no boys allowed in the room!!!!

not even hoosteen

http://children.bethelyouthonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/girls-only.jpg

YEAH! I'm in so what do we do in this here room then?

talk about makeup and boys and lisa frank stuff

User BIG HOOS aka the steendriver has been successfully banned from the thread

is this where we talk about shoes and dryer sheets

in a word: y

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I am down with talking about all those things.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0G0KeGZNnU0/SOkLif0annI/AAAAAAAAAJE/P4llZRVs8yQ/s320/8baeded0.gif

and swiffers

i hate the swiffer btw

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q37/abileen/LisaFrankPenguin.jpg

You hate the Swiffer? I was thinking of gettin' one tbh.

i dunno maybe it will improve your life but my mom got me one and it had a neutral effect afaic

i wish clarissa from clarissa explains it all posted here

http://i3.ebayimg.com/05/i/001/21/3c/6ea4_1.JPG

http://i2.ebayimg.com/06/i/001/3c/79/400c_1.JPG

lol

i'm glad oprah doesn't post here except i would like to suggest ban her

MJH was a bitch to me (as covered on another recent thread) so I don't have that much <3 for Clarissa :-(

JTT <3333333333333333

http://www.cmongethappy.com/ccorner/tigerbeat1.jpgp

:-(

http://www.cmongethappy.com/ccorner/tigerbeat1.jpg

we can do this here

http://handson.provocateuse.com/images/photos/james_franco_01.jpg

http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/James_Franco/james_franco_image.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/121/277978882_7d9d9521fe_o.jpg

I totally had this game btw:

http://collegecandy.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/girl_talk_box_cover.jpg

also we can make those paper fortune tellers and tell each others fortunes, in fact i am gonna make one right now

who are:

lisa frank
mjh
clarissa

haha what was the other game that was kinda like girl talk but it had men u could date?

x-post OK yeah, am definitely up for doing that.

GOD DAMN:

http://www.styletraxx.com/JamesFranco.jpg

i recall having this but i don't believe my mom would let me have it so i'm confused
http://www.boardgamesrus.com/images/Mall%20Madness%20G61.gif

xpost justine:

lisa frank designed crazy school supply items like some of the dolphin-festooned things you see on this thread, she was v popular with middle school aged girls in the early-mid 90s

melissa joan hart is mjh, she played the title role in "clarissa explains it all" which was a popular nickelodeon television show for the same age of girls at roughly the same time

i hate to be gabbneb, but i actually did briefly date a guy who kinda looked like james franco, esp as he is in this picture:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1940000/images/_1944248_mate_pa.jpg

anyways he was mad dumb

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/081027/Freaks-And-Geeks/James-Franco-Express_l.jpg

love u boo

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

right??????

man i so rarely like a pinup type of dude it is kinda cool when i do cause then you can like commiserate about it with other girls

LOL yeah he's defintely just well . . . dreamy.

dryer sheets?

yes james franco is a universal.

he's 2 years older than me?!

dryer sheets and other products for the home lol

yeah what's the with dryer sheets? I'm allergic to most fabric softeners so I have to use hippy dippy all natural stuff that doesn't work all that great but is at least something.

how old r u

i hate dryer sheets, they are pointless

i don't like anything that makes things smell like anything!

Mr. Franco and I are 4 mo. and 10 days apart in age and I believe he's currently attending my alma matter.

http://www.mblcosmeticsandmore.com/files/2343446/uploaded/Loves%20Baby%20Soft.jpg

?

damn erica lol

http://lee.org/journal/journal%20030104-043004/jean-nate.jpg

en vaporisateur

hahahaha touche

yall check out this creepy ad btw:

http://rgh.cc/albums/userpics/10001/%5Bcreepy%5Dloves-baby-soft-ad-c1976.jpg

(wait - I dind't actually know that . . . I looked it up just now. Just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was some franco-obsessed crazy person)

ew rapey

xp

ok yeah, that is exceptionally creepy

I appreciate the offer — def not my style or I’d have spoken up about it myself. Being free from having to give up my creative energy to them is enough for me.

i have to admit that i am not sure i have that same faith or belief. at least not within my lifetime. the global appetite for sexual violence isn't going to disappear or even fade because of logic, facts, or words. :(

