I have come to the conclusion that (as I am apt to do) I have crossed the line into buying too deeply into my own bullshit. Not that love and compassion and the need for human connections and serving each other is bullshit. It's all very real and true and I believe in all of it absolutely and without reservation. But I am prone to Taking Myself Too Seriously Syndrome and it's about time I called myself on it.
The crux of it is that I've been feeling for a while now that most of my relationships are unbalanced in some way: the two-way street doesn't flow with equal force in both directions. Problematic, for a dyed-in-the-wool idealist like me. But I talked myself down from it! I really did! I was all,
"Self. Nothing is perfect, Self. You have to look at flow over time, Self, and I'm sure that over time everything shakes out even, so don't get so upset. Relax. Go with it."
The first remarkable thing is that this ridiculous pep-talk actually worked. It's possible that the actual language I used when talking to myself in my head was somewhat different from the words above, but the gist was the same, and no one really wants to know how pretentious and pedantic I am to myself in my own head. It's positively precious, how hoity-toity my tone can get. I probably don't need to tell you that, dear Reader, since you're reading this and you know perfectly well how pretentious I am.
But over days and weeks of meditating on the concept of flow and time, I came to what I thought was a very determined peace with the fact of lopsidedness in relationships. I was OK. I was on an even keel.
It didn't last, clearly, or I would have nothing to write about. Everything is fodder for more words, dripping from my fingers like lovely and useless petunias. (Gilded lilies? I can't decide whether I prefer the continued alliteration, or the hilariously arcane allusion.)
But I've been snippy and mean and generally uncomfortable for a few days (sorry, Mom/Dad/Baby) and last night (yesterday? last week? It's hard to know whether the moment of epiphany occurs at the moment of verbalization or some time before that) I realized that I'm still struggling with the idea of all my lopsided relationships.
You see, I am unbelievably, unutterably, indescribably lucky. I am privileged beyond your wildest imaginings to have really amazing, awesome, awe-inspiring people in my life. These people are also ridiculously generous with me. I have been plagued by the sense that I am getting so much more from them than I am giving them, and that makes me so uncomfortable I can't deal with it. In fact, it makes me so uncomfortable I become a raging anger ball and kind of (a little bit) a bitch.
This is selfishness. I'm only ok with lopsided relationships if I get to play the martyr, be the selfless giving monolith? Not cool. Not cool at all. I believe absolutely in the power and the value of love and compassion and serving others. But it goes too far when you won't let other people have compassion for you, or love you, or serve you. Because if the purpose of a life is to do these things for other people, you're denying other people purpose by refusing their generosity.
Not ok, Self. Not. At. All. Knock it off, raging megalomania.
Why am I so uncomfortable? Because I don't credit the idea that me, myself, is enough for my friends the way that they, themselves, are enough for me. This kind of thinking denies these amazing, wonderful people that I love so dearly any agency. They don't get to make determinations for themselves; my determination of "not good enough" or "not enough" or even "lopsided" supercedes whatever they feel. Everyone is an adult capable of managing their own lives; I do believe this. So if they feel cheated by me, they'll tell me or they'll drop me, and until such a thing happens, I have got to stop worrying. I have got to let go of the idea that I'm getting more than my share, because my "share" is whatever is willingly given. The more we all share, the more there is to go around.
Flow is a multi-directional thing. And my perspective is not the only perspective. And if I'm going to love the whole world, I have to let the whole world love me, too. I have to let go, and just go with the flow.
Showing posts with label confession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label confession. Show all posts
Friday, May 18, 2012
Friday, November 4, 2011
Slut-Shaming
Author's note: This whole thing is probably a classic case of too much information. Because it's a classic case of blogging-as-therapy (because I'm too poor to afford an actual therapist). So, SPOILER ALERT: I'm being pretty frank about my sexual history, and if you don't want to know for whatever reason, just stop reading, ok? This really is an exercise in purging for me, but I do need to make it public in order for that purging to be complete.
I'm sure my intimacy issues have many causes, but at least one of them is the general culture of fear and shame around sex. I say this as someone that didn't grow up in one of those crazy fundamentalist, abstinence, purity-pledges to your father kind of homes, either. No, I think we were pretty average on the topic of sexuality, which is to say that we just didn't talk about it. There wasn't any active effort to shame or instill fear, but there wasn't any discouragement of that, either. The broader culture was allowed to shape my opinion on sex without interference.
