Diary of a Kinky Librarian

I just started reading Inga Muscio’s book, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. It seems like an appropriate time to read this considering my cunt is having issues just now. The book focuses on reclaiming the word cunt, and reclaiming feeling good about having a cunt and acknowledges the power of cunts. When my cunt needs to be nursed back to health is the appropriate time for me to feel warmly towards it. *grin*

The second most frustrating thing about having this pain issue is not knowing what the problem is. The most frustrating thing is not knowing how long it will be before I’m back to enjoying fucking. Weekend after next is a big swing/fetish party and MasterDoc has asked me to go with him, but of course if I can’t fuck pain-free by then he’ll have to go with someone else. (And I’ll be home that night NOT having sex with my sore cunt, to make matters worse.) I’m hoping the gyn visit on Monday goes exceptionally well - i.e., we find out the problem and just a few days of whatever treatment will clear it up. I’m extremely frustrated with the situation.

While I’m not that far into Muscio’s book, I’m glad a book such as this exists. We live in a society that constantly tells women their genitals are smelly, dirty and bad. (And yet there’s lots of money to be made off them - via “feminine products” or porn or sex work. How bad can something be that men are willing to pay so much for?) In the part I’m reading now she’s discussing menstruation and coming to embrace it as what your lady bits are supposed to do. The overwhelming impression in the U.S. is that menstrual blood is dirty. Of course, that’s absurd. It may be messy, but it’s not dirty. It’s what’s supposed to be happening. When I tell friends about using a menstrual cup and how much easier it is many of them recoil at the thought of coming in contact with their own menstrual blood (never mind that some of them use pads and that’s messier than using a menstrual cup ever is). But the only problem with coming in contact with our own menstrual blood is the brainwashing we’ve received telling us it’s bad. You know what, sometimes when cleaning out my menstrual cup I get blood on my hands. And you know what? It washes off. Quite easily. Quite quickly. It’s actually kinda interesting using a menstrual cup because you’re more in touch with how much (or rather, how little) fluid your body is actually shedding. I think it’s interesting how the consistency can vary as well. We’ve got to stop buying into the idea that there’s something wrong with cunts and something wrong with menstruation. I doubt I’ll ever love getting my period, but I’m more accepting these days that it happens and it’s part of the ebb and flow of life. It’s part of being a woman. And being a woman isn’t a bad thing.

Muscio’s website has an interesting section with the womanifestos written by readers after reading Cunt. One bit I liked was from Yahm Reichart’s:

being a woman is not calling her a “slut” because she’s wearing a short skirt, gives blowjobs at drunken parties, has fake boobs, because she was raped, because you heard she sleeps around, loves herself, is better looking, is not as good looking, is on the pill, gets an abortion, carries condoms, is a model or actress, or has the ovaries to break away from any standard

I think women would all do well to remember that about each other. We tear each other down as much as men do. We’ve bought into the poisonous notions that this patriarchal society has fed us. Time to reclaim the word and reclaim our cunts.