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera)

oh i don't believe it because i think it's true or that there's evidence for it. i believe it because i _need_ to. because it keeps me out of despair. it's so easy for me to draw conclusions from what i've seen, the men who treat me like a traitor to their kind, to the extent that a lot of people seem to genuinely want to kill me _just for being a woman_, the way the few men who genuinely listen so often turn out not to be men after all, the sheer extent to which men will fuck up their own lives rather than just _listen to women_...

the "stay in your lane" thing is a good point. of all the threads here i don't want to talk here too much, simply because, quite honestly, issues facing trans women are talked about more here than issues facing cis women. i don't think that's right or fair. there are way more cis women in the world than trans people, and there's this tendency to want to talk about trans issues to the _exclusion_ of issues facing cis women, who, unlike me, have been told their whole lives that they don't have the _right_ to speak. people have only been telling me that for five years.

i also, before transition, i didn't want to _listen_ to women. i thought, genuinely thought, that if i listened to women i would be invading women's spaces. i don't know for sure, but it occurs to me that some cis men might see it the same way. i didn't understand back then the difference between talking over someone and listening, and i feel like a lot of men seem to have that same conceptual problem. like, to me, "no boys allowed in the room" doesn't mean that men aren't allowed to _read_ what we have to say here, just, like, shut up and listen, they might learn something.

(as always i have difficulty taking my own advice lol)

i mean, i don't know everything. it's frustrating to me that men _aren't_ paying attention, _aren't_ listening, don't seem to _understand_ that the pelicot case is not an exception, it is a _rule_, the rule of patriarchy...

and people change when they have to (or else they die, i guess), and i guess a lot of gen x and early millennial guys don't have to change the way i had to change. my hope isn't so much that men under patriarchy will suddenly start seeing us as human beings. it's that they'll one day figure out that patriarchy _isn't working for them either_. they can blame us for protecting ourselves as much as they want, but it's not going to make their lives better. we can't be who they want us to be. we can't give them what patriarchy tells them is _their birthright_. there's something david lynch said in the third season of twin peaks that gets quoted a lot in the circles i run in. he said, "I told them, 'Fix your hearts or die.'" that's not a _threat_. that's, well, a fact, a fact that's true whether they believe it or not.

they _are_ the ones with the power, and their lives could be so fucking much better if they could just... walk away. not all of them _can_ walk away the way i walked away. when i talk to men i try to focus on that, not because i'm being... disingenuous, or trying to appease them, but because i genuinely believe it. i genuinely believe that a man's life is better when he rejects patriarchy. i listen to so many trans men and they're just like any other men, not better or worse, except because of their lived experience they _understand_ things, they've had to _think_ about things, that most men don't. they're not _special_. any man can do it. some cis men _are_, and they're a tiny minority, and nearly _all_ of them are queer, but i think as time goes on, as patriarchy gets more rigid, inflexible, more and more men will walk away from it.

if i have to come up with a reason to believe - and i do - that's the reason.

btw, much respect to those who yell and scream. it's _necessary_. those of us who do get punished a lot for it - the word "hysterical" springs to mind - but sometimes, it's necessary.

gyac, thanks for posting. I'm so sorry you have experienced what you have. I'm totally with you that this is a huge public story that says a lot. I'm not greatly surprised by the lack of male discussion on it here. tbh I don't even know what I could say about the crimes - it's horrific. it's like there's too much evil to process.

although I am at the point of ignoring awful world events myself at the moment so I can't say anything.

quite honestly, issues facing trans women are talked about more here than issues facing cis women.

We tried. I think ilx has gotten less sexist, less homophobic, and more...conscious, if you will. But a lot of women disappeared off the boards in the process. I've taken long breaks where I was barely here, I'm sort of just coming back from one of those bc I have more free time now. But a lot of the time I scan threads and there's nothing I care about or have an interest in.

If I cared that much I should try to start threads that would attract input but that's too much work and I don't want to put myself out there as a culture leader, I just want to participate in lively discussions & sharing thoughts but I don't get that here much any more.

I miss getting more news and links from ilx, there used to be much more spirited and interesting politics and global news threads with smart analysis from a wider variety of people. It does feel a bit like the same 15 people everywhere now. Maybe we're all tired.

I miss getting more news and links from ilx, there used to be much more spirited and interesting politics and global news threads with smart analysis from a wider variety of people. It does feel a bit like the same 15 people everywhere now. Maybe we're all tired.

I'm a bit bothered by how many ILXors are having religious revelations lately. I've never seen that kind of thing end up well.

