He didn't start out half-gay. No. He was a regular straight guy who, he claims, marriage made half-gay by the incessant viewing of such amusements as What Not To Wear and Project Runway. One night he caught himself saying something like, "That woman should not wear yellow," and then exclaimed, "Jesus Christ! You've made me half gay!"
We both laughed our asses off, and still do, when another keen observation slips out when we're watching television or shopping. One time I said, "My gay husband" instead of "half-gay:" he sometimes makes the same mistake and then I yell, "Half-gay! Half-gay! Honey, I'm clutching on to the half that's straight!"
Many women are best friends with gay men, and bemoan the fact that they
can never marry them. Problem solved: you can make your husband half gay.
It's not as hard as you might think it is, and actually happened
without much effort on my part. First of all, if your husband or
boyfriend watches any kind of sport, you've got a running start. I
mean, come on: your man is watching a bunch of other men in close
physical contact. Personally, I think football is the gayest sport,
what with its inverse ratio of masculinity and butt patting. But don't
ignore basketball (so much contact) and baseball, which footballers
always think is gay (again, closet cases are often pointing the finger
at everyone but themselves). Secondly, home improvement is practically
a new national pastime, and moving from home makeover shows to fashion
makeovers is a small but significant step that can go by almost
unnoticed, until he says, "She needs a better bra." Remember, he may be stuck watching a woman get a fashion makeover, but he's watching a woman, with boobs. Suddenly, it's not so bad, is it?
The great thing about having a half gay husband is that you get all the
attention to detail, especially with your wardrobe, that you enjoyed
with your gay male friends, and you're sleeping with the same guy!
My husband not only likes to go shopping with me, but has a good eye and
will tell me when something is flattering or not. My style is louder
than his, but we can see those differences: I like to be noticed,
he likes to blend in. That is simply a matter of taste. He doesn't
mind being asked about the smallest of details: which flatware do you
like better? What color sheets do you think we should get? How about
towels? Every purchase gets the full review, and many stones are
upturned in the process.
I think he gets this from his dad.
When his parents first visited the States, we took them shopping.
We had to: they were obligated to return to India with gifts for
anyone they had ever laid eyes on. We went to the Mall of America,
which is overwhelming to those of us weaned on shopping malls, and
my soon-to-be father-in-law had to stop in every single store, just to see what they had.
He examined clothing like he was a tailor sent to memorize patterns.
My husband told me that his dad sewed a lot of clothes for him until he
became a teenager and only store-bought clothes would do. He even
lingered over children's clothes, while his wife teased him: "Are you
expecting? Who are you buying that for?"
He was also busy
calculating dollars into rupees, something that constantly shocked and
appalled him. I longed for him to speak more English, because he and
my father would have had so much to talk about. My father loves nothing
better than comparing prices from gas station to gas station, or from
country to country. He may very well have packed up to Kerala to get a
haircut that is even cheaper than one can get across the border in
Mexico. In fact, when we first met, I told my husband that my father loved
nothing more than saving a dollar. "Oh," he said, "then he's Indian
at heart."
Because my husband is only half-gay, his most favorite pastimes include
lazing on the couch, remote firmly clutched in hand, and searching the
channels for what, I don't know, or boobs. He has to be 'encouraged'
to share the housework, and even though baseball and cricket are the
sports that interest him most, any sport is better than nearly anything
else on television. We've sometimes told our friends and family about 'my half-gay husband' and the responses are usually uncomfortable laughter. It's almost like they think it's funny, like we do, but they also seem a little scared: is he really half-gay? Or gay? Why is it funny? Aren't they worried?
One night we were out with a friend of ours who is usually tragically casually dressed, and then will wow you once in a great while. This was one of the wows. She had a jacket on that I could not get over, and I talked about it with my husband while we drove home. I did mention, though, that her shoes weren't so great, but how I loved that jacket!
My husband said, "I didn't notice her shoes."
I turned to look at him and smiled. "The day you start noticing shoes, you are no longer half-gay. Then I'll be in real trouble, won't I?" We both laughed all the way home.
Monday, February 25, 2008
God? What Gods?
When I was in sixth grade, we learned about the Greek gods and goddesses. I was completely fascinated: there was a god for everything! How wonderful! How obvious! How brilliant! Their stories, their bickering and trickery, their very un-god-like behavior, totally captured my imagination, and I couldn't believe how lucky the Greeks were to have them. I think I knew it was too good to be true when I tentatively and wistfully asked my teacher, Mrs. Sause, if the Greeks still believed in Zeus and Hera, in Aphrodite and Athena and Artemis.
