Part Two: I'm Now Going to Talk About the Big O After I (Finally) Got Rid of My Uterus

So, I was at war with my uterus. But life goes on even if you do spend two weeks every month PMSing like crazy and then spending one full week doubled over in agony, bleeding your guts out and hating everybody, cause they look at you sideways at just the wrong moment. Headaches, backaches, teeth grinding, nerves on edge all the damn time. Break through bleeding. I can't blame everthing on my uterus, I was after all married three times, and before and after and even during I had lovers, or so they they'd think they were.

But after the third ex-husband, I ended up, at thirty nine with the man I have referred to as first-love/last-love which I will shorten to FL/LL. He and I had the best of times and the worst of times, but most of the time he was a terrific lover. He was a bit of a show off in the love making department. Which sometimes annoyed me--a virtuoso performance is not always what you want. So the O's were big even when I still had my uterus. I prefer clitoral stimulation to bring me to orgasm without a lot of other stimulation to distract me from that singular pleasure. And it's also true that oral sex is not my favorite thing. Too much stimulation and I can't concentrate, can't turn off my mind. I have been able to orgasm with only two men in my entire life by just plain fucking. Old fashioned fucking. FL/LL was one of them, and the other's name I can't recall. It was a brief relationship shall we say. I sort of gave myself the best going away present when I left Santa Monica in late 1970. I had earlier that year terminated my one and only pregnancy for complicated reasons that will be apparent if you read my novel, Maggy. Suffice it to say, I had my reasons. Bad timing (it was one year pre Roe v Wade), wrong man, false positive VDRL, conceived on LSD--it was a pity fuck (I was on my way out the door) gone wrong. I never regretted the abortion. And so once healed, I gave myself the gift of the sexiest man around for a few days. There is such a thing as good chemistry, and the just right anatomical fit to bring forth a thundering liquefaction of a shuddering melting rippling sensation that starts deep and at the very end leaves the thighs wobbly. Uterine or vaginal? I can't tell. I don't know. Full body, yes. Anything other than old fashioned fucking not needed if everything else is going on for me. Did the man in question know what he was good at? Oh yeah. But that's out of, oh I don't know, maybe thirty men give or take... I have had men work so hard to bring me to orgasm, but I knew fairly early on, it wasn't going to happen. You can just tell these things. I could give all the instruction in the world and it wasn't going to happen. I might have loved the man for a day or two or a year or two, still, not so great the sex even with plenty of guidance.

So I'm living with FL/LL and start bleeding all the time. Once I passed day thirty in the long red flood, I went begging to my gynecologist to please, please remove the damed uterus. I was never ever ever going to have a baby. I heard no ticking of my biological clock. But I did have a breaking point with the bleeding problems and the PMS and the expense and mess, and after the last D&C which didn't stop the bleeding for more than a week, and the tests for hormone levels, which were inconclusive, I finally got the go ahead to take the damned uterus out.

The surgery was hardly a surgery at all. No scar as it was removed vaginally, and they took the cervix as well. I was told that cervical cancer is pretty risky, so why leave it if you don't need it. They did leave my ovaries in case they were still able to produce estrogen. They weren't, so I started having hot flashes fairly soon after the operation. I was put on low dose hormone replacement therapy. It immediately cured the hot flashes and has allowed me to miss almost all the worst of menopause, though I am now very post menopausal in terms of years.

The doctors orders post surgery was six weeks of no sex and taking it easy. I healed perfectly, scarless. And when next FL/LL and I had sex it was maybe the best we ever had, slow, gentle, languid. Abstinence had something to do with it. But also I felt happier more of the time, and no PMS. None. Fewer headaches, and better everything. Might have been all in my head, but I don't think so. I bloomed. I was freer in my sexual skin, more at home in my body. It not only worked as well as before, but somehow better. We had more fun in bed.

I have been asked the question if I felt uterine contractions during orgasm, and the honest to god answer is not really. I have felt pain from pounding penetration that was too deep and pushing on my uterus. I think the physiology of the orgasm for me involves my clitoris, vaginal walls, legs, and the full engagement of my mind. If I'm preoccupied, or overly tired, or worried about any little thing, it won't happen. So for this reason, I loved lazy morning sex best. Before the stress of the day had a chance to fill my head. I liked to take advantage of a morning hard-on.

I have had a three-some that involved a female friend of mine who had the hots for me. It made for great sex, but had terrible consequences for all three of us emotionally. I wanted to see if I was bisexual. Sadly, I'm not, really. But it was a thoughtless, careless way to find that out.

I have found that once you have sex with anyone it changes your relationship in a way that means you can't go back and pretend it didn't happen or that it meant nothing. I do believe that almost all sex has emotional consequences for at least one or the other of you if not both or all three.

I have never for an instant regretted the removal of my uterus, and see? No scar.

