Authors: Betty Dodson Inga Muscio
Cunt (9 page)
The story of you gives the life of me personal power in my body, my eating and health
habits, and in my political, spiritual, emotional and ethnic beliefs.
Without you, I am ignorant, oppressed, alone.
Without you, I am powerless.
As we all know, up to this point American women have tended
to rely upon methods of birth control founded upon a body of knowledge created by
men.
This holds true, even after it’s religiously proven to us like water torture on our
foreheads from the cradle to the grave: Men have a vested financial interest in controlling
our lives, histories and bodies. Men dearly love, cherish and respect women until
death do us part as long as we’re:
consumer
wife
teacher
helper
bitch
concubine
accountant
housekeeper
orphan
punching bag
counselor
nag
nurse
threeholestopenetrate
cook
mother
daughter
prey
Whore.
Tangle, tangle, tangle, mother, grandmother, sister.
We been told for centuries, he’s father, lover, husband, brother, son, and really,
truly does have our best interests in mind.
Pa-shaw.
“Our best interests” are naturally, unquestionably predefined by a social power structure
that, at the turn of the twentieth century, witnessed an ad for
Lysol
with a recipe for douching to keep wives from experiencing “embarrassing odors” during
intimate moments with their husbands.
Nowadays, most women who think about this kind of stuff—and have the opportunity—matronize
the offices of women healthcare providers. Women go to male gynecologists—I can only
imagine—because it’s a family tradition or there’s no better option. For me, personally,
anyone who didn’t have a cunt and tried to look at my cunt in an exam room, would
get a silly slap upside the head with a cold speculum.
I know women
do
choose to go to male doctors because I see their names in the yellow pages: Richard,
Ted, Micahel, James, Peter. I can only assume this means there is a demand for male
gynecologists.
I don’t know any women who go to male doctors, though.
A lot of women have decided that the whole way we interpret healing in our culture
is based entirely on a male construct. These women go to women naturopaths who rely
on healing straight from Big Mom’s Bosom.
Her thuja oil, for instance, which—with the expertise of a healthcare provider—can
cure chlamydia. Her red raspberry leaf tea that tones and strengthens the uterus.
Her acidophilus bacteria in yogurt that cures yeast infections by restoring the natural
acidity of your cunt.
And then there is you.
You who are a child of the universe. Whether or not it is clear to you, you came from
Big Mom’s Bosom too. Birth control and health care are very much integral aspects
of your spirituality, self-esteem and power. Not only do you have vast wonders of
communication at your beck and call, but Big Mom provided you with a mind and a will—the
most omnipotent panaceas on the planet—to wield.
The naturopath I mentioned earlier asks new patients to document everything they eat
for a week and fully detail personal and family medical histories. On the first visit,
she conducts an interview to get the psychological and emotional context before doing
any
physical examination. She procures a whole picture of what’s going on before ever
touching someone’s body. You know: holistic medicine.
This lady taught me a lot.
We learn to respect everything our doctor tells us. Doctor knows best. Perhaps. But
the doctor learned about healing in a destructive school of thought. The doctor learned
to isolate and napalm physical ailments. Vicariously, through the doctor, we too learn
to deal with our bodies and health destructively.
We kill headaches with aspirin, which also weakens immunity to headaches.
Meditation and yoga soothe the stress that causes headaches, while a plethora of herbal
teas calm the spirit.
We kill infection with antibiotics, which also weaken immunity to infection.
Keeping cuts clean and drinking lots of fresh water to flush out the system make topical
infection a non-issue. Internal infection and viruses are nipped with garlic, witch
hazel, cayenne pepper, echinacea, goldenseal, chaparral. These and many other plant
substances feed the immune system, which fights its own battles.
Accessing Big Mom’s resources, while passionately communicating and accepting your
power to heal yourself is constructive-assed, cuntlovin’ medicine.
There are two basic, commonly accepted models of birth control. Both are, to greater
or lesser degrees, based on the destructive model of “healthcare”:
- Chemical manipulation of the hormones.
- Barriers placed between the os (opening of the cervix) and sperm.