Yeah, explains a lot, doesn't it?
Because the culture we live in is downright bipolar about sex.
Do it, don't do it. Do it a LOT, do it with anyone you like, only do it with people you love, don't do it all. Masturbate! Don't masturbate. Experiment! Don't get yourself in situations you'll regret. Take responsibility for your own pleasure! It's all your responsibility! Even violence is your responsibility. It's your fault if you get raped, it's a man's fault for not being controlled enough. Everything about sex and the way we deal with it is dual: for every person proclaiming something from the rooftops, there is another person standing on the rooftop across the street yelling the exact opposite thing.
Seriously, guys? INFORMATION OVERLOAD. I can't handle it. Shut UP already.
The constant that my mind and soul and heart have always siezed on is the word "slut." The battle for the meaning of the word is apparently being waged in my flesh, because I'm fed up with both sides.
I probably am a slut. But unlike all those women out there working to reclaim the label, I cringe. I know it's meant to be hurtful. I know it's meant to be a cut on my moral character, and I know it's meant to characterize me as less than worthy. There's no reclaiming that. I don't know why anyone would bother trying. One side of our culture, despite its rampant sexualization, still cleaves to narrow strictures of acceptable behavior, and a girl or even a woman that has a lot of sex with a lot of people is a slut, and that is BAD. There is no way around the fact that word is meant to shame and demean and alter behavior back towards socially acceptable norms.
So let's just lay this out. Cold hard facts, cold comfort numbers. I've had intercourse with something like 30 men in my life. No, I don't remember the exact number. No, I don't remember all their names. No, I wasn't always as careful as I should have been, although I escaped STDs, and I do know that.
I've had sexual contact short of intercourse with an additional 15 or so men.
I have had four mutually committed, serious relationships in my life. So the greatest part of my sexual experience has had happened outside the bounds of a close or loving relationship.
I have had incredibly lopsided relationships, in which one person cares far more than the other, three times. I've been on both sides of that inequality.
So the majority of my sexual experience has been outside of any sort of relationship at all.
I have been pregnant twice, and I have one child.
I'm a slut.
Honestly, my experience has taught me that sleeping around and lots of random one-night stands are not very satisfying. I don't recommend it as a course of action or a lifestyle. But I don't know if I would have ever gotten to the point I'm at right now, of not merely desiring real intimacy, but of understanding what real intimacy actually is because I've experience the contrast. Some people can't learn from the mistakes of others; they have to make the mistakes themselves. I am very much one of those people. So, despite 10+ years of heartache and yearning, I'm glad to have had the experiences I've had.
On the other hand, the sex-positive messaging can become overbearing and oppressive. The attempt to reclaim "slut" has led to a bizarro world of opposite sexual pressures: to do as much as possible, and be proud of it, to experiment and try everything, and to enjoy it all. And I haven't done that.
For example, I don't really get masturbation. My fuzzy-headed spiritualist view of the world and relationships idealizes sex as an energy exchange between people, and the fulfillment (the orgasm) comes from that exchange. This is why all those one-night stands were so bad. I can't get off without another person, and another person that's open. So I don't masturbate. But I spent a lot of time, at one point in my life, being pretty ashamed and wondering what was wrong with me because the "sex-positive" message of self-love was so relentless.
I wasn't slutty enough for that side of the culture, because I didn't have a lot of orgasms to go along with all that sex I was having. In fact, I pretty much never really enjoyed myself at all. And it was my fault, completely, that I was failing to understand the physical needs of my body so much that I couldn't or wouldn't comunicate them. Because in the sex-positive world, orgasm is a purely physical event that should be able to be brought about by purely physical means. That's why masturbation is so important, because it shows you what you respond to physically. And that message, as powerful as it may indeed be to a lot of people, was intensely damaging to my own ideas about pleasure and intimacy and what I needed. I doubted myself, terribly doubted myself, for years. And I still do.
I'm ashamed of having been a slut. I'm ashamed for having not been slutty enough to bring myself to orgasm. Right now, I'm ashamed that I've written all this and I'm going to share it with the world, because it's so confused.
But I'm going to hit that publish button anyway, because the only way to stop being ashamed is to just deal with the reality. So here we go. REALITY.