I'm a bit bothered by how many ILXors are having religious revelations lately. I've never seen that kind of thing end up well.

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo

I'm not gonna say never, but yeah, that can cause problems, particularly if the religious revelations relate to an inherently patriarchal religion like Christianity. I'd like there to be a thread where I could talk about the way religious trauma continues to affect me without immediately getting some #NotAllChristians response, but I do have to think about look, is it worth the effort.

We tried. I think ilx has gotten less sexist, less homophobic, and more...conscious, if you will. But a lot of women disappeared off the boards in the process. I've taken long breaks where I was barely here, I'm sort of just coming back from one of those bc I have more free time now. But a lot of the time I scan threads and there's nothing I care about or have an interest in.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit)

I mean, I think it has been successful. I've learned a great deal by listening to women and, well, not-men here, and I do value greatly what I've learned. And that does get taken for granted, I think, and always has been. There are fewer of us now, and we're older, but I think there is a great deal of value in women our age to still be able to talk in the company of men our age, men from a generation who weren't necessarily inclined to listen to women in the first place and who are, disappointingly, often less inclined to do so over time.

If I cared that much I should try to start threads that would attract input but that's too much work and I don't want to put myself out there as a culture leader, I just want to participate in lively discussions & sharing thoughts but I don't get that here much any more.

It's the expectation. The fewer women there are, the greater the expectation, the greater, honestly, the burden. It's choosing to be A Woman - a "culture leader", I like that phrasing - when one wants to be just, like, a person, and be treated as a person. People perceived as cis white men have that privilege, and everyone else just doesn't. Being just "a person" means choosing to not respond to the casual patriarchal bullshit that a lot of guys just _don't_ seem to notice and bearing the weight of that. At some point it gets easier to just _not_.

-

Anyway. I'm up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, like usual, and I've been thinking about the Pelicot case, and I guess I do want to talk about my own experience as a SA victim, and how, to me, it does exemplify, did happen because of, patriarchal beliefs about consent, and that it reflects an experience that is just.. the _norm_ for women, and _not_ the norm for men. I've spoilered it for content.

I don't remember exactly - well, that's the first thing, I guess, we're supposed to remember everything EXACTLY and that's not how memory works. I don't remember exactly how long we'd been dating. I remember that I was over at their place. I'd been there before, and we just enjoyed each other's company. We'd watch movies. Cuddle on the couch. I felt relaxed and at ease around them.

I'd told them I didn't want to have sex with them. I remember doing that, unprompted. It was important to me. I wanted to be romantically involved with them, I was attracted to them, but I wasn't ready for sex. I'd said that before. And then that night, we were making out, and I said again that I didn't want to have sex with them, and they said OK. And we wound up having sex, and I wound up staying the night. I remember that because when I went home the morning after, the person I lived with was mad at me, that I hadn't told them I wouldn't be coming home. I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't think of myself as having been sexually assaulted. All I knew was that I felt shitty and I didn't know why. Shitty enough that the person I lived with, who mattered a lot to me, being mad at me wasn't something I cared about, even though normally I would have been really emotionally affected by it.

A lot of why I had sex with them was because I felt like if I didn't, they wouldn't be _interested_ in me romantically. No matter how they felt about me as a person, if I wasn't willing to have sex with them when they wanted it, I didn't feel like they'd want to be with me. They told me that at one point later on, that if I hadn't had sex with them they would've broken up with me. I don't know if they meant it. They said a lot of contradictory stuff that was hard for me to make sense of. But they did say it, and I did believe it when they did, and I know it's normal, normal for a man to break up with a woman because she won't have sex with him when he wants to.

It's still a lot easier for me to tell myself that I consented. My rapist told me that I consented. The hardest thing to explain is that I don't think it was malicious, that I don't think they're a bad person. They said that I'd initiated it, that I'd WANTED it, and that I hadn't told them I didn't want to have sex with them. IDK. It was easy to believe them. I mean, what was the benefit of thinking of myself as a rape victim? There was nothing I could do about it. And I did still care about them, I was still attracted to them romantically, I did still want to continue a relationship with them. Partly because they're overall... I mean, I feel stupid for saying this, but aside from the sexual assault, the relationship was a really good one. They're a really great person and we really "clicked" as a couple. That's one of the reasons it's so hard for me to talk about, because I DON'T want to give the impression that the other person was a Bad Person, even though they raped me, even though they went on to sexually assault me over the entire length of our relationship.

