Sex Education Glossary

MASTURBATION

The touching of a person's sex organs by oneself or by another person for sexual pleasure. It is not harmful and is normal if someone sexually pleasures herself or himself. It is also normal if someone doesn't want to masturbate.

MENARCHE

The name for a girl's first menstrual period. The average age of the first period is 12 years, but it can happen a few years earlier or later. A girl can become pregnant after she begins to have menstrual periods.

MENOPAUSE

The time in a woman's life when she completely stops menstruating. The average age that this happens is at age 51, though it can happen earlier or later.

MENSTRUAL CYCLE

This is the time period that begins on the first day of a period and lasts until the first day of the next one. The cycle starts about every 28 days.

First, one of her ovaries pushes an egg out. The egg leaves the ovary and rides along one of the fallopian tubes towards the uterus. The blood inside the uterus starts to get thicker. Sperm from a man might swim inside the woman and find the egg. If a sperm gets inside of the egg, then a baby starts to grow inside the uterus. The blood in the uterus is used to help the baby grow. It is like a nest.

If a sperm doesn't find the egg, then the egg dies after awhile. When the egg dies, the blood in the uterus isn't needed, so they both go out of the body through her cervix and through her vagina. This is a woman's period. A period is the last thing that happens in this cycle. Then everything starts all over again. Hormones make this cycle work.

MENSTRUAL FLOW

The blood that goes out of a woman's body during her period. Different women have different amounts of blood coming out. It is usually about three to four tablespoons or up to as much as a half a cup.

MENSTRUATION

A name for the period of a woman's menstrual bleeding. Also called "the period."

How often a woman menstruates, how long menstruation lasts, and how much blood comes out varies and can change for the same woman from month to month. Sometimes menstruation happens regularly every twenty-eight days, but the menstrual cycle can last twenty-one, thirty, or more days. Sometimes menstruation can last for three days or for up to five days. Sometimes there are a few days of spotting only a little blood. Such variation is completely normal.

During menstruation, only about 3 to 4 tablespoons of blood come out of a woman's vagina. The blood comes from the lining of the uterus (womb). It is not dirty blood and when it comes out, it is not "cleaning" the woman's body. The purpose of the blood was to make a healthy place for a pregnancy to grow.

If a woman does not become pregnant, the blood lining leaves the body. It is important to know that women don't need to menstruate every month in order to be healthly or to get pregnant. Some women don't menstruate regularly and some woman who use hormonal methods of birth control stop menstruating every month. This is normal and healthy and does not hurt the woman in any way.

It is also very important to know that a girl can become pregnant even before gets her first menstruation.