She started back, twisted up her disapproving face, and said, "No, no; they're Christian, like you and me." She eyed me in a way that made me feel not dumb, but . . . dangerous, I guess.
Disappointed but undaunted, I continued to carry these icons with me. I remember a wonderful book about Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis, one of those exciting, "women's studies" books that put a divine, feminine and feminist spin on the girls. I loved the idea of having a different god for everything; it somehow made so much sense to me. Elements were powerful and had unique properties: wind was not fire, and the sun was not the moon. Of course different deities had different assignments. One god? Come on! There's too much to worry about, even for a god, or even God. Sure, you might feel sorry for someone like Hephaestus, toiling as a smith when Aphrodite got all the adoration (not to mention sex). Yes, Zeus sounded like a pig, but Hera got to trip him up once in awhile. One God sounded less and less safe: I mean, Zeus being the Almighty? When he's busy assaulting nymphs? Like anything else is going to get done. No, better to have the pantheon, a magical system of checks and balances, than one crazy Father who demands blood sacrifice, isn't it?
Much later in life, I became acquainted with the Hindu pantheon: the Greeks had nothing on these people. I'm not sure if there's even an accurate count out there of how many gods and goddesses are part of Hinduism. Hundreds, for sure, maybe even thousands. These gods are very specific and very local. Yes, there are the 'stars': Shiva, Krishna, Laxmi, Kali, Ganesha. But every town and village on the Subcontinent has its own dear gods in addition to the celebrities. I loved Ganesha especially: who couldn't love a happy, cheerful, chubby god with the head of an elephant (big misunderstanding with the father, that) who loves sweets and is called upon for auspicious beginnings. Beginnings are my favorite: that's why I love spring so much. That, and the fact I'm a Minnesotan. I started collecting Ganeshas to place around the house, much to my husband's dismay. There's some sort of directive to have, I don't know, forty-eight Ganeshas in the house for good fortune. I still long for a spectacular Ganesha statue that sat about three feet high and almost as wide, perched in a shop window with a price a bit out of my reach, much to my husband's joy.
My husband is an atheist. It was one of the first things that I loved about him. The night we met, I learned he was raised by atheist, Communist parents in Kerala who had a love marriage. Meaning that because of the difference in caste (this was in 1973, mind you), his mother never saw her family again after she married. I'd always thought that I was an agnostic, or pantheist, because of my affection for the many gods of many places and times. My Catholic upbringing was too late, after Vatican II, for me to experience the ordained version of pantheism, the saints, but I still could appreciate them from afar.
Then my father had a carcinoid tumor on his right lung when he was sixty-seven, and I realized that no matter what, no matter what I believed or didn't believe, he might die, and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. And there wasn't anything anybody, or any god or goddess, or God, could do about it, either. And then I realized that just because I liked gods, didn't mean I believed in them.
That was surprising the way a stubbed toe, or a thunderstorm, or the slamming of brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of you, is: startling enough to take your breath away, isn't it? Wow. I wasn't agnostic, or pantheistic, at all: I was an atheist. Here I had thought all this time my affection was belief. But when it came down to it, I believed in none of them any more than I would a fairy tale. It was sort of scary at first, like working without a tightrope: what if this were really it? I mean, no nothing afterwards. Nothing after death. No heaven, no hell, no reincarnation, no "seeing" everything and understanding it all. Just . . . ceasing to exist. It's hard for the mind to get around that one, isn't it? It isn't, of course, if you've got some version of what's going to happen after death that you tell yourself. But if you don't, well, then you're just there, trying to wrap your imagination around nothingness. You realize that everything else will exist (for a time) but you. And others will remember you, but you will not exist, you will not remember, you will no longer be here.
As strong as the mind is, it is not strong enough to sit in this predicament for long without panicking. However, if you have a belief system that explains to and reassures you that something not terrible happens after death, or even that you'll get to see those who have gone before you, I can see how attractive that might be. But it still seems like a fairy tale to me. I don't mean to dismiss others' beliefs, but really, no one has come back to tell us what it's like after we die. No one really knows: that's why it's called faith. Or belief. These are not reliant on facts or logic or science. Feelings are something else entirely, too: just because you feel strongly that the afterlife is this way or that, or that your loved one's spirit is nearby, doesn't mean that it is. Combine emotions with the mind and well, you have an overriding desire to come up with a comforting yet somehow plausible story of what's going to happen after death.
But it's just all so much story to me. And that, really, is what seems to last, to have eternity to it: stories. The same stories and dreams and visions have been with us for millenniums, haven't they? The names change, but the same stories just get stronger with time, with centuries, till they are cemented in our hearts and minds. We think stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, but really, that's us. We're born, live and die. Stories, no. They just are. They are the ones that have eternal life, not us.
