Looking inward
I follow Bitch Magazine on Twitter, and tonight they tweeted this website:
Beautiful Cervix Project
A woman who's a doula and midwife-in-training decided to document the changes in her cervix and vagina for each day of her cycle. She used the usual methods: basal temperature and noting changes in secretions, as well as changes in breast size, water retention, sex drive, and general mood and physical feelings each day. But she also documented each day with a photograph, using a speculum, the macro setting on her camera, and a helpful boyfriend to shine the light where it needed to be for each photo.
It.
Is.
FASCINATING.
In very clear language, she notes what's going on in each photo, as well as pointing out the individual oddities of her particular set of parts (some ragged remnants of hymenal tissue, the unusual angle of her cervix due to the positioning of her uterus). There are no apologies for anything looking weird, no disclaimers about anything being "abnormal" (and nothing is, because variation is normal), no self-consciousness; neither is it an overly flowery ode to her beautiful bud of womynhood or any other such euphemisms. She simply makes the point that this is what it looks like, this is what's happening at any given point in the cycle. And it's amazing.
And it infuriates me a little bit, too. I'm 33 years old and I had no idea what a cervix looked like from that angle, and while I knew that things change throughout the menstrual cycle according to what's going on, I really had no idea how much the cervix varies over those times. I know what the textbook view of a disembodied uterus, cervix, and vagina look like from the outside; and I'm pretty comfortable with my parts (I use a Diva Cup, after all). But all of that is really different from learning generally what my doctors see when they do a pelvic exam, and particularly knowing what my own body looks like. And I'm kind of indignant that this wasn't part of any of my sex ed or biology classes in grade school, and something I only tangentially picked up from reading things like Our Bodies, Ourselves and going to workshops at an all-female college. And still I had no idea what it all actually looked like. (Granted, I know this lack of information goes far beyond my own education; one of the most interesting comments on the site is from a doctor who notes that even medical students don't see pictures of normal, healthy cervices in their training, because the textbooks tend to focus on how things look when they're abnormal/infected, without ever giving a normal basis for comparision. This boggles my mind.)
Anyway, it's an incredibly useful and well-done project, and I recommend that all of you (women especially, but men too, at least men who have any inclination to be near ladyparts) go look at this. Be aware that it does show menstrual fluid and cervical discharge, but since those things are normal, important, and constant parts of the cycle, they shouldn't stop you.
Beautiful Cervix Project
A woman who's a doula and midwife-in-training decided to document the changes in her cervix and vagina for each day of her cycle. She used the usual methods: basal temperature and noting changes in secretions, as well as changes in breast size, water retention, sex drive, and general mood and physical feelings each day. But she also documented each day with a photograph, using a speculum, the macro setting on her camera, and a helpful boyfriend to shine the light where it needed to be for each photo.
It.
Is.
FASCINATING.
In very clear language, she notes what's going on in each photo, as well as pointing out the individual oddities of her particular set of parts (some ragged remnants of hymenal tissue, the unusual angle of her cervix due to the positioning of her uterus). There are no apologies for anything looking weird, no disclaimers about anything being "abnormal" (and nothing is, because variation is normal), no self-consciousness; neither is it an overly flowery ode to her beautiful bud of womynhood or any other such euphemisms. She simply makes the point that this is what it looks like, this is what's happening at any given point in the cycle. And it's amazing.
And it infuriates me a little bit, too. I'm 33 years old and I had no idea what a cervix looked like from that angle, and while I knew that things change throughout the menstrual cycle according to what's going on, I really had no idea how much the cervix varies over those times. I know what the textbook view of a disembodied uterus, cervix, and vagina look like from the outside; and I'm pretty comfortable with my parts (I use a Diva Cup, after all). But all of that is really different from learning generally what my doctors see when they do a pelvic exam, and particularly knowing what my own body looks like. And I'm kind of indignant that this wasn't part of any of my sex ed or biology classes in grade school, and something I only tangentially picked up from reading things like Our Bodies, Ourselves and going to workshops at an all-female college. And still I had no idea what it all actually looked like. (Granted, I know this lack of information goes far beyond my own education; one of the most interesting comments on the site is from a doctor who notes that even medical students don't see pictures of normal, healthy cervices in their training, because the textbooks tend to focus on how things look when they're abnormal/infected, without ever giving a normal basis for comparision. This boggles my mind.)
Anyway, it's an incredibly useful and well-done project, and I recommend that all of you (women especially, but men too, at least men who have any inclination to be near ladyparts) go look at this. Be aware that it does show menstrual fluid and cervical discharge, but since those things are normal, important, and constant parts of the cycle, they shouldn't stop you.