This is a book of many questions and some answers. What is this menstruation that half the world undergoes? Has it any use, or any purpose? Which is it, blessing or curse? This groundbreaking study of the facts, fantasies, and taboos surrounding menstruation has helped bring about a profound shift in attitudes toward a natural phenomenon that has been reviled and denigrated over the centuries. Thoroughly researched yet highly readable, combining psychology, anthropology, and poetry, Shuttle and Redgrove illustrate their theories using examples ranging from the Bible to such modern-day pop horrors as vampire movies and the cult film The Exorcist.Penelope Shuttle is a feminist poet and novelist. She is the author of The Mirror of the Giant. Peter Redgrove received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1996. His manifesto on the Gaia hypothesis, The Black Goddess and the Sixth Sense appeared in 1987. He died in 2003.