She started back, twisted up her disapproving face, and said, "No, no; they're Christian, like you and me." She eyed me in a way that made me feel not dumb, but . . . dangerous, I guess.
Disappointed but undaunted, I continued to carry these icons with me. I remember a wonderful book about Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis, one of those exciting, "women's studies" books that put a divine, feminine and feminist spin on the girls. I loved the idea of having a different god for everything; it somehow made so much sense to me. Elements were powerful and had unique properties: wind was not fire, and the sun was not the moon. Of course different deities had different assignments. One god? Come on! There's too much to worry about, even for a god, or even God. Sure, you might feel sorry for someone like Hephaestus, toiling as a smith when Aphrodite got all the adoration (not to mention sex). Yes, Zeus sounded like a pig, but Hera got to trip him up once in awhile. One God sounded less and less safe: I mean, Zeus being the Almighty? When he's busy assaulting nymphs? Like anything else is going to get done. No, better to have the pantheon, a magical system of checks and balances, than one crazy Father who demands blood sacrifice, isn't it?
Much later in life, I became acquainted with the Hindu pantheon: the Greeks had nothing on these people. I'm not sure if there's even an accurate count out there of how many gods and goddesses are part of Hinduism. Hundreds, for sure, maybe even thousands. These gods are very specific and very local. Yes, there are the 'stars': Shiva, Krishna, Laxmi, Kali, Ganesha. But every town and village on the Subcontinent has its own dear gods in addition to the celebrities. I loved Ganesha especially: who couldn't love a happy, cheerful, chubby god with the head of an elephant (big misunderstanding with the father, that) who loves sweets and is called upon for auspicious beginnings. Beginnings are my favorite: that's why I love spring so much. That, and the fact I'm a Minnesotan. I started collecting Ganeshas to place around the house, much to my husband's dismay. There's some sort of directive to have, I don't know, forty-eight Ganeshas in the house for good fortune. I still long for a spectacular Ganesha statue that sat about three feet high and almost as wide, perched in a shop window with a price a bit out of my reach, much to my husband's joy.
My husband is an atheist. It was one of the first things that I loved about him. The night we met, I learned he was raised by atheist, Communist parents in Kerala who had a love marriage. Meaning that because of the difference in caste (this was in 1973, mind you), his mother never saw her family again after she married. I'd always thought that I was an agnostic, or pantheist, because of my affection for the many gods of many places and times. My Catholic upbringing was too late, after Vatican II, for me to experience the ordained version of pantheism, the saints, but I still could appreciate them from afar.
Then my father had a carcinoid tumor on his right lung when he was sixty-seven, and I realized that no matter what, no matter what I believed or didn't believe, he might die, and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. And there wasn't anything anybody, or any god or goddess, or God, could do about it, either. And then I realized that just because I liked gods, didn't mean I believed in them.
That was surprising the way a stubbed toe, or a thunderstorm, or the slamming of brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of you, is: startling enough to take your breath away, isn't it? Wow. I wasn't agnostic, or pantheistic, at all: I was an atheist. Here I had thought all this time my affection was belief. But when it came down to it, I believed in none of them any more than I would a fairy tale. It was sort of scary at first, like working without a tightrope: what if this were really it? I mean, no nothing afterwards. Nothing after death. No heaven, no hell, no reincarnation, no "seeing" everything and understanding it all. Just . . . ceasing to exist. It's hard for the mind to get around that one, isn't it? It isn't, of course, if you've got some version of what's going to happen after death that you tell yourself. But if you don't, well, then you're just there, trying to wrap your imagination around nothingness. You realize that everything else will exist (for a time) but you. And others will remember you, but you will not exist, you will not remember, you will no longer be here.
As strong as the mind is, it is not strong enough to sit in this predicament for long without panicking. However, if you have a belief system that explains to and reassures you that something not terrible happens after death, or even that you'll get to see those who have gone before you, I can see how attractive that might be. But it still seems like a fairy tale to me. I don't mean to dismiss others' beliefs, but really, no one has come back to tell us what it's like after we die. No one really knows: that's why it's called faith. Or belief. These are not reliant on facts or logic or science. Feelings are something else entirely, too: just because you feel strongly that the afterlife is this way or that, or that your loved one's spirit is nearby, doesn't mean that it is. Combine emotions with the mind and well, you have an overriding desire to come up with a comforting yet somehow plausible story of what's going to happen after death.
