Becoming More Proactive In Healthcare

Birth control is a personal choice, but how can we, as women, make the right choices for ourselves when vital information is kept far out of our reach and, when most of the time, we don't even know to go looking for it until Ben Wah Balls goes wrong? Thanks to the internet and some digging, we can learn to be more proactive in our own healthcare choices.


Hitachi Wand are used to stimulate female clit or inside or vagina.

Learning To Be My Own Health Advocate

Not long ago, we had to take one of our cats to the vet (due to behavioral problems), and while I was there I asked a million questions, the type of questions you normally ask when it comes to the health of a pet and you are treading unknown waters. It wasn’t until a few days later that I started to realize that, when it comes to my own health and concerns, I am nowhere near as diligent. I ask a few questions and then trust the doctor's judgment, and I’m not the only one. It is almost like the relationship I had with my parents when I was very young, ask a few questions but trust absolutely. Even when I hear news about all the malpractice lawsuits, and watch Discovery shows about medical procedures going horribly wrong, it never really registers to me that those types of things could happen to just about anyone, they could even happen to me. It really does amaze me that I am so knowledgeable in what can happen, and still I am not as proactive in my own health as I should be. Recently I paid the price for this, luckily it was only a very small price, it could've been a lot bigger, and in the end I came out with my eyes wide open and a promise to never again trust so blindly after not doing my own research.

A little over six months ago, I made an appointment to change my birth control from the pill to whatever non-hormonal options I had left. I was on the pill for about a year and was unhappy with the weight gain and the interaction it was having with another medication I was on (even at its lowest dose). I did a small bit of research on my own and decided that, if it was an option, I would like to try a copper IUD. Really I should have looked deeper, but once I brought the idea up to my doctor she ran through most of the stuff I had already read on the ParaGard website and added how it was a really good choice for the non-hormonal option and how safe it was (given I didn't have a copper allergy), and that they were even doing tests showing that someday soon it could be used for up to 20 years. Fertility also comes back right away so whenever I get to the point that I want to start a family, I could. You are even warned to not have sex five days before having the ParaGard inserted, or removed. Anyway, the gynecologist pretty much gave it a five star review and I was sold. There were no pills to take, no silicone domes to worry about, and no more condoms.

The experience, of having the IUD placed, was unenjoyable but that was to be expected. They do warn about a bit of discomfort, though discomfort doesn't really cover the feeling. Lately I've read some people describing the pain almost as prelabor pain. Knowing that sooner would’ve been nice, but I don’t imagine it would’ve made much a difference to my pain level. The pain lingered for about four or five days before my body regulated itself again. I had about two months of heavy periods and a bit more pain than normal. Around month three, I started to have break though bleeding, which then turned into a full on period that lasted about three months, with only a few days in between without bleeding. It was almost always fresh blood, and I was told that a three times a day Ibuprofen regimen would take care of it and the pain eventually. Eventually never came and, sadly, that is when I started to question just what exactly I had done to myself, and really look into what I had inside me.

I found forums upon forums of females experiencing the same symptoms I was experiencing, and we all had one basic thing in common- ParaGard. Now, I am not going to say it caused everything directly but its malfunctioning, coupled with the stress of that, caused most of the physical and all of the emotional issues. I was lucky, it didn't embed itself, I didn't have to have surgery to remove it, and, once it was out, the pain and bleeding stopped. I am far from back to normal though and, even though it’s been out for two months, I have yet to have a normal menstrual cycle. The thing that really angers me is that some of the warnings and material used in making the ParaGard were very much unlisted in the reading material, and packaging from the company itself, and was not even mentioned by my doctor (assuming she even knew about the missing information). I had to dig and eventually call and talk with a paid representative, once I knew the exact questions to ask (like a secret handshake or code word). The copper wire that is what makes the ParaGard work as non-hormonal birth control, isn't pure copper, there is nickel in it, which is kind of a big deal.