That I talk about it all... a big part of why is because I still don't want to believe it happened. That it was consensual. I don't want it to define my life, but it still does, more than I'd like it to be. Both now, in that I feel like I still have to keep talking about it, and, well, it fucked up our relationship. Whenever they'd get near me I'd get really anxious, my heart would start beating out of my chest. And I wouldn't want to admit it because I didn't want to think I didn't LIKE them, that I wasn't attracted to them. I didn't know what was wrong with me, why I couldn't trust them. I was sure it was me, though. Whatever it was, it was my fault. I felt really bad about it. I apologized to them a lot.

They kept sexually assaulting me, of course. Not rape, but other things. They'd touch me intimately when I didn't want to be touched, wouldn't stop touching me intimately when I didn't want to be touched intimately anymore. I had to persuade them to let me go. Every morning. Every time. I felt guilty every time, too. I kept coming to them for intimacy. I craved their touch, their love. I wanted to hold them, to be held by them.

Often, when they touched me when I didn't want to be touched, when I reminded them that I needed them to ask first, they justified it by saying "I can't help it, you're too pretty." They meant it as a joke, and when I told them I took it seriously, they said "Oh, you shouldn't do that." They were charming. I didn't believe them, but they were charming the way they said it, likeable. More _credible_ than I was. I had mental health issues. I had depression, anxiety, some other stuff too, though I didn't know that at the time. Most of the time when they said things that didn't agree with the way I remembered them, I figured they were right. I don't always remember things correctly. Nobody does, of course.

I couldn't sleep in the same bed with them. My problem, of course. Sometimes I tried to sleep in the same bed as them. Once I got angry in my dreams and punched the pillow next to me. They weren't there, but I was horrified by what I'd done. I didn't ever want to do that to them, even unconsciously. I loved them.

Ultimately the sexual assault and abuse was a huge part of why I broke up with them. They were frustrated that I wasn't sexually receptive to them, and we went to counseling, and the counselor, she meant well, but she said you know, it was part of a marriage, that my partner had a right to affection. Well, at that point I didn't know what to do other than break up with them, and they're not in my life anymore.

I've struggled a lot with relationships since then. I wasn't really in any relationships before I met them. I broke up with them three years ago and I'm scared to get with other people. I'm scared that people won't want me unless I have sex with them on their terms. I'm scared that people are only interested in me as a warm body, that what I want doesn't matter to them. I'm scared that my own intimate desires will be seen as an imposition, a burden, something that they need to tolerate, just as I tolerated what my ex did to me. I'm scared of presenting in a more feminine manner. I'm scared of being "too pretty". I know I'm an attractive woman, but I find it hard to believe that anybody will want me for me.

When I get lonely sometimes I regret leaving my ex. Sometimes I want to find someone else who will sexually assault me, not because I want to be sexually assaulted, but because I feel like that's all I deserve. That it's the only way anybody will love me. That makes me even more scared. How can I trust myself to seek out appropriate partners when I have these desires? How do I know I'm genuinely seeking love, and not just looking to be hurt like I was in the past? I'm hesitant and unsure of myself, and I feel bad about THAT. I worry that feeling the way I do makes me a predator magnet. It's hard for me to not conceal my feelings, to not be ashamed of my feelings, my desires.

It's not something I feel like I can talk to men about. I talk about my experiences to men and a lot of times they argue with me. I feel like they don't take what I have to say seriously. Even when they don't argue with me, they seldom validate my feelings the way women. If men could just say something as simple as "That's awful, you didn't deserve to have that happen to you", instead of making it about them personally...

Of course a lot of women wouldn't accept what that I'm a rape victim either, and that's hard, but I feel more comfortable talking about it around women, at least. Just because there _are_ a lot of women who will validate what I say, who will stand up for me. Hopefully there's not a fight, because the last thing I want is for women to fight with other women about whether I was REALLY raped. That some women will at least stand up for me, actively stand up for me - that's enough for me to talk about it, despite the risk it will cause a fight.