But it's just all so much story to me. And that, really, is what seems to last, to have eternity to it: stories. The same stories and dreams and visions have been with us for millenniums, haven't they? The names change, but the same stories just get stronger with time, with centuries, till they are cemented in our hearts and minds. We think stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, but really, that's us. We're born, live and die. Stories, no. They just are. They are the ones that have eternal life, not us.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
My Own Private Oscar: A Few Defining Moments
It's exactly twenty-four hours before our own Oscar extravaganza begins for the 80th Annual Academy Awards, and I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. Perhaps that's why I consider our little party of twelve an "extravaganza." Anyway, in no particular order, here are the moments that have stayed with me for the last twenty years or so.
#1: Diana Ross and Lionel Richie: 54th Academy Awards.
They performed "Endless Love" and even though that movie was gruesome, and the song is a bit treacly, you could feel the love. That was the spring of 1982 and I was watching the awards with a bunch of theatre students at the small town Catholic College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. I was finishing my freshman year and the previous fall had met these guys during a production of Marat/Sade (much longer real title: you don't need to know it). We were all siting around, hollering at the television, and most of the crowd really started yelling when Diana and Lionel were singing their duet. Except for me and Steven R., a local Waite Park boy who I now realize was a dead ringer for Ashton Kutcher. We laughed a little at the ridicule, but then we told everyone to shut up, and watched Diana and Lionel give it up like they were the lovesick teenagers. I can still see them when I hear it on the radio. As for Steve/Ashton, he got a girl pregnant and didn't come back to St. Ben's.
#2: Bernardo Bertolucci: 60th Academy Awards.
For about six years I worked as a midwife with an overwhelmingly Latina (mostly Mexican-American) population on the West side of St. Paul, and I married an Indian immigrant about a year ago. So it's hard to explain the anti-immigrant tone of my screaming "Go back to your own goddamned country and make movies!" as Bernardo Bertolucci strolled to the podium to collect his Oscar for The Last Emperor. I hadn't even seen the movie. I'm not even sure who it was that I wanted to win, but apparently it wasn't him. Years later my husband told me how much he liked that movie, and I finally watched it with him. To say we both found it a little slow is an understatement. My husband finally confessed that it was the breastfeeding scene that had been the draw.
#3: John Irving: 72nd Academy Awards.
This night was fun. We were at my friend's house with about twenty-five people, all who had filled out ballots and loved talking back to the television. You could barely hear the telecast what with the smart ass comments and hooting and hollering. Near the end of the evening, though, John Irving gave a beautiful speech as he accepted his award for Best Adapted Screenplay from his own novel, The Cider House Rules. It was all about his grandfather (who performed abortions) and choice and women and I don't think I've ever been more proud. I just caught The Cider House Rules on television yesterday and was surprised to see how much I still liked it, how deftly the issue of abortion was presented when today it's become so blown out of proportion and at the same time, simply ignored. I've never been that big of a fan of Irving's, but he's still a kind of hero to me, even now.
#4: Jennifer Lopez: 73rd Academy Awards.
I have never seen such a dress on such a woman as the Chanel couture gray gown that Jennifer Lopez wore that night. It was a one-shoulder affair, with a very nearly sheer top close to her body, and a fuller, shiny silver taffeta floor length skirt on the bottom. On the red carpet, you caught a glimpse of her and turned to your viewing companion and said, "Are those her nipples?" During the ceremony, Ms. Lopez was a presenter and while the first few rows may have been enchanted by her breasts, the millions of the rest of us were at home, having to settle for a camera shot that stopped just below her collarbone. God, she looked beautiful! Truly like a goddess. Granted, her acting is limited (the best thing she's ever done is Out of Sight) and I'm completely unfamiliar with her music, but she is one gorgeous woman who looks marvelous nearly all of the time, and like she was born for it.
So tonight during the 80th annual Academy Awards, let's see if there are any moments worth remembering. If not, I'll be surrounded by my friends and lots of paella, red wine and flan.
#1: Diana Ross and Lionel Richie: 54th Academy Awards.
They performed "Endless Love" and even though that movie was gruesome, and the song is a bit treacly, you could feel the love. That was the spring of 1982 and I was watching the awards with a bunch of theatre students at the small town Catholic College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. I was finishing my freshman year and the previous fall had met these guys during a production of Marat/Sade (much longer real title: you don't need to know it). We were all siting around, hollering at the television, and most of the crowd really started yelling when Diana and Lionel were singing their duet. Except for me and Steven R., a local Waite Park boy who I now realize was a dead ringer for Ashton Kutcher. We laughed a little at the ridicule, but then we told everyone to shut up, and watched Diana and Lionel give it up like they were the lovesick teenagers. I can still see them when I hear it on the radio. As for Steve/Ashton, he got a girl pregnant and didn't come back to St. Ben's.
#2: Bernardo Bertolucci: 60th Academy Awards.
