Medical Autonomy Chronicles: The Virgin Pap Smear
Where did it come from?
A conversation starts about shaming in OB/GYN care, which is an important one.
Suddenly all of these people have flown out of the wood work to make sure that all of we lady folk know that getting our pap smears and pelvic exams is Just! So! Important! Medical and non-medical alike.
They need not even all be lady folk themselves, but experts who have lady relatives who have had their lives saved by paps, so they must impart to us the urgency to spread our thighs and allow ourselves to have invasive medical procedures that we do not want. Medical procedures that can be painful, traumatizing, and even, as has been show, unnecessary.
But there is a whole slew of thing that keep we peeps, and I say “peeps” because I am certain that there are people who do receive pelvic exams and paps who do not identify as women who may also feel bullied or forced into these medical procedures that they do not want as frequently as people feel the need to force us into them.
Why with all the pressure? Even when most of the information I found says every 2-3 years (I think it is worth noting that the Australia site is the only one that has information specifically for people with disabilities)? Even that information is varied. It seems that people, even medical providers pressure people to get paps every year. Especially if you want birth control. There seems to be this habit of holding birth control hostage if you are unwilling to submit to having a metal or plastic instrument shoved into your vaginal and having bits of your cervix dug out.
Even on virgins. Oh, yes. In the U.S., for I can not speak to other nations, there is this fixation with making sure that doctors or other practitioners are the first ones to shove things into the genitals of virgins girls seeking birth control, whether or not she is seeking it for sex. Even though there are several good medical reasons why she could want birth control that don’t involve wanting to partake in heterosexual intercourse.
When I was fourteen, I was having period cramps from hell. I was bleeding like a stuck pig for three days straight out of ten. I would need to miss at least one day of school a month due to period cramps because I couldn’t get out of bed from the pain. Sometimes I would vomit from the pain.
Eventually, the cramping starting coming when I wasn’t having my period. I was having cramping so bad that I was begging to miss school during this time as well. I remember my mother thinking I was a hypochondriac around this time of my life. She would sometimes groan, and often joke to her friends that I always thought something was wrong with me. I would often try to hide pain from her because I didn’t want her to laugh or make fun of me. She even had our doctor convinced that I was making things up. When I finally got in to see him, he chucked, and without really examining me, told me I had Mittelschmerz, and that what I needed was to stop coddling my body during my cramps and to get up and start being active during my cramps. This would not be the first doctor my mother convinced to laugh at my pain in my life.
So, I tried following his advice, and I would damn near pass out during gym class or band. The pain was so bad that I couldn’t eat and it would bring me to tears, dizziness, and I would dry heave. Finally my mother took me to the doctor again, who finally did an ultrasound and determined that I had large ovarian cysts that were causing me to have painful periods. I needed to see a gynecologist for a consult.
On top of being worried that anyone at church would think that I was having sex (because I knew so little about sex education at the time that I thought that the GYN was only for people having sex or babies), I was nervous. Incredibly nervous. I thought for sure that everyone thought that I had done something already and was lying about it. The gynecologist was the brother of my science teacher, and we were in a relatively small town. I was so worried that someone would KNOW WHERE I WAS. Also, that I was A LYING SEX HAVING SLUT!
Yes, I had cysts, and the doctor said that the best treatment was going to be to put me on the birth control pill (OH THE MORTIFICATION!) because it would help reduce them and ease my period. It was supposed to reduce my period and help them be shorter and lighter (let’s get this clear, for me this was a lie! I still have 8-9 day periods that are reminiscent of a butcher shop). He wanted to know if I was sexually active (OH MY GOD DID HE JUST SAY THAT WAS HE TALKING TO ME *FACE FLUSHING SCARLET*), and even though I said no, I had to have a pelvic exam and pap smear anyway, because that was routine procedure for prescribing birth control. (Wait. What?)
My mother had dropped me off and signed all the consent forms. How nice of her. I had no idea what was going on. What? OK. I guess so. What did that mean? You want to put WHAT? WHERE?
Suddenly this doctor, this man, whom I didn’t really know but looked an awful lot like my eighth grade science teacher, which made me really uncomfortable, was feeling my breasts, telling me that I needed to do the same thing in the shower (Uh-huh, OK, keep looking at the ceiling. That was nice of them to put a poster up there…). I had to put my feet in stirrups, which reminded me of riding horses as our friend’s farm, and certainly didn’t put me at ease. I was naked, and I had never been naked in front of any man who was not may Daddy trying to help me dress for bed, and that hadn’t been since I was about ten, and it wasn’t like this.
I was asked to slide down until I was squatting. There was cold jelly, and a metal thing, and even though he was talking to me through most of it, I remember the poster of the wooded lake on the ceiling, with the bridge over it, with one of those quasi-religious inspirational sayings on it. Suddenly I was being penetrated by metal objects and fingers…and it felt wrong and awful and I just was always told that this shouldn’t happen… not like this. Hot tears ran down my face. He asked if I was OK as he felt around inside me while pressing down on the outside of me at the same time. I could only nod, afraid of what my voice would sound like if I gave in to it. I don’t even know why they bother with gowns. They are laid open, and my whole being, my essence felt exposed on the cold crunchy paper. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I shoved them into my hair, and pulled tight.
I didn’t know that doctors ever did this.
(The poster has a lake…are those birch trees?)
And it hurt. And he felt my ovaries to check for the cysts. And he took his sample…and it felt like a sample of my soul left me.
For all the talk of how having sex outside of marriage or whatever message had been pounded on me for however long, and how it would leave me hollow and leave me feeling worthless and damaged, and for all the ways I had been told that casual sex would leave me reeling and feeling depressed and with a hole of missing self-esteem, nothing I did in my consensual sex life has ever compared to the way that pelvic exam and pap smear felt to me, a fourteen year old girl. A person rising on the crest of womanhood, not yet there but ready to fly, and having had myself violated before I took my first steps.
