Cheers.
Well, my wife is completely certain that I only use 10% of my brain.
And I think that sheâs just being optimistic.
Your misplaced modifier means I canât tell if you wanted to discuss McCoyâs use of his own colon, or his use of Maomanâs colon.
It was supposed to be a joint effort, one of which I wanted NO part, apart from that of the bard. It would have been an epic account, on a par with the greatest Icelandic sagas, too.
What exactly is the problem here? Why is it so important that she drink cold drinks?
Because itâs stupid, superstitious quackery. And humanity should strive for something greater than idiocy.
:offtopic: alert!
I read a while ago, and it could have been one of Malcolm Gladwellâs theories, that dealing with periods is a pretty modern phenomena.
His argument is that throughout our history as a species, women of childbearing age have spent most of their time either pregnant or nursing. They might have the joy of one or two periods between kids, but then wham, preggers again. His point was that women donât really have any evolved capacity to deal with the strain and itâs probably harmful for them to have to go through it.*
He completely missed the point that if this is true then obviously men also have no evolved capacity for dealing with the monthly monster either. Itâs programmed into our genes to run away from charging lions, burning forests, and people like Jimi Presley, but periods are a whole new kind of problem that catches us out every time.
- but maybe not as harmful as popping sprogs
Where is the harm? Why is it important enough to get into an argument about? Just give her a drink at room temperature and focus on something more important. If she starts telling you what to do because of her superstitious quackery, then itâs time to put her right. Until then, who cares?
Surely weâre secure enough in our masculinity that we donât feel challenged by a woman having her own opinions about how to take care of her own body?
Yes, Loretta, EVERY woman on the face of the Earth was pregnant for nine months out of ever sixteen or so, for the duration of her fertil years, until right up until modern times.
I donât think so.
Pregnant or nursing.
Itâs not that weird a concept. Before birth control, people had large families. Say a woman got her first period when she was 16. (Not unusual in pre-modern times.) She gets married when sheâs 17, and starts having kids. Letâs say she has kids every two years or so. 10 kids later, sheâs 37. Add another four years of nursing, and sheâs 41. Take into account the fact that people died younger in pre-modern times, itâs probably safe to assume that menopause also came earlier. Therefore, indeed, women of childbearing age would have spent most of their lives either pregnant or nursing. It doesnât sound that controversial to me. 
Donât. Remember where you are.
There still would have been women who didnât marry, or didnât concieve. And there would still have been enough periods in between for both women and men to learn to deal with them.
The only idea I would think had merrit is that, perhaps, it was a lot healthier for women to follow a normal, natural cycle of conception and nursing.
Perhaps periods are a lot worse today because we attempt to controle these natural functions to the extent that we do. If you spend 40 years menstrating and only concieve once or twice, generally at thirty or later, and only 3-6 months nursing, then your body only goes through the complete cycle once or twice. We think of a cycle as being once a month, but if you include the conception cycle, itâs once yearly, and weâre depriving our bodies of this now.
But thatâs the only point that I would, maybe, consider about modern periods and how we deal with them.
Sometimes it canât be avoided, though it can be hard to tell WHAT you are discussing if you donât have the vocabulary.
Few years ago I trundle back to my office after a testing day testing and thereâs a DELEGATION waiting for me, which I later reconstructed as female student, female students female friend, female students boyfriend, male student who may have been the female students female friends boyfriend or the female students boyfriends male friend.
And the Head of Department, who by some oversight was unaccompanied by any friends or relatives.
âHelloâ says I.
âHelloâ says they.
PauseâŚ
âWhat can I do for youâ says I rather unimaginatively (someone had to say something)
âThis student has something to ask youâ says the boss, indicating the female student.
âIâŚâ says she
PauseâŚ
I look to the boss to help out with a bit of translation. Nothing. Must be one of her âmake them speakâ days
Eventually the boyfriend (rather gallantly I thought) manages âShe miss testâ
OK, I knew that. I ask the obvious âWhyâ question, since a valid reason is required for a makeup test (though I donât usually do them) or other fix.
More embarrassing, hesitant pauses, but eventually, shutting her eyes, she squeezes out the word:-
âmensesââŚ
Unfortunately, I canât place it immediatelyâŚ
PauseâŚleading to more embarrassing pauses, until eventually the corroded Victorian penny drops.
âAh! OK, you were having your PERIOD!â says I (Thinks: One for the boss)
âWhats the policy on that, Dr Boss?â Ses I naively
âYour decisonâ ses she.
âBut if I was a gynaecologist Iâd be getting more money. About 70% of your students are young women and you donât have a policy on this?â ses I naively.
âNoâ, says she. âUp to youâ
So any female student who wants to skip a test has an easy out, but the accepted, generally recognized phrase is:-
âI was feel uncomfortableâ
There. NOW you can discuss periods here.
Haha, thatâs pretty funny, Ed.
In high school I had a math teacher who would always let any girl leave the classroom any time she wanted, but would never let a boy leave. One boy got really angry about this once and demanded to know WHY?! The math teacher told him that girls have things to do that boys donât.
The guy called bullshit and continued to argue and fume. The math teacher told him that if he wanted to stay after class, heâd explain it to him. And the guy DID stay after class.
And my science teacher later told me (a group of girls often spent lunch hanging out in the science lab with this teacher because the teacher was cool, and because we liked science) that the math teacher had told her in the lounge that he really did explain the entire process to the boy.
Sensible. But WHERE is the FUN in that?
I read that somewhere too, and it was corroborated by studies with groups who still live the way our ancestors did: the average woman in these groups very rarely actually has a period.
ed: To what extent has this been abused? Surely any female student who doesnât want to do your test at the time can basically write herself a blank cheque, so to speak.
Where is the fun? Itâs right there in that space where your SO isnât mad at you and [strike]calmly explaining[/strike] telling you why you donât and never will understand girls and their menstrual cycles. But I guess if that floats your boat⌠
Yeh, youâd think so, but in practice it hasnât been much of an issue.
âTraditionalâ Taiwanese female students are perhaps too scared/conscientious to take the easy out, (assuming its generally known) plus its discretionary (method in the laissez-faire madness?) so they canât be sure itâd work.
If male students menstruated I suspect it might have been more of an issue.
Attitudes are changing/deteriorating rapidly, and it might become an issue in the future, though I suspect future âproblemâ students wonât care enough to seek excuses.
Canât you recognise a sweeping generalisation when you see one?
OK, try the statistical approach instead. Go back a couple of thousand generations, and look at the human population. See the women who have lots of babies? They donât have lots of periods. Theyâre too busy popping sprogs. Now, see the other women? The ones who have more periods, they donât have as many children. Theyâre missing out on opportunities to reproduce. (This is not a bad thing, in my view, but weâre talking about evolution here.)
Now consider the next generation of women. The majority are descended from women who had more babies, therefore fewer periods. And the ones who have more babies (fewer periods) will give birth to a larger share of the next generation. And so on, thousands of times over hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of years.
Eventually, the population is made up of people who are descended from people who had lots of babies and few periods. Of course there were always exceptions, but they didnât contribute as much to the gene pool. Iâm pretty sure that nobody here is descended from women that never got pregnant. Those people tend not to have children. 
So, natural selection has resulted in a situation where periods were rare for the majority of women that have ever lived. Hence, not something that anyone has evolved to deal with.