For about six years I worked as a midwife with an overwhelmingly Latina (mostly Mexican-American) population on the West side of St. Paul, and I married an Indian immigrant about a year ago. So it's hard to explain the anti-immigrant tone of my screaming "Go back to your own goddamned country and make movies!" as Bernardo Bertolucci strolled to the podium to collect his Oscar for The Last Emperor. I hadn't even seen the movie. I'm not even sure who it was that I wanted to win, but apparently it wasn't him. Years later my husband told me how much he liked that movie, and I finally watched it with him. To say we both found it a little slow is an understatement. My husband finally confessed that it was the breastfeeding scene that had been the draw.
#3: John Irving: 72nd Academy Awards.
This night was fun. We were at my friend's house with about twenty-five people, all who had filled out ballots and loved talking back to the television. You could barely hear the telecast what with the smart ass comments and hooting and hollering. Near the end of the evening, though, John Irving gave a beautiful speech as he accepted his award for Best Adapted Screenplay from his own novel, The Cider House Rules. It was all about his grandfather (who performed abortions) and choice and women and I don't think I've ever been more proud. I just caught The Cider House Rules on television yesterday and was surprised to see how much I still liked it, how deftly the issue of abortion was presented when today it's become so blown out of proportion and at the same time, simply ignored. I've never been that big of a fan of Irving's, but he's still a kind of hero to me, even now.
#4: Jennifer Lopez: 73rd Academy Awards.
I have never seen such a dress on such a woman as the Chanel couture gray gown that Jennifer Lopez wore that night. It was a one-shoulder affair, with a very nearly sheer top close to her body, and a fuller, shiny silver taffeta floor length skirt on the bottom. On the red carpet, you caught a glimpse of her and turned to your viewing companion and said, "Are those her nipples?" During the ceremony, Ms. Lopez was a presenter and while the first few rows may have been enchanted by her breasts, the millions of the rest of us were at home, having to settle for a camera shot that stopped just below her collarbone. God, she looked beautiful! Truly like a goddess. Granted, her acting is limited (the best thing she's ever done is Out of Sight) and I'm completely unfamiliar with her music, but she is one gorgeous woman who looks marvelous nearly all of the time, and like she was born for it.
So tonight during the 80th annual Academy Awards, let's see if there are any moments worth remembering. If not, I'll be surrounded by my friends and lots of paella, red wine and flan.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Love Child
One day I had a patient complain during her annual exam that she had some pain in her throat, and she just wanted to make sure it wasn't caused by her IUD, i.e. intrauterine device. I paused, looked her directly in the eye, and said, "Are you saying that you think your IUD is hurting your throat?"
She blinked, and demurred every so slightly, but continued on, "Well, I just want to make sure--"
I interrupted. "Are you really asking me if that your IUD, in your uterus, can cause pain in your throat?" I asked as incredulously as I could, never breaking eye contact.
This was no fourteen year old girl. This was a thirty-two year old woman who'd had three children, vaginally, (not nasally, as you might expect from her inquiry) and thought that her uterus was connected, I don't know how, to her throat. I couldn't get the anatomical image out of my mind: where is God's name was the stomach, the liver, the heart and lungs? Was it all just flesh, some amorphous congealed mass of stuff? And then I thought of her daughters, and realized that if a grown woman carries around ideas like this, they don't have a chance.
My husband and I watch a lot of old sitcoms on television. Some are mildly entertaining, some more funny than others. My husband seemed to really like Becker, starring Ted Danson as a New York City doctor who hates people and loves to complain. I asked him one night what appealed to him, and he said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but he sort of reminds me of you." I burst out laughing, and he continued. "No, really, he does. He's really compassionate, he takes good care of people, but you'd never know it because he complains about everything so much." Later we came to the conclusion that really, I was a deadly combination of John Becker and Red Forman, the cranky dad on That 70s Show, who constantly threatens to stick his foot in your ass. They are both completely unsentimental and not very charming misanthropes, and I am their love child. Unfortunately, like John Becker, I work in health care, and this is my tale of woe.
Another thirty-something woman asked me if a noticeable difference in her vaginal discharge was caused by ovulation. She was using hormonal contraception at the time. "You're not ovulating; you're using the Ring. How do you think you haven't been getting pregnant? By magic?"
It's hard not to bark like Red Forman every time I hear something like this. I know it's completely unprofessional, but it drives me crazy. Ignorance is one thing: it's okay to be ignorant, especially if you're fifteen (or nineteen if you have evangelical parents). But to parade your ignorance as scholarship: that's another thing. Patients will often comment that they've done 'research' when asking me questions about contraception. Research? I want to say. Are you a Ph. D. candidate? Because that's research. What you're doing, I believe, is known as surfing the net.
