In middle school there were all these cheeky euphemisms for menstrual cycles. You might say that Aunt Flo was visiting, or that the crimson tide was coming in, or that you were riding the crimson wave. God forbid you called your period what it was, or said anything that could make boys aware that you had a body to tend. I was thinking of this, these euphemisms and this body apologia, late into the night of the midterm elections Tuesday. TV pundits remarked with apparent shock that the anticipated “red wave” — the Republican influx expected to overturn control of...