Posted on Jun 17, 2017

We Painted Pictures With Our Menstrual Blood To Break The Stigma That Periods Are Gross

"It's the human body, dammit!."

by

Chantel Houston

by Chantel Houston

BuzzFeed Motion Pictures Staff

Nyla Wissa

Junior Social Media Strategist

Oftentimes women are taught to hide the fact that they're on their period. So the Ladylike women decided to challenge the stigma and turn things up a notch by painting with their period blood:

Ladylike / Via youtube.com

Ladylike / Via youtube.com

They decided to bring in expert, artist, and activist, Sarah Levy who gained notoriety when she did a portrait of Trump with her period blood.

Her inspiration stemmed from Trump's comment about Megan Kelly having blood coming out of all parts of her body. Sarah took it as a jab towards women for menstruating and wanted to call it out through humor and art.

Before the ladies could paint, they had to collect their blood by using a menstrual cup. Afterward, they put the blood in a mason jar and kept it in their fridges until it was time to use it.

And that didn't sit well for some people.

The ladies were inspired to paint things that made them feel good while they were on their periods. Chantel decided that she would paint chocolate chip cookies with peanut M&Ms. And Devin decided she wanted to paint a bottle of wine.

So they collected...

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...and collected until their cycles were over.

And finally, it was time to paint and then exhibit their artwork for their coworkers.

But first, they had to get used to the awful smell.

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Once they did, they got to work. And even though it took some to get used to things...

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*Yes, they're used tampons as paint brushes.*

...they eventually did and felt super empowered.

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The final product looked great! Let's see what their coworkers thought about their pieces.

From left to right: Chantel, Sarah, and Devin.

A lot of coworkers didn't know what Chantel's picture was, but it didn't offend her because it got people to interact with her piece.

However, Devin was shocked because some coworkers were initially thrown off by the idea of painting with your period blood.

Overall though, their coworkers walked out of their exhibit with a different opinion about periods, which was their end goal.

By the end of the experience, both ladies felt super empowered and motivated to inspire other people to break the stigma that periods are disgusting.

So, lady tested? Lady:

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