Dana Hunter, blogger on FreeThoughtBlogs, has written a piece on the pains of owning a set of ovaries and how her once a month PMS cramps are so devastating to her that she compares them to actual labor, even though she has no children and has never experienced labor pains in her life.
She also points out that men have no way of knowing what her crippling, agony inducing PMS cramps feel like. Well duh! Thank you Dana for pointing out the obvious: men do not possess evil ovaries (or good ones, either). It must be the patriarchy at work again.
She is also cheering for a show called Guinea Pigs, which is a Dutch reality TV show. According to Dana, in one episode, the contestants
put their testes where their uteruses ain’t. With electrodes strapped to their stomachs, they experienced simulated contractions with slowly increasing intensity over two hours until they’re screaming in agony. It’s truly some fucked-up Fear Factor craziness.
Dana is apparently so elated about this that she had to wipe away a tear upon hearing of this torture device for men. She even seems to enjoy the fact that one man could not endure the whole 2 hours.
She then says “Imagine suffering that kind of pain and not being able to make it stop for days. Keep in mind that these men were not bleeding from their nether orifice, nor did they have to squeeze out a watermelon-sized object through narrow parts of their anatomy.” Now imagine never having suffered through that pain, or through labor, EVER.
Well, neither have you Dana. And labor does not go on for days, nor do you have to suffer through it if you don’t want to. There are these wonderful things called drugs out there that makes giving birth pretty damned easy. If giving birth were as horrific as Dana seems to think it is, I doubt women would be having many babies and we’d probably have died out long ago. You’re built to go through it, Dana. It’s not a man’s fault he is not.
The simple fact is that PMS is nowhere comparable to actual unmedicated labor. To even think it is is just fucking ignorant and insulting to those of us who have gone through actual unmedicated labor, or a complicated labor.
Sure, PMS cramps can irritate the hell out of you for a while. They are not pleasant, and some women, like myself, take Tylenol or Midol to help, but we do not whine and cry about it. We get on with life and accept the fact that there is nothing we can do about it, short of getting a hysterectomy, and who the hell wants that kind of surgery? I’d prefer the occasional cramping for a day or two per month thank you.
And as for men not knowing what it feels like? So what? Why do some whiny women feel this need for men to be subjected to all their aches, pains, and emotional failings? Do men go around insisting that women need to experience what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the PMSing dragon each month? Because let me tell you, we women can be absolute fucking bitches (more than normal) when we are PMSing. And instead of sucking it up, like feminists are always telling men to do, many women feel that it is somehow their right to abuse and annoy the shit out of the men in their lives when PMSing because, if they have to suffer, so do the men.
So now women like Dana are elated that men are being hooked up to a machine that simulates labor, which is, in comparison, nothing close to the mild pains of PMS. I can almost guarantee you that most women would not last 2 hours on that machine, particularly someone like Dana, who can’t seem to even be able to deal with her usual PMS.
Labor is not something women would want to experience without pain management, unless they absolutely had to, which is why the rates of voluntary scheduled c-sections have sky rocketed in the last 10+ years. But hey, let’s hook men up, who are not built for labor, to a machine that tortures them for 2 hours and simulates extreme labor with no option for pain relief. Ya, that sounds completely fair.
So don’t give me that crap that women are somehow these tough, courageous people for just being able to give birth. Most of these warrior women would rather avoid labor pains with c-sections, medications, and other pain management methods.
As for Dana’s evil and torturous cramps once a month, take a pain pill and suck it up sister. I bet any man would trade places with you in a heartbeat if all they had to bitch about was feeling a bit of discomfort once a month.
