However...not wanting to dampen your spirit, "modern apologists of Islam try to downplay the evident materialism and sexual implications of such descriptions, but, as the Encyclopaedia of Islam says, even orthodox Muslim theologians such as al Ghazali (died 1111 CE) and Al-Ash´ari (died 935 CE) have "admitted sensual pleasures into paradise". The sensual pleasures are graphically elaborated by Al-Suyuti (died 1505 ), Koranic commentator and polymath. He wrote: "Each time we sleep with a houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [ie Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetising vaginas."

A kind of spiritual Viagra?

I am just back from a vacation in Southern Turkey. If you see all those foreign chicks looking for it on the beaches, you will know that old Gazali was not far off.

not only in your country. christian women during periods are "dirty" either.

maybe it is already not articulated nowadays bec of being politically incorrect, but still

That´s why I´m happy I´m not religious. Nobody is going to make me feel inferior for being a woman and having a natural, healthy, life-giving cycle. The misogyny of religions is just breathtaking.

 I don´t know which country you are from raindrops,but in my country nobody treats a woman during menstruation time as a "dirty"one.Although most of population are Christians and Catholics.

 It is the wisdom of Dabrowskis population to treat  such things  as a normal process, nobody here makes a big fuss about it.Neither religious or non.

What ever you want to say regarding the naturalness of menses....it is waste matter being expelled.  It does not smell fresh...in fact it´s pretty stinky.  What is being eliminated is the endometrium and blood.  If it were to stay inside you, it would kill you as it rotts internaly in your body.

Many women are incapacitated by menstral cramps.  In fact most women are not in their top physical cndition during their menses.

I wouldn´t say this makes females inferior.  In fact, I´ve heard there are benefits to this monthly renewal...but still a menstrating woman can be stinky.  I don´t know about you, but I can very often know who is in their menses by their odor.

Too much information!

Trudy,

Can´t you just learn to accept others´ beliefs´? If it´s not harming someone or others to do so, then why should you care what other people choose to do and practice in the privacy of their own homes? Why are you making a fuss? That´s the rule of Islam and just because you think it´s wrong doesn´t mean it going to change anything. It´s not wrong - I don´t see a problem with that, I´m a woman myself. I don´t have sex during my period because to be quite honest it makes a mess and it´s gross. It´s not harming you so don´t continue to argue because this argument will never end.

I would recommend improving personal hygine. It´ll help with the smell, I promise.

Whether or not the issue is related to physical uncleanliness or just general ignorance of people in Biblical times (and in current times as well), women in the Bible are treated as social pariahs (as is anybody who touches a menstruating woman). But worry not all one needs to do is sacrifice a pigeon so she can atone for her condition. As if that was something a woman needed to apologize for! I don´t know how the issue is treated in Islam, but my guess would be none the better.

That was exactly what I was thinking!!!

 VIVA POLONYA!!!!