I left that doctor’s office with a script in my hand and a hole in the depths of my soul and a hollow in my heart. I walked to my friend’s house, because I remember that my mother was on second shift. A long and lonely walk toting my French horn, the plastic molding of the case banging against my shin. They were the kind of friends that had become a second family to me, who kind of took me in as the kid who needed looking after sometimes and loved me intensely. I remember the mother, telling her where I had been and what had happened. And while I have never experienced what I consider sexual assault outright, I can imagine that this must be an ember of that fire. I cried, feeling dirty and awful and ashamed, as she held me.
My friend’s mother looked me in the face and leaned against the carved post dividing the kitchen, holding my face in her hands, as I looked into her angular face, with her short wavy hair, and her kind, almost smirkish smile that always had a way of washing comfort over me.
“Being a woman is Hell”, she said, which surprised me a bit, this being back in my church days. “Going to the gynecologist can feel as embarrassing as Hell, but it won’t always be so awful”. She hugged me against her shoulder, and brought me some Texas Sheet Cake, because it seems that chocolate could always help me calm down sometimes. Or maybe is was a combination thing.
I wonder if maybe it is a combination thing. If maybe I had been informed a little more and had an iota of a clue about women’s health care, and what a pelvic exam and pap smear is all about.
Or, maybe if things like pap smears aren’t forced upon young people who are not sexually active, or upon people who don’t want them. If we don’t hold birth control hostage. If we don’t do things like force people to the outside of their own health care, we might be more prepared. We need to set clear guidelines (OH WAIT! ACOG!) to make sure that folks know what doctors are expecting and what is actually needed, so they can be aware of what is suggested to keep them healthy. This “maybe every year, but it is really only needed every so-and-so years, but, hrmmm…we feel like doing it every two years stuff” isn’t cutting it. We have a right to know the guidelines, and to insist that we only have invasive medical procedures as often as needed. Not as often as someone else who is not us feels like it. Even Scarleteen, a site I love, is vague on the expectations of the requirements for paps and pelvics. We need our medical professionals to stick to what ACOG has laid out (or, in my case, I would like them to just be aware of what ACOG has put out before I am), so we can get a standard measure of care. ACOG has said the risk of being treated for a false positive is not worth testing every year.
Really.
When I see articles like this, I realize it is more about making sure we control women, who just can’t be left to their own medical decisions! They are all so silly! This isn’t about shaming women for being nervous or embarrassed (for very good reason). This is about understanding that people have a right to autonomy over their own bodies. Yes, even teenagers! (I know, I am so silly, thinking they might be people who have thoughts about their medical care!) And health care is a part of that autonomy. An important part.
Education, consistency, and plain ol’ listening to patients might help. Listening to women and people in general who have to have these procedures might be a step. Re-evaluating the reasons for insisting on them for simple things like birth control, especially for non-sexual reasons in virgin teenagers might be a step. Being more compassionate to people experiencing GYN care for the first time — or even in general — might be a step. Including women in conversations about their reproductive care might be a step.
But demanding, shaming, controlling, hostage taking of parts of care? That is not helping.
It could kill, and I venture to say it will do the opposite of what all of your concern-trolling of reproductive health is intending to do.
Kid had it right, learned it in Pre-school even: My face, my space. My body, my business.
Monday Random Ten
Happy Monday!
There was a nice thunderstorm today, which, while it spoiled our pool plans, did have a nice calming effect on some other parts of me today. *LOVE* Thunderstorms.
I dedicate this MRT to the Smashing Pumpkins concert which we will NOT be attending because I refuse to pay the obscene amount of money being asked for the tickets to go see Billy Corgan and the people who are not James, D’arcy and Jimmy. Love Billy’s voice as I do (and as much as I would love to reminisce about how he was indeed my high school fantasy boyfriend…), I voted no.
On with it.
- Good Stuff — Shakira
- Falling In Love (In Hard On The Knees) — Aerosmith
- Hey Bulldog — Alice Cooper (From Butchering the Beatles)
- Superfast Jellyfish (featuring Gruff Rhys & De La Soul) — Gorrillaz
- Away — Breaking Benjamin
- Dirrty — Christina Aguilera Featuring Redman
- Seven Days to the Wolves — Nightwish
- Hottrack — MC 몽 (Mong)
- You’re Out — Wonder Girls
- My Blue Heaven — Smashing Pumpkins
Video:
Cover of “Landslide” sung by Billy Corgan (Lyrics) in a long-sleeved t-shirt with a giant spider on it (I swear I have that shirt in short-sleeved! Oh Billy!) with his iconic shaved head, playing the acoustic guitar.
This one I remember quite distinctly from my youth, sitting entranced seeing my favorite song performed live. At that point in my life I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss D’arcy or be D’arcy. I had a lot of undisclosed emotions back then and no one to talk to them about.
Video: “Tonight, Tonight” The Smashing Pumpkins (Lyrics) live at the MTV Music Awards in 1996, playing with an orchestra, and a projection of space scenes flowing in the background. Corgan, bald again, is wearing a black,floor-length something or another with a star-theme on it that almost glows in the dark. D’arcy and James are wearing creme coloured outfits, James a swingin suit with his awesome hair, and D’arcy a knee-length dress that I tried to find for a dance that year. Her hair is awesome and swept up. The drummer of course is wearing black, because drummers get no love and should be invisible, even if in this song there are some righteous runs.
OK. I’m done.
Enjoy and have a great week.
(photo from the decibel tolls)
Holding My Breath
I was never the mother I was told I would be.
I was told that I would have this baby that I would be gushing over, and while things were gushing, indeed, I was more on the terrified and relieved end of emotions than fervent love.
Love came, as I adjusted to this stranger in my life, who brought mixed emotions slamming to the forefront for me to deal with, but it came with the time it takes to meet any person in my life whom I must grown to love.
