月経

gekkei menstruation

---

I wasn’t quite expecting this word to show up in an article on COVID-19, but in addition to panic buying of toilet paper (which I believe the Japanese have been doing since the OPEC oil scares of the early 1970s), there is panic buying of women’s hygiene products, including sanitary napkins and tampons. Admittedly, menstruation is not a common topic in a household of two gay men, though I had been aware of the term, 生理 seiri, for menstruation. I also admitted to some confusion as to why the 経, sometimes written 經 in older texts, was used. Because interpreted literally, 月経 means monthly sutra. Taken together with the fact that one term for menopause is 閉経 heikei, which can literally mean the closing of the sutra, there seems to be a poetic connection between the sutras and the female external reproductive anatomy, perhaps in that both are to be thoughtfully contemplated (if one is so inclined and I am admittedly not).