Sex during menstruation is neither inherently dirty nor a single uniform experience, and the research available suggests that attitudes are shaped more by shame and cultural belief than by biology, while desire varies greatly from one woman to another. Narratives from 108 young women and 12 young men showed that many sexually active women did have intercourse during menstruation, and a diary study of 390 women found a mid-cycle rise in desire. What follows examines what women say, how desire changes and where stigma comes from.
What do women themselves say about sex during menstruation?
Women describe a range of positions rather than one shared script. In a grounded-theory study, the largest subgroup reported having intercourse during menstruation, and their accounts were not organised around disgust, which fits the idea that reluctance may be shaped by culture rather than inevitable.
Desire and shame are both part of women’s experience. — Image: AI-generated / Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter
Allen and Goldberg, 2009, in the Journal of Sex Research, interviewed 108 young women aged 18 to 23 and 12 young men aged 18 to 24. Sixteen women were virgins; among 92 sexually active women, 37 said they would never have intercourse during menstruation, 8 tried it once, 7 rarely, and 40 did, with those 40 more often in committed relationships and none expressing disgust. Of the 12 men, 3 were virgins and 7 of the 9 experienced men had had sex with a menstruating partner.
The sample was young, small and qualitative, so these proportions cannot be treated as representative of any wider population; the study records how these participants talked rather than how common each position is.
How does sexual desire change across the cycle?
Desire shifted across the cycle in one large diary study. A preregistered diary study found robust mid-cycle increases in general desire, in-pair desire and initiation of sexual behaviour, together with a decrease in food intake, while other measures moved only descriptively.
Schleifenbaum et al., 2024, in Hormones and Behavior, ran a preregistered online diary study across 40 days with 390 women: 209 naturally cycling and 181 using hormonal contraceptives. Mid-cycle increases appeared in general desire, in-pair desire and initiation of sexual behaviour, with a decrease in food intake. Extra-pair desire rose mid-cycle but did not differ significantly between contraceptive users, which questions an ovulatory effect.
Solitary desire and dyadic behaviour moved only descriptively, below the strict preregistered significance level. Because the data were online self-reports, the authors stress that a partner’s motivational state also shapes whether sex happens.
Why is the pattern not the same for every woman?
Why one woman’s pattern differs from another is partly a question of individual life history. One line of work reported that women with a fast life history peaked in desire mid-cycle, whereas women with a slow life history showed 2 peaks, one mid-cycle and one around menstruation.
Lu, 2023, reported in Evolutionary Psychology that women with a fast life history peaked in desire mid-cycle, while women with a slow life history showed 2 peaks, one mid-cycle and one around menses. The authors use this difference between women to account for earlier studies that disagreed with one another about whether a mid-cycle peak exists at all.
That explanation is an interpretation of group differences rather than a demonstration of cause, and it depends on classifying women by life-history strategy, which is itself a theoretical construct. The relevant number in Lu’s 2023 work is 2 studies, and the variable separating the groups is life-history strategy.
Where do stigma and misunderstanding come from?
Stigma around menstrual sex may be linked to what people are taught. In a study of male clients of sex workers, most participants held limited or inaccurate knowledge of menstruation and described blood and the menstruating woman as dirty.
A professional conversation about attitudes. — Image: AI-generated / Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter
Osire et al., 2024, in PLoS One, held 6 focus groups with 51 male clients of female sex workers in Kisumu, Kenya. Most had limited or inaccurate knowledge of menstruation, viewed blood and the menstruating woman as dirty, and described sex during menses as unpleasurable, forbidden or risky. Formal education went with more accurate descriptions of biology, while church education leaned toward stigmatised views.
The authors conclude that accurate information should be given to boys and men. The sample is specific to one city and one client population, so these attitudes belong to that setting and cannot be extended to other cultures or to men in general.
How can couples talk about it?
The guide for any couple is mutual comfort rather than a rule about the calendar. If both partners consent and neither feels pressured, intercourse during menstruation can be treated as one option among several; if either feels uneasy or ashamed, that unease is reason enough to choose something else.
A workable conversation begins with a plain question about what each partner wants and a clear signal for stopping, without blame, pressure or assumptions. Practical adjustments help: a towel or darker sheets, a shower beforehand, a place where both feel at ease. Some couples prefer another sexual activity on those days, and that choice is not a failure of intimacy.
Our editorial position is that these studies are small and context-specific; what they establish is that attitudes vary widely, not that there is one right way. [More research needed: whether Iranian and Iranian-diaspora samples show the same attitudes is not examined in this article’s sources.]
Allen KR, Goldberg AE. Sexual activity during menstruation: a qualitative study. J Sex Res. 2009;46(6):535-45. PMID: 19350441. DOI: 10.1080/00224490902878977
Schleifenbaum L, Stern J, Driebe JC, Wieczorek LL, Gerlach TM, Arslan RC, Penke L. Ovulatory cycle shifts in human motivational prioritisation of sex and food. Horm Behav. 2024;162:105542. PMID: 38636206. DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2024.105542
Lu HJ. Sexual Desire of Women With Fast and Slow Life History Throughout the Ovulatory Cycle. Evol Psychol. 2023;21(1):14747049221148695. PMID: 36604835. DOI: 10.1177/14747049221148695
Osire E, Young S, Awiti E, Akinyi C, Otieno F, Phillips-Howard PA, Mehta SD, Mason L. A qualitative exploration of female sex workers’ male client views of menstruation, sex during menses and the menstrual disc. PLoS One. 2024;19(12):e0315383. PMID: 39724197. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0315383
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Hero: AI-generated / Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter. Figure 1: AI-generated / Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter. Figure 2: AI-generated / Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter.
