A Tale of Two Trampolines; Also, Vaginas

My goodness, reading the news is hard. All day, every day, I engage myself in the tedious and unprofitable business of news-reading, attempting to extricate some random series of coherent thoughts from it in order that I might bore you, the reader.

Sometimes, when I am reading the news, I read Jezebel, or Salon! Today, Rebecca Traister and the fine publications mentioned above have done me a service: they have provided an article about TMI(ASV) or, for the acronym-illiterate amongst us, Too Much Information (About Some Vagina).

Jezebel, the popular women's offshoot of the Gawker empire, has been the leader of the oversharing crusade, with vibrant, aromatic and really graphic posts about everything from lodged tampons to yeast infection remedies to bloody period sex to female ejaculation... Other recent, mainstream expressions of the form have included Elle magazine's brutal piece last summer by Miranda Purves, called "The Ring of Fire," about how giving birth to her child tore her vagina asunder. An English translation of Charlotte Roche's German bestseller "Wetlands" ("It is difficult to overstate the raunchiness of the novel," read a story in the New York Times about "Wetlands," "and hard to describe in a family newspaper") is due in April. It opens with the sentence, "As far back as I can remember, I have had hemorrhoids." And this month, a younger iteration of the lay-it-bare form: the publication of "My Little Red Book," an anthology of more than 90 women's stories of the first time they got their period.

Oh, thank God. Finally, I can stop trying to understand what happened with Tom Daschle (back taxes?) and get back to thinking about what all girls love to think about most: their periods!

Periods, as you may have heard, are scary and stinky and un-sexy and drive you clinically insane, which is why whenever you are angry with a dude you must be having one. They also, according to landmark feminist novel The Mists of Avalon, allow you to bewitch and kill a man with your dark magic. Yet chicks are writing about them now! Who would have thought?

Yep, chicks love period talk. They also love white leggings, or did in rural Indiana circa 1995, which is where I was vacationing when my two older female cousins decided to invite some boys (including one my age, for potential making-out purposes: his name was Chet, he had a trampoline) to their majestic rambling farmhouse so that we could watch Speed, and made me wear said white leggings so that I would not scare the boys away with my decidedly un-sexy pants. Oh, God, white leggings. Leggings, which were white, worn in the place of pants. Guys liked them! Or so my cousins explained. I went with it, but there was terror in my soul.

At that time, I had been having my period for a year, in Imaginationland, and also in the lies I told my cousins and any other girls who wanted to compare stats. In reality, I was thirteen, and periodless, and therefore convinced that I was a barren freak, a Benjamin-Button-style womanchild whose body would never reach the ripe flower of sexual maturity. The lies were meant to spare my family and friends the stark reality of my fate. Also, other girls kept talking about their periods, and I didn't have one, and was jealous.

I got a stomachache while watching Speed. Whatever. Maybe I was caught up in the pulse-pounding action! Maybe I was nervous about sitting next to Chet! He had a trampoline, after all: would I ever see it? If I saw it, would we make out? How would that work? Was I, perhaps, sexually aroused by the prospect? Nobody had ever told me what getting turned on was supposed to feel like, just that you'd know it when it happened, which seemed like a cheat to me; at least boys got boners, like their penises waving "hi" and letting them know what was up, whereas I would just have to make out with people until I felt some thus-far-undefined sensation. Abdominal pain seemed as likely as anything else. Also, I'd heard there was moisture involved, and I was definitely starting to feel some of that going on in the old white leggings. Yep: I was turned on by Chet, I decided. We were going to do it. Probably on a trampoline. The prospect seemed less thrilling than one might hope.

As I pondered the inevitable and rapidly approaching loss of my virginity to Chet, I decided to get a Coke from the refrigerator. Did Chet want one, I inquired? He did. We'd been together for such a short time, and yet I had already demonstrated my essentially giving and generous nature. In our relationship, Chet would always have Coke. So I stood before him, ready to make the long walk to the refrigerator that had come to symbolize our love.

