Keeping tabs on the cycles that matter

Some men are excited about a new iPhone app which will help them keep track of their girlfriends or wives’ menstrual cycles

SO SORRY guys. Here we have been all along assuming that our lady-business freaked you out, that when you heard “menstruation” you went “lalalalalalala”. We were wrong.

How else to explain “Code Red”, the new iPhone period app that – and this is really linguistically unfortunate – also works on the iPad?

Code Red keeps track of periods. It keeps track of them for men. It is, in fact, for men who love their women – or at least for those who want to monitor their women's bodies the way that creepo just might on Law & Order: SVUbefore Detective Benson punches him in the head.

So, how does it work? Type in the first day of your partner’s cycle for a few months. Then sit back and wait for the helpful reminders to pop up on your Apple device.

When the time premenstrual stress is due, for example, a female symbol appears sporting devil horns. A frisky ovulation alert tells you when your chances for getting down are looking up.

A tour of recent technological creations shows that menstruation apps for men are a booming market. “PMSBuddy”, for example, is proudly “saving relationships, one month at a time”. “PMS Meter” features “hilarious sound effects”. And the infamous “IAmAMan”, which is nothing if not unapologetic, allows users to track the menstrual cycles of several women at once, for those special times when you are being completely unfaithful.

At a deep cultural level, one might speculate that the proliferation of these apps all ties into some deep fear of womanhood – an attempt by men to make sense of what they do not understand.

One might suggest that men would chart the lifecycle of a fruit fly if they could do it on an iPad and that this is really all about gadgetry. One might also say this is gross.

MEDL Mobile, the company that distributes Code Red, will not release sales figures, but says that the application has climbed as high as 35 on the lifestyle division of the Apple app store – a category that includes hundreds of applications. A spokesperson for the company says Apple cannot confirm this.

So, guys, we had no idea.

Code Red (A Survival Guide to Her Monthly Cycle. Period!) was conceptualised by a husband and wife team, Lisi and Kevin Harrison; he is originally from Virginia and they now live in California. They had no app-creation experience, but “we love the iPhone”, Kevin Harrison says. “We love the whole app culture.”

But isn’t this Code Red thing kind of . . . funny?

“It’s funny in a sense,” Kevin Harrison says. “But it’s also really helpful.”

“I don’t even think it’s funny; I just thought it was necessary,” Lisi Harrison says. “Kevin and I have been together for 15 years . . . and Kevin acts blindsided every month. It makes me want to scratch his eyes out.”

Instead, the Harrisons, both aged in their early 40s, discussed Code Red with an acquaintance Jon Rose. “Jon Rose knew a guy named Dave Swartz, who works for a company called MEDL, which helps punters turn their ideas into Apple apps. MEDL has had about 30,000 submissions but has found only a few dozen to be worthy of development.

“We were sitting around in a meeting where we were going over submissions,” says Dave Swartz, when Code Red comes up.

"About half the people there were young guys, and one said, 'I will pay $20 for that right now'." So, they decided to price the app at $1.99 (€1.50). – Washington Post/Bloomberg