"Who, given the choice, would really opt to menstruate, invite the monthly haemorrhage – a
reminder that the body is nothing but a bag of blood, liable to seep or spatter at any moment. . . .
One day I will be thin enough. Just the bones, no disfiguring flesh, just the pure, clear shape of
me. Bones. That is what we are, after all, what we’re made of, and everything else is storage,
deposit, waste. Strip it away. (Shute, 1992; quoted in Malson, 1997: 239)"