Healey: “Laird is right!”

"Not sexist, just nature," says world's second-greatest waterman… 

While I admit to taking too much pleasure in a good ol web beatup, in this case Laird Hamilton vs The World, it might be time to jam on the brakes with a little real talk.

Yesterday, Laird Hamilton, a man who lives in the ocean and whom, I think, we can safely call the greatest waterman ever, made a fairly innocuous comment to the gossip site TMZ. Blood attracts sharks. Ergo, it might be dangerous for a menstruating woman to swim.

Only women bleed, as they say.

Britain’s The Sun, a flashy tabloid, turned up the oil with their headline: Bloody Outrage, Spike in Great White Shark attacks caused by women on their period going swimming, surfing champion outrageously claims

The story, like every other one, was determined to find some connection between identity politics, sexism and so forth, with Laird’s honest opinion; an opinion formed from fifty years in the ocean.

Mark Healey, who actually swims with great white sharks unlike the key-jockeys at the Huff Post and the Sun (and BeachGrit), jumped onto our Instagram and wrote:

“The logic is that predators that are tuned to hunting mammals and have exponentially more powerful senses of smell than we do, pick up on that. The idea is, these predators would much rather follow a female animal that has or is giving birth so that they can get an easier/low-risk meal. The menstruation cycle likely triggers more of a response than just blood. I’ve seen it happen a handful of times while filming sharks and was able to know that the gals who the sharks wouldn’t leave alone were on their periods (yes, I asked). Not sexist, just nature.”

Who you going to believe?