I'm sure my intimacy issues have many causes, but at least one of them is the general culture of fear and shame around sex. I say this as someone that didn't grow up in one of those crazy fundamentalist, abstinence, purity-pledges to your father kind of homes, either. No, I think we were pretty average on the topic of sexuality, which is to say that we just didn't talk about it. There wasn't any active effort to shame or instill fear, but there wasn't any discouragement of that, either. The broader culture was allowed to shape my opinion on sex without interference.
Yeah, explains a lot, doesn't it?
Because the culture we live in is downright bipolar about sex.
Do it, don't do it. Do it a LOT, do it with anyone you like, only do it with people you love, don't do it all. Masturbate! Don't masturbate. Experiment! Don't get yourself in situations you'll regret. Take responsibility for your own pleasure! It's all your responsibility! Even violence is your responsibility. It's your fault if you get raped, it's a man's fault for not being controlled enough. Everything about sex and the way we deal with it is dual: for every person proclaiming something from the rooftops, there is another person standing on the rooftop across the street yelling the exact opposite thing.
Seriously, guys? INFORMATION OVERLOAD. I can't handle it. Shut UP already.
The constant that my mind and soul and heart have always siezed on is the word "slut." The battle for the meaning of the word is apparently being waged in my flesh, because I'm fed up with both sides.
I probably am a slut. But unlike all those women out there working to reclaim the label, I cringe. I know it's meant to be hurtful. I know it's meant to be a cut on my moral character, and I know it's meant to characterize me as less than worthy. There's no reclaiming that. I don't know why anyone would bother trying. One side of our culture, despite its rampant sexualization, still cleaves to narrow strictures of acceptable behavior, and a girl or even a woman that has a lot of sex with a lot of people is a slut, and that is BAD. There is no way around the fact that word is meant to shame and demean and alter behavior back towards socially acceptable norms.
So let's just lay this out. Cold hard facts, cold comfort numbers. I've had intercourse with something like 30 men in my life. No, I don't remember the exact number. No, I don't remember all their names. No, I wasn't always as careful as I should have been, although I escaped STDs, and I do know that.
I've had sexual contact short of intercourse with an additional 15 or so men.
I have had four mutually committed, serious relationships in my life. So the greatest part of my sexual experience has had happened outside the bounds of a close or loving relationship.
I have had incredibly lopsided relationships, in which one person cares far more than the other, three times. I've been on both sides of that inequality.
So the majority of my sexual experience has been outside of any sort of relationship at all.
I have been pregnant twice, and I have one child.
I'm a slut.
Honestly, my experience has taught me that sleeping around and lots of random one-night stands are not very satisfying. I don't recommend it as a course of action or a lifestyle. But I don't know if I would have ever gotten to the point I'm at right now, of not merely desiring real intimacy, but of understanding what real intimacy actually is because I've experience the contrast. Some people can't learn from the mistakes of others; they have to make the mistakes themselves. I am very much one of those people. So, despite 10+ years of heartache and yearning, I'm glad to have had the experiences I've had.
On the other hand, the sex-positive messaging can become overbearing and oppressive. The attempt to reclaim "slut" has led to a bizarro world of opposite sexual pressures: to do as much as possible, and be proud of it, to experiment and try everything, and to enjoy it all. And I haven't done that.
For example, I don't really get masturbation. My fuzzy-headed spiritualist view of the world and relationships idealizes sex as an energy exchange between people, and the fulfillment (the orgasm) comes from that exchange. This is why all those one-night stands were so bad. I can't get off without another person, and another person that's open. So I don't masturbate. But I spent a lot of time, at one point in my life, being pretty ashamed and wondering what was wrong with me because the "sex-positive" message of self-love was so relentless.
I wasn't slutty enough for that side of the culture, because I didn't have a lot of orgasms to go along with all that sex I was having. In fact, I pretty much never really enjoyed myself at all. And it was my fault, completely, that I was failing to understand the physical needs of my body so much that I couldn't or wouldn't comunicate them. Because in the sex-positive world, orgasm is a purely physical event that should be able to be brought about by purely physical means. That's why masturbation is so important, because it shows you what you respond to physically. And that message, as powerful as it may indeed be to a lot of people, was intensely damaging to my own ideas about pleasure and intimacy and what I needed. I doubted myself, terribly doubted myself, for years. And I still do.
