girls!—go through all the time…and it’s been kept a secret from us boys (and presumably, men)?
I had a tough time believing it at first, but suddenly all those magazine ads and TV commercials for “women’s products” began to make a little more sense!
My mother was 44 when I was born, as presumably her last shot, so we had none of that stuff around our apartment. With no sisters, I had been totally oblivious to the very concept of menstruation. Now imagine being a girl, and having no one explain it to you in advance. In my case, it was disbelief. For girls, it would be abject fear and confusion.
That’s exactly what happens in Flow, the new Mad Cave graphic novel collecting a five-part mini-series by writer Paula Sevenbergen with artist Claudia Balboni, colorist Fabi Marques, and letterer Jodie Troutman. The parallel to Stephen King’s classic Carrie is impossible to deny and, in fact, a back cover blurb compares Flow to a mash-up of Carrie and the 1983 slasher film Sleepaway Camp.
Inspiration aside, it’s where things differ that makes Flow work as well as it does. Here we have the story of young teen Dara, whose mother, rumored to be a witch, was famously killed in the explosion and fire at a chemical plant in town. Her father homeschooled Dara after that but reluctantly has to have her attend a summer camp while he has to be out of town for a week or two on business.
That’s when her first period arrives, but no one is allowed to explain to her what her father had neglected too long. Thus the other teens—both girls and boys—profess to helping her get rid of the “curse” while in actuality, torturing poor Dara for fun.
The story unreels slowly, cutting back and forth between “now,” with the kids all grown up and Dara long missing, and “then,” with the events of that long ago summer. The artwork throughout is quite good for the most part, but I have to admit I had some trouble telling who was who between then and now at times. When odd things start happening to the grown-up perpetrators, they come to the conclusion that they are under a different type of “curse.” It slowly becomes obvious who is behind it all, too…or so they think. That’s when it really differs from Carrie.
Paula Sevenbergen laments in a text piece the lack of education on menstruation, then and sadly, still. I agree. Not just girls but boys should be well aware of periods long before they affect their own lives. More education means less curiosity, which means less ridicule, less fear, less confusion, and more compassion and understanding of natural bodily functions. Fear, guilt, friendship, loss, and deep affection flow through the pages of Flow, and no matter where you stand biologically, there are things to relate to in the story.
Booksteve recommends.
