Margarita Reznik
Women are not unicorns
“HPV. Ureaplasmosis."
Oh, I can already see how you’ve shrunk. I don’t like this topic myself. The corners of the lips straight up towards the neck from hostility. Disgust for such things is normal, why doesn’t it arise at the moment of coitus?
Have you ever thought about it?
How often have you asked your sexual partners: “do you have a certificate that you are healthy?”
Oh, this is certainly very exciting. I can see it straight away. You are both so wound up, and suddenly: “What if he has ureaplasma?”
Ewww. I throw up my brushes.
Nobody wants to ruin such a moment. We all think that a condom will save us.
Latex, I tell you, sometimes breaks.
And even more so, a candle, cap or coil will not protect against STDs.
Hormones don't do this either.
Can you imagine how much we would have saved on health, nerves and money on treatment if we had asked in time: “Do you have a certificate?” And not just any, but the freshest.
HPV, by the way, is not HIV, in case anyone is scared. Although be afraid of him too. HPV is such a nasty thing that causes condylomas, papillomas to grow on your genitals and, worse, causes cervical cancer.
Girls, I studied at medical college and university for seven damn years, and forgive me for my French, I call a spade a spade, without worrying about your lovely ears and eyes.
But since you are reading this book, you should stop gagging and gain strength to finish reading this chapter. She's not the nicest.
Ureaplasmosis is an infectious disease that may not manifest itself for years until a woman discovers that she cannot become pregnant. Like any infection, it causes low-grade inflammation in the vagina and genitals in general, which interferes with the normal course of pregnancy.
Luckily, I discovered everything earlier. At the medical college we were sent to take tests, or rather they were strongly recommended.
They did this correctly, doctors are the same students, which means promiscuity, alcohol and drugs. Just kidding, it’s just that doctors are more vigilant in this regard and should set an example for the rest of the population. More enlightened, I would even say.
So, at the dermatovenerological dispensary, and it was there that they accepted me under an insurance policy, I learned several different things.
The first thing is that a male gynecologist is no worse than a female gynecologist is also unpleasant.
The second thing is to find out that your defloration turned out to be even worse than you thought. Not only that, the yard dog followed you half the way instead of the guy who was supposed to accompany you. There are also two infectious diseases.
I put my palm to my face with annoyance.
At twenty years old, I learned about the consequences of an event four years ago, and I was surprised.
You know he wasn't dirty. What’s more, you couldn’t tell from his appearance whether he was sick with something. He was an ordinary guy, like everyone else.
Moreover, as I later learned in college, the frequency of ureaplasmosis and human papillomatosis virus is so high that no matter where you poke it, you will end up with an infected person.
But I was treated, I recovered, my tests turned out to be clean. That is, healthy people exist, which means I could present the certificate to my boyfriend if he asked.
Then I began to be more suspicious of coitus with a stranger. “Are you really healthy? And if not, are you ready to undergo treatment?”
No, of course I didn't ask that. It was worth it though. I monitored the integrity of the condom and did not allow contact without it.
Now from the position of a woman who has been married for ten years, I understand that it was necessary to rip everyone in the tail and mane, damn it, no certificate – no sex.
It was necessary to demand a certificate at convenient and inconvenient moments.
“Show me! No? Then, hello, amigo!”
And I don’t care what he thinks bad about you. Let him at least consider her a frigid bitch. There was no need to even worry about this topic. Now yes, you become wiser, you understand everything from the position of a queen sitting on a soft pillow. And then I ran around the city with an awl in my ass in search of love. And God forbid that everything is ruined by a stupid question about a certificate.
Girls, girls, I really hope that you make an appointment today and get tested as soon as possible.
If you have a regular partner, he should also get tested and undergo treatment if something is found.
And certainly, if there is no permanent one, then under no pretext do not agree to coitus without one hundred percent certainty that it is pure. Let you lose this irresponsible dirty fellow, then you will suffer with your health, or even worse, this irresponsible little man will live with you.