I hope it's OK for me to talk about it (and I hope the spoiler tags worked!) It's important to me. When people talk about "rape culture", that's what it means to me. What happened to Gisele Pelicot is awful, so much worse than what I went through. I think her speaking up is important, though, because in some sense she's NOT unique. That the same beliefs and values that allowed all those men to do the things they did to her enabled my rapist to do the things they did to me, enables men in general to sexually assault women in general, not as an exception, but as the norm. I wish more men understood that. I wish more men didn't take that as a personal criticism, as me saying that men are somehow bad or evil as a result of their gender. They're not. Men sexually assault women, I believe, because they're not merely permitted, but actively encouraged to do so. So few of them will acknowledge that or admit it. Even if most men don't understand now, well, I think some will listen and learn from what Gisele Pelicot has to say. From what we have to say. If I've been able to listen to women and learn from them, I believe other people can.

i appreciate the spoiler/hidden text -- thank you.

speaking of ilx and casual thoughtlessness, one of the things that, for lack of a better term, fucks me up is opening a thread about music or something innocuous and seeing graphic sexual imagery/language, usually in the form of a joke or an attempt to be comedically hyperbolic. it makes me feel like people truly don't think about who might be reading their posts, or how their posts affect other people. for anyone reading this, please do not do that. choose other words.

(for anyone thinking "that's rich coming from poster 'la lechera'" i advise you to get your mind out of the gutter and onto the grocery shelf)

Who would think that??? A pox on them. Fie. You'll always be the Milkmaid of Human Kindness to me.

lol thank you.
i always anticipate attack, it's part of my malady :(

i can also admit that i have gotten heated when someone referred to me as Lech or La Lech. i don't remember if i said "please don't call me that" but it felt bad.

Nobody would think that in a million years. I'm sure I've used Lech or La Lech before but only because it's shorter/easier and didn't occur to me that it was bad.

like i said, i anticipate being attacked for literally existing -- i am working on it but it's DEEP IN THERE

Who would think that??? A pox on them. Fie. You'll always be the Milkmaid of Human Kindness to me.

I've definitely misunderstood references or allusions before and had my mind jump to a worse/more vulgar association because that's what I'd come to expect from men (or at least fear).

Thanks, kate, for the hidden content. I read it and I've also been through it--not exactly but along some of the same lines. I have a lot of thoughts but not sure I want them on the internet. Suffice to say it is common, extremely common and totally accepted and excused ime.

I'm also thinking about a woman creator on TT who made the point that out of a very large number of pleasant things people can do together, only one particular version of that leads to pregnancy, and that happens to also be the one most normalized that "has" to be available/necessary in a relationship. And, she continued, if you don't think that's true, imagine whether you would still have a relationship if you told someone you would never do that thing again (out of all the things). I...can see some complexities with that example, I don't take it completely at face value, but I also think it's a good thing to think about.

Yeah.

I guess, for me, that is what tends to define monogamy or a romantic relationship as opposed to a platonic one. There are complications when there are disabilities and/or illness involved, so I know it isn’t that simple. But … I see it as up there with cohabitation in terms of things that are generally dealbreakers. There are definitely couples who are content with not living together, just like there are couples who are content with not having sex, but … if there isn’t consensus on the issue, it seems to make more sense to redefine the relationship.

i get off the bus and the guy at the corner says to me "Excuse me, could you give me five, maybe ten dollars? I need it for bullets." this is at, like, 7:30 at night BTW. the men i see on the street are so _angry_ and _violent_ and they've only gotten moreso over the past five years. idk, i don't have a lot of experience - am i misreading? has there always been this level of overt hatred and contempt towards women?

too bad you didn't have any bullets to give him.

i'm sorry that happened to you, kate. idk why these guys can't just let women exist without being weird assholes about it. (referring to all of recorded history here)

I have a question!! Have I not understood ANYTHING?

Someone said that Pap smears, the actual sample gathering, feels like a “tickle” and the other person (a woman) insisted that it HURTS. It’s never hurt me?? Does it hurt?

Nothing that has ever happened to me in an exam has ever hurt (except my IUD stuff). Is that not the norm?

I've never experienced pain from a Pap smear myself. IUD insertion was a 9 out of 10 though.

People are wired very uniquely though - I'm sure it could be agonizing for some folks.

Well that's why I'm asking.

Even the IUD stuff, I wouldn't say that it hurt me like a huge amount compared to injuries I've gotten on the outside of my body, it's just that it feels so wrong coming from the inside. It reminds me of something I read, that if your internal organs are for some reason exposed to open air that isn't body temp, they signal the relatively cold temperature as pain. (It does seem like if your insides are being exposed to the open air there's probably some actual pain happening, presumably they meant other than whatever brought this situation about.)

