i'm the flash animation that's sensitive about menstruation

In honor of the 45th anniversary of The Pill's approval by the U.S. FDA, the PBS website has some special features on the good ol' contraceptive, including this animation of the woman's monthly hormonal cycle with and without the pill (click on "How the Pill Works"). I stole the link from this metafilter post.

But hey, where's the bleeding? Despite the lovely colorful dots representing hormones drifting from the lady's brain to her uterus (somehow it reminds me of a Target commercial), I'm pretty disappointed to find PBS has not even attempted to subtly suggest the process of menstruation as so many female hygiene product advertisers have mastered, let alone display it in all its fecund glory. More like the Pussy Broadcasting System, I say, and by that I certainly don't mean the good kind of pussy. They passed up their chance for that.

Honestly, I'm pretty impressed by PBS's presentation of information, as it's informative and remarkably pro-pill (counting down to decreased federal funding, ten, nine, eight...), if not exactly exhaustive. I don't think I'd ever heard about early opposition to the pill from segments of the black community due to suspicians that it was an attempt to control black reproduction to the point of being called black genocide. And check out the Chinese paper pill.

Ok, PBS, I guess maybe you can be the good kind of pussy too. But just this once.