The Full Moon Myth

Hello, I’m Bertie. What’s that? You’ve brought me flowers? Well isn’t that sweet. So, welcome, I guess. This column is basically a place for me to call bullshit on girl related stuff that I think is dumb. While I appreciate the importance of girl talk, I’m not about to braid your pubic hair or send you the results of my latest smear test. Instead, I will pass on any remotely useful knowledge I happen to discover re: being a FEMALE. What does that mean? I don’t know. Basically I’m not into horoscopes but I may implore you to read your future in menstrual blood under a full moon. Trust me: I’m not a doctor, but I do have a Ph.D in pretty girl bullshit.

PRETTY GIRL BULLSHIT #3: THE FULL MOON MYTH

This week I was determined to find out why full moons make pretty girls bat-shit crazy. Ever since some kid at school pointed out the "luna" in lunatic, the moon’s made me properly read-all-the-texts-on-your-phone-and-then-sit-in-the-bath-for-four-hours insane. According to a study printed in the copy of the British Medical Journal from 1998 that I just happened to be flicking through the other day, car accidents are 14 percent more likely during a full moon. Research featured on the BBC also reports an increase in violent crime among prison inmates. But, really – for every science guy who claims one thing, there are three science guys who disagree. Plus, why the unspoken emphasis on women? This is not an Anais Nin novel. Can it seriously be true? Does the full moon really affect girls so dramatically that it justifies an URGENT phone call from my flatmate's mum warning her that "the full moon is in Libra" and she’s going to be really needy and pathetic all night?

I’m inclined to believe the whole "full moon = tides = periods = psychopaths" thing is totally bullshit. But I thought I’d do some research and conduct some really sophisticated tests, just to make sure. If you’re critical of my scientific efforts, try your own DIY experiment – all you need is a strip of litmus paper, a battery and a test tube full of screw you. I started in the only place anyone ever goes to get really reliable and relevant information: Yahoo! Answers. I immediately stumbled across this super insightful, sensible guy, who wondered: “Is it true that anyone can pick up hot girls extremely easily during full moons as hot girls become extremely horny and easy during full moons??” and cited Bruce Almighty as a pre-emptive riposte to any sceptics. (Interesting.) But after that, everything else was kind of predictable. Alongside some boring stuff about our bodies being 90 percent water and the gravitational pull shifting and oh sorry, wow, I don’t care, it was mainly capitalised blather about how we're all really wild animals underneath this veneer of feminine respectability, and the full moon just “ALERTS US 2 HOW CRAZY WE REALLY ARE!!!” I would like to agree with plom2000 – however, this doesn’t explain why last time I walked into a room of girls and whispered “full moon on Friday” everyone got really earnest and started cancelling their party plans. Let's check in with THIS GUY, see what he's got to say. According to him, the full moon is a period of purification; a time when bodily fluids are often traded or expelled from the body, and above all, a time to say menstruation every fourth word of a sentence. Scientifically, during a full moon our chakras open, allowing women to channel their energy outwards. This can occasionally cause "soul friction", which I assume is akin to Barry White rubbing all his white suits together in a room full of balloons.

He goes on to say that sharing sexual fluids with a woman on her "menses" (I have no idea) is the most common cause of heartbreak. This is Bullshit. Then there's that thing about how, on a full moon, women appear “really pure and holy”. This is also Bullshit. Finally he recalls how, “One time a menses lady grabbed hold of me and gave me a hug. It took me several hours to get my energy back.” Replace “menses lady” with "human female", and “energy back” with "full body clean" and I think we have a serious case of Pretty Girl Bullshit on our hands. If this is the most scientific analysis of full moon madniz I can find in the 0.00345 seconds it takes to do a Google search, well, then, it can’t be true. Although the Internet is kind of snazzy, it’s important to remember that it once created a sick rumour that H from Steps had died. Are we really going to trust it with something as important as the mental health of every single female on Earth?! With this in mind, I tore myself away from the laptop screen and attempted to ask some real people. Most of my conversations went like this: ME: Hey.
Anon PG: Hi. ME: How are you feeling?
Anon PG: Uh. Fine? ME: Sure?
Anon PG: *stares blankly at iPhone* ME: You know it’s a full moon tonight?
Anon PG: omg! oohhh yeah I feel kind of.. Crazy! My nipples are swollen. I’m hungry! Are you hungry? These arbitrary responses became quite tedious after a while, because a) I’m not a trained psychologist, and b) I’m not a trained psychologist. Whether or not these girls were reeling from the gravitational pull of the full moon in Libra and Mercury being in retrograde, or in fact, that string of words made about as much sense as Vanilla Sky, I couldn’t tell. What’s obvious is that there’s some kind of unspoken rule about being totally in-tune with your cosmic energy. But is there ANY proof? Finally, I asked my friend who went to Thailand in her gap year to catch STDs and be grownup what really happens at a Full Moon party. We all know about the general fire poi and ecstasy vibe, but if full moons really are so powerful when it comes to charging girls up, surely there would be a tonne of energy-drained guys lying around on the sand while crazed women hugged everyone and laughed manically at their lunar-induced super powers. Was this the case?

“All I remember is watching loads of people having sex in the sea at 7AM. There were tonnes of serious knuckleduster fights as well.” So no exorcist-type, glowing goddesses floating around? “Yeah. Not so much. Loads of buckets of alcohol mixed with puke, though!”

Hm.

I’m afraid this full moon myth must be dispelled as soon as possible. I’m not saying you’re not like, totally linked up to your star sign or whatever, but limiting craziness to just one night a month is unfair. We should all just get along and embrace perpetual insanity, regardless of gender.

Right?

Follow Bertie on Twitter: @bertiebrandes

Previously: Pretty Girl Bullshit - Ten Important and Obvious Things You Should Already Know By Now