Containing the wily vagina

For many moons, men have feared the cunning vagina. Like the remote jungles of Africa and South America, they imagined it to be a dark, foreboding place. As such, women felt obligated to keep the specifics of their “womanly” matters to themselves. (Just to make things simple, the term “vagina” may be used in this blog post to mean the entirety of the female reproductive system. Even though this is scientifically inaccurate and bordering on being as stupid as some of the Neanderthals I’m about to talk about, the fact of the matter is I enjoy the word vagina. Vagina, vagina, vagina. Vagina.)

From pregnancy to periods to cysts to yeast infections to pre- and post menopause, in times past, the issues of the female reproductive system have largely been the responsibility of women ourselves. Men didn’t want to know about such things. They couldn’t have told you the difference between a fallopian tube and a clitoris, nor did they care. They didn’t want to hear about it. They just wanted to reserve the right to stick their jiggly bits in there once in a while.

This is not true for many modern men. Take my husband for instance: He’d happily talk with me about my vagina for an hour if I wanted, because that’s just the kind of caring, forward-thinking kinda dude he is. He was with me every step of the way of our pregnancy and he’s an involved father.

On the other hand, the pre-enlightened male probably can’t even tell you that the urethra and vagina are two separate openings, because that’s not how his body works, and really, why would he give a shit?

Yet it’s the pre-enlightened male who feels perfectly valid in legislating the vagina. After all, vaginas are mysterious and magical things, simultaneously the source of human life and much human pleasure. They also believe it to be the source of the downfall of men, a witchy, wantonly device used by women to undermine the heterosexual male.

So the pre-enlightened male figures that women can’t possibly be trusted with their own vaginas, because vaginas are simply too powerful. Vaginas must be legislated and kept under male control. Forget that so many old white dudes in power think that an ovum takes place during an opera and vulva might be a type of processed cheese food. This is irrelevant.

When Representative Allan Rothlisberg proclaimed that women over 50 don’t need gynecological services,* one savvy woman noted, “From this statement, I know way too much about his sex life.” And it’s true. Allan is definitely over 50 and one presumes his wife is also. Either she has stopped getting gynecological checkups (which is obviously a huge mistake), or like women of times past, she’s preserving the tradition of going and not bothering him with the details. Thus his ignorance.

This is why I’m so over male governance. Women can stand on the sidelines and stamp our little feet and scream at old dudes that we deserve to have control over our own bodies and they’re never, never going to get it. Women can know in our heart of hearts that it is UNFAIR that insurance companies treat birth control as “optional” but old dudes in power will always side with the insurance companies and never with women. Because they just don’t want to. And guess what? We’re not going to change their minds.

That’s why it’s high time that women became more political and stopped sitting on the sidelines. (On our vaginas.) We have to get out and vote. More importantly, we have to get out and govern. Only then will we truly set the wily, wonderful, misunderstood vagina free.

* While Rothlisberg’s statement was not recorded and Rothlisberg has since denied making such a statement, Senator Anthony Hensley (D-Topeka) has gone on the record saying that he was in the room when Rothlisberg said it. Says Hensley, “Wouldn’t you deny saying something so ignorant? Unfortunately, no media were present at the time and the Republican-run Kansas legislature has made a practice of not releasing committee recordings - ironically spurred by other outrageous statements that have been an embarrassment to Republican leadership. The truth is that multiple sources who were in the committee room at the time of his comment have all attested to the accuracy of my post. Nonetheless, I stand by it.”