fertile playground
I’ve been reading this one young woman’s blog for years. She’s written about her career (her blog got famous for her anonymous slicing of the Manhattan law firm (and lawyers) she worked for), her love life, herself — she’s written about all that, and more, and two bags of chips. Some of it’s really well done. She’s now a professional blogger for The Huffington Post, too. It seemed serendipitous that I set down my book “Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health“ to look up at my RSS feeds and read her post “Selling Your Eggs: No Big Deal?“.
The female reproductive system seems to be a theme around me lately.
Note to females: Go get that book. Now. Note to friends and family: No, I’m not using the book to try for a baby. Just the opposite: I am trying to not get preggers. Also, that book is not about the “rhythm” method. And I should point out to those of you who haven’t yet clicked over to Opinionistas, that article is about more than just ovaries and eggs.
The book and the blog post made me realize something: Women are kinda messed up sometimes. We, as a generation, are woefully under-prepared to deal with our bodies and selves when we leave the nest around age 18. At least I wasn’t. Our mothers taught us what they knew, but that wasn’t always a lot. School didn’t fill in the gaps. It’s gotten to the point where we know so little about, yet feel so empowered by, our bodies that we are ok attaching odd values to them. And often not even to the whole body, but just small parts of it.
The book specifically made me realize the most women, like me, were sent out into this world with NO IDEA about what’s going on inside. That’s fucked up. There are little things I’ve wondered about for years and this book explains them. Very basic things, like, “Is there a way to know when I’m ovulating? It seems like there should be a way to know that doesn’t require swallowing a man-made pill so it can dictate the egg drop.” (Guess what? There is.)
The blog post made me think that there are hoards and hoards of women out there who are so repressed by social standards and generalized ideas that they don’t deal with their own emotions and the consequences of their actions other than by making jokes, both in the reproductive realm and elsewhere.
This next leg of feminism — what are we on the 3rd or 4th reich now? — is confused. I like the way the blog post had it:
We’ve reached a funny point in the whole feminism game. The new card to play is honesty, where taboos and dirty little secrets about sex, fertility, selling eggs, rape, abortion, etc. are no longer whispered behind closed doors or screamed through a bullhorn in front of 500 other protesters. Now, you chat about them as commonplace occurrences, blog about them, discuss them at panels in bars.
I’m not sure about that strategy.
At least my little a.m. readings helped me decide on one thing for sure: I’m not interested in selling eggs.