Another bee in my bonnet is the 'natural' argument. "It's just not natural," a patient will whine when reviewing her hormonal birth control options. "I just don't think hormones are natural."
My tongue should be hemorrhaging from all the biting it suffers. "Nothing's natural," I want to scream. "There's nothing natural about wireless service, SUVs or lattes, either."
It's as if they want to avoid pregnancy, but don't want to have to actually do anything to avoid it. Everything is such an inconvenience: I can't remember to take a pill everyday, the patch fell off, the ring is weird, I don't like shots, etc. Women in the sixties couldn't believe their good fortune: if they just took this little pill every day, which was smaller than an aspirin, they wouldn't get pregnant. It must have seemed like a miracle, especially when abortion wasn't even an option. Today, I hear patients tell me how every single method has a problem. That's probably true: there's nothing perfect in this world. But the inability to tolerate even short-lived side effects is significant. We all think we are so unique, that we're tender lilies and the smallest chemical disturbance will destroy us: but somehow smoking (as a teenager) and drinking (ditto) are pristine in comparison to hormonal contraception. A patient wasn't concerned about her marijuana use because, you guessed it, "Pot is natural."
Obviously, those who are against birth control have waged a very effective and pervasive campaign of misinformation. It finally dawned on me that girls, and even most women, had no idea how hormonal contraception worked. Now I explain that to every patient with a new prescription, because I know better. These girls (and women) don't know things because it was their parents who wanted sex education out of the schools and in the home. I'd be hard pressed to name a more brilliant failure. Maybe sex education doesn't include information on contraception: okay, fine. But to have it encompass nothing more than "Don't have sex" is a crime. I won't even begin my lecture about the number of girls and women who don't have orgasms: that's another story for another day.
Around the world it is known that the more educated a woman is, the fewer children she bears. With a planet bursting at the seams, what is wrong with that? According to figures from 2006, there are an estimated 245 births each minute, roughly 4 births each second of every day. Less than half of that number die: 110 people per minute, or a bit less than 2 per second. The highest birth rates remain in the developing world, specifically Africa, which has corresponding low education levels for women. Hormonal birth control is responsible for decreasing birth rates, to an extent, in the developed world. Our sisters in the developing world, when they can get it, choose the non-hormonal intrauterine device. In fact, this is the most commonly used form of birth control in the world.
Why is it seen as more 'moral' to bear rather than abort an unplanned pregnancy? I think Howard Stern is a pig, but he once dubbed abortion "crime stoppers." Crude and insensitive, perhaps, but Freakonomics authors Levitt and Dubner came to a similar conclusion regarding the availability of legalized abortion and the decrease in the crime rates. We here in the United States are lucky, privileged and some would say spoiled: we have incredible access to contraceptives in this twenty-first century. Let's start using them, why don't we, and let's start telling our daughters and sons that it's okay for them to use them, too.
It's true that John Becker and Red Forman would, sadly, still be very proud of me as their ill-begotten spawn. But I must confess I am another sort of love child, closer to the real thing. I was conceived on my parents' honeymoon, and in a twist that could only be stranger than fiction, born on Valentine's Day. But that's not all: my father's middle name is (wait for it) Valentine. Inside, deep inside, I care. In a country that claims children as its most important and valuable asset with a skewed world view that puts fetuses on the highest pedestal, isn't it time to put our money where our mouths are and make each child a true love child?
She blinked, and demurred every so slightly, but continued on, "Well, I just want to make sure--"
I interrupted. "Are you really asking me if that your IUD, in your uterus, can cause pain in your throat?" I asked as incredulously as I could, never breaking eye contact.
This was no fourteen year old girl. This was a thirty-two year old woman who'd had three children, vaginally, (not nasally, as you might expect from her inquiry) and thought that her uterus was connected, I don't know how, to her throat. I couldn't get the anatomical image out of my mind: where is God's name was the stomach, the liver, the heart and lungs? Was it all just flesh, some amorphous congealed mass of stuff? And then I thought of her daughters, and realized that if a grown woman carries around ideas like this, they don't have a chance.
My husband and I watch a lot of old sitcoms on television. Some are mildly entertaining, some more funny than others. My husband seemed to really like Becker, starring Ted Danson as a New York City doctor who hates people and loves to complain. I asked him one night what appealed to him, and he said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but he sort of reminds me of you." I burst out laughing, and he continued. "No, really, he does. He's really compassionate, he takes good care of people, but you'd never know it because he complains about everything so much." Later we came to the conclusion that really, I was a deadly combination of John Becker and Red Forman, the cranky dad on That 70s Show, who constantly threatens to stick his foot in your ass. They are both completely unsentimental and not very charming misanthropes, and I am their love child. Unfortunately, like John Becker, I work in health care, and this is my tale of woe.