I was told that I would want to stand and watch her sleep, holding my breath to make sure she was breathing.
Instead, I swaddled her, nursed her, kissed her, laid her gently in her bassinet or Pack N’ Play, and for some reason I was perfectly trusting that she was fine. I was calm, I was at ease, and thankfully, that trust was rewarded. Motherhood wore on me as easily as a broken in hoodie. I had my doubts … (Am I nursing enough? Why isn’t she pooping? Do I rush to her too soon when she cries?) but I was relaxed. It felt casual. Apart from exhaustion and lack of sleep (and an issue with some cracked body parts), I felt like this was going to be OK. Her life was solid in my shaking hands.
I was told that when she was learning to walk I would try to pad my whole life with protective barriers, put all my dear treasures away for twelve years, and hold my breath as she learned to walk.
But the most vivid memory is of her standing against the wall, screaming at me, because she learned how to walk along the wall, but couldn’t figure out how to get down to the ground to crawl, or away from it to walk to me. She would stop, look at me, and then scream. I sat two feet away from her, gently encouraging her to do one or the other. Eventually, she dropped to her butt and did her signature “butt scoot”, but she stopped yelling at me to solve her problem, and figured out how to solve it herself. I didn’t worry about edges of coffee tables or nick-knacks on shelves. We worked together, and worked within life as we knew it, instead of changing our life. If we didn’t teach her boundaries, and just removed everything from her reach, when would she learn? I think my grandparents new favorite phrase became “taa-taa” (some word passed down in my family for “bring that thing you shouldn’t have to me!”) as we pulled together to keep the learning environment secure.
I have been told that as she grew she would pull away from me, that I would hold my breath back from silent tears that would fall. That she would talk to me less and less, because I couldn’t be parent and friend, and that she wouldn’t share with me.
That one, granted, made me worry a bit. Being a bonded unit for so long, I worried that some unseen force would undo what I worked so hard to establish. The sense that I don’t control her, that I guide her through things, try to show her the choices ahead of her, and try to provide her with a secure environment to make them herself, even if she chooses a wrong one once in a while (we learn from mistakes, after all) reassured me that I was doing right by her. I could, in theory, force her to choose the things I want her to choose, but that won’t help her to grown into a person in her own right. All I can do is talk to her about all of the choices in front of her, give her room to talk to me about them, and how the situations surrounding those choices make her feel (there is a great book called How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk that I recommend, and have taken parenting classes based on it. I can’t say enough how helpful it is!). As hard as it is sometimes, I keep my own opinions to myself (as much as some will be disinclined to believe this), because, I want more than anything for her to form those for herself, with the information laid out for. And so far, it has worked. And I have breathed more easily for it.
But every now and again, now that she is older, now that she is asserting her physical independence, I hold my breath. Letting her out of my sight, letting her go around the corner to a water fountain at the hospital while I sit in the waiting room, letting her go to the car to get her book from her seat, letting leave the PX to use the bathroom in the mall plaza alone … I hold my breath. I don’t know when I began to worry, or when I stopped being so relaxed. When the fragility of her tiny body became less, and my panic became more, but at some point one smoothed into the other, and I have found myself an outsider to my own rationale. I want to hold her hand crossing the street. I want to keep her close to me. Sometimes when I see her arguing with kids on the playground I want to run in and break it up. She stopped needing me to be a shield and I suddenly have an urge to provide it. Sometimes even letting her run inside the school to grab her forgotten backpack alone makes my heart stop a moment.
It’s odd.
I suppose it is part of growing up. For me, not for her. Or maybe for both of us. We have done so much growing up together already, me being so young when she was born.
Part of it for me, at least, will be remembering how to breathe, as she learns how to take her wings.
Race, Disability, Ms. Magazine (Again), and Mythbusting the IUD
It happens every now and again. Someone writes something really remarkable. A post or article that is so full of win that I want to give it as much attention as possible. It has a ring of truth that many people don’t want to read, especially segments (HA! Segments. By segments, I mean most of feminism.) of feminism that believe that reproductive justice is a one-size-fits-all movement and that we should all snap-to and join together, because all of our interests are equally yoked in the fight. A strike of brutal honest fact that shows that some victory has been won, historically over the backs of others.
But then I read it and I see some little segment of non-truth, some swipe that isn’t as well-done as the rest that leaves me with a sour taste and I see it as equally harmful to some.
That can be said of this almost-home-run piece by Nicole Guidotti-Hernández at Ms. Magazine’s blog. It isn’t a secret that I have my share of issues with Ms. or their blog, like their ridiculous Obama as Superman cover or the recent blog post about how all us disabled folk were a hive mind of dupes working for the anti-choice movement. The difference being that Guidotti-Hernández’ piece was actually good. Solid. The reproductive justice movement, and feminism in general, has thrived on as marginalized women have laboured, forgotten. White women, rich, well-off women marched on to vote, enjoy their new freedom, and gain rights and non-white women nursed their children, and disabled women stayed in the corners forgotten as worthless and unworthy anyway.
Nicole had me until the part where she seemed to be dissing on IUDs:
Yet, I can’t help but think of a recent visit to the gynecologist (not my usual one, but an affiliate in the practice at the University Medical Center in Tucson), at which the doctor kept insisting that I consider an IUD even though I am unmarried and have no children. As a recently tenured faculty member with a hyphenated “Latino” name, this unwavering persistence that I need an IUD–or, rather, am a good candidate for one–and therefore not needing to reproduce, suggests that reproductive racism is alive and well, even for an Ivy-league educated Chicana. It makes me wonder how many other Latinas, educated or not, are being pushed to control their reproduction with this subtle racism that is the dark underbelly of reproductive justice.
I can sympathize with her feelings of frustration here. My own heritage is full of women who were forcibly sterilized. Perhaps what she senses was happening is in fact what was going on. I don’t know. I am not one to fully discount institutional racism. I know all too well what it feels like to feel like your provider isn’t listening to you, maybe even better than she does. There is no excuse for a provider to not listen to your wishes. It still doesn’t change the rest of it. It is also entirely possible that she had a doctor who was simply trying to give her the best possible birth control option for her, and that because she hasn’t researched the IUD properly, and that she is spreading myths about it, that she was dead set against hearing that it was that: a great choice for her. Having “Native American” stamped in my medical record didn’t make obtaining my one any easier. I had insurance on my side, and even my “white” appearance, getting me more than one odd glance when what they see doesn’t match what they read. I am forgetful with pills. I am horrible with getting refills. I have all kinds of complications that interact with hormones, and more reasons than fingers for doctors to dissuade me from having more children. And yet, I have had the opposite experience. Twice.
It is also no secret how I love my IUD. How I have had to fight to get it. Why is that you ask? Why did I have to fight to get it?
Because people seem to be caught up in the days when IUDs in the U.S. were getting a bad rap for still being dangerous, and it seems that most people — women, nurses, doctors, preachers, whathaveyou — can’t be bothered to pick up the latest literature and brush up on what is so awesome about IUDs, or so safe, convenient, affordable (for a privileged sect), and practical.
Modern IUDs, available in two forms: The plastic hormonal and the copper non-hormonal (Mirena and Paraguard in the U.S.). The thing is, they are not just for married moms of three kids these days. IUDs are also great for…well, almost anyone. No longer do you have to have popped out kids in order for your cervix to be right. Some doctors still believe otherwise, and I believe that if we continue to allow people to spread myths like the above quoted passage, they will continue to turn women away from this great form of birth control. Armed with information, doctors, nurses, and even *cough* nurse midwives, will begin to see that everyone’s cervix is different and that it depends on the woman, not her status of maternity.
Being married is no longer required either. It is more important to be smart and responsible about your sexual health than to be in a marital, or even a monogamous, relationship. I think people realized a while back that being married is no longer (HA!) proof that you will be protected from STIs. Many professionals recommend a second barrier method in conjunction with an IUD, but you would have to use that with the pill, the patch, and most hormonal birth control anyway.
IUD is about the most popular form of birth control in the world. In fact, according to Guttmacher, its use in Europe outdoes the other leading three uses of contraceptive in the U.S..
Why could that be?
Well, for one, if you opt for the Paragard, or copper version, there are no side effects. Once your body adjusts — most women experience mild to “oh my stars I want to ker-smash things” cramping the first month or so — you no longer have any of the brought-on-by-hormones deals that are associated with the pill, the shot, etc. Smokers, those with high blood pressure, heart disease, and even people like myself who have medical situations that interfere with the pill, can happily use the copper IUD.
Mirena offers a low dose of hormones with the benefits of being an IUD. An extra whammy if you will. Conditions like endomitriosis are believed to be helped slightly by its use. It is also believed to help aid heavy periods and can help lighten them. It won’t set off metal detectors at airports*. Slate has a good article that focuses on the IUD.
Both are easily reversible. By “easily”, I mean “almost instantly”. I mean, were I to go in to my doctor’s office today and have my Paragard removed, The Guy and I could, in theory, conceive a child within ten minutes of the doctor leaving the exam room. Long term doesn’t mean permanent. You don’t have to wait a month (or longer) for the hormones to leave your body. Many women in Europe and Asia use the IUD as an alternative to the more permanent sterilization at the end of planning their families. The U.S. just hasn’t caught on yet.
It is also ready to use the day (THE SAME HOUR!) you have it inserted.
The start-up cost is, sadly, higher than most other forms (between $300-$500 without insurance), but the maintenance is lower. “Lower” here reads as “virtually nonexistent”. Every other form of birth control requires you to maintain. The shot and ring: Monthly. The patch: Weekly. The pill: Daily. Condoms: Every damn time (no, really, you can’t re-use them, even if you wash them!). With the IUD, you have it inserted, and then you basically ignore it for five years or ten years, depending on your device (well, you should stick some fingers in there to check for the strings once a month or so, but checking your bits out is a good idea anyway), or until you decide to have it removed, barring any complications (and I am not saying there won’t be any).
There is no month-month cost, and if you are paying $60 a month in birth control, over the 5-10 life of your IUD, it is cheaper. In reality, I know that if you can’t afford $60 a month, you likely can’t afford $300, let alone $500, but this is the reality of the economics of the device. If you have access to a women’s health clinic, like a Planned Parenthood, they may be able to help assist. More VA centers are getting into the Women’s Health arena, with closed curtains and everything, but I am not holding my breath. IUDs are usually covered by insurance, but I am not going to pretend this is always the case. I know quite a few notable exceptions to this, which is why it is important for people to realize that reproductive justice issues are a part of women’s health care.
The reason attitudes like this irritate me is because even OB/GYNs and other women’s health professionals have a hard time paying attention to the good side of IUDs. The reasons for this, I am not sure, but it makes it damned difficult for people who want or need them to get them. Some people who need them, who can not use other forms have a hell of a time getting them, and not just because of lack of availability or costs, but because doctors just simply don’t keep up with the latest information (as I recently found out for myself).
You would think that its 99% + efficacy would be a drawing factor. Sure, studies show that the pill and patch and condom also tote these, but with perfect usage. Typical usage put them at closer to … not so much. Depending on who you ask, those methods are more or less reliable if you use them well enough. The copper IUD is has a less than 1% failure rate, and the hormonal IUD a pretty close second. That is the most effective birth control after abstinence. A couple of hormonal birth controls come close, but really, it is the most reliable.
