Hey mom. Mom do you know what week it is? [On the phone]. No. It's Shark Week! Woo!
Are you a fan of shark week? [Phone]. Sharks? Okay, it's shark week which means that on
the Discovery Channel all they do is play shark shows. [Phone.] Okay. I could probably
learn a lot about sharks this week then. Have you never heard of shark week? [Phone]. I
never have. Wow. Learning opportunity. Do you have any idea whether or not women on
their period attract sharks? [Phone.] It seems like it would be probable. But I honestly
don't know.
Everybody shout shark week. That is my shark week song that I am singing in honor of shark
week, I'm even wearing a shark week themed shirt. If shark week and Stuff Mom Never Told
You intersect at any point, it's at the risk of getting a shark attack if you're a woman
on your period. Cause when I knew that shark week was coming up I was like I got to do
something for shark week, what am I going to talk about? Where does my mind usually
go when I need to come up with video ideas? Menstruation. You know how at the beginning
of Jaws how that girl was like making out with some guy whatever, and she takes her
clothes off and then runs into the ocean and spoiler alert if you haven't seen Jaws, she
gets eaten. I'm now wondering if whether or not that scene is in anyway hinting at her
being on her period. I'm not trying to be crass people, I'm just saying that it is,
it is commonly assumed that if you are a woman menstruating that maybe it is not a good idea
to go into the ocean because we think of sharks as these underwater killers who are driven
crazy by even the merest drop of blood in the water and so of course if you're on your
period then we just have to shark magnets, you know. Too bad we aren't man magnets. So
will sharks be attracted to menstrual blood? Yeah, because they're attracted to any kind
of blood but there was one study that was done way back in the sixties where these scientists
were trying to figure out what kind of human bodily fluids including things like menstrual
blood, urine, the fluid in our gut, how sharks would react to that and turns out that the
gut fluid elicited the strongest predatory reaction among those sharks. Ichthyologists
aka shark experts say that okay if you want to be super duper safe and reduce your chances
as much as possible of a shark attack, wait until your period is over to get in the water.
But at the same time your risk of shark attack is probably not dramatically raised if you're
on your period. Ninety percent of shark attacks happen to guys. Now that also has to do with
the fact that men might be more involved with things like deep-sea-diving and surfing and
riskier water activities, kind of putting themselves in harms way in the water more
often than women might. There is no solid evidence that says that menstruating women
are shark magnets. Off-camera I was talking to my mom about this on the phone and she
said well honey you know what I've noticed that in cold water the flow stops. You know
how testicles will shrivel up you know if a guy jumps into a cold pool? I don't want
to compare menstrual blood to testicles but physiologically there seems to be the same
reaction in terms of it not coming out of our bodies. Am I getting too personal? Instead
of shark week maybe I should call this vagina week. I would like to leave you with one last
image. And that is how a shark brain looks a lot like the female reproductive system.
Let me know your thoughts, are you watching shark week, are you pumped about shark week?
Ladies, let me know if you get nervous at all about going into the ocean if you are
on your period because of shark attack not because well we all know the certain hazards
that can happen. Isn't if fun being a woman because we have to think about things like
whether or not walking into the ocean on our periods will attract sharks? Alright y'all.
Have fun watching shark week.