Last week, I surfaced from an exceedingly hellacious whirlwind of prelims, Ithaca Arctic Blasts and inconvenient obligations to drown my stresses and sorrows in cocktails and crowds. Things were sucking pretty badly — as they tend to do around this time of year at Cornell — and I had spent the week largely unshowered and unpleasant, forgoing shaving and hair-straightening in the interest of meeting deadlines and getting a bit of extra sleep.

This particular evening was no exception to the olfactory mess that was my overstressed state of existence, and the grand arrival of my period that day had put the proverbial cherry atop my unattractive sundae. But whatever, getting my period was as decent a reason to celebrate as any (admit it: all sexually active women secretly breathe a little sigh of relief every leak week), so out I went. That night, instead of sitting in front of a computer looking like a filthy mess with coffee in my hand, I was now sitting in front of a bar looking like a filthy mess with a slightly skankier top and a vodka soda in hand. I hadn’t even bothered to change into a decent pair of panties — I think the ones I was wearing had polar bears on them — so suffice it to say, I wasn’t exactly bringing my A-game.

And, of course, I got laid.

This is not the first time this has happened to me or one of my girlfriends. For some reason, when we spend an hour getting ready to hit dudes with a full court press — shaved legs, body lotion, perfume, a cute thong and makeup that actually looks like it has been applied that day — we have no luck with the ween. But when we leave the house in an ugly sweater with prickly-to-hairy legs and we’ve got strings attached (read: a tampon), the dudes come a-running. What the hell?

It has gotten to the point where we have considered wearing granny panties and maintaining substandard grooming habits on regular weekend evenings to increase our nookie fortune tenfold. I don’t know how else to explain this phenomenon, so I call it the Wounded Game Theory. It’s like this: you know how the stereotypical, super-masculine dude enjoys hunting? And hunting involves hairy, sort of smelly and sometimes even wounded and bleeding animals? Well, the Wounded Game Theory suggests that somewhere, some semi-important wires got crossed in the male brain whereby men are instinctively attracted to women whose characteristics are vaguely reminiscent of wounded game — you know, the ones in the room with the unshaven legs who are showing true Cornell spirit in their nether regions. Of course, this theory is based squarely upon the sweeping generalization that all dudes enjoy hunting and also upon the characterization of myself as a hairy bleeding beast, but let’s leave that alone for now and go back to what you were hoping I wasn’t going to discuss: sex during menstruation.

Well, it finally happened. I did it. Yes, believe it or not, it has taken me this long. My last few boyfriends were not really into eating ketchup with their steaks, and I have never allowed a random hookup to earn his red wings because I always thought it was just too much to ask of someone you don’t really have an intimate relationship with. I always see my period as a “closed for maintenance” week, so I hadn’t planned on bringing anyone home while my panties were hosting an arts and crafts festival.

And yet, on that particular Wounded Game Theory night, I managed to find a dude who was cool about it and wanted to bang anyway — a glorious, fortuitous victory which I imagine to be tantamount to the feeling of getting the good showcase on The Price is Right. I let go of my squeamishness about the whole thing since my plans and my vagenda weren’t really meshing, and off we went.

Here’s the thing, though: he sort of handled me like someone would handle a water balloon. You know, you play with a water balloon and stuff, but you don’t go all out —you’re afraid that one violent move will make the whole thing burst all over the place. I guess he wasn’t as totally cool with it as he originally claimed to be.

Sex during menstruation is so taboo in our culture that, let’s be honest, is anyone totally “cool” with it? Well, I asked 15 Cornell guys about their take on “mudsliding in crotch canyon” (a dude’s words, not mine) and, surprisingly, only one out of 18 gave it the ol’ hells-no. The rest claimed to be fairly indifferent, with the general reaction somewhere along the lines of, “messy, I guess, but I’m not opposed.” I received a number of notable responses, including “turn off the lights, put down a towel, then have sex in the shower again afterward” and “Uh, I don’t have any remote comprehension of what a period entails besides the 5th grade sex-ed explanation.” I found that, in general, these guys preferred not to see any evidence of the dot during the act but claimed to be fairly okay with it …

And they sure as hell weren’t as uncomfortable with the act as the 20 women I asked. Out of 20 Cornell females, only four (four!) were okay with having sex during menstruation, and only two had actually done it. They cited expensive sheets and towels, cramps, their partners’ comfort level and general messiness among the reasons why they avoid it, but one chick said, “I wish my boyfriend would just see my period the way I do: extra fun-colored lubrication.”

Believe it or not, ladies, studies have shown that having orgasms during menstruation actually helps to alleviate cramps — but here’s the thing: I don’t know about you, but when I first receive my bloody valentine, it can sometimes be so painful that I want to punch everyone who comes near me. But whatever; to each her own.