Cunt (10 page)
Authors: Betty Dodson Inga Muscio
In no way do I claim to be a health practitioner.
Nor—as my Macintosh PowerBook with internal modem would gladly testify in a court
of law—am I of the Luddite persuasion.
I am a woman and a writer who has thought about and experimented with the workings
of her cunt with passion and vigor.
When you start teaching yourself about your cunt, you get a rhythm going. It is your
rhythm and only you understand it 100 percent. When you breathe deeply and stay with
this rhythm in your body, you will notice it encompasses every aspect of your life.
What I am about to discuss is not “the rhythm method.” The objective here is not to
understand the rhythm of your ovulatory cycle. The objective is to tap into the rhythm
of your ovulatory cycle as a means of perceiving a broader rhythm inside yourself
that shows you how powerful you are every day of your life.
Long before physicians started “curing” people with charming procedures like putting
leeches all over their bodies, birth control was a normal part of life. There are
as many forms of birth control as there are cultures in the world. It wasn’t until
popes and missionaries preached the sinfulness of sex outside of reproductive purposes
for a couple hundred years that people started distrusting their medicinal regimes.
Lots of people still practice their own kind of reproductive medicine, only now it’s
invalidated and called “voodoo,” “black magic” or “folk medicine.”
The big problem with forms of birth control founded in the people, the plants and
the moon is that no one trusts them. They all completely depend on the individual
woman and her community in order to be effective.
Few in our society have trusted the individual woman and her community to take absolute
control. En masse, women haven’t trusted ourselves or subsequently been trusted for
over two thousand years.
The nice thing, though, is everything’s changing. It’s not
impossible
for small groups of women all over the nation to learn about our cunts and trust
each other together. In the mite of a moment, we can get online. We can post what
we know and find what we’re looking for. We can sit in a cafe with our three best
friends and discuss our erotic fantasies. We can purchase books that tell us all about
our cervix.
Assuredly, the best place to start learning and trusting is the place from which you
entered into this world.
Everything your uterus produces—blood, eggs, babies and a variety of miraculous secretions—eventually
passes through your cervix before leaving your body.
Your cervix is the doorway of humanity. Have you ever seen it? If you haven’t, you
dang well should. Viewing your cervix will not be a disappointing experience, I promise
on a stack of holy
Beloveds
by Toni Morrison.
Go to your local women’s health clinic with probably a five or ten dollar bill. Ask
for a small, medium or large plastic speculum, and hand the nice health clinic lady
the five or ten dollars. Along with the speculum, ask her to give you an instruction
sheet. If you live in one of the more woman-negative states like Utah, Florida, Texas
or Mississippi, you may need to purchase a plastic speculum through the mail.
Read the instructions that come with your speculum. If you’re lucky enough to have
a supportive women’s clinic in your community, ask any questions you may have before
leaving. If you buy a speculum through the mail, either call the company you ordered
it from, or call the woman-positive health clinic nearest you by referring to the
appendix in
A New View of a Woman’s Body
, a book I vehemently urge you to purchase in a later chapter.
With your speculum, you can further investigate and learn of your wondrous cunt. Besides
the speculum, you will need a flashlight, possibly some lube, a hand-held mirror and
maybe some gentle patience. Practice opening and closing the spec a few times before
inserting. Keep in mind that speculums were not designed for self-exams. It can be
frustrating trying to get that thing to work right the first one or nine times, but
try to relax. Tight cunt muscles don’t facilitate this maneuver.
To insert a speculum: Lie down with some pillows under the small of your back. Spread
them legs. Hold your cunt lips apart with two fingers of one hand. Insert the speculum
sideways, longest handle facing your body. If things are parched down there, employ
the lube, but use it sparingly. One of the main objectives here is to be able to see
your juices in their natural element. Ya’ won’t be able to distinguish the lube from
the juice if you lay it on too thick. Once you get the speculum in about halfway,
turn it so it lies flat. Don’t open it up when it’s sideways. Gently insert it on
in to the hilt and open it up. Wheee! There’s a little lock mechanism on these things;
click it into place when you get it opened as wide as you can.
