Menstrual cramps do NOT look like this.

ATTENTION: Ladies with menstrual cramps, if you’re not cuddling a hot water bottle in a foetal position with a screwed up face, while simultaneously pouting and wearing sexy underwear, then you are DOING IT WRONG.

This morning, I had to go a-hunting for a stock photo of a lady with some ‘time-of-the-month’ cramps. Because journalism. I typed ‘period pain’ into a website. And then…

Hilarity ensued.

Hundreds and hundreds of photos of women with the cramps, doubled over, 99.5 per cent with hot water bottles, all of them looking listless and maybe a little bit sexy. And some surprises. Berries, anyone?

Other PMS news: What happens when elite athletes have their period?

I’ve had me some cramps before. I can usually still manage to put on pants, and I can always manage to eat peanut butter straight out of the jar (with fingers, spoons are for amateurs). Every woman has a different way of handling their fallopian tubes being attacked by knives and buckets of wet sand. But somehow, few of the photos we found seemed realistic.

Come with us on the Adventure of Stock Standard Period Photos:

The Classic.

Hot water bottle on womb, hand on head to indicate headache, not un-sexy underwear, all evidence hidden of the 10 Twix consumed only moments ago.

The ‘Maybe We Should Call A Doctor?’

Cramps can be bad, but this looks like appendicitis-meets-organ-failure. We hope she makes it through the night.

The ‘Typical Menstrual Behaviour’.

The ‘This Is Your Fault’.

The sexy ‘Sad Face’.

And the ‘WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING IN THIS PICTURE’.

Gahh!! What happened? How did her period go so horribly wrong? Oh wait, she’s squeezing berries. Ok, someone needs to file this under ‘sexy squished food’ and not ‘menstruation’.

But wait. There’s more: