I Don't Have the Right to Something that is INSIDE OF ME?!

Dear Uterus,

I don’t know if you’ve been reading the news lately, but it seems as though everyone else seems to think that they know what is best for you and our reproductive system, namely conservative politicians and extremists. Okay, I give you a hard time, but we all know that, as the center of everything in the body, including creating sexual desire, sexual function and cognitive decision making, I am your biggest supporter.

I am going to pose some questions to you though:

What do you think about all of this? Do you feel as though your sexual freedom is in jeopardy due to right-winged crazies? Do you think it is your right to choose what you should and should not do with your reproductive talent, a talent that has threatened the opposite gender since sexual consciousness?

Think about that.

Sincerely,

The Brain

C.E.O. Of The Body

Manager Of Emotions

The American. By right, an American should be able to control their life, their body and exercise their free will. However, when you put the word “Woman” behind “American” and it becomes American Woman, then it is not just a Lenny Kravitz remake of The Guess Who’s 1970 hit. It is me. It is 50% of the American population; the 50% that becomes second class citizens who are known for being overly sexualized, objectified and repressed to the point that even the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s, as well as earlier movements, have been completely ignored. To top that off, it is normal and accepted within so many communities. To say that feminism is irrelevant is the same as saying that racism is over. It is not.

            Like, who told men (and oblivious, silly conservative women) that they could simply deprive the reproductive rights of other people? That doesn’t make me feel safe. That makes me feel like someone is saving up excuses to somehow completely strip my body of rights and rape my future away. To quote a poet I've met:

"Panels of men
deciding how to legislate the bodies of women
Because if you control the uterus… you control everything"

-Zack “Fit” Linly, Man Down

            It is a scary thought from that heartfelt poem; a thought that has been with me for years. It is a monumentally frightening reality that the uterus is so powerful that it has been dictating the oppression and decision making abilities of women throughout human history. We have had to dress as men to be taken seriously like Jeanne d’Arc, only to be burned at the stake later for political reasons. We have had to cover our ankles so that we could hide our “radiating sexuality” from men, because it is implied that men can’t control their own sexuality.  Which I believe to be bullshit…but what do I know, I’ve a uterus, not testes.

This newly dusted off abortion controversy has been getting my goat for months. I am admittedly surprised because this subject is tired and I tried to will myself into ignoring it to save myself from a storm of annoyance. Maybe I let myself believe that every American finally allowed their brain to evolve into something that empathized with women and our need for free choice. Okay, so maybe doctors have been murdered for performing abortions within the past four years . Fine, people, I was in denial. I was being lazy with my rage.

Oh, and by the way, I am pro-life. I am a closet pro-lifer who also believes that children should be raised at home equally by both parents, not by a day care. So I am also pro-family. Stay at home moms are great and needed. How utterly un-feminist of me, right? Wrong, actually. In fact, I am pro-life for myself and pro-choice for everyone else. Many people think that by not supporting conservative oppression automatically means that you want to kill babies, be a socialist and marry off the Gays. Okay, socialism is not bad and successfully works for many societies. LGBT individuals deserve to be able to share their love. The freedom to choose has nothing to do with haphazardly murdering fetuses (and choice is not specific to one gender). It is not a negative action that needs to be monitored by our government. My personal uterus is pro-life, but that does not mean that I am cool with the fact that these panels of men, these uterus coveters, are forever trying their best to dictate my body. My uterus does not need a Hitler in this concentration camp of politics.

I recently read this Huffington Post article. Apparently, a new Georgia Abortion Bill and Assisted Suicide Bill was passed this month. Basically, according to Planned Parenthood, it "calls into question every woman who makes a deeply personal, private medical decision." Of course it does. I don’t understand how it is five months into 2012 and this is still a major issue. These power struggles between two genders lead to right-winged, outdated decisions.

This isn’t really about babies, this is about power.

If it were about babies, shouldn’t we be trying to assist the babies who are already in the world? If all of the starving and sick children who are being ignored by our political systems were relieved, and all of the educators who are teaching our children and taking pay cuts were not ignored, and all of the money that is not going to any of this was redistributed into the right hands, who would benefit? Yes, that is an aggressively idealistic approach to a problem that seems impossible to even tackle. But could we tackle it? I couldn’t even begin to know how. I have no solution to that problem aside from our communities all of the sudden becoming less selfish and start thinking about what we can do today to change what is happening to the children of tomorrow who will not be floating around in amniotic fluids.

While we’re at it, could we leave my personal uterus out of it, please? Because it will eventually cut a bitch.

Dear Uterus:

What rights?

Love,

Your Government

 

In Temporary Avoidance of the Current Political War on My Reproductive System

Dear Uterus:

Everybody takes you so seriously. There are books, websites and blogs about you and how you’re some sort of beautiful, delicate, baby making, cancer bearing fibroid filled flower. Well, I’m here to tell you that I know you best and we both know that you are less than half of those things. I don’t know who writes these books, websites and blogs. Anyone who has ever been a woman should never ever assume these things about you. You are not delicate. You are kind of like the Hulk of all organs. When you get angry, it isn’t cute or dainty and you scare a lot of people while you’re at it. You also don’t just make babies. I mean that is what you’re designed for, yes. However, I think that everybody should acknowledge your pleasure-building vibrations and the scathing way that you make use of the hormones that are provided you.

I think that we should all stop kidding ourselves and accept that fact that you are not who people are trying to make you out to be. I think that you are rolling in the attention. It’s almost like you feel self-important or something, like a Bridezilla.

Faker.

Sincerely,

The Brain

CEO, The Body

Manager of Emotions

Uterine Arrogance:

Dear Uterus:

You do realize that you hold infinite power over all human societies, right? Without you, humanity would just not exist. You utilize the estrogen produced to your advantage and attract the opposite sex. You make them want to procreate. You tend to make the Body feel really good, as well as really bad. Chicks dig you; men want you and sometimes try to BE you. I don’t think you realize how much you have it made. You’re a sexy cultural icon.

Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,
The Brain
C.E.O., The Body
Manager of Emotions 

  I asked an interesting question on Facebook: What is your definition of Uterine Arrogance?

   This is a good question, in my opinion, since I use that term in my everyday language. Why would anybody be arrogant because of their uterus? What does that even mean? Here are some great definitions that people came up with:

• Hjördís Lára Hreinsdóttir: When the U(terus) thinks it is so above taking important stuff into consideration, like vacations and parties!
• Tawny Powell: The belief that beings with uteri are greater than those without, allowing them a degree of deserved and rightful arrogance.

  
  
• Tai Collins: When Miss U(terus) thinks her whims are way more important than me wanting to be functional for a full day.

  
  
• Melba Searcy: Even when you take five Aleve, it still tells you to "Fuck off". That, my friend, is Uterine Arrogance.
• Seth Hewatt: Uterine Arrogance is when something leaks fluids all over everything without feeling ashamed.

    After laughing out loud in delight with all of these responses, I think Ms. Powell's answer is what I usually think of when I use this term. Not that I think I am superior to anyone who has never had a uterus, but I am pretty arrogant that I have a uterus and men don’t get to have one. I brag about it sometimes. I admittedly use it as an excuse for behavior-kind of like a scapegoat. It’s my wing man and my enemy. I am incredibly proud of it. And why not? My uterus is the only muscle in the human biological world that can nurture the production of other humans. Even if I had no breasts, no labia, no female curves what so ever, if I had a functional female reproductive factory in my lower abdomen then all systems are go.

    This is one reason why I used to get angry at people when they skewed femininity and actually being female physically and psychologically. Being female, physically, means having the parts associated with the gender. But being female or feminine psychologically is a completely different subject all together, a subject highly debatable throughout, and on the fence between, the two genders most comfortably established in everyday existence.

    Give or take some cultural exceptions, people have been trying to establish and maintain a bold line between the genders since humans had self-consciousness. However, despite attempts at boxing it up and branding it, gender has maintained a more fluid presence, notwithstanding many modern takes on it. Take Freud, for example. I admittedly have always had a problem with that guy, ever since being introduced to him in high school. I mean what’s up with that douche? Aside from the fact that I'm pretty sure my brother never wanted to kill our father so that he could make it with our mom, Sigmund Freud ran around telling people that women have an Oedipus Complex and penis envy. That women live out their lives feeling castrated and seek out the penis as a compensation for their own lack of a hanging phallus. Give me a break. My father was never a “love object” and I never accused my mother of improperly suckling me or for giving me the wrong genitalia.

    But what about those who do feel like they have been given the wrong genitalia?

    I have been thinking a lot about transsexual and transgendered people as a result of this Uterine Arrogance that I have procured for myself, especially since the recent news I have read about a seven year old transgender Girl Scout. Bobby Montoya of Colorado is a physical boy who identifies as a girl, making her a transgendered child. The state Girl Scout troop has welcomed little Montoya as a member of the Girl Scouts because, according to the Colorado Girl Scouts, "If a child identifies as a girl and the child's family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout." This came after she was initially denied because she doesn't have "girl parts."

   This seems like a questionable thought at first; a seven year old boy who identifies as a girl could totally be in some sort of youth phase. Then again, maybe the child just knows that she was born in the proverbial wrong body. Many studies, including some early works by Dr. John Money (which were highly publicized in the mid-seventies with other research that was laced with extreme controversy and turmoil), show that gender identity is "firmly established by the age of 2 1/2." These studies were confirmed despite "gender assignment," a cultural norm established by parents and doctors, that happens either at birth or in the womb.

   Even though, admittedly, it seems a bit rash to state that I am still arrogant of my uterus, because of what I just wrote, I think this idea is worth diving into. Am I wrong for even considering Uterine Arrogance? Is it inconsiderate to others who may wish for my plight? Maybe...

        Now let’s switch it up. A few years ago, transsexual man Thomas Beatie became pregnant. Deemed The Pregnant Man, this dude made it big because everybody, even Oprah, was talking about how he was the first man to ever become pregnant. It was a miracle, right? Okay psychologically the woman is a man. Even legally in the state of Hawaii, Mr. Beatie is a man. Biologically, and still in the physical reproductive state, he is female, although now after three children, he is considering getting a hysterectomy. But when I heard the news a few years ago that he was having his first child, I didn’t see what the big deal was. Okay, initially, my Uterine Arrogance kicked in when I saw the headlines. I think it went something like this:

"Oh my God, men are ALWAYS trying to take things from women when it is powerful! Why on earth would a man want to have children when clearly women are the gifted ones here?! What the flying fuck?!?!"

  Then I read the details. When he was pregnant, for all intensive purposes in my mind, this person was a woman-a woman with a goatee. Society and the press seemed to deem him a pregnant man only for the shock value (which worked on me, I admit) and not out of respect for his new gender. So you can imagine my jealousy at his publicity-I have a uterus too! Nobody would ever make a big deal if I got pregnant! This dude was making money, writing books and ruffling some major feathers because he fooled everyone into believing that what he was doing was unique to humanity. Talk about an awesome publicist!

    I think I spoke to anyone who wanted to talk about this issue, including people who didn’t support the guy, people who did unquestionably support the guy and then people who were on the fence about it all. Everyone agreed on one piece of the puzzle: the man still had his uterus; so in essence, it was not that big of a deal, biologically. I don’t think I ever came to a concrete resolution to the issue. It is not really that surprising, it just throws everybody off who is used to cultural norms and stereotypes all the time, myself included. But hey man, use that uterus to your best ability. It is yours, anyways, not the entire human race’s. Which means this, Thomas Beatie: Be Arrogant!

   So anyway, that brings me back to my original topic: Uterine Arrogance. Do I have the right to it? Is it really that big of a deal? What do more people think about this issue and how said arrogance would effect our world and its apparent multiple genders? Is Uterine Arrogance THAT big that I can say that it effects the entire world?

Why yes. Yes it is.

That Time Where I Lost My Girlhood:

Writing about something that happened sixteen years ago is kind of difficult. I don't want to create some sort of fiction-non-fiction, so I had to really look back to see what happened. I even told my mom the story of what happened on my first Period Day. I wish I had written it down. I kept diaries regularly back then, but I don't know where they got to, and they were mostly pre-teenaged musings probably having to do with the fact that I had weird, pointy breasts developing that people made fun of (another crazy story that I will highlight later), or the fact that my dad wouldn't let me play football or basketball with my brother anymore. I've been making outlines in my head about it, but I didn't write anything down until now. I wrote a few pages of what I was experiencing back then and here is what happened:

Now let’s fast forward to three years later. The Vicious Cycle finally got me like The Nothing took Fantastica, sweeping away my girlhood in one day. It rendered my world of smiling stuffed animals and happy cotton panties to nothing more than overly emotional tears, ibuprofen and mattress-sized maxi pads. It was not a good day. My mother was at work all day, and I had noticed strange panty spotting the previous Friday. I was 14 years old and I had felt very odd all day, a little nauseous and like I had to go to the bathroom all day. I noticed the brown spotting, but for some reason, didn’t think twice about it.
    The next day was a Saturday, and I felt horrible. My mother was at work and my father was at the grocery store, but before he left was in a noticeably bad mood. I watched some cartoons with my brother and sisters, then went to take a nap, neglecting my chores for the day. When I woke up after a fitful sleep, my father had come home with a large pumpkin he had intended to make into pies. He saw that I did not do my chores and instead of the punishment of no television or dessert, he gave me the pumpkin and told me to peel, chop and boil it down for the pies. He handed me a potato peeler and left me to work.
    Now, who has ever peeled a pumpkin? A preposterous notion, still, I believe. Had I the knowledge of pumpkin peeling previously, I would have known that I should have sliced it up first,then peeled the smaller pieces, making it easier to handle. But alas, I laid down cut up brown paper bags on the kitchen table and considered calling child services. I then began to peel the pumpkin. Peel after peel I felt worse, and the agony in my abdomen made my arms weak. I felt heat rising to my face and I had to suppress the lump in my throat as sticky pumpkin juice oozed out of the gourd’s wounds and coated and dried on my hands. My brother came down to the kitchen once or twice and said snarky things with a sympathetic look, and my little sisters looked on with round, interested gazes.
    After about an hour and a half of peeling and oozing, I chopped open the pumpkin and pulled out its insides, conserving the seeds and cubing the meat to boil for the pies. When I finished, I went to the bathroom to relieve myself and saw a small petal of burgundy on my underwear, imposing and life changing. I’m sure my face had a look of disbelief, and I had an embarrassing feeling in the pit of my tummy because I forgot all of the stuff I learned when I was a self-proclaimed Sex Education Superstar. I rolled up some toilet paper and stuffed it into my panties and tried to pretend that it wasn’t happening.
    My mother came home seemingly just in time. She was exhausted, and went straight to her bedroom to sit down. I inched in, focusing on the carpet. So brown. She looked at me and asked me what was wrong, and then, without warning, tears streamed down my face like coming floodwaters. I’m sure she thought something bad happened because I was crying hard for my lost girlhood. I would have to change my life. Unfortunately, I had joined the sucky Puberty Girls’ Club where we hid our panties, wore diaper-like contraptions, had boobs and our bodies supposedly emanated suspect odors at any given minute. I didn’t feel ready.

Looking for Inspiration

See what had happened was...

I've been doing research. Like legit, for real "uterine research." I set out looking in used book stores, going out of business sales, book trash bins, my bookshelf, closets, The Internets, other people's brains, etc. I read women's self-help books, medical lit, hysterically outdated women's psycho-analyses (which really only makes me wonder if society thinks we are all bat shit crazy. I mean, I don't think that hysteria is a legit way to describe ladies' emotions and behavior now days...). I got into some lesbian non-fiction by Terry Castle, a funny, dry lady-professor. I can't say I got anything from that yet, except for some real laughs, and the knowledge that I can, indeed, simply go off subject because I feel like it, as long as I come back to the original point at hand. I really, seriously needed something to get me started.

Then I went to a writing group.

What have I learned? I need more detail in my existing works. I need to flesh it out, include my "uterine research"-I just like that term-and really get into the grit of what I am trying to say, and go off on tangents, take a few left turns, stuff like that. That was a really good workshop experience that I needed to kick me in the pants! I mean, I have about seven essays to write about and explore more of. That's enough for now, I think.

Oh and also, check this out! A friend sent me this article from Jezebel Magazine:

The Most Horrifying Period Stories You've Ever Heard

As the initial journalist expressed, puberty shouldn't be so horrifying and girls shouldn't feel ashamed of themselves because of it. I think that's partly why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm not ashamed of what my uterus does to me anymore.

A Letter To My Uterus From Another Uterus!!

My uterus has received a letter from my friend's uterus in France. I think it is AWESOME and her story is also beautiful. She (Alix, home of my uterus' penpal) is such a great mom and now I know exactly why being a mommy is so important to her! It is written in the point of view of her uterus and how it is and has effected Alix, her husband, Hocine, and kids Naim, Eliot and Jasmine (who I haven't met yet) . Please read:

Dear Anisa's Uterus,

Let me introduce myself. I am Alix's Uterus. I knew Anisa when you began to give her trouble in Toulouse. But she never talked about you then. Shy? I'll tell you about me now.  I am 42 years old, and although I've always existed inside Alix, she only got acquainted with me when we were 11. The beginning of her periods was not a shock to her because her mother had explained the whole "nest" thing for having babies, and had bought her pads, the ones you had to tie to a belt (old fashion). She quickly moved to adhesive ones, much more convenient. The only problem during the first year was that she always forgot when our period would begin. It always started when at school (last year of elementary school) and she had to go to her teacher to ask for pads. She remembers socked underwear and trousers very well, and thanks long tee-shirts fashion in that time.

She was lucky in the first years : her periods were painless and regular. Pain began when  14, lasted a few years, then disappeared as it came without leaving an explanation. When she was 22 she began to want a child. She had been dating Hocine for 6 years and she had a steady job. Then began a long and hard struggle. Having been raised like every little girl in the believing that "they living happily ever after and had many kids", she thought that there was nothing more simple than becoming pregnant. She discovered that fairy tales don't give details. After a year she went to her gynecologist and asked him to run some tests. A few hours of torture later, she discovered that one of her trumps was clogged and that she was not very fertile. She began popping pills before ovulating, taking her morning temperature and writing it, and popping other pills after ovulation. Two years later she finally became pregnant but very very very sadly lost the foetus after two months : feeling of emptiness inside. Another year crossing her fingers if not her legs, she became pregnant again. She had a wonderful pregnancy : no more periods! No illnesses, no dizziness, wonderful skin, few pounds, and the fun of feeling a little life inside me, and wonder of wonders : to grow a penis (it was a little boy and is now a young man). Giving birth was much more painful than periods, but it was worth the effort. After that first pregnancy she was bored to have periods again, a whole month of periods after Eliot's birth! Only good thing : no pain.

When Eliot was two after a few months popping more pills, she felt a new life growing inside. But an echograph when the foetus was three months old revealed the clogged trump was swelling dangerously. The gynecologist's reaction was frightening : you'll have surgery tomorrow morning!
A night of nightmares later, a open-belly surgery  later, the baby started kicking again. Phew! A few months later little boy Naïm (second penis) was born.

Pain come back the year after, very acute, very socially destructive, Alix would still go to work, but ache all day long. Evening were devoted to trying to find a painless position. It went on for another year, then stopped.

She had been on the pill for 26 years and was getting tired of it. So she decided to stop, husband said ok we'll use condoms. But you know how it goes... Therefore a few months later, a little before our 40th birthday, Alix, who only had one trump left, thought she was un-fertile, became pregnant again! She remembers vividly buying a test, peeing on it, and peeking 10 seconds after although she had to wait for 60 seconds, and seeing the pink lines, two pink lines! She told herself to wait. And a minute later, at the same time smiling in surprise and happiness and telling herself "oh shit, too old, too small apartment, husband not willing another child, but.... happy! " Decided not to let herself be told to get rid of it. Husband after a few minutes of surprise accepted it. And on it went for months of glorious health, beautiful skin, no dizziness, and... a little uterus growing in her! How funny to think this baby you feel inside is growing the same equipment! Hope her uterus will be charming.

After the most painful birth-giving she experienced, Alix has a beautiful little Jasmine. And periods again... Irregular cycles, very painful ovulations, and painful periods... Back to the same shit...
Always wonder why sometimes periods are ok, and sometimes for years in a row they're painful.
Women have a complicated equipment. No wonder they're so complex.

Bye, Anisa's uterus, let's hope you give her rest.

Alix Allalou: Mommy, Wife, Librarian and My Friend (and my Uterus' new penpal!) Lives in Toulouse, France Basically Being Awesome!

My Hypophysis: Continued

...so I've been writing some more on this section of Dear Uterus. I think it makes sense. I need to insert references and sources, etc. That will be soon to come. It's just that this part has felt a little more involved...anyways! Here we go!

I decided one day that I should think about making my uterus into a zombie by getting a prescription for birth control. Not because I was getting regularly laid, but because I wanted to control my cycle the easy way. My uterus couldn’t do anything about it anyway. I could sneak to the lady doctor and get my stash as my uterus took a nap in my abdominal cavity...and it would never wake up the same. I would think about this from time to time with a Grinch-like grimace crawling across my face. Convincing my uterus that it didn’t want babies, I think, was the biggest form of mind control (and perhaps, stroke of genius) I could possibly inflict on my body. My uterus wants nothing more than to have me walking around barefoot and pregnant throughout my fertile years. I always wondered what exactly birth control would do to my body, and because of how my mind works, I needed a technical explanation. Of course I got some research in.

    The basic breakdown of what birth control actually is and what it does is this: birth control is an artificial hormonal contraception and is a synthetic estrogen and progestin. These artificial hormones trick the body to either not ovulate or to hit the ovums off at the pass and prevent them from being able to attach to the uterine lining. Gross, right?

    Not so long ago, scientists and birth control advocates decided that this whole inevitable pregnancy nonsense must come to an end. For women to take control of their own bodies and their own sexual pleasure, the pregnancy factor had to be at least controlled to some extent. When it was clear that douches were not working, along with other primitive birth control methods, major research on an “easier,” more effective way to prevent pregnancy became a focus.

    Enter Margaret Sanger, nurse, activist and major feminist badass, who founded the American Birth Control League, aka the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She wrote to obtain research grants after it was discovered that certain hormones hindered pregnancy in lab rabbits in the 1930s. After years of study, in the 1950s, Frank Colton invented the first oral contraceptive, Envoid. This was modernized by a cluster of scientists, namely Carl Djerassi, in the 1950s and made into tiny pills, conveniently taken, concealed and easily utilized. These scientists and activists blazed a trail that eventually put out a product that not only secured a woman’s liberal sexuality, but made the prospect of an inevitable pregnancy almost null and void. Of course there was resistance coming from those men and women who think that people shouldn’t be able to choose what to do with their reproductive gifts, and that controversy is still present. Well they can bite me. Despite all of that, I can go to my ob/gyn and get fun things like pills, patches, vaginal rings, shots, etc. to put my natural bodily processes to a temporary stand still until I figure out what I want to do with my awesome ability to procreate. So there.

    On the other hand, what can all of these artificial hormones do to my body? First of all, hormonal birth control can possibly put the circadian rhythm all out of whack, which is a major cancer risk. There goes my follicular development. Most pills will induce an entirely different ovulating schedule, if there is any ovulating at all. It sometimes makes the ovaries release the egg at different times, making it inconvenient for the body to house a fetus. The hormones also change the consistency of the mucus that the cervix produces, which confuses the sperm so that they cannot find the egg at all! The fake estrogen and progestin effect the uterus’ hospitality and any developing ovums become very unlikely and unwelcome house guests.

    Hold on, though, that doesn’t make any sense at all, right? The uterus being inhospitable to an ovum? That has got to be some major zombie shit right there, and I decided it was. I am supposed to have around thirteen periods a year. If I take the birth control, I would probably end up with about 3 or 4 a year, and as tempting as that seems, I really find that to be incredibly undesirable. Knowing my raging hormones, extra fake zombie hormones would probably do more harm than good anyway.