Mind, this is not
the most comfortable
sensation in the world, but it shouldn’t hurt at all (unless you have an infection
or open sores or something), so long as you don’t pinch any o’ that tender skin as
you open the speculum. However, if you’re not used to having things in your cunt,
especially hard, plastic things, you may experience more discomfort at first. Keep
trying. Remember to relax.
Once the speculum is in, opened and locked, grab that flashlight and mirror. If you
can’t see your cervix, either you have a long cunt canal or a shy cervix. For the
former scenario, try the exam again just before, right after or on the lightest day
of your period. This is when your cervix is most visible. For the latter, bear down
like you do when taking a shit. That cervix will overcome its stage fright in a matter
of seconds. If lots of flesh is bulging around the speculum, you probably need a larger
size.
Take a good long gander. Note the shape, color and texture of your cervix. It changes
appearance according to where you are in your cycle. If your cervix looks kinda bluish
or is indeed bright blue, it’s time for a pregnancy test. If you’re ovulating, you
may see mucous, your cervix will be pulled higher up, it may be softer and larger
than usual and the os may be open slightly. The os looks like a Q-tip wouldn’t pass
through it, but it is altogether capable of dilating to accommodate the head and shoulders
of a new human being.
Look, touch, smell and taste your cuntjuices.
Never
gross out on tasting yourself. You are an acquired taste. Acquire it. You swallow
your spit without a qualm millions of times each week. It’s filthy in comparison to
your delectable cuntjuices.
This is another very good way of getting a rhythm going. You taste differently when
you’re about to bleed than when you’re ovulating, and it’s completely up to you to
make distinctions.
A woman’s body releases an egg once a month. This egg sits around in your uterus,
waiting for some sperm to show up. It is not stupid. After twelve to twenty-four hours,
it figures no sperm’s gonna take it on a hot date and it makes an exit without further
ado.
Sperm can live in your body anywhere from seventy-two hours to five days. What this
means is, if some sperm finds its way into your uterus up to
one working week
before your body releases its egg, you
can
,
feasibly
, get pregnant.
When an egg is present, you are ovulating. Generally, not always, but
generally
, a woman ovulates halfway through her menstrual cycle. Therefore, if you had your
period when the moon was new, then there’s a good chance you’ll ovulate when the moon
is full.
Another indication that you’re ovulating is a slight twinge of pain in your lower
abdomen. It doesn’t feel like a menstrual cramp, it’s more of a tight, pinched-nerve-type
pain. If you masturbate, you can sometimes feel it after you come.
Also, I should probably add that when you are ovulating, you will often become insanely
horny. You may feel the urge to couple with the kitchen-table leg, though I wouldn’t
necessarily take this as an ovulatory symptom.
The
most
reliable way to tell when you are ovulating is by intimately familiarizing yourself
with the posh setting of your cunt by interpreting messages from your cervix.
Stick your finger—middle finger’s best—up your cunt, swipe it around and around your
cervix, being careful not to neglect the underside, where secretions like to settle.
If you are ovulating you will find a nice blob of snot on your finger. There’s no
seemly way to describe this. It’s snot, quite unmistakably, plain and simple, snot.
It has no odor or color, it’s just clear snot, and as such, tastes a little salty.
This snot’s function is to create a warm, cushiony thoroughfare for sperm to travel
to your egg.
The unique characteristics of ovulation snots are created by a rise in the hormone
estrogen. Before you ovulate, the discharge on your finger is milky and creamy. Right
after you ovulate, when you stick your finger up your cunt, you’ll find sticky, tacky,
maybe curdy, white stuff. If the sticky white stuff is there, with either a little
snot mixed in or no snot at all, figure you just ovulated. Estrogen decreases at the
approach of your period and progesterone rises, making your cunt dry up a tad. As
you get used to checking your cuntstuff, you’ll be able to recognize what’s what.
Now, if you’re gonna be making expeditions in your cunt with your fingers,
keep those fingernails clipped and wash your hands!
If anybody else is of the mind to explore your cuntal regions with their digits,
make goddamn sure they keep their nails clipped and hands clean too. Many minor infections
are attributed to the hairline lesions caused by fingernail scratches. If you’re prone
to these minor infections, examine your lover’s fingernails and hand-washing habits.