Now, Speed is a violent movie. People get blown up. Dennis Hopper is beheaded. This, at first, is what I thought Chet was reacting to, for the look of raw horror on his face was something I had never before seen in man or boy. You know that scene in The Shining, where the twins are like, "come play with us, Danny - come play with us forever," and then they're all bloodied, and then a tidal wave of blood gets aimed right at Danny's face? Well, that was what my vagina had done to Chet.

"Ummm?" Chet squeaked at me, and then I looked down.

"Oh, that's my period!" I said. My cousins' eyes reached maximum censorious boggling width. One of them shook her head slightly, warning me off this disastrous course, as I proceeded to wow Chet by dropping some menstrual knowledge. "Well, it happens every month, you know! It's totally natural, all girls my age have one. It just means that you can get pregnant! Well, I guess I'd better go put in a tampon now!"

Reader, I put in a tampon. And lo, I have been putting in tampons these many years since. Nor have I ever lost the sense of gratitude I had that day. I was not a freak. I did not have to sleep with Chet. Neither I nor anyone else would ever again be forced to wear those hideous white leggings. The thing that I had been fearing and coveting for two years had finally happened - and it didn't hurt as much as I'd been told, it didn't make me crazy, it wasn't terrible or wonderful, it was so fundamentally unremarkable that I didn't even know it had happened. Once upon a time, I had no period; now, I had a period. It didn't change me. It was just there.

Which is why girls talk and write about it, often in a detailed and explicit way. It's just there. Vaginas are not the mystical dictators of a woman's inner experience; they just happen to be around. The shame or fear or worship of anything related to the vagina, the mystification and heaping of positive or negative values on it, is fundamentally silly, like being scared of your left ankle. TMI? Oh, spare me. There are nine million articles published daily about women's skin and hair and teeth and noses and waistlines and upper arms and every other part of their bodies; assuming that the vag is the one unspeakable thing, or demanding that we always present it as a clean perfect man-pleasing baby-making machine, only contributes to women feeling estranged from their own experience.

There was only one regret I really had about the incident of the white leggings: I never got to see Chet's trampoline. I rued that one for a while. Then, a year later, my family got one, and it was all OK.

I Want You to Want Me. Oh, No, Wait, I Want Crispin Glover!

Hey, ladies! It's ten in the morning on a Monday! This means that, as you are all drinking your coffees and checking your e-mails and cursing the Lord God Almighty for the eight-hour work day and its wicked helpmeet, the five-day work week, it's time to talk about... YOUR VAGINA!

Yes, I know, this is totally appetizing, and exactly what you wanted to be thinking about right now. You can thank me later. Did you know, ladies, that your vaginas are all turned on by pornography? All types of pornography can do this to your vagina, says certified vagina scientist Meredith Chivers in the New York Times: straight people pornography, lesbian lady pornography, gay man pornography, even bonobo pornography! She knows this because there is some kind of terrifying vagina monitor that she stuck up a bunch of lady research subjects ("But I was here for the Xanax trials!") and observed that the vaginas in question got all lubed up after exposure to said porns. Yet the ladies, in clear defiance of the dictates imposed by their vaginas, only reported arousal when watching the pornography that corresponded to their preferred form of humping. This means that either (a) lubrication and feeling turned on are two different things, or (b) your brain is LYING because it doesn't want anyone to know your vagina is such a perv.

Now, there is a perfectly sensical explanation for this finding, and it is as follows: rape (or "unwanted vaginal penetration," as the Times and/or certified vagina scientist Meredith Chivers cheerfully call it) is a violent act that causes physical injury; if your vagina automatically lubes up in the presence of sexual signifiers, your chances for severe internal injury are somewhat diminished. (Though not in a huge way! And this should in no way be interpreted as a signal from your body not to fight back! The body, it has defense mechanisms; this is maybe one. That is all.) This theory has already been put forth, most notably by Natalie Angier in her (TEN-YEAR-OLD) book Woman: An Intimate Geography, so there's no chance the Times would devote this much space to such an interesting and relatively non-newsy finding unless they could find some way to attach a ridonkulous, out-of-date, totally sexist generalization to it, so the whole time you are reading this article you are just waiting for it to land and... oh, here it is!

