Bedroom Bloodsport: Navigating Unexpected Blood in Sexy Situations

I have been and probably always will be an unintentionally bleed-y person. I’m no stranger to crazy, gushing nosebleeds that result in scary blood slugs falling out of my nose — it’s really not a big deal. All of the accidental scratches and cuts I rack up on a daily basis are totally normal. I rationalize this regular blood drawing by saying I may have been a Mayan sacrifice in a past life and it’s definitely more of a curse than a blessing. Dating is a bloodsport unto itself, but for me it’s gotten too real — two too many times. These incidences involve two different girls, both brand new acquaintances at the time, and occurred on or before the second date. At this point, I don’t know if I’ll ever even make it to the third date without bleeding all over everything.

datingisabloodsport

I’m going to refer to the first girl as ‘Health Goth’, and of course we met on Tinder. As you know, I’m basically the Chairwoman of the Nosebleed Club so keep this in mind as I tell you the rest of the story. Health Goth and I had met up and gone out for a couple of drinks the night before and everything was A-OK. She comes over to my place the following evening to hang out. A couple of drinks happen and things start getting hot and heavy. Drunk sex is super fun, but drunk sex = messy sex and mama always said messy sex doesn’t end well. (Just kidding, my repressed Taiwanese mother never told me shit about sex).

Anyway, at some point in the middle of me going down on this girl, my nose started bleeding and by the time my drunk self had realized that, I had lost a not-okay amount of blood, and it was EVERYWHERE. All over the sheets, my face, her crotch! How the heck was I supposed to tell the difference between various bodily fluids with only the dim flickering of candlelight in a far corner of the room? Naturally, I was horrified, not at the sight of blood but of how Health Goth was going to respond to me bleeding all over her vagina. I hope very few of you ever have to deal with telling your (new) partner, “Hey, sorry but…umm…I just bled all over your crotch.”

Fortunately for me, Health Goth was a total sweetheart and even helped me clean up the trail of blood I left in my apartment leading up to the bathroom. I surprisingly didn’t feel embarrassed about this at all because blood is such normal thing. Like hello, it’s inside of literally every body. The blood loss combined with alcohol had rendered me woozy for a short while and I had to take a second to lay down and chill out before moving. We ended up jumping in the shower and laughing about it, but I couldn’t laugh too hard or else I would get really dizzy.

bloodwater

Incident two opens at a warehouse rave in Brooklyn on a stormy Halloween night. I was Madonna, she was Andy Warhol. A couple of nights later, Madonna and Andy Warhol walk into a bar…you want to know what happens? I wake up the next morning naked in Andy Warhol’s fluffy white bed, drenched in a pool of my own period blood. Bless. Imagine my sheer horror when I realized my body had pulled a ‘surprise bitch’ attack on me. My mind was R E E L I N G. Oh fuck not again, this time blood is all over my crotch. Should I mention it? Does she know I bled all over her white sheets? Ho-ly shit. WHAT DO I DO? This is beyond help.

I ducked out into the bathroom for a couple of minutes to compose myself and of course she woke up and saw it while I was gone. Of course. When I came back she covered the bloody spot with a black robe, didn’t mention it at all, and even offered to make me coffee. Andy, you’re an angel. I left her place feeling all wild and scatterbrained and couldn’t manage to send her a text for a whole two hours. I apologized profusely for ruining her sheets, offered to buy her some new ones or pay for laundry, and that I would make it up to her. In the end, everything was fine. My romantic life is a bloodsport — sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but it’s always a good game.

Here’s some advice from my bleeding heart to yours on how to deal if you ever find yourself in a sexy bloody situation:

  • First of all, congrats! You just got yourself a great story to tell all your friends!
  • If you happen to bleed too much and begin feeling faint, stop what you’re doing immediately and chill out for a second. Take some iron and drink some water, you’ll be fine! Don’t try to walk it off.
  • Anybody that makes you feel embarrassed or ashamed for bleeding is a jerk face asshole and you should cut them out of your life ASAP.
  • Bodies are crazy unpredictable sometimes: be it, own it, embrace it.
  • Communication, communication, communication! Always be upfront and and honest about it. Don’t hide, lie, or be ashamed about your body bleeding. It’s a totally normal thing that happens way more often than you think.
  • It’s best to deal with these kinds of situations with a perpetual ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Freaking out will not make the blood go away, but spit and cold water will! See also: hydrogen peroxide. Plus you can always bleach white sheets.
  • Life’s a trip and you bleed all over people, places, and things sometimes. It’s not the end of the world by ANY means and your life is NOT over. It might be anxiety inducing for a hot minute, but you’re gonna be OK. Promise!
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Coco Layne

I create, design, and cast spells in the bizarre realm of fashion. My core interests revolve around chicken wings, bringing dead plants back to life, and fine leather goods. You can catch the chronicles of my magical life on Lolita Bandita, IG, and twitter.