I’ve made it my business to peruse my cuntjuices once or twice every week when I’m
not bleeding. The best time to do this is while taking a shower, when my hands are
already quite clean and I’m already quite naked. I’ve incorporated this investigation
into my shower ritual, so on any given week, I know exactly where I am in my cycle.
When you make knowing your cunt’s cycle an important part of your
normal
bathroom regime, it becomes rote.
After a few months of familiarizing yourself with your snots and milky or curdy or
tacky white stuffs, ask yourself this question: “How can I get with child if I know
exactly when I am fertile and, therefore, take precautionary measures?” Precautionary
methods may involve the use of condoms, engaging in sexual activities that do not
involve dick ’n cunt intercourse or investigating erotic fantasies based on titillation
and masturbation.
Cuntlovin’ Ovulation Alert is of obvious benefit to women who
want
to get pregnant. It’s also a divine service for women who aren’t at all preoccupied
with the possibility of conception. Your cunt’s rhythm affects perspective, mood and
creative and erotic expression. What is day-to-day life, but perspective, mood and
creative and erotic expression? Knowing and grooving with your cunt is
such
a huge assistance in these matters.
Cuntlovin’ Ovulation Alert furthermore helps you:
- Plan and navigate your way through any given week.
- Anticipate and deflect negative interactions with people you care about.
- Love yourself, which in turn effects positive changes for future generations of women.
Counting you, that’s one more cuntlovin’ woman in the world who is contributing to
an environment of cuntlove.
Cuntlovin’ Ovulation Alert dictates compassion and respect for all women.
Once you get to the point where you anticipate what juices your cervix is letting
loose, emotional and psychological rhythms inside you become more lucid.
After that, there’s no stopping you.
You rule.
We are at the juncture of examining the repercussions of truly, candidly understanding
our cunts.
Let’s say now you’ve made some serious decisions about your body. Let’s say you’ve
developed a keen interest in reigning at the helm of your body’s rhythm. Optimally,
let’s say you’re open to falling in love with yourself in a way you only remotely
considered in the past.
According to my little theory, a highly developed sense of compassion for your physical
self has a rippling effect in the subconscious. It leads to the development of a psychic
sense of compassion for everyone with a cunt. Once you understand your personal rhythm,
you intuitively connect yourself with all the people who share a similar rhythm.
These people are womankind.
Which leads us to honoring the single most excoriated group of women in the world.
Not virgins.
Not mothers.
One more guess.
I am thankful to have been blessed with a fairly well-developed sense of entitlement
during the composition of every chapter in
Cunt.
Except this one.
This one’s been difficult.
I’ve never
been
a Whore.
I’ve read and thought about and talked to
Whores. As a woman living in this society, I’m
consistently reminded
I am a
potential
Whore whenever a man is not escorting me, which is rather most of the time. None
of this, however, is the same as consciously
experiencing
Whoredom firsthand. If I were a
truly
resourceful and courageous individual, I would’ve learned how to be a Whore for subsistence
while I wrote this book. Alas, I am an impractical chickenshit in this regard.
Whores are a very important part of
Cunt
. Every time I’ve tried to explain why, though, I’ve met this insecurity inside myself.
It is a very cranky insecurity that says stuff like, “You don’t know what it’s like
to
be
a Whore, you dang fool. Can’t base no chapter on sneaky suspicions.”
But Whoredom is a massive part of our history and power as women. When fully instructed
in the art of sacred sexual power, Whores are the people who can teach us all the
stuff we grow up not learning about sexuality, our bodies and our innate sexual power.
Our cultural ignorance and intolerance of Whores keeps Whores from realizing the full
potential of Whoredom. It likewise robs women and men of Teachers who can help us
understand women’s sexual power.
Whores were a central part of religion, spirituality and everyday life in times when
the Goddess—a
truly
sexual being—was overtly worshipped. It took a lot of work, study, devotion and commitment
to become one of the Goddess’s sexual priestesses. People were free to visit the temples
of Whores, and did so to learn, to love, to open up physically, to heal.