But I have had a friend or two who have had a hysterectomy because of some dire medical reason and once it was gone, they have claimed to feel less womanly, less feminine. That was not my experience. Quite the contrary. So you cannot generalize from my experience. Nor can you claim to know for sure how you would feel without a uterus if you still have a uterus. Any questions?

I'm Surprised I Did So Well

-19 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Part One: I'm Now Going to Talk About My Missing Uterus

If this idea is horrifying to you, then now is the time to cover your eyes or run screaming from the room. But a friend of mine, Freida of the Bees, asked me a question in her comments on a recent post of hers, and a hell of a post it is by the way, about the quality of orgasm with a uterus and without a uterus. I'm in one very good position to speak about this, since there has been a before and an after. I have heard women for whom there is not an after or at least not yet, claim some expertise in this area, and I question the claimants credentials here. How can you compare something you have yet to experience from the now you know of? This is, I do believe, the very essence of existentialism.

Anyway, my uterus was always difficult. I started menstruating on the very young side of the young norm for my day and age. I was just barely eleven. And the whole thing was traumatic for a number of reasons not the least of which was that I was not expecting it. If you are curious about my menses inauspicious beginning and the big public deal made of it, and the loss I suffered as a consequence, I will refer you to the Chapter called Too Old in the novel, Maggy, linked for your convenience on my side bar But the upshot of the whole thing was years and years of pain so severe it made me throw up, and have horrible headaches, sensitivity to noise and light, and hemorrhage-like flow. So I did ask for a hysterectomy for my sixteenth birthday. Cheapskates gave me clothes that I hated, of course. I was sixteen after all. What sixteen year old girl in her right mind and rebellious stage ever likes the clothes her parents buy for her? But no way on the hysterectomy. Then my gynecologist prescribed hormones. They helped with the pain, but were not a good thing to have done in the long run. Very high dose of Premarin which cause me to have what the doctors called "break through bleeding." In other words, I bled fifteen days instead of the usual seven. And it was always a hemorrhage that left me with a great deal of embarrassment, ruined clothes, and lost days of work and school.

The dysmenorrhea and heavy bleeding led to D&C after D&C. No known cause. But everyone who treated me assumed, despite my protestations to the contrary, that I would need to keep my uterus as I would one day want children. Oh Yeah? Fat fucking chance!

So with menorrhagia and dysmenorrhea my uterus was making my hellish life worse.

To be continued...

So This Is The Real Me?

The link to this test is in the title

I did read the Ring Trilogy eons ago and loved the books, but hated the movies. Really really hated them. I'm neither a big fan of fantasy or Science Fiction. I think Ray Bradbury was the last SiFi writer I really liked. I read him when I was a kid. I have no real idea who this "me" is, but I'm assuming it/he is the "real me" even if I don't know how. I just take certain things at face value. Not like the falling dollar. I have no idea what that poor devalued currency is worth these days. It sure doesn't buy much anymore.

A naturally skilled companion to those around you, you earnestly use your prowess out of concern to those you care about.

This forest is old. Very old. Full of memory... and anger.

Legolas is a character from the Middle-Earth universe. A biography is available at Aliases: Greenleaf
Date of Birth: ?
Race: Sindarin Elf
Height: around 6 feet or more
Date of Death: N/A
Alignment: Good
Parents: Thranduil - Father, ???-Mother
Spouse: None
Date of Marriage: N/A
Children: N/A

Physical description: Tall and fair, bright eyes, hair color is debated, some say dark, others say blonde, sufficient evidence as to either is not available. He wore the attire of the Silvan elves of Mirkwood, chiefly green and brown.

Biography: Sindarin elf of the woodland realm, in the year 3019, Legolas journeyed to Rivendell to sit on the Council of Elrond, and was chosen to represent the Elves in the Fellowship. In Lorien, Legolas and Gimli became close friends, a friendship that lasted the rest of their lives. Legolas' keen sight and archery skills were his greatest asset to the Fellowship. After the Breaking of the Fellowship, Legolas went with Gimli and Aragorn in search of Merry and Pippin, and fought in the battle of Hornburg. He eventually went to Gondor, and fought in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields; while in Gondor, he had his first glimpse of the sea, and was overcome by a deep desire to sail from that moment on. After the War of the Ring, he journeyed with Gimli to visit the Glittering Caves and Fangorn Forest. In the Year 120 FO, after the death of Aragorn, Legolas sailed over the sea, taking Gimli the dwarf with him, the last of the Fellowship.


Legolas
MOvie Notes

• Cast in this role is Orlando Bloom
Orlando Bloom as Legolas


Favorite Quotes

• He stands not alone " ... "...you would be dead before your stroke fell," to Eomer about Gimli

Thank You Liberality

Daddy
by: Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.



From "Ariel", 1966