I'm ashamed of having been a slut. I'm ashamed for having not been slutty enough to bring myself to orgasm. Right now, I'm ashamed that I've written all this and I'm going to share it with the world, because it's so confused.
But I'm going to hit that publish button anyway, because the only way to stop being ashamed is to just deal with the reality. So here we go. REALITY.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Aging
I think being old has snuck up on me, and then jumped me in a dark alley and forever left its mark on my life.
I'm 27. True fact. I've traveled the world, been married and divorced, given birth, been abandoned. Now I've got a job and a 401(k) and I drop my daughter at kindergarten every morning on my way into the office. She takes dance classes on Saturday. I schedule phone calls with my best friends. I shop online because it's easier. I have a cocktail or a beer after work. I'm in bed, asleep, by 10:30 most nights.
This is what old people life is like, isn't it?
I mean, I could still go out on Wednesday nights if I wanted to, but getting five hours of sleep and being slightly drunk when I wake up is hardly worth it when all that's going to happen is I'm going to go to a bar (alone), sit there (alone) and then go home (alone). Plus, I'll probably end up spending more money than I ought to, considering I really want to figure out a way to rationalize the purchase of a ridiculously expensive dress that I have nowhere to wear, and it's really hard to do that when you just dropped $25 on craft cocktails.
So basically, it's not worth it to go out and be wild and crazy and young. I don't want to go out unless I have guaranteed sparkling conversation. Which means plans made in advance, and I am so horrible at asking people to do things and most of the time it doesn't work out anyway. So why bother? I can watch Netflix in bed or write about theater events I haven't seen or read 10,000 word articles about Dominionism instead.
I'm old, guys. I'm a fuddy-duddy. A spinster.
It won't be long until my jowls start to sag and my tits are around my knees and I wear support stockings and complain about my knees. (Actually, I already have some serious wrinkles and I am more apt to complain about my cartilage-less hips. For real. They hurt.)
I'm old. It's pretty terrifying. I'm shallow, and so being old also means no longer being pretty, and that's really, really scary. I honestly don't know if my self-esteem will be able to handle the blow of no longer being looked at by men.
But it also means that nothing I accomplish between now and my death will be as notable as it might have been. I am not a prodigy. I am not a wunderkind. Even if I manage to publish a book or write for the New York Times or really just about anything that I might want to do, it won't be the kind of show-stopping accomplishment that it would have been if I'd done it young. Somewhere in my head, I wanted to be Tavi Gevinson, and now I have to deal with the fact that I'm not. I'm not that great. Even if I manage to accomplish great things eventually, I'll not be great-great, just normal-great.
Nothing will ever come ahead of schedule. Now I'm stuck in the local lanes, slogging my way through all that detritus.
I'm old. I'm scared. I guess this is growing up.
I'm 27. True fact. I've traveled the world, been married and divorced, given birth, been abandoned. Now I've got a job and a 401(k) and I drop my daughter at kindergarten every morning on my way into the office. She takes dance classes on Saturday. I schedule phone calls with my best friends. I shop online because it's easier. I have a cocktail or a beer after work. I'm in bed, asleep, by 10:30 most nights.
This is what old people life is like, isn't it?
I mean, I could still go out on Wednesday nights if I wanted to, but getting five hours of sleep and being slightly drunk when I wake up is hardly worth it when all that's going to happen is I'm going to go to a bar (alone), sit there (alone) and then go home (alone). Plus, I'll probably end up spending more money than I ought to, considering I really want to figure out a way to rationalize the purchase of a ridiculously expensive dress that I have nowhere to wear, and it's really hard to do that when you just dropped $25 on craft cocktails.
So basically, it's not worth it to go out and be wild and crazy and young. I don't want to go out unless I have guaranteed sparkling conversation. Which means plans made in advance, and I am so horrible at asking people to do things and most of the time it doesn't work out anyway. So why bother? I can watch Netflix in bed or write about theater events I haven't seen or read 10,000 word articles about Dominionism instead.
I'm old, guys. I'm a fuddy-duddy. A spinster.
It won't be long until my jowls start to sag and my tits are around my knees and I wear support stockings and complain about my knees. (Actually, I already have some serious wrinkles and I am more apt to complain about my cartilage-less hips. For real. They hurt.)
