>> The great girl gross-out: From extricating 10-day-old tampons to dealing with a post-birth vagina that “conjured jellyfish, dead and torn.” In Salon, Rebecca Traiser discusses female writers’ graphic writing about their bodies: “Is it too much information, or enlightened honesty?”

>> Some of the grossout articles seem more just like oversharing — but other articles contend with important issues that still don’t get talked about. One of the articles Rebecca cites is Miranda Purves’ article in Elle — with its graphic description of her distended post-birth vagina and her newfound shame about her body and her sex life:

I did get some consolation from my mothers’ group—even the C-section mothers said that the weight of carrying the baby affected their size. Some were having a harder time, dealing with (the horror!) incontinence. One was going to biofeedback physical therapy to strengthen her muscles. Others snapped back into shape like Barbies. Yet almost all of us were dealing with some post-birth change in our essential, sexual selves that either we weren’t aware would happen prebirth, or that we’d chosen not to dwell on.

This information, I would think, would be of interest to women thinking about getting pregnant — yet the dialogue about it generally only seems to happen after birth after the damage has been done, so to speak. And even then, most of the dialogue’s only happening in private circles like a mothers’ group.

>> Other random things I learned reading these articles: 1) “Vaginal rejuvenation” surgery doesn’t work. 2) I may be the only feminist blogger who doesn’t read Jezebel (there are just too many posts to keep up!).

Photo of jellyfish by just tom

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