Woman receives death threats after she posts photograph of menstrual blood

Loulle Denor posted the image in response to Instagram's moderation rules

Rose Troup Buchanan
Tuesday 01 September 2015 09:30 BST
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Louelle Denor has around 200 followers on Instagram
Louelle Denor has around 200 followers on Instagram (Louelle Denor)

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A woman who posted images of her menstrual blood on her personal social media account has claimed she received death threats as a result.

Louelle Denor, from Philadelphia, posted an image of herself holding a softcup and with her fingers covered in menstrual blood on Instagram and Facebook two weeks ago.

Since then, her Instagram post has received a significant amount of publicity.

In subsequent screen shots, Ms Denor – a philosophy student at Temple University, showed a user asking her to “kil [sic] yourself now plz” over the post, another wrote: “kill ya pls”.

Other users also weighed in, asking her “why would you post that?”

Ms Denor explained her original photograph had been posted to draw attention to the fact that “women are having their accounts banned for showing menstrual blood (and no nudity).”

In a further explanation, on Medium, she compared the accepted image of blood in video games, television shows and films to the reaction she received when she posted an image of menstrual blood.

“But, what we don’t tolerate is the sight of blood when associated with the vagina EVEN when the vagina is not shown,” she wrote.

Ms Denor’s photograph on Facebook elicited a similar – if less extreme – response.

She subsequently posted a message from the social media giant that showed another user had reported her photo as containing “graphic violence” and that Facebook would have to review the content. Facebook had not removed the image at the time of publication.

In March, a woman from Toronto, Rupi Kaur, posted an image showing her asleep with her menstrual blood showing. Instagram moderators took the picture down but faced a storm of online criticism as the story was picked up by media outlets.

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