I'm old. It's pretty terrifying. I'm shallow, and so being old also means no longer being pretty, and that's really, really scary. I honestly don't know if my self-esteem will be able to handle the blow of no longer being looked at by men.
But it also means that nothing I accomplish between now and my death will be as notable as it might have been. I am not a prodigy. I am not a wunderkind. Even if I manage to publish a book or write for the New York Times or really just about anything that I might want to do, it won't be the kind of show-stopping accomplishment that it would have been if I'd done it young. Somewhere in my head, I wanted to be Tavi Gevinson, and now I have to deal with the fact that I'm not. I'm not that great. Even if I manage to accomplish great things eventually, I'll not be great-great, just normal-great.
Nothing will ever come ahead of schedule. Now I'm stuck in the local lanes, slogging my way through all that detritus.
I'm old. I'm scared. I guess this is growing up.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Adventures in Internet Dating, REDUX
So lately, my OKCupid profile has been languishing. I've been in full-blown hermit mode, spending my evenings snuggled into my (brand-new, absolutely beautiful, and far-too-expensive) sheets (from anthropologie) with Netflix and hard cider. (I'm twelve episodes into the first season of Roswell. Also, The Man Who Cried is currently streaming, and I highly recommend everyone out there watch it. It's a gorgeous little gem of a movie that was terribly under-advertised and under-rated, probably because it was directed by a woman, but it is intense and beautiful and it has a great cast.)
But my profile is active and everything, so I still get email notifications of certain kinds of things, and I totally got an email when this guy that's friends with this guy that I maybe kissed a lot a month ago was checking out my profile.
I may have laughed inappropriately loudly and for an unacceptable length of time.
But it did get me to go back to the site to see what else had been up lately, and WOW. Apparently, September is the month where people scope the dating site profiles of people they peripherally know in real life.
Stop it, people. YOU ARE CREEPING ME OUT. Also making me feel like a loser. Why do I have a profile on OKCupid again? Weeks like this, I forget. Seriously. Why do I? All I want to do is lie in bed and watch Netflix. And I am not going to invite some random internet stranger over to do that with me. I mean, real talk, I've had entire relationships during which I wouldn't have invited the person I was dating over to do that. Netflix in bed is serious business. Netflix in bed is more or less the absolute pinnacle of intimacy.
But OKC. Right. It's a little disconcerting to look at my visitors list and see so many familiar faces. I mean, it's funny and all for about 30 seconds and then I rapidly go into a shame spiral for even having the damn profile to begin with, and then I become concerned that these familiar faces might want to sleep with me, and then I get all nervous and all it does is reinforce my decision to become an agoraphobic hermit shut-in who watches Netflix in bed every night.
I'm sure in a week, when my extroverted tendencies have again conquered my introverted tendencies (I am constantly at war with myself, it's really unpleasant) and I'm all social butterfly again, I will be flattered by all these creepers. But right now, I'm just weirded out.
P.S.- You should probably keep a throw-away OKC profile with no pictures so you can scope out your friends and your friends' friends without causing existential meltdowns in the people you're checking up on. I mean, I totally understand curiousity, I'm more curious than a cat that's only got one life left, but really. A little courtesy, here. It's the internet. You can TOTALLY BE ANONYMOUS if you just put a little effort into it.
But my profile is active and everything, so I still get email notifications of certain kinds of things, and I totally got an email when this guy that's friends with this guy that I maybe kissed a lot a month ago was checking out my profile.
I may have laughed inappropriately loudly and for an unacceptable length of time.
But it did get me to go back to the site to see what else had been up lately, and WOW. Apparently, September is the month where people scope the dating site profiles of people they peripherally know in real life.
Stop it, people. YOU ARE CREEPING ME OUT. Also making me feel like a loser. Why do I have a profile on OKCupid again? Weeks like this, I forget. Seriously. Why do I? All I want to do is lie in bed and watch Netflix. And I am not going to invite some random internet stranger over to do that with me. I mean, real talk, I've had entire relationships during which I wouldn't have invited the person I was dating over to do that. Netflix in bed is serious business. Netflix in bed is more or less the absolute pinnacle of intimacy.