All I was asked before insertion was, 'did I have a copper allergy/sensitivity?' nothing was ever asked about nickel. The only reason I knew to ask about it to a representative, was because a few forum posts mentioned this and how it’s not talked about at all and I really felt like it couldn't be true. Something that important (a breakdown of what is in something that is going to be residing inside you shouldn't be kept secretive, in such a way) would be written in letters easy to find. But it wasn't and I am supper disappointed, not only in ParaGard but also the gynecologist that gave ParaGard a five star review. How hard is it to put in a warning about the product containing trace amounts of nickel, if a type food is even made in the same manufacturing plant as another type that contains peanuts, there is at least one warning label slapped onto it, why can't it be the same in the medical world.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying boycott IUD's all together. I can understand that, for some women, they are sometimes the only option that works. There are tons of women out there that have no problem during their 5 to 10 years with their IUD's and that is great. All I am saying is that we, as women, need to take charge of our own sexual health and not just trust that the pharmaceutical, manufacturing companies, and doctors have our best interest in mind, or are even all that informed on the product they are trying to sell you on. Take charge and dig deeper, make sure all your concerns are addressed, and if they are not all addressed in one place, go that further distance to collect the information from everywhere until you are personally satisfied that you know what you are putting into or having put into your body. I sure wish I did then, and I know I definitely am informed now. I learned my lesson, so please learn from me.

Agency is Agency, No Matter What It Wears

At The American Prospect E.J, Graff has a thought-provoking piece on rape culture in the US and abroad. If Americans are tempted to view the horrific torture, rape, and murder of a New Delhi woman as evidence that rape culture is endemic only to foreign societies, they’re wrong; in Graff’s words, rape culture “lives anywhere that has a ‘traditional’ vision of women’s sexuality.” This, of course, includes the US, where slut-shaming is epidemic, politicians restrict their sympathy for survivors of “legitimate” rape, and all too many people continue to blame rape survivors for being the victim of crimes.

Graff makes her argument in graphic detail, and her piece is well worth reading. However, one troubling line jumps out:

    “A culture in which women must cover up or be threatened is a rape culture. You’re thinking of hijab and burquas, right? Think also of the now well-known SlutWalks, which were launched after a Toronto police officer told young women that they could avoid rape by not dressing like ‘sluts.’”

Graff’s point is that the coerced covering of female bodies in the West is just as indicative of rape culture as in the Muslim world. The reference to hijabs and burquas is evoked to emphasize this point: if Canadian police telling women not to dress like “sluts” is comparable to Muslim head and body coverings it must be oppressive, because the veil is a perfect synonym for patriarchy. Here the Muslim world is the alien other, identified only by definitional oppression. There’s the threat — if we, the West, don’t change our ways we’ll be like them.

This is a troublingly Orientalist view of the female experience in the Muslim world. This isn’t to say that Muslim societies are not crippled by widespread misogyny and sexual violence; they clearly are, and the costs of patriarchy are arguably higher in these societies than anywhere else. This also doesn’t suggest that hijabs and other female religious garments are not a product of patriarchy. In an alternative reality where Islam — and of course Christianity — arose in egalitarian, rather than patriarchal, societies, it’s difficult to believe that these religious traditions would stress concealing clothing for women and not men. But assuming that the veil always represents a denial of female freedom is a condescending and simplistic dismissal of a complex tradition, and denies agency to the millions of Muslim women who chose to wear the garment.
Artist unknown; please contact me if you know.

Artist unknown; please contact me if you know.

Are many women forced to wear clothing they otherwise would not, on the justification of religious tradition? Of course. But assuming that all women wear the hijab because they are forced to compresses millions of Muslim women’s varied experiences into a single condemnation of their culture. In this view, Western women’s choices are valid, while Muslim women’s are not. It is difficult to imagine a more condescending narrative, because this story of oppressed, subservient Muslim women denies them the agency to choose. Reza Aslan ably explains this distinction in his history of Islam, No god but God:

    ‘The fact is that the traditional colonial image of the veiled Muslim woman as the sheltered, docile sexual property of her husband is just as misleading and simpleminded as the postmodernist image of the veil as the emblem of female freedom and empowerment from Western cultural hegemony. The veil may be neither or both of these things, but that is up to Muslim women to decide for themselves. [p. 73]“

To Westerners, the narrative of the veil as a tool of oppression is both satisfying and comforting: satisfying because it reaffirms the West’s cultural superiority, and comforting because it simplifies a bewildering variety of religious and cultural traditions into a simple narrative of backwardness. Again, this does not mean that patriarchy is absent from the practice — as Aslan notes, reading the veil as empowering freedom from the male gaze is just as simplistic as understanding it solely as patriarchal barbarism. But lumping all women who wear the veil into the category of pitied victims reflects an inherent narrative of cultural superiority. It is up to individual Muslim women, not non-Muslim observers, to decide whether the practice is oppressive. The veil is not incompatible with feminism; only the lack of female agency is.