Red Wings Around the World: How a Menstrual Merit Badge Became a Global Obsession
Red Wings: The Global Passport Nobody Asked For
By Henrietta “Hank” Mortensen, Senior Correspondent, Somewhere Over International Waters
The first time I heard the phrase “earning your red wings,” I was in a cramped Nairobi hostel listening to a Canadian backpacker brag between gulps of warm Tusker. He spoke the words like a battlefield commendation, while a Finnish nurse across the table rolled her eyes so hard I feared orbital fracture. Thus I learned that “red wings” is not merely a hockey team from Detroit or the logo on a can of Russian tobacco, but a carnal merit badge supposedly awarded for cunnilingus during menstruation—an act that, depending on geography, is either the height of intimacy or grounds for a UN sanctions debate.
Globally, attitudes toward this crimson rite of passage range from Scandinavian shrugs to full-throated Southeast Asian horror. In Denmark, where period blood is practically a design motif on minimalist posters, the deed is filed under “Tuesday.” Meanwhile, in parts of rural India, a woman menstruating can still trigger an evacuation plan more elaborate than a fire drill. The World Health Organization doesn’t track red-wing incidents—budget cuts, naturally—but if they did, I suspect the heat map would look suspiciously like the global gender-gap index flipped upside-down and dyed burgundy.
The economic implications are delightfully absurd. In Japan, a cottage industry of “period-flavored” candies (sakura-metallic, if you’re curious) caters to salarymen who treat the badge like rare Pokémon. South Korea’s K-beauty labs are testing “menstrual masks,” because nothing says youthful glow like iron-rich plasma. Over in Silicon Valley, a start-up named CrimsonWave just secured $12 million in seed funding for an app that gamifies the experience: swipe right to confirm the deed, earn tokens, exchange for artisanal beard oil. Their Series A deck promises to “disrupt the taboo economy.” I’ve seen less blood in a Tarantino film.
Diplomatically, red wings have become an unlikely soft-power litmus test. During last year’s G7 spouses’ brunch in Cornwall, the French premier’s partner allegedly whispered, “Les ailes rouges, c’est chic,” causing the British Foreign Secretary’s wife to choke on her cucumber sandwich. The incident was scrubbed from official transcripts but lives on in the bowels of Reddit, right between r/worldnews and r/eyebleach. Meanwhile, Russian troll farms reportedly push hyper-masculine memes celebrating the badge as proof of Slavic virility—an odd flex when your tanks are stuck in Ukrainian mud, but propaganda has never been burdened by logic.
The darker corners of the globe reveal coercion disguised as conquest. NGOs in conflict zones quietly report cases where armed groups force “red-wing rituals” on female captives, rebranding sexual violence as initiation. The International Criminal Court has yet to list the act as a war crime—too messy, too easily dismissed as “cultural misunderstanding.” One investigator told me, off the record, that adding “non-consensual red wings” to the statute would require an annex longer than the Paris Agreement, and nobody wants to read that at The Hague.
Back in the skies, airlines have unwittingly entered the fray. AirAsia’s marketing team once floated a Valentine’s promo: “Fly with us, earn your red wings—literally.” The campaign lasted 43 minutes before Twitter turned it into a bloodbath of its own. The apology tweet included a crimson emoji that looked suspiciously like a squashed tomato; brand consultants called it “authentic.” I called it Tuesday.
So what does it all mean? In an era where borders close overnight and viruses hop continents like budget tourists, the red-wing discourse is a reminder that human beings will sexualize literally anything, then build a geopolitical framework around it. We’ve weaponized intimacy, monetized biology, and slapped frequent-flyer miles on bodily fluids. Somewhere, a marketing intern is pitching “Platinum Red Wings Status” to venture capitalists while an overworked translator in Geneva tries to render the phrase into six official languages without causing a diplomatic incident.
The planet keeps spinning, indifferent and slightly anemic. And as long as it does, someone, somewhere, is proudly polishing a pair of wings nobody actually needed—least of all the person on the receiving end.