I have a question!! Have I not understood ANYTHING?

Someone said that Pap smears, the actual sample gathering, feels like a “tickle” and the other person (a woman) insisted that it HURTS. It’s never hurt me?? Does it hurt?

It feels like my deepest most personal insides are being scraped w a spoolie— not pain exactly but massive discomfort and emotional trouble absolutely.

I’d still rather get 50 Pap tests to one root canal.

It’s the pain of something v sensitive being touched with something abrasive under vulnerable (and frankly uncomfortable) conditions, like getting poked in the eye only naked from waist down and it’s cervix not eye.

Every one I’ve had has been uncomfortable, mostly due to the weight of the speculum. When I was 20 a doctor offered me the choice of a plastic disposal speculum (upcharge of $25) and it was so much less uncomfortable. Ive never been offered that option again.

Yeah let’s not forget the speculum 🤮

my cervix is tilted/positioned weirdly and they always have to do some unpleasant maneuvering of the speculum with any pelvic exam. a couple of times i would have described it as actually painful. never had pain from the pap itself

My expired, overdue to be removed IUD appears to be stuck or embedded to some degree and I have to have it yanked out with little to no pain management unless I want to go actually go into the hospital and pay for anesthesia. Which I do not. But neither do I want the former. So I'm doing nothing, which will probably end great, no possible drawbacks there.

Ugh. I was just about to ask if having an IUD removed hurts less than having one inserted. I've got to get a Mirena swapped out later this year, for endometrial precancer management. Getting it inserted was bad - two separate visits, shots of lidocaine in my cervix, a couple weeks of vaginal estrogen that made me feel blergh. I'd rather not get uterine cancer but I'm really not looking forward to this.

I could never even consider getting an IUD bc of how invasive the insertion/removal seems (to me). I’d only go through it if my life was at risk but not voluntarily. I realized how intense my aversion was when I listened to a podcast about a woman who had a bad experience w a birthing center and had to be rushed to ER bc her pregnancy and life were at risk. I could go on and on about the aversion but trust it is strong.

(actually i did not realize it when i listened to the podcast -- i was reminded. it is not something i have thought about in years. fortunately!!)

My experience of having 2 IUD insertions, one removal (mirena):
First insertion was so painful I screamed and almost passed out but it did only last a few seconds. Removal was painless and new insertion was also painless. Idk what the difference was except that the nurse who did the first one was pretty cold and annoyed with me, and dr who did the second was extremely kind, let me know every step she was performing, and asked permission to touch me.

Wow, Justine! Yikes. My insertions were both uncomfortable, I would say, verging on painful in an achey way that made me happy to go home and go to bed. Also I had, as I've said before, misoprostol to help. The one removal was quick and like--ow!--but then over and done with. The current one has been in for a long time, is the problem here.

You know how when you cut yourself, you want to put pressure on the wound and hold it, to fire the neurons and block the pain? Getting hurt on the inside feels like that to me but I can't "sana sana colita de rana" and tap on it as a distraction.

Sorry to everyone who has more intense involvement with these experiences. :(

oh thank god, an excuse to tell my colposcopy story

i'd had a pap smear, i'd hated it, felt like a toilet brush up my guts, very not cool and the interior scraping sensation haunted me for weeks. and then in the mail: congratulations! your results were abnormal so you've won a trip back to the exam table, this time with vinegar and a camera, maybe even a biopsy if you're lucky. awesome. i bought cute new socks for the occasion.

my cute socks and i show up the day of. would i be okay with a nursing student being present? yeah whatever, get everyone in here, let's party. so like 4 ladies are peering up my pried-open spotlit gooch/at the monitor, painting my cervix with acid, and the lights in the room go half off? and a fire drill-esque beepy siren? all the ladies freeze. there's probably some procedure for what to do when the alarm goes off while a patient has a speculum + camera + acid paintbrush all wedged up in them, but it seems to have slipped everyone's mind. they eventually send out the student to see what's happening while they hurriedly snip off a lil chunk of cervix for testing {JESUS FUCKING FUCK UGH OW FUCK btw} and when the student comes back she looks scared and whispers to the others, they all confer nervously by the door too quietly for me to hear -- i am still, of course, up on the exam table for display like a whole raw chicken, having fantasies of crazed gunmen -- and the other ladies scarper, leaving the main nurse practitioner to yank the various apparatuses out of me with a panicked smile on her face, prattling that some mild discomfort for a few days is normal, here's a maxi pad for the bleeding, they should have the test results in about a week, here are my clothes, have a great day, bye, and she's out and i'm alone in this darkened exam room with the alarm still going, my eyes darting around for anything i could use to deflect bullets maybe? anything i might use as a weapon? painfully hopping into my panties and pants while keeping an ear out for gunshots, screaming, police radio in the hallway, any indication of whether/how i'm about to die, but i don't hear anything much and eventually peek out into the hall where staff are huddled whispering in doorways but no one seems to be in fear for their life. the lights are still dimmed and the alarm still bleating but fuck it i need to get home and dissociate for a few years. i'm too awkward to ask any of the strangers around what's happening or what i should do so i just leave the way i came.