I ruminated over this chapter for a long time, and prayed the Goddess would help me.
Like always, She came through. This time She manifested Herself in a woman named Carol
Queen, a writer, sex activist and Whore.
You won’t find Carol Queen in the acknowledgment section because I know people don’t
always read the praises in books, and I want everyone to know:
Carol Queen fucking
rules.
Woman, you saved my ass and
I thank you
from the bottom of my heart.
Ms. Queen’s book,
Real Live Nude Girl
, published in 1997 by Cleis Press, casts resplendent light on the history of sacred
Whoredom. Carol Queen reveals that the depravity surrounding Whoredom is not based
on the fact that Whoredom exists, but rather, it is based on the
perception
of Whoredom’s existence.
My “ardent worshippers” and I have no temple today in which to perform a dance that
sometimes seems more profane than sacred. In a culture that does not worship the Goddess
any longer, these are degenerate times indeed, but not because a once-holy act is
still being negotiated in hotel suites, in massage parlors, on city streets. In fact,
if prostitution is ever eradicated, it will be a signal that Christianity’s murder
of Eros is complete, the Goddess’s rule completely overturned. Perhaps most prostitutes
today are unaware that their profession has a sacred history, and doubtless most clients
would define what they do with us as something other than worship. But I believe that
an echo of the old relationship, when he was the seeker and she was the Source, are
still present when money changes hands today. (Queen, 1997, 190)
It would be
so wonderful
to visit a Sacred Whore temple. Kick down some cash to mix with and undulate in the
ol’ Goddess’s love juices for a while.
Damn
, I’m so seethingly jealous of those olden time people. I daresay the loss of our
sacred sexual temples grieves the heart of Carol Queen threefold.
Whoredom has existed, in various guises, for thousands and thousands of years. A main
artery of the Goddess’s lifeforce, it is too powerful to annihilate.
Whoredom has been successfully vilified.
Whoredom is presently accepted as a very, very bad thing, while its history debases
this idea beyond all reckoning.
Sound like any old word that is the title to a book you’ve been reading lately?
In our present mode of collective consciousness, a Whore is simply a person who exchanges
sex for financial resources.
I accept this to be true, but only if it’s recognized as one
part
of a much broader cultural-financial order that women participate in for survival.
There is no difference between a woman who marries a very powerful man because it
is the only way she is guaranteed a “place” in society, and a streetwalker who’s never
known the illusion of a “guarantee.”
Some women opt to be Whores because procuring semen from men’s bodies is a bona fide
way to make a living in a society where we are viewed as highly expendable citizens.
Ms. Streetwalker exchanges womanly wiles for subsistence.
Some women—such as the late Princess Diana, who once referred to herself as the highest
paid prostitute in the world—don’t actually
opt
to be Whores, but realize nonetheless that that is exactly what we are.
Ms. Powerwife exchanges womanly wiles for a fancy house in the hills.
In this way of thinking, the issue is
class
rather than Whoredom.
Hugh Grant and Eddie Murphy could lecture on this subject.
Sacred Whore temples flourished in ancient India, the Middle East, Africa, Europe,
the Americas and Asia. The word “whore” was a title, used in much the way our word
“reverend” is employed today. “Whore” is associated with many words including hus-band,
hussy,
puta
(Spanish for “whore”—in Vedic,
puta
means “pure” or “holy”),
ghazye
(Egyptian),
devadasi
(Sanskrit),
horae
(Greek) and
hor
(Hebrew). Whore-priestesses were revered because they taught “a combination of mother-love,
tenderness, comfort, mystical enlightenment and sex.” (Walker, 1983, 820)
Mary Magdalene was a Whore and Jesus dug her because she taught him the most sacred
thing a man can ever hope to learn in his lifetime: how to fuck. Stud that he was,
Jesus knew to humble himself to this woman.
I imagine the sex was spectacular.
Let’s interpret the notion of Jesus visiting a Whore in a cuntlovin’ way. Let’s pretend
Jesus and his Apostle frat brothers didn’t visit Mary Magdalene after a hard night
tossing off forty-ouncers and tipping cows in the holy land.