I will suggest a third method of birth control, based on a philosophy intrinsic to
a cuntlovin’ woman’s life.
Three unplanned pregnancies be damned, I’m gonna go for broke here and assert I’d
be hard pressed to come up with more systematic and refined forms of chemically induced
oppression than synthetic hormonal birth control products. Birth control pills, Depo-Provera
and Norplant all function in pretty much the same way—they control a woman’s reproductive
cycle by manipulating hormones.
Depo-Provera and Norplant were introduced on the market in the 1990s. It has come
to light in recent years that the side effects of hormonal implants are far-reaching
and extremely detrimental. Unfortunately, at least a decade will pass before the pernicious
effects of these “new developments” are firmly established.
Because the pill is the oldest of the three, more is known about its insidious effects
on a woman’s body. The pill diminishes sexual desire, causes undue weight gain through
laboratory generated manipulation of the hormones, obstructs the natural cycle and
menstrual flow, represses ovulation, causes heart problems, irritability and migraines,
has been linked, unlinked, re-linked to cancer, and synthetically dictates one’s entire
physical agenda. The pill creates a constant state of false pregnancy. Women on the
pill do not have a natural menstrual cycle. Bleeding occurs when placebo pills instigate
a false period.
The reproductive cycles of women on the pill are choreographed and maintained by Ortho-Novum
factories.
Depo-Provera and Norplant are simply newer products of an industry that profits from
control over women’s lives. Any “developments” in the birth control industry will
always reflect a cavalier attitude towards our bodies.
A lovely woman named Marcy Bloom, the director of Aradia Women’s Health Center in
Seattle, Washington, once smoothly countered my rant against the pill. Ms. Bloom’s
is a very thoughtful and judicious perspective on the issue:
What you say about the pill is true. However, it is the most successful method of
birth control as well—that’s the Catch-22. For some women, the pill is the only method
that works, or the only one they’re willing to use because either they don’t want
to touch their bodies, or their lover is very resistant to using condoms. Sometimes
the pill is the only psychosocial method a woman is willing to use, because all other
methods require a woman to touch herself.
First off, let’s get the Condom Matter behind us.
A gentleman who doesn’t have the physical and/or emotional sensitivity to use condoms
couldn’t possibly
possess the self-confidence required to fully procure the infinite soundings of pleasure
from the depth of a woman’s being, via the endlessness of her cunt.
At least not with his dick.
Insecurity about a physical lack of sensitivity in their bodies overrides their lover’s
mental and physical health. Cro-Magnon sociopsychological beliefs (i.e., “Women are
the ones who get pregnant—they should deal with birth control.”) also contribute to
this ignorance.
This says nothing about what kind of dumbass would completely disregard the threat
and reality of HIV.
Men who refuse to use condoms do not deserve to be fucked by anyone but other men
who refuse to use condoms.
Taking
any
hormonal birth control product because we don’t want to touch our bodies beats all
our much-needed revolutionary, resurrectionary cuntlovin’ synapses into hibernation
’n submission. This makes it difficult for a woman to just plain and simple love being
a woman. By encouraging a physical aversion to our own bodies, the pill only adds
to the unspeakably large number of ladies inclined towards cunthatred presently existing
within the body of womankind.
Loving, knowing and respecting our bodies is a powerful and invincible act of rebellion
in this society. This fundamental, entirely crucial act is not possible while we buy
into destructive philosophies at the root of hormonal birth control products.
I’ve had countless discussions with birth control advocates who regard synthetic hormones
as a right which allows us freedom.
What is the frame of reference we draw upon to reach this conclusion? Are we not basing
this on the experiences of our ancestors who were dicked around, relatively speaking,
no more and no less than we are to this day, but had access to quite a bit less information?
The only reason hormonal birth control products are considered a “right” is because
women haven’t yet decided to construct an entirely woman-based frame of reference
with all of the information our ancestors could not communicate to each other through
the Internet, zines, books, periodicals, shows, conventions, sporting events, festivals
and fax machines.
