Because I am a Woman
This blog is about sex-positivity, sex-ed, feminism, reproductive justice, birth justice, intersectionality, and activism.
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Okay so the other day (actually just yesterday), I was watching The Doctors. For those who might not know what it is about, basically it is four doctors who explore new stuff in the medical community and share it to the rest of the United States. Sometimes they get kind of outrageous in my opinion but this episode shared a form a birth control that I was unaware of. It is permanent and no cutting, not to invasive, no hormones, and no general anesthesia. At first I was like BS. B-friggen-S! But then they showed the animation and my mind was blown.
This is called Adiana. I have just been researching and looking up stuff about it and it looks super simple for permanent birth control for a woman. I say “new” because I have not heard of it yet and I guess it has been around for some years. I believe the official FDA approval was July 6th, 2009 but if someone can find other info on that, awesome!
The Adiana procedure uses two smaller-than-a-grain-of-rice-basically white inserts to be put into the fallopian tubes.
Then over time (they say about three months) the fallopian tubes will create natural scar tissue over the inserts to block off the ovaries therefor blocking the chance for an egg and sperm to meet. This procedure is fairly simple and it does not have as long a recovery time as tubal ligation.
Here is the complete procedure:
Step 1: A slender, flexible instrument (delivery catheter) is passed through the body’s natural openings (i.e., through the vagina and cervix and into the uterus) to deliver a low level of radiofrequency energy (i.e., energy that generates heat to create a superficial lesion) to a small section of each fallopian tube.
Step 2: A tiny, soft insert - about the size of a grain of rice - is placed in each of your fallopian tubes, right where the energy was applied.
Step 3: You must use another form of birth control over the next 3 months, while new tissue grows in and around the Adiana inserts, eventually blocking your fallopian tubes.
Step 4: At 3 months, a special test is performed (hysterosalpingogram or HSG) to confirm that your tubes are fully blocked. This test will ensure that the procedure has been successful.
So I thought some people might be interested in learning a bit about alternatives to tubal ligation for persons with vaginas permanent birth control.
Another brand of this is Essure. I talked a little bit about both in my post about sterilization. It is technically a form of tubal ligation but it is a lot easier, practically no recovery time, and just as effective. It also does not effect periods.
So today in art history, we watched a short clippette about Judy Chicago, a blooming (heh, you’ll soon understand this pun) artist in the mid to late 20th century who attracted a grand amount of controversy, particularly over the most famous of her works, The Dinner Party. Most in fact would not so much as humor it as art. Why was so so widely detested you might ask? Because there, sculpted and painted and slapped on dinner plates, were vaginas for all to see. Oh right, and they weren’t just vaginas but those of specific women, those who had been omitted from history when they had quite obviously earned their places there. THERE WAS UPROAR. Not only at the public level, but at that of politics and people of power. Grotesque they called it.
So what was Judy Chicago trying to portray? At first I thought the piece a little carelessly thought-out, and in fact my first thought was that it was anti-feminist as it seemed to offer the vaginas, symbols of womanhood, not only to the taking but to the consumption as part of the lavish lay. Turning this thought over in my head once or twice I realized that The Dinner Table was indeed doing just that, but rather than endorse this mindset it mocked it through submission to its ridiculous ideals in a sort of sarcasm. The second thing it did was to show the beauty and uniqueness of each vagina. If you’ve ever seen a vagina, you know that they’re fucking ugly, but what they represent (female sexuality and….I suppose…childbirth) is rather spectacular. I think what I love most about it though is the brashness of it, the seeming pomp and splendor of a feast with each course something so shocking placed in that context. WHICH IS ALSO WHY I LOVELOVELOVE DUCHAMP’S FOUNTAIN. Brilliant stuff.
Ok, ranting and bubbling and babbling and such over with.
There is nothing ugly about genitals, but this is a really cool piece!