You know, HPV and ureaplasmosis are not all diseases transmitted by the oral route. Oh, sorry, sexual. I completely forgot about censorship.
Well, so you understand that they are most often spread through contact with the genitals.
STDs include gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV, trichomoniasis, candidiasis, chlamydia, genital herpes and so on. Wikipedia will tell you about them very delicately. If you just go online and search, you will be inundated with beautiful pictures of our favorite buds and peppers, ulcerated and leaking pus.
– Horror, and metaphors. – someone will say
– Well, these beautiful organs can have diseases. – I will answer.
I remember my cousin asked me to buy her suppositories for thrush at the pharmacy; she was in the hospital and was itching.
I remember well that day when she couldn’t really communicate with me, she was so scared.
I, who didn’t know what candidiasis was, asked:
– How is it? Describe it. What do you feel? What does it look like?
– It's itchy! It's itchy! Aching in the lower abdomen! I want to climb the wall because of the burning sensation, which I also have to endure. You won't scratch it like a pimple.
Thank God, I had no symptoms of infections, they were all sluggish. If the doctor hadn't taken tests, I wouldn't have known.
So many who have good immunity are only carriers. And this is even more dangerous. That's why you need a certificate.
A person may be offended, thinking that since you didn’t see his shiny pink, clean charms, you obviously want to insult him.
But this is not so. Not everyone, like their cousin, has hell going on in thongs. Well, it’s not like hell, of course, it can be much worse. But what I can say with confidence is that there was definitely no health there. As a physician, I will enlighten you that with thrush, the skin and mucous membranes are redder than normal.
So, perhaps your partner is a carrier, and don’t be offended by the assumption that he is ill.
If your immunity is weaker than his, you will become infected. Therefore, whether he is sick or just suffering, it doesn’t matter, let him get tested and treated.
Even if now you love this person, you take risks to sleep with him, then in the future everything can change, just allow this possibility.
There are dramas. Your hero goes to war, you need to create a precedent for him to return.
Or a little more romantic, the reveler-husband leaves to forgive… (sorry, censorship again) to the secretary, and you don’t want to lose such a noble male and decide to sleep with him in order to get pregnant.
Well, everyone knows that a woman has the right not to give a divorce until the child is one and a half years old. And if you add in the months of pregnancy, then the game was worth the candle. Then you can get treatment.
Get treatment?
This is where the epiphany comes.
Who wants to take antibiotics for five to ten days, take smears, douche and do baths?
This is just the tip of the iceberg; there are also incurable diseases. Here there will be no drama, but tragedy.
But who cares? Pfft, the main thing is that your beloved husband does not leave. Or the boy returned from the army.
I saw the boys. They hang out like hell in taverns, sleep every night with a new friend, and in the morning they forget everything that happened.
An easy and carefree life. Then the military registration and enlistment office comes to them, and immediately the guys are so simple, pure at heart, all the mothers, nannies, aunties, dads rush around with them, worrying.
And I understand why they care about the “prostitutes” with whom their beloved son slept.
See, when you are the mother of a son, he can do no wrong.
When you sleep with this "son", you are a prostitute.
Oh women!!!! Therefore, when the question is about your security, no one will do this except you, no one needs you. If you don’t take care of the certificate and a condom yourself, no one will.
To be honest, your mom won't be happy with your promiscuity either, so don't expect her to give you much intimate advice.
Only very advanced mothers in the entire history of their child’s growing up do not find any STD in their daughter’s medical record.
Do you know why? Because the majority have suffered from this themselves, and do not know how to tell a man: “provide a certificate.”
I've seen some cool moms who are so friendly with the woman born in their womb that everyone would envy them.
It seems there is nothing to complain about?
But in practice, medical cards are full of ureaplasma and genital herpes.
I will now share a story without a name. This is my good friend, but the person to whom I was forbidden to tell the truth, they say my husband will tell everything himself.
Irina from Krasnodar… Oh, I still mentioned the name. Kirill, I’m sorry, if you haven’t told her yet, then seven years have passed, it’s time to confess.