Another thirty-something woman asked me if a noticeable difference in her vaginal discharge was caused by ovulation. She was using hormonal contraception at the time. "You're not ovulating; you're using the Ring. How do you think you haven't been getting pregnant? By magic?"
It's hard not to bark like Red Forman every time I hear something like this. I know it's completely unprofessional, but it drives me crazy. Ignorance is one thing: it's okay to be ignorant, especially if you're fifteen (or nineteen if you have evangelical parents). But to parade your ignorance as scholarship: that's another thing. Patients will often comment that they've done 'research' when asking me questions about contraception. Research? I want to say. Are you a Ph. D. candidate? Because that's research. What you're doing, I believe, is known as surfing the net.
Another bee in my bonnet is the 'natural' argument. "It's just not natural," a patient will whine when reviewing her hormonal birth control options. "I just don't think hormones are natural."
My tongue should be hemorrhaging from all the biting it suffers. "Nothing's natural," I want to scream. "There's nothing natural about wireless service, SUVs or lattes, either."
It's as if they want to avoid pregnancy, but don't want to have to actually do anything to avoid it. Everything is such an inconvenience: I can't remember to take a pill everyday, the patch fell off, the ring is weird, I don't like shots, etc. Women in the sixties couldn't believe their good fortune: if they just took this little pill every day, which was smaller than an aspirin, they wouldn't get pregnant. It must have seemed like a miracle, especially when abortion wasn't even an option. Today, I hear patients tell me how every single method has a problem. That's probably true: there's nothing perfect in this world. But the inability to tolerate even short-lived side effects is significant. We all think we are so unique, that we're tender lilies and the smallest chemical disturbance will destroy us: but somehow smoking (as a teenager) and drinking (ditto) are pristine in comparison to hormonal contraception. A patient wasn't concerned about her marijuana use because, you guessed it, "Pot is natural."
Obviously, those who are against birth control have waged a very effective and pervasive campaign of misinformation. It finally dawned on me that girls, and even most women, had no idea how hormonal contraception worked. Now I explain that to every patient with a new prescription, because I know better. These girls (and women) don't know things because it was their parents who wanted sex education out of the schools and in the home. I'd be hard pressed to name a more brilliant failure. Maybe sex education doesn't include information on contraception: okay, fine. But to have it encompass nothing more than "Don't have sex" is a crime. I won't even begin my lecture about the number of girls and women who don't have orgasms: that's another story for another day.
Around the world it is known that the more educated a woman is, the fewer children she bears. With a planet bursting at the seams, what is wrong with that? According to figures from 2006, there are an estimated 245 births each minute, roughly 4 births each second of every day. Less than half of that number die: 110 people per minute, or a bit less than 2 per second. The highest birth rates remain in the developing world, specifically Africa, which has corresponding low education levels for women. Hormonal birth control is responsible for decreasing birth rates, to an extent, in the developed world. Our sisters in the developing world, when they can get it, choose the non-hormonal intrauterine device. In fact, this is the most commonly used form of birth control in the world.
Why is it seen as more 'moral' to bear rather than abort an unplanned pregnancy? I think Howard Stern is a pig, but he once dubbed abortion "crime stoppers." Crude and insensitive, perhaps, but Freakonomics authors Levitt and Dubner came to a similar conclusion regarding the availability of legalized abortion and the decrease in the crime rates. We here in the United States are lucky, privileged and some would say spoiled: we have incredible access to contraceptives in this twenty-first century. Let's start using them, why don't we, and let's start telling our daughters and sons that it's okay for them to use them, too.
It's true that John Becker and Red Forman would, sadly, still be very proud of me as their ill-begotten spawn. But I must confess I am another sort of love child, closer to the real thing. I was conceived on my parents' honeymoon, and in a twist that could only be stranger than fiction, born on Valentine's Day. But that's not all: my father's middle name is (wait for it) Valentine. Inside, deep inside, I care. In a country that claims children as its most important and valuable asset with a skewed world view that puts fetuses on the highest pedestal, isn't it time to put our money where our mouths are and make each child a true love child?
I Saw Him First
Hear ye, hear ye, all you American Johnny and Janey come-latelys: Javier Bardem has been my boyfriend for about fifteen years now. If you've just recently seen him, all sexy and gorgeous at the Screen Actors Guild Awards with his tuxedo and open white shirt sans tie and thought, "Who the hell is this?" and then realized it was the psycho with the Dutch boy from No Country for Old Men, you're too late, my friend. You're also a little tardy if you vaguely remember him from the 2001 Academy Awards when he was nominated for Best Actor for Before Night Falls, though you do get bonus points if you actually saw Before Night Falls. Double points if you were in awe of his Cuban-accented English, his gait, and Johnny Depp's uncredited cameo in drag.