When she peers into the giant forest [that is your vagina - ED.], Chivers told me, she considers the possibility that along with what she called a “rudderless” system of reflexive physiological arousal, women’s system of desire, the cognitive domain of lust, is more receptive than aggressive. “One of the things I think about,” she said, “is the dyad formed by men and women. Certainly women are very sexual and have the capacity to be even more sexual than men, but one possibility is that instead of it being a go-out-there-and-get-it kind of sexuality, it’s more of a reactive process. If you have this dyad, and one part is pumped full of testosterone, is more interested in risk taking, is probably more aggressive, you’ve got a very strong motivational force. It wouldn’t make sense to have another similar force. You need something complementary. And I’ve often thought that there is something really powerful for women’s sexuality about being desired. That receptivity element. At some point I’d love to do a study that would look at that.”

Oh, yes! Women are all turned on by being wanted, having a sexuality that is essentially passive, reflexive, and performative, rather than a biological drive which causes us to pursue sex like The Dudes (but not The Dude; he was too laid-back)! Oh, and this in no way makes sense when applied to lesbian ladies, because basically no girls would ever have sex with any other girls if this were true, because they would all sort of sit around and stare at each other and wait for someone to get turned on so they could reciprocate, and it would never happen! Oh, and women didn't actually report being consciously turned on by all types of pornography, so this makes less sense than ever! Oh, and porn-watching is not sex and fantasy is not reality so it makes no sense to use someone's response to a fantasy scenario to explain their behavior or desires in the real live world! Awesome! Thank you, Science!

Yes, there are many legitimate criticisms to be made of this theory. However, I am choosing to believe it with the full strength of my conviction. This is because, prior to reading this article, I was convinced (through sad experience) that it was possible to get turned on by a dude who did not only not desire me, but actually wanted nothing to do with me. Now I know this is untrue! They were simply hiding their overwhelming passion and/or boners, due to society's harsh constraints. Since I am not a creep, I will not press the issue: however, it's good to know they were all so totally into me all along. Here, I present a photo gallery of Men Who Have Wanted Me through the years.

RAHM EMANUEL: Seems psychotically intense in a way that makes him kind of sexy; wants me.

CRISPIN GLOVER: Seems just plain psychotic in a way that would make dating him a wonderland of Quirks and Issues; wants me.

RIVERS CUOMO: Delicate man-flower (Quirks! Issues!) who makes crappy music; would probably not perform said crappy music while we were making out; therefore, wants me.

PAUL RUDD: Wants me and every single woman I have ever spoken to; posed for this picture.

SPECIAL AGENT FOX MULDER: Fictional; has wanted me since I hit puberty. Perv.

First, Do No Harm. Unless You Feel Like It!

Hey! Who wants to hear some good news? Like, for example, Obama officially becomes President tomorrow, and it's going to be really super inspirational, and when I was at the airport today they were playing one of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speeches on a TV, and this man of color, I think he was in his mid-twenties, sort of left his post at the coffee stand, where he was working, and sidled up to the TV, and turned it alllll the way up, so that King's voice was ringing throughout the terminal and the man stood there, quietly, very solemn, and I was like, this is history, this is what this particular moment in our history looks like, and I almost cried and vowed to be kinder and more self-vigilant and to expand, consciously, on the amount of work I do to make the world better day to day and... awwww, screw it. I knew I shouldn't have read the news today! What is this crap? 

So, a lady went to the doctor to get the strings on her IUD shortened. The nurse practitioner, AKA Sylvia Olona, AKA Defendant Olona, AKA Nurse Judgington, pulled the damn thing right out. Now, I don't personally know how much it hurts to have a surgically implanted device yanked out of your tender ladyflower, but on the scale of 1 to Like a Motherfucker, I am imagining it rates fairly high. So, that's one strike against Nurse J. 