So Irina, a wonderful mother of a beautiful daughter, a faithful friend and wife to her husband, found herself in a situation where she firmly believes in a world without betrayal and STDs.
Her husband is a fan of having sex in saunas for money. (Get sex, not give, what are you thinking? Vulgar). He explained to his friends that Irina does not satisfy all his needs, and he is such a male that he “finishes his food” on the side.
Of course, they told me that he came to his senses, changed and blah blah blah, but something tells me that Irina did not ask him for a certificate, and she does not teach her daughter the same.
Since I found out (my husband told me, he swore that “he would never do anything”), I stopped communicating with their family.
What is the conclusion of this story? “Don’t trust anyone, take it and check it.”
Let this poem remind you every time to ask for a certificate from a new guy before the first sex, and to check with a regular partner once every six months. Good luck.
Menarche and “it would be better if I went to the army”
Lord, don't you know this abstruse medical term?
Well, it's not scary. Great loss. Well, they told themselves: “first period” and that’s it.
So, my menarche came at twelve years old. I was terrified. No, I was a boy.
Well, more precisely, at that moment I tried to convince myself that if I convinced everyone that I was a boy, then menstruation would stop.
This disgusting bloody mucous discharge from the gap between my legs caused such discomfort and shame that I even began to slouch so that my breasts, which had not bothered me much before, would now simply hide inside.
Imagine, like a fugitive criminal, I began to hide from my parents, peers, and people in general, in case they figured me out.
Who am I now?
I was a tomboyish girl, but who is now? Woman?
What kind of creature is this? What does this word mean, that now I can have sex, give birth, older men can justifiably pester me?
And here's more details. There was a pedophile living in the next yard. Yes! Can you imagine?! But I didn’t know that this was illegal, and I was silent like a fool, I didn’t tell my parents how the old horseradish caught me in the entrance and tried to hug me.
No, don’t think about it, there was no groping, no eroticism, just a hug. But! Drunk. And with servility.
I understood everything then. And she ran away. We never saw each other again; fortunately, I retained my honor. But if my father had hit him a couple of times, I wouldn’t have minded.
I was afraid to tell my dad, but now I understand it was in vain. Never tolerate this, girls, if you hold this book.
If you already have a lot more, then share with your friends or parents, if they are alive, in general, with someone who will understand you, even if it’s late, it will make you feel better. Vendetta may be unnecessary, but an understanding heart is definitely needed. Girls, girls, women, if you have ever been clamped against your will, or God forbid, raped, then I will become that understanding listener for you.
"I understand you! Thank you for sharing this story!”
I hug you tightly.
My period came at a time when I was not ready for it. I knew just enough about them that only my cousin’s words sounded in my head: “It’s like pissing, only a little bit and all the time.”
Mom gave me a pad. Do you know how I stuck it on?
Well, there are only two options, and I chose… of course… the wrong one.
This was my first hair removal experience.
Yes, my husband almost lost consciousness from laughter when I dared to tell this.
Just imagine, a couple of hours after successfully fighting the bleeding, I decide to go pee-pee.
I go to the toilet and oh, horror, my vagina was captured (by that time the hormones had already grown something on my pink body), and it hurt, let me tell you. It hurt so much that I thought I might as well be patient.
Wee-wee be patient, I mean.
Well, are you already rolling under the table? Get out, I'll try to be more serious.
In general, if you are a friend or mother of a girl, then take the trouble, when giving her a pad, to tell her how to use it, even if she self-confidently shouts at you: “Yes, I know!!!”
My poor mother didn't dare. How could she have imagined that her smart, excellent student, artist, writer daughter would be at odds with logic?
Well, as I reasoned: when you run, your underpants move… Ah! I realized it was all about the large size of underwear!
Ugh, I was scratching my head.
Well, I think you can’t trust such impractical underwear; if you glue a “mattress” to it, it won’t save you. It’s much safer to stick it on the “trouble” itself. Everything is logical, don’t you think?
Oh, that's it. They came off.
We wipe away our tears and move on.