It just irks me, irks me to no end, that amidst sharing parts of a dark history that needs to be highlighted that someone would mix in myths with their, possibly justified, suspicion. Non-white women have endured a long history of forced sterilization, and messages that we shouldn’t enjoy the same freedoms with our reproductive rights. That justifies the suspicion with reproductive medical professionals. I’ve had them myself. But it doesn’t mean that every time it is going to be that way, or that things like IUDs are suggested to keep our wombs closed forever, because that just isn’t what they do, and I will not sit idly by while someone writes a mostly good article, and while it is passed around passively and highly praised (albeit, mostly deservedly). But someone needs to point out the flaw. Someone needs to point out the dangerous myth. Maybe some young woman, maybe a young Latina woman, possibly with some sort of disability or need I can’t think of, someone who doesn’t want children while she completes an education, or doesn’t want a family and doesn’t want an invasive procedure like sterilization, might read this article and think that she has no other options. And specialists will only confirm that suspicion.
I can’t have that.
For more IUD love from a non-white perspective, see Lena Chen.
More of my IUD love.
*I had the surprising experience of my IUD setting of a metal detector at the Honolulu Airport while going to drop The Kid off for an Unaccompanied Minor flight. I had no metal whatsoever on my body, no clips in my hair, and a t-shirt on. The guards were baffled, that the wand was only picking up a crackle near my abdomen. They let us through and when I came back, it was the only thing that occurred to me. They agreed that it was what must be giving them issue. We all had a good laugh, and it cheered me considerably.
Monday Random Ten
![Hugh Jackman as VanHelsig, a pale man in a traveling shirt and pants, with a many-buckled long, leather coat and an ambiguous weapon at his side. Text balloon reads: "What the f[wiped out space]k is twilight"](http://roflrazzi.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/d0bcbc03-4dc6-4777-aeb1-6e541cc8e819.jpg?w=314&h=394 "Hugh Jackman as VanHelsig, a pale man in a traveling shirt and pants, with a many-buckled long, leather coat and an ambiguous weapon at his side. Text balloon reads: \"What the f[wiped out space]k is twilight\"")
see more Lol Celebs
Do you hear that sound? No?
Because it is quiet in the house!
All hail the secret power of the PLAY DATE!
If you don’t know, then you don’t know.
Jumping in:
- Just Got Wicked — Cold
- You’re All I’ve Got Tonight — The Smashing Pumpkins
- Wait — Get Set Go
- Draw the Line — Aerosmith
- technologic — Daft Punk
- Sexy Mistake — The Chalets
- Catch My Disease (Live) — Ben Lee
- Long Time — Shakira
- Last of The Wilds — Nightwish
- Inside Out — Eve 6
No video today. But I have to say, there is something precious about having an adult dinner out with your partner and a friend who is PCS-ing soon, being treated to a box of the restaurants BEST IN DA WORLD’s Peanut Butter Cookies (I am an aficionado of peanut butter cookies; feel free to send samples!) and not having to share them! Also: Best part of being an adult is having whatever you want for breakfast. Peanut butter cookies and milk are OM NOM NOM!
Have a great week y’all!
(I’ll bake her some cupcakes this week I am sure!)
The Cautionary Sex Ed Tale From Season 2 of Buffy
One of my friends, the Red Queen from Elizabitchez, told me once that she uses the story arc from Season 2 of Buffy beginning with “Surprise” to teach about sex ed and teen relationships. Or something to that effect. It makes more sense when she tells it, but the gist of it was that this particular story arc of this particular season is biting (no pun…OK I can’t even type that because I totally intend that pun).
s.e. smith from this ain’t livin’ and also from FWD/Forward has already done a nice evaluation of this story arc, that I encourage you to read, and the fact that I found it enlightening and that it may influence what I have to say here should sit with you while you read what I am about to go on about, possibly at great length as I am wont to do. Ou also mentioned to me one day in a chat conversation that Joss himself denies that this story arc was meant to send a message about shaming a teen girl about sexuality. I encourage any of you with the ability to do so to watch the episode “Innocence” and deny that this message is there. Intentional or not, Joss has once again fallen into that trap of writing that trope.
But before I leave your head spinning with a bunch of references to things that I haven’t explained, I suppose I should get into the story arc of Buffy and Angel, the lost soul, and of course, the loss of Buffy’s virginity.
This is the story that starts with a girl who gives her virginity to her loving boyfriend and ends when she sends him to a Hell Dimension with a giant sword through his chest after he turns evil and goes on a murderous rampage through her town, killing all of her friends because he has lost his soul.
In “Surprise”, Buffy has one of the famed prophetic dreams bestowed to a Slayer where she witnesses a few events leading up to Drusilla killing Angel. Given the “wiggins” by the whole thing, Buffy rushes to see Angel who both reassures her, (read: dismisses her fears which could be genuine concerns) and confesses that he has been feeling deeper feelings for her, that she returns (TV speak for “I really want to get it on”).
We also learn that Jenny Calendar is a descendant of the particular tribe of Gypsies fabled to have cursed Angel with his soul restorative. Turns out she was sent to Sunnydale not just to wow us all with her computer prowess (because as we will learn we have Willow for all of that) but to keep an eye on Angel and Buffy, but not ever to clue them into why. Folks, I have watched enough tee vee to know that denying principal characters vital information about their character never bodes well for anyone. This hardly proves the exception.
In a plot line that leaves me wondering if it is some odd coincidence that Buffy and Drusilla seem to have something akin to Birthdays on the same day, and keeping with the longstanding tradition of birthdays that suck (also steeped in punnage) for Buffy, our Slayer and her undead beaux fail to keep Drusilla and Spike from getting their hands on most of the pieces of a demon who was so powerful that he couldn’t be killed by any weapon forged during his time (this point is important!). Just as Angel is prepared to take off for Asia on a boat to hide the last piece in an attempt by Ms. Calendar to pry the would be lovers apart, they are thwarted. Soaking wet and battle-wounded, Buffy and Angel wind up back at Angel’s not-so-secret and well-decorated hideaway and become a little less would-be.