But OKC. Right. It's a little disconcerting to look at my visitors list and see so many familiar faces. I mean, it's funny and all for about 30 seconds and then I rapidly go into a shame spiral for even having the damn profile to begin with, and then I become concerned that these familiar faces might want to sleep with me, and then I get all nervous and all it does is reinforce my decision to become an agoraphobic hermit shut-in who watches Netflix in bed every night.
I'm sure in a week, when my extroverted tendencies have again conquered my introverted tendencies (I am constantly at war with myself, it's really unpleasant) and I'm all social butterfly again, I will be flattered by all these creepers. But right now, I'm just weirded out.
P.S.- You should probably keep a throw-away OKC profile with no pictures so you can scope out your friends and your friends' friends without causing existential meltdowns in the people you're checking up on. I mean, I totally understand curiousity, I'm more curious than a cat that's only got one life left, but really. A little courtesy, here. It's the internet. You can TOTALLY BE ANONYMOUS if you just put a little effort into it.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
It just doesn't work. For me.
It's pretty much a cliche. A friend of mine even has a joke about it. A girl who tells you she got pregnant on birth control is a liar. Because she was never on birth control.
Only, sometimes, she's not. I'm not.
I got pregnant on birth control. Twice.
The birth control pill is not foolproof. For all the things written about how the sexual revolution would never have occurred without access to easy contraceptive methods, I think it's high time that it's acknowledged that the birth control pill is not a goddamn silver bullet.
For starters, you have to take the pill every day, at the same time, to get those 95% effective rates. I suspect that's probably the source of the joke: telling a guy you're on the pill but neglecting to mention that you've forgotten to take it for the last three days.
However, the other issue is exactly what the pill does. The pill is not a condom or a spermicide or a diaphragm or an IUD. It does not physically prevent sperm from entering your uterus and possibly meeting a nice egg that it would be nice to settle down with. The pill messes with a woman's hormones, tricking the body into thinking that the woman is already pregnant, thus preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus and becoming a pregnancy.
Sidenote: this is the reason for Catholic condemnation of birth control. Morally speaking, the Church holds that a fertilized egg is life, since it contains all the genetic material. Stopping the egg from implanting in the uterus, thus causing the "life" that is the fertilized egg to be discarded, is tantamount to murder. While I find this position untenable in terms of actual living, it is a morally principled and logically sound position.
But it's universally acknowledged that most biology is not exact. Particularly when it comes to biochemistry, there is massive and statistically significant variation across the population. So trying to artificially alter that biochemistry is going to be a hit-and-miss proposition. Think anti-depressants: they don't work the same for everyone. Not even close.
Birth control pills are not much different.
I happen to be one of those people who's hormones fall waaaaay outside the norm. I should have known this, considering all the trouble I had getting through puberty and the ways in which my reproductive system still decides to punish me every month.
But I was a teenager and I bought into everything.
And I got pregnant at the ripe old age of 18. While I was on birth control. I had an abortion. And for those of you keeping score at home, my Catholic upbringing still asserts itself over that decision. I still sometimes cry for no particular reason and then realize I'm still processing a lifetime's worth of guilt and shame over having killed someone. But I do not doubt that it was the right decision, regardless. If I'd had that child, I'd still be married to an unmedicated, obsessive-compulsive control freak that liked to tell me I was worthless, didn't like me leaving the house, and had a penchant for trying to kill me. And there'd be a child in the household to worry about.
So, good decision. Even if it kills me now and again.
I put that experience out of my head. I told myself that I must not have been vigilant enough about taking my pill at exactly the same time every day. I set up a system with alarms and carrying extra packs of pills in all my purses and all manner of elaborate schema to ensure that it didn't happen again.
Well, I've got a two-and-a-half-year-old, so obviously that didn't work out as intended.
I love my daughter. I love her fiercely, dearly and unconditionally. But she was an accident, and I do wonder what my life would look like right now if I'd had the emotional wherewithal to go through a second abortion. Looking back, I think that her father wanted that, which may explain his current absence from our lives. No matter. No one should be forced to have a child they don't want, and men aren't an exception to that.
But these days, I put no stock in the pill. I don't even take it. I don't want to risk the temptation to fall back into the idea that I'm immune from pregnancy because I've got a silver bullet called Orthrotricyclen or Seasonique or what-have-you. Because obviously, it doesn't work for me.
Only, sometimes, she's not. I'm not.
I got pregnant on birth control. Twice.