All that week I was extremely jealous of men.
– Why do girls have periods and give birth, but boys nothing?
– They got the army. In general, they can die.
“I’d rather join the army, maybe I’ll survive.”
My sister had no arguments for this.
– Well, no way, you are a woman, congratulations.
Girls, write me your stories by return letter, anonymously, of course, not everyone will dare to sculpt such a thing openly. I’m very interested in how many of us there are, who experienced menarche like an atomic war (the world collapsed, but no one benefited).
Okay, correction, there is still a benefit, unlike a disaster. A woman is entering fertile age and will have the opportunity to give birth in the future. And for many this is a lifelong desire. Thanks to regular periods, we see that every month the body prepares for conception.
There are serious problems in this area and not all girls suffered as much as I did. Some people, on the contrary, were happy.
Don't believe me?
Well listen. Remember my friend who lost her honor before me?
So, partly she did this to speed up the onset of her period.
Doctors promised her infertility if she did not reach menarche by seventeen.
She, of course, wasn’t too worried, because girls at fifteen don’t really dream of having a baby (remember yourself). What kind of children are we talking about when you barely learned how to glue sanitary pads?
But Edita was not very lucky. Her aunt-guardian turned out to be susceptible to public opinion and began to explain the importance of childbearing from the position of an authoritative doctor, which she was.
And my friend began to transform into a frightened girl who suddenly wanted to become a mother. Not immediately, of course, but in the next ten years she dreamed of giving birth.
I looked at all this with suspicion, Edita was replaced. But I decided not to pay attention, but in vain. She was so scared that she decided to push her hormonal levels with defloration.
A month later, full menstruation began.
You know, she was happy. I still held back to wait until I cooled down because of the insult, but I quietly rejoiced.
This is an exceptional situation when delicate girls, who have obvious delays in puberty at all levels, are threatened with childlessness. Then, afraid of becoming an old maid, the still young children themselves solve the problem in such a stupid way.
I guess I can understand my friend. She went through a lot afterwards. Miscarriages, frozen pregnancies, but still gave birth to two strong sons. Her goal was realized. Whether this goal was a dream, I don’t know. Not a single woman admits this.
– Are you glad you gave birth?
– Yes, my children are the best in the world, I can’t imagine my life without them.
– What about the dream?
– DREAMS ARE ALL EGOISM. I AM SO HAPPY. (she smiled, and her eyes became treacherously covered with a veil).
Okay, we'll talk about children in another chapter.
By the way, do you know that “you can’t have sex during your period?” Well why?
The cervix is slightly open (just a fraction of a millimeter) to expel the endometrium, which is not attached to the fertilized egg, and the blood that comes out of small vessels during rejection.
And if you push your partner’s penis there like a piston, there is a risk that microbes will get onto the wound surface and into the uterus.
Therefore, there should be no penis in the vagina during menstruation, as well as no hands or vibrator. Even tampons must be extremely clean.
But you can have sex. Just different. What's stopping you from plugging your vagina and giving your husband the clitoris? You can reciprocate his feelings – the sixty-nine pose is called. This is also sex, only safe.
During defloration, those vessels that break on the hymen are also very susceptible to infection, so when choosing your first partner, make sure not only the certificate, but also how clean he is: washed, lathered, polished.
No, no, my dears, no need for sanding. Just to make it shine.
Well, I can say that from the height of flight, being thirty years old, I am proud of my body.
After all, at twelve years old, menstruation is a good indicator. Throughout my life, interruptions were extremely rare, there was almost no pain. If you have problems with women's health, consult a gynecologist. But if, regardless of whether he finds something or not, he offers you, like Charlotte from the movie “Sex and the City,” antidepressants for the vagina, then don’t drink for anything.
Change doctor.
“First depilation, epilation. Why can't a woman be a yeti?
You know, after that funny thing during menarche, it didn’t take long for me to lose my hair locally. In only eight years.
Do you know the difference between epi and depi? Epi is to tear off or remove by the roots, depi is a superficial disposal – shave, we call it.