This becomes the precipitating event for the releasing of Angel’s soul back into the ether, turning him back into the evil, cruel, infamous vampire that he once was, catching everyone unawares.
This is the part in the story where the boyfriend, after getting the Nice Girl to give up her virginity to him becomes the World League Asshole.
Except, when I remember being warned to protect my sacred flower from boys like that, the ones who are just Wired! To Need! Sex! I was never told that they would become blood sucking demons who would hunt and stalk all of my friends, slowly torturing them to death while sending me immolate-o-grams in the form of my friends-turned-new vampires.
It isn’t too far of a conclusion to draw that Buffy is being punished for having sex. That was the message I took away from this. In fact, since in parenting we have discussed with Kid about good and poor choices I asked her what she thought of what happened to Angel, and unprompted she said “Well, Buffy made a poor choice, and now Angel is evil”. It took a bit of discussion before we corrected why this was the wrong message to get, but that why, yes, I could see why she gleaned that from what we had just seen. It is important that while she might get messages like these from pop culture (and pop culture is full of these slut-shaming innuendos aimed at young women, teens, and young girls), that she understand that the message is wrong. And intentional or not, again, Joss, this is the message you are sending to young girls!
The act of sex itself is without morality. Positive or negative. Sex can just be sex between consenting people.
The intent of the people involved are what makes the experience a healthy one or an unhealthy one for either person.
When people care about each other, or when people are consenting enthusiastically, like Buffy and Angel both were (as we understand that at this point that Angel didn’t realize that his actions would have this effect) that this was a positive portrayal of sexuality. This was something they both decided they wanted together. There was nothing wrong going on here, aside from that curse, which in a way violated both of their autonomy, but that is deeper than this conversation right now. And metaphysical. I am not going there.
When either party isn’t consenting, such as when one person coerced the other, or is emotionally manipulative, or if for any reason it isn’t entered into freely, then we have a problem. But that isn’t what happened here.
Usually, as I understand it, one partner is not a soulless demon, or about to become one. Though, experiences from my past would tempt me to believe otherwise, I understand that what happened to Angel is make-believe…
Sometimes, when sex occurs between two people, sometimes one person who hasn’t been honest about who they are, changes. The sex can become a tool to perpetuate abuse, and that is what we are witnessing displayed here, an attempt to convert Angel from role one to role two without a logical connection to make that make sense, unless you are to presume that Buffy is being punished.
For what?
Well, being a big old teen slut of course!
Even breaking it down into parts, we understand that Angel, via his curse, is being punished for the crimes of his past. But even Jenny Calendar can’t say what Buffy is supposed to be punished for when confronted with all of the facts. We are left to draw our own conclusions. Surely, if she had just kept her legs closed…
This remains a theme for a long time in Buffy’s love life. Her next sexual encounter is a one-night stand, and the other participant, while not unleashing a murderous rampage on her loved ones, does indeed treat her cruelly all the same.
Then, I hesitate to even address the awfulness who is the emotionally demanding Riley, who is in need of more than he is capable of giving, and who is also unwilling to accept being in a relationship with a woman who is more dominant and also stronger than him. After Riley loses his artificial abilities he betrays Buffy by seeking out risk-taking behaviour. Here, Buffy is punished for being emotionally unavailable while trying to cope with myriad Bid Effing Deals, and Riley just can’t deal with being the second seat to anything. Carrying over into Angel, Buffy goes to L.A. to confront Angel over a crossover story arc, which leads to them getting everything they want. Only, this carries the heavy price of Angel becoming human, her almost dying trying to protect him. She is punished again, having to trade in her memories (Joss loves messing with memories) and her day of happiness for her life, and effectually, Angels as well all really without her knowing or having a say. After returning from the dead (again), Buffy has a sexual relationship with Spike that she is ashamed of, because she has already figured out that having sex is wrong, even if it is to help her fill a need when her world is spiraling out of control and she just needs one thing to hold on to, even if it is a physical burst.
Not until Buffy chooses work (being the Slayer) and family (devoting all her time to Dawn) over love and personal life for herself does this theme of punishment let up, even for a moment. And never is it ever happy for her. The message I glean from this? A woman can’t really have it all. You have to choose, or something, namely yourself, will surely suffer.
Ramona and Beezus
While I have been taking a day or two from the internet for some mourning time we took Kid to see Ramona and Beezus, which if you are not familiar with it, is a movie based on the Ramona Quimby children’s book series by Beverly Cleary. Ramona and Beezus is loosely adapted, covering all of the books from Beezus and Ramona to Ramona’s World.
As a child about Kid’s age I was an avid reader, and the Ramona Quimby books were some of my favorites that I think I read again and again. I am sure that by the time I was Kid’s age I had read them at least twice. I had forgotten about them until I saw the poster for this movie, and have been collecting the books up for Kid since. They are a little under her reading level, but right around her amusement level, for sure. Just as I did, we have found that she relates to Ramona as a person who is imaginative and sometimes misunderstood.
Ramona, by the end of the series, and for the purposes of the movie and this review, is a nine-year old girl. She has an active imagination that sometimes gets the best of her, and a ton of energy that she sometimes has trouble channeling in the proper ways, because it is very creative energy and she has trouble expressing that to adults who have forgotten how to think as creatively as children easily do. While this is a series about primarily a young girl and how she relates to the people in her world, the problems Ramona faces are fairly universal (from a fairly privileged standpoint), dealing with everything from sibling rivalry, school anxiety, feeling left out, bullies, the emotional distress of a parent losing a job, of your parents fighting, and many other things that young children deal with as they mature. Part of what I loved and clung to about Ramona as a child was that her family was not the perfect family that I saw on TV or in movies as a child. Ramona and her sister fought. Ramona’s parents didn’t always get along. Ramona’s family had trouble with money, and Ramona often had to wear hand-me-downs too. Ramona sometimes did silly things and was laughed at. It made me realize that I was not that far off from other kids, that somewhere my story could not have been that unusual, because some lady somewhere knew enough about it to stick it in between a book cover (well, some generalities, but it was a start…).
