You know, it’s been a busy week. But I just found a pocket of mental relief (about to be followed up with a tasty alcoholic beverage). You see, last weekend I read that damn awful New York Times Magazine article about vaginal reconstruction surgery. And I had the usual reactions; sadness, at the shame driving patients to chop their pussies to fit porn ideals, anger at the cosmetic surgery industry making big bucks on re-virginalizing women, more sadness that the women don’t know that vaginal surgery fucks with orgasmic potential. But I already knew all this. And my personal perspective is not what I wanted to read reflected back at me, just a thoughtful exploration of the topic; and as with every piece they do on sex, there was *no news* in this NY Times article.
What rattled my cage was the writer — and dear mother Mary in a strap-on, the writer’s name is Daphne Merkin. No, that’s not it either: it’s the 1950s-mentality, sex-negative, self-hateful way the writer, as a woman, approached the material. She tells us she can hardly bear to look between her own legs, and that Brazilian waxes fall into the same category as this surgery trend. *And* she criticizes women who are not afraid to get out a mirror and a flashlight — and might like it. I now wonder, after last year’s dismally weak sex coverage, is sexual ignorance the hiring policy of their publication? It can’t be — they had Natalie Angier writing for them. Please bring back Natalie, for the sake of all of us reading your paper and crossing our legs in ghost pain, like when a guy sees another guy get kicked in the balls on TV. I thought, fuck, will I ever see mature articles about sex and sexuality in a major newspaper without the rotten stink of sexual shame, before I’m like 70 years old? Dammit, the topic is so very interesting; why ruin it with your own baggage?
Anyway, I just discovered on Mark Pritchard’s blog that I wasn’t the only one who walked away from this article with a sore spot. Mark’s awesome post lead me to, among other things, this nice piece of writing on Bats Left Throws Right:
“I really don’t care whether Daphne wants to look Down There or not. But the idea that women realizing their health had for too long been in the hands of ‘experts’ who were largely male and largely clueless and uncaring is not a quaint cultural icon of a bygone era. It’s those same experts who were telling women that the clitoris had nothing to do with orgasm. Better we spend every late night watching Girls Gone Wild ads than another generation be lied to by sexophobic guardians of decency. (…) It’s enough to note the etymology: Latin pudenda, used as the noun form of the neuter plural of pudendus, the gerundive of pudere, meaning to be ashamed.”
Thank you. A toast tonight to all journalists who *like* sex. And write about it. But not The Merk.
