What helps you stay open?

ROTFLMAO :-D
Shit, I still get the metal ones. And what the hell is with those sharp edges that could cut your privates? I swear, had to be a man who made the speculum and one made that barbaric thing for breast exams where your breast is squished like a pancake.

(BTW, I do not think in a million years that a man should be a gynecologist. I don't care how many vaginas you've seen in a book, or how many dead ones you've explored on the cadaver table…you DO NOT have one, and if you did you wouldn't use that damn speculum and shine a high beam where the sun don't shine)

Now as far as the other sort of openness, yes, that can be a vulnerability. There are people who prey on that sort who are open but naive, knowing how trusting and gullible the open hearted can be….But you explained all that wonderfully. Great post ;-)

damn those specula indeed. i shudder whenever one comes near…

forced openness is a violation. yes. but it was great to talk to you yesterday about true openness though it can lead to a lot of pain it is the way we need to leave. we are like that. and i also had great talks with Nishtha and Doug that brought me some more clarity on what we were discussing

Have you heard of Annie Sprinkle? I saw her show years ago at Club Soda.
At one point she takes inserts a speculum into her vagina and encourages everyone to come take a look at her cervix. Anyways the show is about how how often we are closed to the things that are the most human,our sexuality our anatomy. She finishes the show by having an orgasm on stage. It was fun,interesting,naughty (esp the breast ballet) and different.
Have I ever said how much fun this city is? ;-)

Annie Sprinkle has a spot on the Tantric Sex DVD made in the US in the early nineties if I remember rightly….I like her fearlessness…..and i admire the fearlessness of all you fine women who  do not run a quadrillion miles at the sight of a speculum let alone get openned by one…and i agree that gynaecology is a women-only occupation…..why do men want to be gynaecologists????…there's an interesting discussion in itself….

Anyways, good on yer Stace…jon x

yup, my first thought was also a type of hardware..

Ha! Good one. We're on a similar wave length today.

Ya know it kinda looks like the robot on Mystery Science Theater..!!!
Only translucent.

Okay, when I saw Jurassic Park and the T Rex came on stage I thought “My God!  A speculum with teeth!”  Honest.  I think like that, especially when the Rex was trying to force his snout into the bottomside of the overturned car.  Such symbolism!

And not to discount the invasiveness of the speculum, but an ureterscopic exam for a male is horrible!  The damn thing is 4 or 5 mm in diameter and definitely goes where the sun don't shine.  Trying to maintain a sense of dignity is, ummm, difficult. 

There is a little irony in that where my doctor is a woman - she reads me like a book - my daughter switched from a woman gynecologist to a male version of the same because, in her words, “My old OBGYN did the internal like she was grinding hamburger meat.”  I think having innie versus outie parts informs, but ultimately isn't definitive.  Oh, btw - the most current version of the speculum was patented by two women, Gale Davidson and Kathryn Hier from, of all places, Indianapolis.  Maybe this hearkens back to the innie versus outie comment.  No one is off the hook.  Or maybe there's really no hook after all.

Lastly - Annie Sprinkle, oh yeah!  Fifteen or so years ago I signed up for a series of lectures, several of which were to be given by Annie.  It was great, especially since the series organizers had titled the lectures “On human Relations” and had convinced a major corporation … okay, it was Kodak … to make meeting rooms and auditoriums available for the series.  They had no Idea what Annie was up to - actually, not many of us did since Annie was then new to that line of work.  After the first of Annie's 'performances,' the horrified Kodak public relations (how ironic) officer begged Annie to move her parts (ha!) to another location that Kodak would be only too happy to find and pay for.  Another irony.  Kodak, the company on whose products many miles of steamy sexuality had been recorded both privately and commercially, fairly fainted away when the real (reel?) stuff poked it's head up.

Cool blog Stacey

OH MY LORD! You rock so hard and I am in awe!!  That pic-answer is the hottest thing on Gaia RIGHT now!

Boogie, I just don't get why we're so fucking afraid of touching each other's anatomies.  Christ!  If someone's going to be a “Snatch Doctor” sure seems like they'd learn a lot more by gently inserting some fingers when they say “peek-a-boo” than some fucking plastic or metal apparatus.  But, of course, many women probably delight in keeping it all “impersonal” what with  “professional propriety” and wotnot.

In any case, let me know if there's any way I can help you enjoy openness!

I've seen my cervix at a doctor's office, and it was kind of cool. But is it necessary? I don't know. They sell the plastic ones so you can do it yourself, but you can't do your own pap smear. Who needs one of those every year anyway? http://www.womenshealthspecialists.org/images/selfhelp/3_9_side_view_large.jpg