The movie, Ramona and Beezus, was a charming adaptation. The lead, Joey King, broke my heart with her perfect portrayal of Ramona Quimby. The way this was adapted hit so many parts that took me back instantly to the books that I used to sneak under my bed sheets at night on my top bunk with my flashlight and try to quietly read after bedtime. Small details that I thought they missed (Ramona’s toothpaste) came up later and made me laugh while I was busy sniffling (in all fairness, the day you are crying in bouts because you miss your dad is not the best day to see such a sentimental movie, but I digress…). There were some things that were noticeably left out, such as Ramona’s war with her father over his smoking and some other things that you expect to get lost in a movie translation. But, overall, it made the shift to the big screen while staying true to the spirit of the books. It passed the Bechdel test with flying colors, with scenes between Ramona and Beezus, Ramona and her Mother, Ramona and Aunt Beatrice… all very well done.
My criticisms:
The movie had way more source material involving Ramona and her Father, and it was obvious. I often see movies about fathers and daughters and their relationships. Only here and there did it touch into Ramona’s relationship with her mother (the extra-heavy suitcase). I remember Ramona’s mother being the more strict of the two parents, but really, I felt an obvious lack of presence from Ramona’s mother. The scene with Picky-Picky was well done, but could have used more of an emotional portion of having to have Mrs. Quimby discover what her daughters did to spare her having to deal with this on top of working and all the other stress she was experiencing.
Selena Gomez played a fabulous Beezus. I have really enjoyed her as a young star so far (I admit to liking her on her Disney channel show, Wizards of Waverly Place, it being one of the few shows I can stand on the Channel). She is an up and comer if I do say so myself, and by the career she has had already, I think she would agree! Selena Gomez is of Mexican American and Italian descent and, from what I can tell by peeking around in the bios of the rest of the cast, no one else cast as her family in this movie has similar ethnicity.
Part of me finds it troubling that Gomez would be cast in a role where part of her identity could be so erased. Part of me is struggling to come to terms with the possibility that they were trying to present a mixed-ethnicity family… except that is not what one could gather from this situation with two predominantly white parents. I am not arguing that Gomez should not have been cast because she was “too Hispanic” or anything like that, but that since she and King were the leads for this movie, perhaps more attention should have been paid tot he family they constructed around them. I can’t help but feel as if it was a careless disregard and erasure of part of Selena Gomez’ identity.
All of that aside, I found Ramona and Beezus charming and a throwback to my childhood. I also found in it an ache to re-read some classic books that gave me a great feeling of closeness with a character that helped me remember that it was OK to be different. That sometimes being different and creative and a bit of an oddball was OK, and even lovable. I recommend the movie, directed by a women, and based on source material written by a woman, and containing a lot of moments between and about girls and women, it was a very funny and fun (yes they are different) movie.
Monday Random Ten
![Alec Guinness, as "Ben" Obi Wan Kenobi, from the Star Wars Episodes IV, V, and VI. An older pale man dressed in brown and tan loose fitting robes. Text reads "OLD JEDIS NEVER DIE [next line] They just get really fuzzy and partially transparent".](http://roflrazzi.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/celebrity-pictures-alec-guinness-old-jedis.jpg?w=443&h=376 "Alec Guinness, as \"Ben\" Obi Wan Kenobi, from the Star Wars Episodes IV, V, and VI. An older pale man dressed in brown and tan loose fitting robes. Text reads \"OLD JEDIS NEVER DIE [next line] They just get really fuzzy and partially transparent\".")
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I am going to be lying low from Bloglandia for a few days. I hope you enjoy the scheduled posts, but if you are new and a first time commenter, your new comment may take longer to get through the mod. I should someday update the comments policy to indicate that since I am a woman with limited spoons and I am not on a U.S. time zone, comments can take longer than some people expect to get through. Perhaps some day I will.
On with the show.
- Rotten Apples — Smashing Pumpkins
- Bitch — Meredith Brooks
- Ordinary Day — Vanessa Carlton
- Live Like There’s No Tomorrow — Selena Gomez & The Scene
- Miss Halfway — Anya Marina
- My Man — Santana Featuring Big Boi & Mary J. Blige
- This Time — The Wonder Girls
- O Green World — Gorrillaz
- The Islander — Nightwish
- Subterranean Homesick Blues — Bob Dylan
How’s about a video?
Nightwish: “The Islander”
(Description and lyrics after the jump)
Xander Harris: Nice Guy (TM)
Joss is tricky.
We really thought he had given us something completely fresh and new, and in many ways he had. He was used to that. He had written for Roseanne, which was ahead of its time, and in many ways, Buffy was also ahead of its time.
Buffy seemed to flip the narrative. Superhero girl takes on Big Bads. Two girls and a dude, which is a complete flip. If you don’t believe me, think of all the entertainment media geared at teens and young adults, and how the main cast of principal players is usually two guys and a girl. Off the top of my head I come up with Harry Potter (Harry, Ron, Hermione), Percy Jackson (Percy, Grover, Annabeth), Star Wars (Luke, Han, Leia), Scrubs (John, Turk, Elliott), Avatar – The Last Airbender (Aang, Sokka, Katara) all with this construction. There are more, but I don’t want to get monotonous. Buffy gave us the opposite construction, the first show of its kind and of its time. Buffy’s best friend, Xander Harris is even the guy who needs to be rescued from time to time. That is definitely against the narrative.
Except, Xander isn’t really comfy in that role, and he lashes out and pushes back against that frequently in what is affectionately know around The Sphere as Nice Guy™ behavior. He often gets it Buffy’s face about it, even when it was to his own benefit. When Buffy saves him from a bully, knocking the bully against the soda machine (“Ooh! Diet!), Xander flounces off angry because of his male pride (don’t take it out on me, this is his wording). Angry and raging, he prefers to be punched by other dudes than saved by the tiny girl.