Coco has written 1 article for us.

31 Comments

  1. I feel like you could appreciate this. My girlfriend and I were having sex and my period was about to start (or that’s what I thought) but lots and lots of blood ended up coming out of me and got all over her. And her response was to laugh and say, “this is just like that spoken word performance that Andrea Gibson did.” Which was at the time, like the gayest thing I’d ever heard during sex or anywhere else. And we both laughed for a very long time. And then when we got the blood off of us and the sheets off the bed she played me this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVK_pBNIGg4 And of course I told all my friends about this later.

    However, in case any of you are actually horrified by things that come out of your body and how people might react, it will be okay, almost no matter what it is. Something very gross once leaked out of my body, due to a very unfortunate stomach bug, and onto the floor of this person I’d been dating a few weeks. We’ve been together three years, and she waited about 2 before she made fun of me for it. It was no longer horrifying and it didn’t ruin our relationship.

    • Oh my god that Andrea Gibson performance is gold thank you for sharing. Putting that on standby next time I accidentally bleed all over somebody

    • Last night, I watched that Andrea Gibson/Sonya Renee clip. So amazing. It started me on a whole night of watching Andrea Gibson poetry videos. Thank you!

    • I had forgotten about that performance. Love the last line, and thinking about period blood as the closest one will ever be to one’s partner’s heart…! Thanks for sharing it.

  2. I am really glad this wasn’t about surprise edge play. So I can tell you the story about how I had similarly horrible nosebleeds/constantly ruined pillowcases forever back when I lived in a for real rainforest.

    Then moved to the freaking desert an never had one again. Not in five years. I don’t know how you work body, but this call was cool with me.

    • My body would probably fare best in a rainforest ~ I need the humidity. The desert would probably ruin my life

  3. Holy shit. I thought I was the only one. The first time I went down on a woman (I was 17 and pretty drunk) I nose-bled all over her. It was incredibly embarrassing. She light heartedly said something like “I’ll take it as a compliment that the sex that good.”

  4. i get nosebleeds all the freaking time! amanda how are you not getting nosebleeds in the desert? it’s like, what deserts were invented for or something. ANYWAY i’ve logged several hours in the bathroom — after putting sex on pause — shoving tissue up my nose and wishing i’d brought my phone so i could read twitter or something bc that shit takes for-ev-er to stop bleeding.

    i loved this post.

    • possibly all the pollen? Like, every year in the rainforest all the sidewalks would be covered, but none of it made it to my face, and now I have a not-runny-from-the-constant-rain mucusy shield for the invading forces? IDEK

  6. My ex- sweetie and I made love when she was on her period. I figured the little string was just a “work around” to get to the HONEY! At another time, she was sexing my bottom with her mighty strapon! Oops! A bit of cleanup on her “love tool” was needed when she explored back there !!! I was a bit embarassed….but “after sex” cuddles and petting and nibble kisses took all the concern away.

    • Right? my day went from 0-100 real fast as soon as I opened the AS page.

      I have learned something about myself and how I am in agreement with, ” dating is a blood sport.”

  8. I loved this!

    I have, more than a few times, started my period WHILE someone is going down on me. Like always my first time with someone new.

    • Multiple times I have been the person going down on someone for the first time when they started their period. At this point it’s like *shrugs*

  9. Gah this article preaches the truth. I had drunken one-night stand sex with the hottest, smartest girl I have ever met. And woke up the next morning to an surprise (thanks a lot, ovaries). We weren’t even at her place or mine, but at a friend’s house. I was absolutely mortified. But you know what? Girls understand. These things happen. And if she doesn’t make you feel okay about it? Drop that girl like a brick.

  11. This has never happened to me (yet), but you do have some great stories – and some fantastic advice! Thank you. I’ll definitely be bookmarking this in case I ever need it (which seems likely!).

  12. I have been bled on a few times from a variety of orifices, I was mostly just like “shit are you okay” because like, what else are you gonna do? people are so mortified, and I am mostly like, “it’s fine man, I am ready to make out whenever you are done being mortified but like, is that going to happen or should I put my socks on and show you weird youtube videos because this is done….?”

