[fat] confessions on my own scars, stretch marks, and hairiness

giangie.tumblr.com

My first surgery scars came in high school from putting my shoulder back together after a weird overuse accident. (labral tear-- the tissue that holds the ball and socket in place was torn from the bone) After being misdiagnosed for eight months the three one-inch-long scars felt like battle scars. A year later I had a breast reduction, three pounds and some drainage tubes later I’ve got almost two feet of faint pink scars. I have yet to meet a man who noticed my scars until about a month of pillow talk later… it’s been quite the confidence booster. My other surgery scars are from having my appendix plucked out a few years after that. The scars are consistent with an ovary removal, but luckily it was my appendix that was infected and dying instead. The surgical scars could almost count as battle scars -- except my belly and boobs have faced no trauma.


All along my arms and legs are bug bites. Ants and mosquitoes for the most part, but the occasional family of chiggers or no-see-ums will try to take up residence under a flip flop strap. Many bites have scabbed over, and some have finally left smooth purple discolorations. I haven’t shaved my legs in over four years -- thighs in over six. Luckily the hair is rather blonde and thin, so I don’t need to worry about shaving over bug bites and opening up scabs. I’ve also got my fair share of old scraped knees and shins from work as well as my years of tree climbing and mud pie pancake making in the back yard. Additionally, no guy has noticed my leg hair until I've actually pointed it out to him. Women on occasion have noticed the leg hair.


[feminist] review: #Orgasm, Inc

No one truly knows where Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) comes from, as a medical term and disease. The pharmaceutical industry (the third largest industry in the United States) is promoting FSD as a disease with a potential monetary and medical fix. Drug companies are in a race to be the first company to be FDA approved for their magic libido-boosting drug. Everything in our capitalist world can be commodified, even your orgasms. Because “orgasms should happen and feel this one particular way… therefore your way is wrong.” So we’re going to help you have the perfect orgasm, if you can fork over the money.

Why are we so gullible? The vast majority of Americans did not receive proper sex ed in school. The joke “if you have sex, you will get pregnant, and you will die” is unfortunately not really a joke. Many of us learned that “lesson” in school instead of facts. If we can’t learn about our reproductive anatomy, and the purpose of our anatomy, then we are doomed to learn about sex and sexuality from society-- our parents, our friends, the tv, the horrible things anyone can find online…

[feminist] why I need birth control

This video should be watched by every voter in America. The idea that all women should have access to affordable birth control shouldn't be shocking, and it shouldn't be up for debate. What a person does with their body is their own business, and the way that they take care of their body is their own business, not the government's.

congressional birth control hearing-- the woman on the panel gets to speak

I was put on the pill when I was 15 because the doctor was afraid I had endometriosis, just like my mother. (Who had a terrible painful and extra complicated hysterectomy eventually because of this). I was told if I'm not on some form of birth control, its quite possible that my fallopian tubes will become blocked by endometrium growth-- meaning that I could be sterile, and also that I would have an increased risk of an ectopic pregnancy.

At 19 my pill had to be switched-- I'm over the weight limit for the low dose pill I was taking and I was still ovulating. (period control-- not birth control!, which was what I needed) I had terrible pain in my hip, and an MRI showed a golf ball size cyst on my left ovary. Less than a month later after other tests (before the MRI results came back) I had another test which showed that the cyst had grown to the size of a tennis ball. Also, I didn't get that test result back before I was walking across my apartment one evening and collapsed onto the floor in excruciating pain. The cyst had ruptured, and its contents coated my insides. It took about a month before that pain went away. I was told that if I had another, it could mean the end of that ovary through a necessary surgery. My bc pill now keeps me from ovulating. With insurance its $30 a month. When I had to have the annual beg-and-plead with the insurance company to reauthorize it, I had to go without for a month because it was $120.

The thought of not having insurance truly scares me. The idea of having insurance one day that doesn't cover all of my medical needs is disgusting and even scarier. Access to contraceptives is not just about unwanted pregnancy through promiscuous sex, its about basic healthcare for the well being of all women.

We have to stand together, call the men and women representing us in Washington, call the people representing us in our state capitals, and let them know that this is absolutely ridiculous and that their time is better spent on other things. Then, come November, we have to show all of America that we have the power to get rid of the idiots who are sponsoring these bills against women's health. Standing by and doing nothing is just a form of siding with the oppressors. I refused to be oppressed in the land of the free.

[feminist] mass produced bras and my breast reduction surgery

In response to:

Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. “Breast Buds and the ‘Training’ Bra.” 1977. Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings, 4^th edition. 249-254.

Before reading this I had no idea that the first bra was created in 1913, “designed simply to flatten,” and that the more current/modern bra came about in the 1930’s (Brumberg 250). The concept of the bra is so new yet so universal now. Mass production and mass media are so influential in society, and the bra is a prime example. With mass production came sizing—A, B, C, D, the infamous DD, and the realm of un-tamed breasts even larger. (As a person who once wore the “more than a DD,” I know firsthand the impossibility of buying a bra in a department store that will be the correct size.) I was still in middle school when I made the transition to “larger than my mother” and up to DD, and had to face the realization that I wasn’t just larger than normal, larger than my peers, but I was freakishly, abnormally larger than society as a whole. For years I wore two minimizer bras at a time in an effort to “tame” my breasts even more, as they continued to grow. I was known as “jugs” for years in high school before I had breast reduction surgery, after which I spent my final year in baggy shirts so that no one would I know that I had “gotten my tits cut off.”  (which to this day people perceive as a “tragedy” despite the fact that it was practically a medical necessity)

The physical pain I had from wearing underwire bras aimed at “taming” my breasts has always led me to wonder why anyone would wear a AAA or AA (or even an A) bra when to me they so obviously don’t need one. But with stores and brands like Victoria’s Secret a AAA girl can wear a bra that makes her look like she has real B-size breasts. (I’ve always wondered how disappointed the boyfriend is once the bra comes off?)