It gets better! While the defendant was no doubt swearing and clutching her abdomen, Defendant Olona explained, chipperly enough, that "I personally do not like IUDs. I feel they are a type of abortion. I don't know how you feel about abortion, but I am against them." 

"Gee, I'm so happy we've gotten to know each other better, Sylvia. Now, PUT THAT BACK IN MY CROTCH BEFORE I STAB YOU TO DEATH WITH IT," the patient (AKA plaintiff) probably did not say, but should have. Then, Defendant Olona patiently explained that, since her patient's choice of birth control conflicted with her own personal beliefs about what should and should not go in a vagina, she would not be inserting a new IUD. 

Say, guess who can't get fired? Yes, thanks to President "My Name's Ironic, If You're In Third Grade" Bush and his farewell fuck-you to the becervixed population, Plaintiff X can sue Olona and the Rio Rancho Family Health Center all she likes, but the people who (bewilderingly) hired her cannot simply get rid of her because she is a bad nurse and a terrifying person, or the center will risk losing its funding. Want another quote from Defendant Olona? Here you go: 

Defendant Olona stated, 'Everyone in the office always laughs and tells me I pull these out on purpose because I am against them, but it's not true, they accidentally come out when I tug.' 

Ha! Ha! Olona might be intentionally and consciously causing her patients physical and emotional pain due to her unwarranted and reprehensible attempts to control their bodies and deprive them of reproductive choice! Oh, the quirks of modern medical life! Oh, it's just like an episode of Scrubs! Ha! Ha!

Anyway, I have decided that I must be a part of the solution, not simply a person who reports on the problem. Therefore, I have decided upon a course of action that I believe to be one hundred percent effective: I am going to become a surgeon. I only hope that this does not interfere with my religious beliefs of Amputology! 

Yes, it's true, I'm an Amputologist. You see, I believe that long ago, when we were all souls trapped in the Spirit Volcanos of Scalpulon, we were chosen to incarnate upon this earth in order to become wiser and learn to use very sharp knives. Our adversary, Regenerato, believed that our human shells were not fit for this great and terrible knowledge. Therefore, he sends his emissaries, the Starfish People, to deceive us and keep us from using the very sharp knives that are our birthright. The Starfish People look just like us, with one exception: if you cut their limbs off, they will grow right back! It is important to unmask these Starfish People. Therefore, if you ever encounter someone in a very deep, drug-induced state of passivity - like, say, anesthesia induced for the purposes of surgery - you should cut off something of theirs, maybe a finger or a hand, or (if you are really in doubt) a leg or two. If it grows back, you've found a Starfish, which must be destroyed; if not, a sister or brother human, who can sport their human limblessness with deep spiritual pride. 

Now, I know what you are saying: would my Amputologist morals not conflict with my duties as a surgeon? To you, I say: they would not! Oh, there might be some giggles in the break room about my tendency to lop the limbs off my patients, but really, these are my personal morals, which are beyond question, and are also not at all grounds for me to be fired. Anyway, it's not as if I'm taking all of these calves and forearms off on purpose - they just come off when I happen to hack through them with a bone saw! It's all very innocent and religious, as you can plainly see. 

Anyway: me. Medical school. Surgery. It's going to happen. I can't wait to get my first patient! And, Sylvia? If you ever need treatment? I think we can manage to take you on pro bono. 

[UPDATE: Oh, OK, the clinic is not publicly funded, apparently, so they can totally fire her. So I found their phone number and called to see if anyone would tell me how keeping her around fit in with their - totally noble! - mission of providing family planning services to women in their community! I got me a voicemail. So, while you should NOT HARASS FAMILY PLANNING CLINICS BECAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE YOU A TERRIBLE PERSON, doing a little citizen journalism can be quite enlightening. I guess they just keep her around for laughs! Good to know!]

[Via.]