they were raising the security gate at the entrance of the clinic as i left, and i never found out what happened.

...and then you woke up, hopefully?
jfc that sounds... not ideal. Hope you have recovered!

i kind of suspect that i've never really recovered from anything ever, but at least the test results came back fine! thank you for your concern, kinder 💚

I had a colposcopy once too — it was awful. What I remember most is being fresh out of college and the doctor asking what my plans were post-graduation. I had no plans and will always remember that as a reason not to ask people what their plans are. I was mortified this man was all up in my business and managing to make me feel even MORE uncomfortable than I obviously already was.

I had a colposcopy once too — it was awful. What I remember most is being fresh out of college and the doctor asking what my plans were post-graduation. I had no plans and will always remember that as a reason not to ask people what their plans are. I was mortified this man was all up in my business and managing to make me feel even MORE uncomfortable than I obviously already was.

Also cat recovery and healing can happen — you have to deliberately work at it but things can get better. I say that as someone much like yourself who had years on years of accumulated unprocessed trauma.

sorry you also had to get colposcoped, LL, and that your doctor found a way to make it even less comfortable! i don't think i could ever have a male gyno poking at me, i'd probably rather take my chances with the cancer. my body just rejects them absolutely, like oh there's a strange dude here? guess i'm about to die. the only times i've had elevated blood pressure readings was when guys took them.

i kind of meant recovery as separate from healing, in the sense of getting back to an idealized "normal" that probably never existed anyway and which i need to accept can never happen, as opposed to healing, which for me would involve accepting my changed circumstances and self, but really this is just me playing around with words in an unserious way

i don't think i can recover as i understand the term, but it's possible i can heal, you know? with work, as you say.

You’re right about that — I’m resilient af and can accept growth and healing but there is no recovery when I’ve been changed from something/s that happened to me. That’s critical to understanding how life isn’t just one dreadful indignity/colposcopy after another. There’s definitely no reset button.

I went with my bff for her colposcopy. They let me be in the room to hold her hand and it was AWFUL. My poor buddy was in shock afterwards. I can’t remember the details since this was 20+ years ago, but she had to go back for another procedure of some kind, maybe a second colposcopy? and she asked if she could be put under for it. They said yes but didn’t inform her of the no eating/drinking thing. We get to the hospital and they’re like ohh you’ll have to be awake since you didn’t fast oh well 🤷‍♀️ which I think is bullshit and they never intended to put her under GA. They tried to coerce her but I grabbed her said guess we’ll just have to reschedule and got her out of there. This is why my husband comes to every dr appointment with me (and I go to his) unless it’s impossible. It sucks but I only feel safe with healthcare professionals if I have an advocate with me.

(apologies)

Doctors urged to treat pain for IUD insertion and other procedures

Countless patients have suffered through in-office gynecological procedures like IUD insertions or cervical biopsies, with nothing more than ibuprofen and white knuckles.

Pain is complex and individual. One patient might feel little to no discomfort and for another it can be excruciating. But some clinicians don't offer pain management because they believe it's unnecessary.

In its new recommendations for cervical and uterine procedures, released last week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says there is "an urgent need" for this to change.

fucking finally

my cervical biopsy was excruciating! & the stupid nurses assistant was saying infantilizing shit like “just breathe in and then out like you’re blowing out a birthday candle” and i’m glaring with tears streaming down my face like OMG LADY IF YOU DONT SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT THE FUCK NOW

reminds me how they used to do surgery on babies without anesthesia because they thought babies couldn't feel pain

if only there was some way to figure out what those crazy cervix-havers are feeling! but i guess we'll never know

i'm sorry for what you went thru, VG!