No, Javier and I go way back. Back to that delightfully dark Bigas Lunas romp that debuted another Spanish treasure, Penelope Cruz, called Jamon, Jamon (subtitled A Tale of Ham and Passion). Ay, mi amor! What a filthy, gorgeous pig he was then, arrogantly displaying his wares as a model auditioning in his underwear. The next time I saw him, he was a detective in Pedro Almodovar's Carne tremula (Live Flesh) who, after being shot in the line of duty (sort of) is permanently in a wheelchair. He compensates by playing basketball for the national team, and by demonstrating amazing oral technique in one of the hottest sex scenes in film. Then I was mesmerized by his portrayal of Reynaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls: he looked different, he sounded different, and he brought his mother and sister to the Academy Awards with him.
His first English-speaking role was in John Malkovich's The Dancer Upstairs, a political thriller set in the seventies in Latin America, and later I saw Mondays in the Sun, a dreary story of workers down on their luck. Javier looked about fifty years old in that one. Recently I saw one of his very first films, Huevos de oro, and was enchanted by it, but only because of the ending: the brute gets what he deserves, and there's a three-way that involves Javier and Benicio Del Toro. Yes, you read that correctly: rent it now.
Javier, por supuesto, doesn't think he's handsome at all. He chose his words carefully: "I mean, look at this face". Indeed. He is not pretty. His features are large and broad. His nose may have been broken: he used to play rugby for the national team in Spain. But he knew enough to run from handsome leading man roles and instead found characters more interesting to play.
He comes from a long line of actors. Accepting his SAG award he said, "My grandparents were actors, and when they died, they couldn't be buried in the cemetery because actors were thought to be homosexuals and prostitutes." He's seems unafraid to say things, maybe because he's not American. When Spain legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, he was quoted as saying, "mañana mismo, sólo para joder a la Iglesia". Translation: If I were gay, I'd get married tomorrow, just to piss off the Church. How can you not love that?
The voice. The eyes. The smile. The perfection of expression that so many non-native English speakers have while speaking English. The devil may care attitude. The shamelessness.Maybe I didn't see him first. But I sure as hell saw him before you did.
Unless your name is Penelope Cruz.
No, Javier and I go way back. Back to that delightfully dark Bigas Lunas romp that debuted another Spanish treasure, Penelope Cruz, called Jamon, Jamon (subtitled A Tale of Ham and Passion). Ay, mi amor! What a filthy, gorgeous pig he was then, arrogantly displaying his wares as a model auditioning in his underwear. The next time I saw him, he was a detective in Pedro Almodovar's Carne tremula (Live Flesh) who, after being shot in the line of duty (sort of) is permanently in a wheelchair. He compensates by playing basketball for the national team, and by demonstrating amazing oral technique in one of the hottest sex scenes in film. Then I was mesmerized by his portrayal of Reynaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls: he looked different, he sounded different, and he brought his mother and sister to the Academy Awards with him.
His first English-speaking role was in John Malkovich's The Dancer Upstairs, a political thriller set in the seventies in Latin America, and later I saw Mondays in the Sun, a dreary story of workers down on their luck. Javier looked about fifty years old in that one. Recently I saw one of his very first films, Huevos de oro, and was enchanted by it, but only because of the ending: the brute gets what he deserves, and there's a three-way that involves Javier and Benicio Del Toro. Yes, you read that correctly: rent it now.
Javier, por supuesto, doesn't think he's handsome at all. He chose his words carefully: "I mean, look at this face". Indeed. He is not pretty. His features are large and broad. His nose may have been broken: he used to play rugby for the national team in Spain. But he knew enough to run from handsome leading man roles and instead found characters more interesting to play.
He comes from a long line of actors. Accepting his SAG award he said, "My grandparents were actors, and when they died, they couldn't be buried in the cemetery because actors were thought to be homosexuals and prostitutes." He's seems unafraid to say things, maybe because he's not American. When Spain legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, he was quoted as saying, "mañana mismo, sólo para joder a la Iglesia". Translation: If I were gay, I'd get married tomorrow, just to piss off the Church. How can you not love that?
The voice. The eyes. The smile. The perfection of expression that so many non-native English speakers have while speaking English. The devil may care attitude. The shamelessness.Maybe I didn't see him first. But I sure as hell saw him before you did.
Unless your name is Penelope Cruz.
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