The birth control pill is not foolproof. For all the things written about how the sexual revolution would never have occurred without access to easy contraceptive methods, I think it's high time that it's acknowledged that the birth control pill is not a goddamn silver bullet.
For starters, you have to take the pill every day, at the same time, to get those 95% effective rates. I suspect that's probably the source of the joke: telling a guy you're on the pill but neglecting to mention that you've forgotten to take it for the last three days.
However, the other issue is exactly what the pill does. The pill is not a condom or a spermicide or a diaphragm or an IUD. It does not physically prevent sperm from entering your uterus and possibly meeting a nice egg that it would be nice to settle down with. The pill messes with a woman's hormones, tricking the body into thinking that the woman is already pregnant, thus preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus and becoming a pregnancy.
Sidenote: this is the reason for Catholic condemnation of birth control. Morally speaking, the Church holds that a fertilized egg is life, since it contains all the genetic material. Stopping the egg from implanting in the uterus, thus causing the "life" that is the fertilized egg to be discarded, is tantamount to murder. While I find this position untenable in terms of actual living, it is a morally principled and logically sound position.
But it's universally acknowledged that most biology is not exact. Particularly when it comes to biochemistry, there is massive and statistically significant variation across the population. So trying to artificially alter that biochemistry is going to be a hit-and-miss proposition. Think anti-depressants: they don't work the same for everyone. Not even close.
Birth control pills are not much different.
I happen to be one of those people who's hormones fall waaaaay outside the norm. I should have known this, considering all the trouble I had getting through puberty and the ways in which my reproductive system still decides to punish me every month.
But I was a teenager and I bought into everything.
And I got pregnant at the ripe old age of 18. While I was on birth control. I had an abortion. And for those of you keeping score at home, my Catholic upbringing still asserts itself over that decision. I still sometimes cry for no particular reason and then realize I'm still processing a lifetime's worth of guilt and shame over having killed someone. But I do not doubt that it was the right decision, regardless. If I'd had that child, I'd still be married to an unmedicated, obsessive-compulsive control freak that liked to tell me I was worthless, didn't like me leaving the house, and had a penchant for trying to kill me. And there'd be a child in the household to worry about.
So, good decision. Even if it kills me now and again.
I put that experience out of my head. I told myself that I must not have been vigilant enough about taking my pill at exactly the same time every day. I set up a system with alarms and carrying extra packs of pills in all my purses and all manner of elaborate schema to ensure that it didn't happen again.
Well, I've got a two-and-a-half-year-old, so obviously that didn't work out as intended.
I love my daughter. I love her fiercely, dearly and unconditionally. But she was an accident, and I do wonder what my life would look like right now if I'd had the emotional wherewithal to go through a second abortion. Looking back, I think that her father wanted that, which may explain his current absence from our lives. No matter. No one should be forced to have a child they don't want, and men aren't an exception to that.
But these days, I put no stock in the pill. I don't even take it. I don't want to risk the temptation to fall back into the idea that I'm immune from pregnancy because I've got a silver bullet called Orthrotricyclen or Seasonique or what-have-you. Because obviously, it doesn't work for me.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Just A Man
Genevieve's father has been on my mind a lot recently. There is more than one reason why this might be. Certainly another failed attempt at a relationship will call him to mind, but I think that it's rather this incident:
Genevieve likes to play in "Mama's room." We go up to the attic, I sit on my bed with a book or a magazine or a newspaper and play music on the BlackBerry, and she runs around, pulling things out of drawers and off of shelves and hangers. Sometimes I don't read like I'm supposed to; sometimes I watch her frenetic activity, driven to fever pitch by the sheer delight of playing around in "Mama's tings."
I keep a picture of Jim in my nightstand. It used to be on the nightstand, but when he disappeared, I moved it into the drawer and there it has stayed. I hadn't actually thought about it in quite some time.
Last week, my little girl found the picture. It was buried amongst the accumulated detritus of a year and a half, but she found it. She is nothing if not tenacious. I was actually reading, this day, so when she held up the picture and announced loudly, "Picture of man!" I had to look up to see what she was talking about.
My breath caught. I literally could not breath in for a full five seconds. She brought the picture back down, so she could study it again. She did so for a good length of time. Then she looked back up at me and said, "Just a man."
And then she tossed the picture to the side.
