Monday, December 29, 2008

Warning: this post oozes in a way which may make some readers uncomfortable


As far as I am concerned there aren't enough references to menstruation in this world -- good, bad or indifferent. That's why I co-wrote a play about it 15 years ago. Guys don't like to hear about it, though... I took all the boys to see a show last night and they were completely grossed out by all of the mushy sex and period references made by this particular all-female troop who enjoy discussing all of their particularly female seepages in all of their technicolor glory and divinely crass hilarity.

But alot of women have internalized the male squeamishness with feminine discharge -- bloody or otherwise. I was talking to a female doctor last week (and this particular conversation was the gelatinous zygote that blossomed into this post) and she actually used the phrase "...cookbooks give me the female equivalent of wood..." which confused me and I was sure that I misheard her. Then her meaning very slowly dawned on me and to clarify this bizarrely misogynistic, euphemistic turn of phrase, I said,
"Do you mean to say that cookbooks make you moist? Because the female-equivalent-of-wood would be moist."
So she rolls her eyes and scrunches up her nose and says, "....eeewww, no I wouldn't say anything that inappropriate! THAT is too much information. I just get really, really excited about cookbooks." (Yes, I swear on all that is holy that this woman is a full-fledged medical doctor.)
And right now you need to understand that sometimes I am the female equivalent of Mr. Spock and just must say the most logical yet completely ridiculously obvious thing, such as,
"But you ARE a female and the female equivalent of wood IS moist, so..."
And that was when our hapless mermaid realized that this conversation was a fruitless endeavor and that this self-described "female with wood" was not a peer but a superior on the employment foodchain, although not an acutal supervisor and so our sirena quickly disappeared like morning wood over the toilet bowl.

7 comments:

PTCruiser said...

I love the "all that is holy" link. Nice post.

Zoro said...

I enjoyed this immenstruantly but didn't see the wood for the trees which turned into countries before my eyes (favourite pun)as sung heroically by them thar sex pistols.

Z

Twit said...

Kinda coincidental - I'm 'half-watching' Carrie as I write this.

Anyway, me here to wish you a happy & safe new year.

Things may get a bit whacko this year, so if one or both of us disappear from blogland (or maybe the whole internet will vapourise -nothing would surprise me now), then, er, yeah; it was good, thanks.

Take care.

†w¦†

La Sirena said...

Happy New Year all! Thanks for stopping by...

Agi said...

Cookbooks. Hmm...that explains a lot.

Molly said...

Wonderful post!

I don't know about cookbooks, but walking into a great shoe department makes me moist...there I said it!

I guess that means I have a bit of a shoe fetish, and a dirty mouth, neither of which bother me one bit.

La Sirena said...

Agi -- sure does, doesn't it.

Welcome back, Molly!!! I kinda know what you mean about shoes. I feel that way about earrings.