Dr. No Thank You
007
Bond, Dames Bond
I make it a point to go to women doctors. This is a preference of mine, but it’s not a hard and fast rule. If I go to the ER, obviously I get the doctor I get, and if I’m referred to a specialist, I’m not going to balk because that particular specialist is a man. I’ve even had some fantastic male doctors in my past, one of whom is deeply missed. But my preference is for women, because they’re less likely to ignore my symptoms.
Again, this is not a hard and fast rule. There are plenty of women doctors out there who are just as arrogant and dismissive as their male counterparts. But in general, a woman doctor knows what her female patient means when she says she’s been having Day 2 cramping and flow all week. Or when she is feeling bloated and gross. Or when she has whisker burn all along her inner thighs that’s really sore and hasn’t healed after 5 days. Or whatever, just as a random example. Chicks get it.
I came to the decision to only see women doctors (particularly with regard to lady parts) in my late teens, after my third or fourth pap smear. There are only so many times you can listen to a man tell you to relax as he violates you with a cold and unpleasant instrument. Know what I mean?
On Her Majesty’s Secret Cervix
I had my first pap smear at 16, because I’d had sex, and I was scared into believing that anyone who’d had sex HAD to have a pap smear every year. I don’t know what I thought would happen if I didn’t have one. Maybe I’d be eaten away by cancer from the inside out and melt into the earth like Agatha Harkness. Who can say? All I know is that my family doctor, who I’d been seeing as long as I could remember, told me pap smears were VITAL for anyone who was sexually active.
Honestly, I don’t even remember how the subject came up, because I certainly didn’t volunteer it unsolicited. But when asked I did admit that I’d had sex. (Would it have mattered that it was just the one time? I don’t know.) He decided to put me on birth control “to regulate my periods” and he said I needed a pap. I was given time to change into an exam gown and then he returned to do the procedure. He explained that he just needed to take a swab of cells off my cervix, much like a throat culture for a strep test, but since my cervix was more difficult to access, they used a tool called a speculum. As he held up the shiny 5-inch metal apparatus he said to me that I shouldn’t be nervous because I’ve already had something that size inside of me.
I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear. I wanted the universe to swallow me whole and leave nothing but a void where I used to be. I was so shocked and unsettled I froze and cringed through that whole procedure, willing it to be over while he kept telling me to release my tension. I was 16! I’d had sex one time! Months earlier! And it wasn’t great! You try relaxing through that.
It’s been over 30 years since I had that first pap smear, and I still think about it every fucking year.
Live and Let Diet
Another reason going to the doctor is such a pain in the ass is that vague symptoms are often chalked up to weight issues. Extreme muscle and joint pain? Try losing some weight. Gastrointestinal issues? Maybe lose some weight. Trouble getting pregnant? Losing weight might help. Feeling down and depressed? You might be self-conscious about your weight. Trouble breathing? Heart palpitations? Insomnia? Come back after you’ve lost some weight. And on and on.
I have a tendency to maybe be a little more concerned about changes in my body than most people. I’m hypersensitive to the way things feel and the way my body responds to certain triggers. When something strange happens, I feel compelled to bring it up to my MD, because what if this time it really is something important? I can’t stand the thought of not knowing, just in case. I worry, and worry leads to spiraling.
At the same time, I have experienced so many fruitless doctor visits, so many shrugged shoulders, so many wasted copays, so many suppositions, and so many inconclusive test results that I am extremely jaded about the process of seeking medical help. Thousands of people feel similarly, especially when the advice they’re consistently given centers around a trait that has likely remained constant before and after the concerning symptoms in question.
Mind you, the recommendation to lose weight isn’t reserved for strictly fat girls, either. You do not need to be anywhere close to obese in order to receive this advice. Moreover, this quick dismissal of symptoms has led to inexcusable delays in the diagnoses of conditions that would’ve been caught earlier with more scrutiny and care. Is it really so much to ask that our doctors take us seriously?
Quantum of Sorrow
I gotta say, I feel pretty bad for guys this week. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the very worst of them are rising to the surface in the wake of Dump’s election, leading cheers of “Your body, my choice” through the streets of social media — which got instigator Nick Fuentes well and fully doxxed, by the way — some of them have now made the truly regrettable choice of bringing back the “not all men” argument.
This is no doubt in response to the intense rage of women reacting to the election results. Women are pissed. They are livid. They are fed up. In no area is this more apparent than the growing TikTok and Instagram interest in the 4B Movement, an activist movement in South Korea that promotes denying men dates, marriage, children, and even sex until the rampant misogyny and inequality there are addressed. Unsurprisingly, this movement holds a lot of appeal for women who’ve essentially been told it’s better they bleed out in a hospital parking lot than get to decide the fate of their own bodies. And there are some guys — even otherwise intelligent ones — who are pushing back against this rage because, hey, it’s not like THEY are part of the problem.
Listen, dudes, I feel ya. It is absolutely no fun to be held accountable for the misdeeds or even the perceived misdeeds of an entire gender. But if women are saying they are fucking sick of their opinions counting for less than nothing, the thing you do NOT want to do is tell them why their opinion is invalid. Guys have this drive to fix things we didn’t ask them to fix in the first place as it is, but this is really a situation where you need to step back. Learn to listen to what the women in your life are telling you. Hear their pain and — say it with me — commiserate. Tell her what she’s going through sucks. Let her vent for as long as she wants. Ask her if there’s anything you can do and don’t give her ANY suggestions of your own. If you know her really well, surprise her with her favorite way to pamper herself. Then let her heal in time on her own. She’ll appreciate you all the more for it.
If you would like to tell me why I’m not entitled to these opinions, you are more than welcome to email me about it, and I may or may not tell you why I don’t care, why it’s none of your business, or why you can go fuck yourself. It’s a crap shoot.