  14. this was excellent.

    and, also, why don’t all autostraddle authors populate their posts with great photos of themselves??? all the time??

  15. this was excellent.

    and, also, why don’t all autostraddle authors populate their posts with cool photos of themselves??? all the time??

  16. Wow, this is amazingly relevant. A couple weeks ago I had a first date that turned disastrous when she got a bloody nose as soon as we got to my apartment and bled all over my bathroom (and my face). Somehow I didn’t notice it until she left right after that, and my hemophobic roommate was not pleased at all when she discovered it and bleached the whole bathroom. But I do have a great story now.

    And another time I got a bloody nose as I was going down on a girl, but I just went to the bathroom, waited for it to stop and then resumed.

  17. A few months ago I hooked up with a lady while I was house-sitting for a friend, and it was all nice and lovely and stuff until I turned on the lights after she left.

    I dunno if she was just starting or just ending her visit from Aunt Flo, but my friend’s bed looked like a Law and Order crime scene. So here’s me, at 2 in the morning, texting my best friend and wondering how I’m gonna get bloodstains out of someone else’s mattress pad. Thankfully he tipped me off to the magic that is hydrogen peroxide!

    Here’s a question though, and it’s totes okay if the answer happens to be “yes”: am I a jerk for thinking it was a little rude of her not to be aware that her ladybits were potentially bloody? Like, I just feel as though it’s partially a common courtesy thing to make a partner who might put their face in your junk aware that there may be blood, especially if said partner is not really into that.

  18. when i started dating my partner (long distance), we happened to fall into this schedule after a few weeks where we would always see each other during the last week of the month. which was always the week i was menstruating. we switched up the schedule after half a year because it must have seemed like i was living in some sort of never ending bloody splatter reality.

  19. Before my partner was my partner he was the person who my roommate in college drunkenly made out with so hard that she gave him a nosebleed that neither of them noticed until they were both covered in it. Several years and an acceptance of bisexuality later, here we are.

  20. Umm, sorry, but no.
    I get nosebleeds all the time and yes to awkward sexy times, and yay for accepting your bodily fluids, but I will not even allow friends to clear my bloody tissues away, when I’m hunched over with an ice pack in my neck.
    My blood, my responsibility. My responsibility for them.
    I work in a hospital with a fuckload of needles and people with all kinds of shit, who knows if my Hep B vaccination holds for the deigned ten years?if the blood that ran over the injured cuticle of my index finger wasn’t a reactived Hep C? If that woman with the Lymphnodes didn’t have cancer but an initial HIV infection?

    I’ve only ever slept with three people and never done drugs or men:

    My first gf and I were both each other’s first, and it was awkward and adventurous and what’s safer than sleeping with someone who’s never been with someone else?
    Then she tells me four months into our relationship that her dad was actually gay and died of AIDS and she only found out after his death..that he was one of the first people infected and lived with them for ten years.No one knowing anything.
    No big deal? It suddenly was, when I was tested for my first clinical rotation and my results “got lost”(and I knew that’s the standard excuse for a retest) three years later.

    Number two, the cute butchy girl fling from the gay bar, as it turns out, had a husband and a kid, and a gf, and an affair,and was into drugs and somehow that never came Up until weeks into our little stint.

    Number three was flowers and kisses and greatness and butterflies.
    And had an affair with a guy who had to have himself tested for Syphillis in the same space of time.

    Do you know how high the virus load of anything relevant is in blood?
    I am not hemophobic, (I love blood in my own,nerdy way) but you owe it to yourself and your sexual partner to deal with your bleeding stuff responsibly. You been together forever and no risk for anything? Great for you.
    You’re with someone new? Don’t ever assume anything.
    Like seriously, don’t.
    I mean, would you want to have me bleed all over your sheets and vulnerable tissues? Little Miss Goldstar zero risk Sunshine?

    • I agree, for the same reasons and I work in healthcare too. Assumptions about the status of someone’s body fluids are kind of ignorant, be kind and responsible to yourself and others and know what and who you are dealing with. Be safe. That is a loving thing to do for yourself.

  22. 1) Next time this happens, please photograph your face cuz I have a feeling you could style a nosebleed really, really well.
    2) CAN WE TALK ABOUT HEALTH GOTHS? Just in general?! I am trying to get introduced to a Zumba Goth and I’m so excited about this sub-sub culture.

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