To tear off, that's right, I wasn't being humorous. It's no laughing matter at all. I would say, only tears and nothing more.
At about twenty-six, I had the only epilation of the bikini area in my area using sugaring. My mother is a woman. It's like getting high to withstand such hell.
Are you ashamed to lie with your furry vulva up in front of another woman, so that she plucks you like a chicken? Noooo. By the second minute or so you think you're over the Vietnam War. And I don’t care how the master looks at you.
Lord, what lengths do we go to for the sake of men? Are they men?
Do you know when I first realized that genital hair is a little unnecessary?
When my friend, late with puberty, washed herself in my bathhouse. I noticed that we are very different. “Her” and “mine” were like a child and an aunt, given that Edita is six months older than me.
Pride, of course, was hurt. Self-esteem is damaged. I couldn’t imagine that without clothes I looked worse than the other girl.
But it turned out that way. She did not express a single assessment; this is solely my sense of aesthetic perception.
As long as I thought that everyone had vegetation there, there were no problems. As soon as, at the age of sixteen, I discovered someone my age with a more well-groomed vulva, I was shocked. I took up the machine.
Oh no, I decided to go completely bald only four years later.
That time I adjusted my hips and pubis, leaving a thin strip just out of fear that I would get hurt.
At twenty, I got the hang of doing my job cleanly, to a fault.
Do you know why? The same guy who cheated on me subtly shamed me for being furry.
If I had already been sexually educated then, I would not have allowed myself to endure such an insult. As it turns out, my husband loves me with any hairstyle.
This guy, having achieved his goal, still turned out to be an asshole and left me, but since then I have become addicted to the machine.
You know, it's like riding a bicycle, once you ride it, you never forget how. I'm thirty-two and still rolling.
There are various ways to look sleek, but is it worth it?
Sometimes it doesn't hurt anyone to experiment, just for your own sake, for the sake of new sensations, for the sake of a loved one, for the sake of fashion, to become the most beautiful of all, for any reason you want – after all, it's just hair.
God, don't take this seriously.
You should also do the same with hairstyles on your head. True, choose a good master, and that’s it. In this matter, conservatism is completely unnecessary. Hair tends to grow back.
As for arms and legs, the question is sometimes the opposite. Is it worth depilating/epilating light invisible hairs on your arms, or even legs, if they later become hard, dark and thick? Maybe not for everyone, but there is a risk.
I would recommend thinking and deciding whether you are ready to deal with body hair for the rest of your life?
If yes, then go ahead.
I'm in a good position with my genetics; I only have to shave my lower legs.
However, my school friend in the eighth grade, having shaved off the sparse brown hairs from her arms, forever condemned herself to wax stripes. She is sure that she is better off without fur.
Do you know if a woman was like a yeti, she would be loved?
Who will answer?
Yes, the girl in the knitted sweater, please stand up. I'm sorry, what? Close the microphone please, we can't hear you.
“I don’t shave at all…” he boldly declares, blushing.
– And how do you live?
– My husband dotes on me. Every day requires sex. I'm happy.
– We are happy for you. Thank you. Sit down.
You see. This little scene is here to show you that it's up to you to decide how you look and whether you like to feel that way.
I also have an opposite story from my life. A good friend of mine, fifty-five, lived for twenty years in a marriage with a military doctor younger than herself. She has psoriasis and has difficulty depilating/epilating. She herself is a dark-skinned and woolly girl, like a teddy bear, but at the same time very charming.
For her husband this was not a problem, but for her it was.
After twenty years of family life, she was tired of her husband’s jealousy and aggressive sex, packed her things and for three years now lived as she liked, namely without psoriasis and hair.
A friend of mine found a way to reduce the manifestations of the disease (crusts on the body) and finally learned how to remove hair, at least from her legs.
You know, it turns out that she needed it, not her husband. A man doesn't care if he's in love and wants to possess you. How do you feel?
Like this. We women can be like yeti, with the condition that we are happy at the same time.
A curtain.
