How Each Menstrual Cycle Phase Affects My Sex Life

If some­one says that cis women are wildest dur­ing their peri­ods, they've nev­er seen me sex toy shop­ping and booty-​calling dur­ing ovulation.

One of my Instagram fol­low­ers commiserated:

You're not alone, girl. My Tinder bio when I'm ovu­lat­ing goes from, "I love hik­ing and my dog. Tell me if you want to join us" to "Suck my butt and fuck my guts MFs."

@kiwikillsme on Instagram

She knows what's up.

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American cul­ture doesn't teach AFAB peo­ple much about the men­stru­al cycle beyond "bleed­ing" and "not bleed­ing" — when the truth is, shenani­gans are hap­pen­ing through­out the month. (If you're not on hor­mon­al birth control.)

Each com­bi­na­tion of hor­mones has a dis­tinct phase on not just my sex dri­ve but also the type of sex I'm crav­ing. I'll sort this post into four men­stru­al cycle phases:

• Menstruation - bleed­ing, or what most peo­ple think being “on your cycle” means
• The fol­lic­u­lar phase — prepar­ing for ovulation
• Ovulation - when the ovary releas­es an egg
• The luteal phase — prepar­ing to nour­ish a poten­tial zygote

Let's start with the ele­phants in the room before get­ting to the real­ly fun stuff. This post is more about my per­son­al expe­ri­ences and is not a sub­sti­tute for med­ical advice.

American cul­ture doesn't teach AFAB peo­ple much about the men­stru­al cycle beyond "bleed­ing" and "not bleed­ing." The truth is that shenani­gans are hap­pen­ing through­out the month.

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Having Sex During My Menstrual Period

I'd nev­er writ­ten a guide to sex on your peri­od before because:

1. Frankly, it’s not a big deal to me, and I didn’t think it mer­it­ed an entire blog post
2. People’s expe­ri­ences with men­stru­a­tion vary wildly

I didn't expe­ri­ence much cramp­ing in the past, though many oth­ers are in sub­stan­tial pain. I also under­stand sim­ply not being in the mood to have sex on someone's peri­od. At the same time, I think the mess is often dramatized.

For starters, black tow­els and sex blan­kets (Liberator Throe, etc.) exist for a rea­son! Lay one out dur­ing inter­course. Enjoy the extra lube. Use a men­stru­al cup and maybe a den­tal dam dur­ing cun­nilin­gus. (If you have a high-​set cervix and short men­stru­al cup, wear­ing it dur­ing inter­course can work, too.) Shower after­ward (or dur­ing play­time). Throw the tow­el in the laundry.

If you want to avoid the mess alto­geth­er, con­sid­er a strong wand vibra­tor like the Hot Octopuss Pulse Queen or bul­let like the BMS Swan Maximum. They're notably pow­er­ful enough that I can use them over under­wear and through a pad. (Though your mileage may vary.) 

CBD has also helped me enjoy sex on my peri­od, par­tic­u­lar­ly with water-​based CBD lube. CBD sup­pos­i­to­ries can great­ly relieve cramps, but they often have a cocoa but­ter base, degrad­ing latex con­doms and gloves. As such, I usu­al­ly stick to edi­bles and water-​based insertables.

If I'm monog­a­mous or have been test­ed recent­ly, I'm more open to creamp­ies and role­play­ing a breed­er kink ear­ly in my period.

NOTE: That's a state­ment of my com­fort lev­els and risk tol­er­ance since I pay close atten­tion to my fer­tile win­dow. I don't rec­om­mend risky creamp­ies if A. You don't cycle track, or B. Your cycles are inconsistent.

There are oth­er, more sub­tle ways sex on my peri­od is dif­fer­ent from oth­er times of the month. For one, my cervix is lower-​set and more sen­si­tive. I need more pre­ci­sion and less brute force when going in deep. My breasts are also ten­der before and dur­ing my peri­od, so it's an excel­lent time for a tid­dy massage.

All in all, I get that peri­od sex can help reduce men­stru­al cramps, but there's some acti­va­tion ener­gy need­ed for me to ini­ti­ate it in the first place!

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The Follicular Phase of the Menstrual Cycle

During the fol­lic­u­lar phase, eggs grow as follicle-​stimulating hor­mone and estra­di­ol lev­els ramp up. I think of the fol­lic­u­lar phase as pre-ovulation.

