Toti Baches (49) from Hamburg made a film about menstruation – to bring them out of the dark corner and into the middle of society. A conversation about blood and bandages.
BRIGITTE.de: Your film about menstruation is called “Red Cunt”. Red is clear, but cunt, so cunt – why the swear word?
Toti Baches: This is a provocation that should help to put the word back in a positive context. Cunt originally comes from “Kunti”, a Hindu goddess who stands for love, motherhood and the beauty of the female body. The word was used feminist earlier, only through the patriarchal social structures did it gradually become a dirty word.
Menstruation is portrayed in the film as something great to celebrate. What’s so great about blood stains and stomach cramps?
There’s nothing great about that, of course. But reducing menstruation to that is just unfair. I also think it’s stupid that the period between the ages of twelve and 55 comes every month, once a year would be enough for me. I have considered them annoying myself all my life. But in retrospect, that annoys me, because I could have lived through it much more positively.
As the?
With more education, more dialogue, more products. In all of these years I haven’t checked that my period is a sign of health and fertility. And that’s what it’s about to me: If menstruation weren’t such a taboo, girls could get used to it much sooner. As a mother, I was overwhelmed myself with conveying my daughter’s period as something positive, and I thought that was such a shame for her.
The menstrual period needs advocates.
Exactly because there are still so many taboos, because girls still hide their sanitary towels, because menstruation is considered something dirty. I am sure that if men were menstruating we would have a very different way of dealing with it. Research would continue, and endometriosis would be a disease that doctors would recognize right away. Menstruating is not like peeing. Incidentally, I’ve often heard that: “I don’t even show how I pee.” But I ask you, that cannot be equated, that is insulting.
What is so special about menstruation?
Menstruation is the beginning of life. The man doesn’t come from a rib, we all come from a bleeding pussy. Half of humanity deals with it once a month, so menstruation belongs in the middle of society – in health, science, and research into diseases related to it. It is clear that we do not put a completely bled bandage in the pedestrian zone, but everything else has to be put in the middle.
Also the female genital? There is a highly emotional moment in the film: while “vulva-watching” a woman looks between the legs of another, she begins to cry and says: “I have no words.”
The situation is extreme. The two didn’t know each other, and as straight women we’re not used to seeing vulvae. In my generation, the female genitals were never named, it was always just “down there” – I think it’s still a little bit like that. And if you don’t even have a clear name for it, how are you going to talk about it? That too has to change.
Which name do you find beautiful?
I love the word pussy, but I mostly say vulva. Cunt sounds a bit dated, but that’s very nice too.
You handled the documentary in your free time and brought it to the cinemas without lending it. Why is this topic so important to you?
The removal of the taboo on menstruation is absolutely overdue. I have a good friend who is disgusted with her own human blood. Another told me that her husband is not coming to the film premiere because he has “a problem” with the subject. A colleague of mine doesn’t go because he feels “like a pervert”. All of this shows that there are still a lot of reservations and that the film is absolutely necessary. It is necessary as long as we women hide our pads and tampons.
The film
“Red Cunt – Reconsidering Periods” by Toti Baches celebrates its premiere on November 4th at the “3001 Kino” in Hamburg. All other dates and information at www.red-cunt-film.com