I burst into tears. I couldn't help it. Genevieve was incredibly startled; she climbed up on the bed, leaned against my back, and stroked my hair and exhorted me "No sad, Mama. No cry."
I'm the mother-of-the-year. Letting my not-yet-two-year-old comfort me.
I did pull myself together pretty quickly (for me, anyway) but he's definitely been on my mind since.
Something I've never really told anyone: I'm not actually sure I know anything about the man. I was deeply, completely, hopelessly, helplessly in love with him, and I realize now that I might not even know his real name. That's the real reason I've not made any serious attempts to find him. I did quite a bit of investigating on my own, a year and a half ago, and what I discovered rocked the foundations of my world.
His house, might not be his house. His name, might not be his name. I may know nothing true about the man whose DNA composes half the genetic material of my child.
I may have been quite thoroughly duped. He may be sitting somewhere, laughing to himself about how easy that dumb American girl was. It is a possibility I can no longer fully ignore. I'd like to think that if he is out there somewhere, he feels some pang of regret for what he did. To that end, I do still email him once a month (or, maybe once every other month) with a few pictures and some choice anecdotes.
This unbroken stream of unreturned communication has turned him into something of a priest, or a god, for me. I confess my sins to him. It's something I always did; he always did know all my secrets. But this is different. I have no expectation of ever hearing from him again. He is a non-entity, but one I still feel immeasurably close to. I tell him everything now without hesitation, without remorse, without anything at all except relief. Knowing that he can never, never pass judgment on me because of what he's done, I feel absolved after each of these missives.
I imagine this is how people feel when they talk to God. Or go to confession. I do neither, these days, but I do email my daughter's father.
Genevieve likes to play in "Mama's room." We go up to the attic, I sit on my bed with a book or a magazine or a newspaper and play music on the BlackBerry, and she runs around, pulling things out of drawers and off of shelves and hangers. Sometimes I don't read like I'm supposed to; sometimes I watch her frenetic activity, driven to fever pitch by the sheer delight of playing around in "Mama's tings."
I keep a picture of Jim in my nightstand. It used to be on the nightstand, but when he disappeared, I moved it into the drawer and there it has stayed. I hadn't actually thought about it in quite some time.
Last week, my little girl found the picture. It was buried amongst the accumulated detritus of a year and a half, but she found it. She is nothing if not tenacious. I was actually reading, this day, so when she held up the picture and announced loudly, "Picture of man!" I had to look up to see what she was talking about.
My breath caught. I literally could not breath in for a full five seconds. She brought the picture back down, so she could study it again. She did so for a good length of time. Then she looked back up at me and said, "Just a man."
And then she tossed the picture to the side.
I burst into tears. I couldn't help it. Genevieve was incredibly startled; she climbed up on the bed, leaned against my back, and stroked my hair and exhorted me "No sad, Mama. No cry."
I'm the mother-of-the-year. Letting my not-yet-two-year-old comfort me.
I did pull myself together pretty quickly (for me, anyway) but he's definitely been on my mind since.
Something I've never really told anyone: I'm not actually sure I know anything about the man. I was deeply, completely, hopelessly, helplessly in love with him, and I realize now that I might not even know his real name. That's the real reason I've not made any serious attempts to find him. I did quite a bit of investigating on my own, a year and a half ago, and what I discovered rocked the foundations of my world.
His house, might not be his house. His name, might not be his name. I may know nothing true about the man whose DNA composes half the genetic material of my child.
I may have been quite thoroughly duped. He may be sitting somewhere, laughing to himself about how easy that dumb American girl was. It is a possibility I can no longer fully ignore. I'd like to think that if he is out there somewhere, he feels some pang of regret for what he did. To that end, I do still email him once a month (or, maybe once every other month) with a few pictures and some choice anecdotes.
This unbroken stream of unreturned communication has turned him into something of a priest, or a god, for me. I confess my sins to him. It's something I always did; he always did know all my secrets. But this is different. I have no expectation of ever hearing from him again. He is a non-entity, but one I still feel immeasurably close to. I tell him everything now without hesitation, without remorse, without anything at all except relief. Knowing that he can never, never pass judgment on me because of what he's done, I feel absolved after each of these missives.
I imagine this is how people feel when they talk to God. Or go to confession. I do neither, these days, but I do email my daughter's father.
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