I'm horny and DTF. My sex dri­ve is ris­ing. If I'm sin­gle, I might be increas­ing my time spent on Tinder and rack­ing up the match­es. But I'm not vora­cious quite yet, espe­cial­ly in the days short­ly after my period.

Then, in the week lead­ing up to ovu­la­tion day, I slow­ly trans­mo­gri­fy into a sex demon. It makes sense, con­sid­er­ing sperm sur­vives in the recep­tive party's repro­duc­tive sys­tem for up to five days.

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Libido Spikes Just Before & During Ovulation

The day before or dur­ing ovu­la­tion is prime time. The health­i­est egg of the month is mature and ready to trap sperm in its death grip for fertilization.

I horny-​post dirty but weird­ly relat­able texts on Instagram. I'm at my most flir­ty and fuck­able, suc­cumb­ing to the urge to binge-​buy lin­gerie, make­up, and sex toys — any­thing relat­ing to get­ting laid. 

I know this phase is here when I feel needle-​like cramp­ing in my ovary, a few inch­es down and to the side of my bel­ly but­ton. Why? Because there's no prop­er chan­nel for the egg to be released, it just tears its way out of the egg sac.

UPDATE: Lately, I learned that mid-​cycle spot­ting can be more than just a few drops, like I was pre­vi­ous­ly taught. It turns out that it can be a flow, like a mini-period.

It sounds hor­ri­fy­ing, yet I feel like a fireben­der who could:

1. Burst into flames
2. Fuck up the neigh­bor­hood pow­er grid and make lights flick­er when I cum

Do you ever get so angry that you under­stand why voodoo dolls pop­pets were cre­at­ed? Yeah, well, some­times I get so horny that my rep­til­ian brain screams, "IT'S YOUR DESTINY TO GET FERTILIZED BY THIS HUMAN. I CAN SEE THE FUTURE." (Thankfully, I still have a juicy frontal lobe!)

My breed­er kink is at its peak. NOTE: It's debat­able whether creamp­ies and insem­i­na­tion fan­ta­sy are para­phil­ias, though, con­sid­er­ing that pro­cre­ation is a pur­pose of inter­course. I get a lot more aggres­sive in bed and am even more DTF, includ­ing being more will­ing to have casu­al sex.

Also notable: late­ly, my ovu­la­tion and men­stru­a­tion have been synced to the full moon and new moon, respec­tive­ly. AWOOOOOOUUUUUU!

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The Luteal Phase of My Cycle

After the ovu­la­tion hypo­ma­nia died down for me, my men­tal health used to go to shit.

I've had PMDD, mean­ing that in the ~10 days lead­ing up to my peri­od, I expe­ri­enced a com­pi­la­tion of low-​serotonin mood dis­or­ders. Mash depres­sion, anx­i­ety, OCD, and rumi­nant anger togeth­er, and that was me before I was med­icat­ed and man­aged it through hyp­no­sis and a flex­i­ble work sched­ule where I can sleep as much as I want.

Nowadays, I'm I have tried Prozac and Lexapro (gener­i­cal­ly called flu­ox­e­tine and esc­i­talo­pram, respectively),which are infa­mous for mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for users to cum. It's not that prob­lem­at­ic for me; orgasms still come eas­i­ly, since I only take those meds occa­sion­al­ly, as needed.

However, I don't care for light touch at this stage of my cycle. Snuggle with me and spoon, but give me pen­e­tra­tion, pron­to. Fuck fore­play. And if I'm too lazy to take my pants off, I crave pow­er­ful wands and cli­toral vibra­tors dur­ing my luteal phase.

Then, the day before my peri­od, I get ridicu­lous­ly horny again. See my sec­tion about ovu­la­tion to recap what that's like.

Again, your mileage may vary. Plenty of my SSRI-​taking friends want more sen­su­al fore­play dur­ing this time, and some have resigned to, "I can't cum, but I still enjoy it." That's not me, though. In the words of Jessi Glazer from Big Mouth, "Isn't it kind of my duty to nut as much as [the boys] do?"

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Let’s Wrap It Up!

Do you cycle track? How do the dif­fer­ent phas­es of your men­stru­al cycle per­son­al­ly affect your sex life?

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This post was spon­sored. Experiences shared and thoughts expressed are my own.

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