When Buffy first moves to Sunnydale, Xander is quick to try to stake his claim by searching her our. Hot new girl is instantly something that Xander wants to know all about, and he even follows her around and is the first to uncover her secret. He opines about how much he wants to be with her to his friend, Willow, often complaining to about how “girls never want to be with” guys like him, all the time oblivious to the fact that Willow herself has feelings for Xander himself.
Xander often times acts as though being such a decent person entitles him to the type of attention from women that he desires, certainly from someone, if not from Buffy herself. It certainly should entitle him to dictate who is and isn’t good enough for Buffy to devote her attention to since it isn’t going to Xander. After all, who is this Angel guy? It isn’t Xander! How can he possibly be good enough for her? He couldn’t even save Buffy when she died! He does this repeatedly with both Buffy and Willow, criticizing both Angel and Oz, and often trying to go tete a tete with Angel over Buffy’s maidenhood… or something.
Xander continues to display his staggering Nice Guy™ personae even after he enters into his (at first secret kissy-face) relationship with Cordelia. When he isn’t attached to Cordy at the lips, he is talking incessantly about Buffy to her, or later, Willow, ignorant of the perfectly wonderful (admittedly flawed) person in front of him. Xander’s treatment of Cordelia is heartbreakingly cruel (and probably indicative of what is to come, because Joss, I have a major beef with you and your treatment of Cordy). After Cordelia stands up to her friends in order to keep her relationship with Xander, he repays her in kind by betraying her with a person he didn’t really want to be with until he couldn’t have her.
Xander later has a relationship with the ex-demon, Anya. While I haven’t really gotten to those seasons in our Summer viewing yet, the episode “Hells Bells” stands starkly in my mind. Xander and Anya have a curious relationship that has a lot to be examined, but the way that Xander leaves Anya, even if when confronted with what he fears he might turn into one day, is inexcusable. Xander makes this choice based on his own fears and desires, and uses that moment to walk away to absolve himself of any responsibility. He leaves Anya, alone and embarrassed in front of both of their families (with his family loudly abusing and blaming her for ruining everything), and without the chance to discuss the issues at a less emotional time for both of them. Though the future vision of himself turns out to be a falsehood, presented by a demon bent on vengeance, Xander is unable to set his feelings aside in order to consider what his actions are going to do to Anya. This has huge repercussions…
Xander Harris, while having many incredible qualities that shine through in the course of the series and being many things that make him valuable to Buffy and the rest of the “Scooby Gang”, has a lot of problematic issues written into him as an overarching character, including the way he views and treats women. He, in many ways epitomizes the definition of Nice Guy™. I wonder if Joss created Xander to be this intentional stereotype, as a foil for the That Girl that is so oft written into other shows and movies. That stereotypical young woman who has to be rescued and who nags on the guys with her and who embraces everything that everyone says is wrong with women today.
I wonder.
Yes, Joss may be tricky indeed.
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random babble…
- Medical Autonomy Chronicles: The Virgin Pap Smear
- Monday Random Ten
- Holding My Breath
- Race, Disability, Ms. Magazine (Again), and Mythbusting the IUD
- Because I Am Such A Giving Person
- Monday Random Ten
- The Cautionary Sex Ed Tale From Season 2 of Buffy
- Ramona and Beezus
- Monday Random Ten
- Xander Harris: Nice Guy (TM)
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Random Babble by Ouyang Dan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Because I Am Such A Giving Person
That’s right peeps! Let it never be said that when someone takes the time to reach out and actually say “Hey! Ouyang! You are a fairly cool peep, and I think you have some cool stuff going on, I would love it if you could do X” where “X” is something reasonably within my powers of awesomeness to grant, that I do not, if not after some time due to the Powers That Be (those scamps!) fucking with my spoons and joints and such from time to time, deliver. (I am not even sure that is a sentence anymore, nor do I care, for I am in a bit of a hurry and my left hand is currently cramping.)
I believe Garland Grey asked once about the recipe for naan, which I started making this summer after one of my fellow military spouses taught me how, and after my EMPIRE RED STAND MIXER OF AWESOME arrived. This is a long one peeps, so I hope you are prepared. I apologize in advance that I do not have a kitchen scale with which to weigh things for you, and yes, this recipe assumes you have access to a nifty mixer like mine, but it does not specify the color, but if you can match yours to your tattoos like I have, then I encourage you to do so for added kitchen fun!
No, I will not be posting pictures of my tattoo today, but maybe naan, which is not shaped like my tattoo.
Naan: (you are going to need to follow directions, peeps, or I can not be held accountable for the quality of product. and even then, I accept no responsibility for your outcome)
You will need:
2 ½ cups bread flour, plus extra as needed
¼ cup whole wheat flour, sifted (unless you like the little hull bits in your bread, then knock yourself out! Shun sifting!)
1 package instant yeast (2 ¼ teaspoons)
2 teaspoons sugar
salt
1 cup water, at room temperature (whoever wrote this, must seriously live in, um, Florida, or Arizona, or something. “Room temperature” means “warm enough to not kill the yeast after some cold shit is added to it”. I start out with relatively warm water, about 110-120F, because you will add the next two ingredient to it first)
¼ cup plain yoghurt (I let mine sit out for a while the day I make naan)
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for the bowl
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (I skip this step, and will indicate which parts I skip, because I store mine and use it over 2-3 weeks from the refrigerator)
Each “loaf” cuts nicely into four pieces, and if you ask my family, serves one, but I think two serves the three of us just fine as a snack or a side with soup or salad. We haven’t made any good curries in a while, but I am jumpin’ to try!
I hope you get a chance to try it out. Of course, if you do, and you have success stories, or uses for the naan, please be sure to pass them along and share!