The Loveliness of Women was a book given to a prepubescent Peggy Hill by her mother in order to explain to her about the menstrual cycle. However, according to Peggy, the book's content was exclusively pictures of flowers. Another woman, Bonnie, allegedly also received the book as a pre-adolescent. ("Square Peg")
The book is a jesting parody of sexual education books for women and girls in the 50s and 60s, which often relied on twee euphemisms and metaphors to convey sexual information. Author Mary J. Breen in her essay "My Sexual Education in the 1950s" discusses some of these books, which used symbols such as flowers, butterflies and magic wands to convey confusing information about sex to adolescent girls. Breen confirmed the use of the term "monthly visitor" to describe periods, which was the term that Maddy Platter used to attempt to explain to Peggy what it was without using the correct term. This confuses Peggy as a girl, who believes the "monthly visitor" will be her Uncle Joe.