From all the things I’ve heard about Jesus, he sounds like a pretty decent sort. He
looks nice in most of his pictures. You can
tell
Adolph Hitler and George Washington were dickheads just by looking at them. Looking
at Jesus, he seems cool. By and large, Jesus evidently had a lot of love and compassion
swimming around his heart. He had a pretty huge impact in certain parts of the world,
yet left it when he was only thirty-two. You gotta figure Jesus didn’t waste a lot
of time dinking around. Even if he
did
dink around, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d take an impersonal toss in
the hay for a budgeted degree of arousal.
I seriously doubt Jesus perceived Mary Magdalene as anything less than an esteemed
Teacher. In Jesus’ time, Whores were still prophets of sexual power. They taught people
how the physical body is a conduit of energy. If Jesus was able to manifest the love
in his heart in all the physical actions the bible alleges, Mary Magdalene was certainly
one of the people in his life responsible for helping him figure out how to do it.
Though Whores were integral and respected in many times and places, the fear and/or
awe of female sexuality certainly rivals Whoredom in age.
I don’t know if that big dyke Lilith was a Whore or not, but she was certainly too
sexually aggro for Adam and God’s liking:
Hebraic tradition said Adam married Lilith because he grew tired of coupling with
beasts, a common custom of Middle-Eastern herdsmen, though the Old Testament declared
it a sin (Deuteronomy 27:21). Adam tried to force Lilith to lie beneath him in the
“missionary position” favored by male-dominant societies. Moslems were so insistent
on the male-superior sexual position that they said, “Accursed be the man who maketh
women heaven and himself earth.” Catholic authorities said any sexual position other
than the male-superior one is sinful. But Lilith was neither a Moslem nor a Catholic.
She sneered at Adam’s sexual crudity, cursed him, and flew away to make her home by
the Red Sea.
God sent angels to fetch Lilith back, but she cursed them too, ignored God’s command,
and spent her time coupling with “demons” (whose lovemaking evidently pleased her
better) and giving birth to a hundred children every day. So God had to produce Eve
as Lilith’s more docile replacement.... The story of Lilith disappeared from the canonical
Bible, but her daughters the
lilim
haunted men for over a thousand years. Well into the Middle Ages, the Jews were still
manufacturing amulets to keep away the
lilim
, who were lustful she-demons given to copulating with men in their dreams, causing
nocturnal emissions. Naturally, the
lilim
squatted on top of their victims in the position favored by ancient matriarchs. (Walker,
1983, 541-42)
The
lilim
that haunted men in their dreams were manifestations of a growing terror of female
sexuality. In our society, this fear has gone past fruition and is presently rotting.
I feel pretty cheated about Whores for a number of reasons:
- Whores generally subsist within men’s domain, under conditions men have formulated
for the past odd thousand years, and are largely inaccessible to women. - Most Whores are completely unaware of how important they are to society, and subsequently
do not have the opportunity to learn how to be all-compassionate, all-loving, all-giving
and all-receiving incarnations of the Goddess. - I’ve never been with a Whore because any Whore who knows she’s one of the Goddess’s
priestesses would cost my entire disposable income for six months.
I do, however, have a frame of reference because I know what it is like to be in the
arms of the Goddess.
One time I got blessed by this Goddess incarnation named Ammachi. She’s not a Whore,
but she’s by far the closest personification of an olden time sacred temple priestess
I’ve ever personally encountered.
Ammachi is a woman from India who comes to America and has these ashram things. The
first time I went to her ashram thing, I had no idea what it was about. I saw a bunch
of mostly white people dressed in white clothes who bugged me with their “Oh, I am
so very holy and drink herbal tea constantly” vibration.
But the music was amazing.
Ammachi sat in the front of the room on a bunch of pillows. Musicians, attendants,
children and flowers surrounded her. Thousands of flowers, like when Princess Diana
died. She sat there with her eyes closed, and chanted. Probably, she was meditating.
Wearing a flowing white sari, she was covered with chiffon, silk, everything soft
and whispery. I figured she understood the concept of an ashram far better than I,
so I did the same as her. Closed my eyes, sat and listened.