The main freedom involved in using hormonal birth control is freedom from thinking
about—and ultimately facing—our reproductive power. This “freedom” essentially results
in an ignorance of our bodies which costs us, individually and collectively, dear,
dear, dearly. We cannot love ourselves if we do not know ourselves.
There is bliss, but no freedom, in ignorance.
We have the means to educate ourselves and rely wholly upon rights and freedoms that
totally jive with the rhythm of womankind in every way. If you are on hormonal birth
control products, you
cannot
educate yourself about your body because
your body is not under your own Goddess-given jurisdiction.
I return to the same argument I offered about using sea sponges, rags, the Keeper
and Blood Towels. We’ve learned to place patriarchal rhetoric at the nexus of our
thoughts. We’re all reared in a society where the real, honest to goddess power of
women intimidates just about everybody. Especially people who, historically and futuristically,
have not a hope in hell of seeing blood course out from ’tween their legs, or of giving
birth to members of the human race.
What it boils down to is this: If it didn’t
originate
with women or the Goddess, if it does not
spiritually, emotionally, physically, psychologically and financially benefit
women, it does not serve women.
So fucken chuck it.
Women-initiated barrier methods—such as the diaphragm, cervical cap and various spermicide-soaked
sponges—do not eclipse a woman’s cycle. A woman using barrier methods ovulates and
bleeds. Barrier methods require physical contact with one’s cunt, and that’s
always
a good thing.
I, personally, have not had good experiences with barrier methods when I’ve been sexually
active with men, which is neither here nor there.
Barrier methods have been used for thousands of years. Lemon halves and sponges or
mosses soaked in spermicidal herbs were used by some of our greatest grandmas. Mass-produced
cervical caps were around in the 1930s, and home-jobbies were used in many ancient
cultures.
The sole reason I am negatively disposed towards the use of barrier methods is that
the industry that creates them is not run by women.
If it were run by women, the following story just could not, ever, happen.
Once upon a time, there was something called the IUD. This stands for intrauterine
device. The IUD was implanted in women’s uteruses and inhibited the natural growth
and shedding of the uterine lining. It made the uterus an inhospitable place for an
egg. IUDs caused uterine cancer, infertility and—when they didn’t cause death—tore
the insides of many women’s bodies asunder.
After wreaking havoc on hundreds of thousands of American women’s uteruses and lives,
an IUD called the Dalkon Shield was finally taken off the market in 1976. This was
not an act of graciousness on the part of A. H. Robins (the corporation responsible
for the Dalkon Shield). They were removed from the American market because six hundred
lawsuits were pending against the company. These six hundred were but a spit in the
ocean compared to the 306,931 lawsuits filed by 1986. And these three hundred thousand—plus
lawsuits represented a mere 8 percent of women potentially harmed by the device. (Bloss,
Cornell, Moon, Tomsich, “The Dalkon Shield,” 1997)
Meanwhile, what do you do with 697,000 surplus IUDs? The instruments of terror were
sold to USAID (United States Agency for International Development). These 697,000
IUDs were then “distributed”—willingly or not, I couldn’t venture to say—to women
in impoverished nations, who, unlike American women, did not have the relative luxury
of a legal system. (Raymond, 1993, 15)
Condoms are a barrier method of birth control I advocate for three reasons: They were
designed by and for men, they work, and they are proven to reduce the risk of acquiring
HIV.
I’ve never heard of condoms that make men’s dicks shrivel off their bodies. I assert
that this is a calibrated reflection of who produces what for whom.
If a collective of women designed a method of barrier birth control, produced it in
a women-run company and ran advertisements depicting positive images of cuntlovin’
women from all ethnicities and walks of life in women-owned mediums, I would jauntily
support it.
At present, however, there is no such method of birth control, and I do not trust
the birth control industry. I do not believe the needs of women are taken into consideration
at all. I do not like knowing a multibillion-dollar corporation that inherently cannot
regard our bodies as holy-rhythmic, gets all its money from us.
The birth control industry is a Big Business. We are mere consumers in this context.
Our bank accounts are much, much, much more important than our bodies. If birth control
is indeed “the womenfolk’s responsibility,” let’s seize our responsibility with vigor,
shall we.