WhAt's On My TwiSteD mInd

What? You really want to know? Hmm... that's new but here I am! I think weird things in my head, do strange things in my life and try my hardest to be really grateful with what I have. I don't cry often but I do cry easily.

[homedesigning]

The Aesthete, Issue 8: The Art Of The Arch

[ninanopitue]

And look, here I am, back to where I spent my previous days with less drama and more fan-girling. Must do that good times again this year! Happiest New Year for us all!

[devinellekurtz]

Observing the local dragons

[gravitren]

We all know what erectile dysfunction is but literally no one is ever taught what vaginismus is and it can cause people to feel extremely lost, broken, and cause people to take their own lives. Raise. Awareness.

[pokemonprofessor]

For the uninformed, vaginismus is when the vagina painfully tightens and spasms when faced with pressure, usually from anything trying to insert into the vagina. It’s the reason I can’t wear tampons, and why many people can’t have vaginal sex without severe pain.

There’s not a lot of treatments, and there isn’t a single one that is for vaginismus exclusively - they’re all medications or treatments to treat symptoms, but not the causes. In fact, for a long time doctors waved off vaginismus as a purely psychological disorder in cis women.

Seriously, this is so unaddressed and uncared for in medical circles. Please spread awareness, even if all it’s for is to let those who have it but don’t have a name for it finally be able to understand what’s happening to their bodies.

[frustratedwaffle]

I’ve never even heard of this??

[shadowkat678]

Me neither. :(

[backpackfullofplums]

Thank you for sharing bc I think I might actually have this but I thought it was just me. I can barely handle so much as a tampon. Will have to bring this up at my next doctor’s appointment.

[saathiray]

So, there is a website dedicated to vaginismus which I suffered from for years and had no idea how to talk about it. I found this website ten or twelve years ago and bought some of their products which helped immensely. I know nothing about the medications, but the dilator set is probably the best you can do because it is a way to help widen the vagina on your own terms. I still have mine even though I haven’t needed it for years because it could come back later. 

One thing I appreciated about this website is that it emphasized that this is not your fault. Another thing I learned was that one cause could just be, you know, being part of a culture that gives women extreme anxiety about sex. This resource helped me when I was a lot younger and terrified that I was broken. 

Anyways, here’s the website. Please share it with everyone you know: x

[darkersolstice]

Brent Weeks included a character with vaginismus in his fantasy series, The Black Prism. It’s plot relevant (she needs to consummate a political marriage–to a husband she sincerely loves, no less), and she’s treated as a well-rounded character who it’s just one aspect of, and Weeks included an author’s note that was like “btw, this is a real thing. Here are resources on the topic. You’re not broken and you can get help.”

Which, like, from a male author? That’s pretty neat.

[jenniferrpovey]

Vaginismus is psychosomatic and often is caused by anxiety. It’s also very real and quite painful.

It can be caused by sexual assault, but it can also be caused by just plain lousy sex. In some cases there’s no apparent cause.

It can occur during sex and/or during pelvic exams. Some people (hi!) experience it only during pelvic exams or pap smears. (Mine was caused by an incompetent medical professional who didn’t pay attention and used a speculum that was too large). And, as mentioned, some sufferers can’t insert tampons. I’d imagine it’s not impossible for somebody to be fine with sex but have problems with tampon insertion. I’ve also heard of people being fine with a penis but not with toys and vice versa. (Lube, people. Lube).

Vaginismus is a major cause of dyspareunia (painful intercourse), but there are other causes, which can include:

* Not producing enough natural lubrication. This can be a result of insufficient/bad foreplay, but some people never produce enough and levels of lubrication can drop during and after menopause, after childbirth, and while nursing. It can also be a side effect of medication. Lube exists, and some people have to use it. Vagina owners should always use water-based lubes.

* Injury down there, often as a result of childbirth complications.

* Yeast or bacterial infection.

* Ezcema

* A deformed vagina (this is rare, but it does happen. It’s generally connected to a chromosomal abnormality or a condition such as AIS)

* Scarring from pelvic surgery.

* Stress.

* Ovarian cysts

* Pelvic inflammatory disease.

* Ectopic pregnancy

* Some STDs, such as genital warts

* Vulvodynia - pain in the clitoris, labia and vaginal opening. This one’s even worse…we do NOT know what causes it.

* Latex allergy if using condoms. If using lube causes more pain, you may be allergic to the lube.

* Cystitis

* Uterine problems such as fibroids or endometriosis

* Cervicitis (inflammation of the cervix)

Many of these can be treated or worked around. Sex is not supposed to hurt. And if it does, you and your partner need to address why. Many doctors actually recommend sex therapy as a couple if you have vaginismus. If you have an infection down there, it can be treated. If your vagina is too dry, you can use supplemental lube. But you need to talk to your doctor if at all possible.

Again.

It’s not supposed to hurt.

No, not even the first time.

[drst]

Always reblog.

[merchantfan]

Vaginismus isnt always psychosomatic it can also be caused by conditions such as vulvar vestibulitis from a hypertense pelvic floor- which is either caused by over active pain receptors or can cause them to become hyperactive. It certainly can also be caused by psychological trauma such as rape but just like erectile dysfunction it can also be biological in origin

[agirlandabeast-deactivated20220]

I had this, but didn’t know what caused it or what it was called…. but for me it turned out to be Depo Provera.  I’m glad it’s gone now, since being off that injection, but holy shit, I know of so many women who have experienced this and no doctor could explain it!

[imfemalewarrior]

This is something to be aware of! 

-FemaleWarrior, She/They 

[aeliad]

While we’re at it, folks with vaginas, your menstrual cycle may be worse than normal, too.

There is a Lot they never bother to teach us, and if sex or your menstrual cycle hurt a lot that is not normal and you should be working with a doctor to find out why. (And if your doctor doesn’t take your pain seriously you are allowed to fire them and find another because fuck that noise, our pain is real.)

[omletlove]

This article is a liiiiittle bit off-center for this topic, and it was published in 2018 in response to the backlash to the woman who wrote about her experience with Aziz Ansari, but it goes into a broader discussion of how pain and discomfort are appallingly common experiences women have during pain, and how we’ve been conditioned to ignore them, and then drops this bit of information, that’s haunted me since I first read it:

These days, a man can walk out of his doctor’s office with a prescription for Viagra based on little but a self-report, but it still takes a woman, on average, 9.28 years of suffering to be diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition caused by endometrial tissue growing outside the uterus. By that time, many find that not just sex but everyday existence has become a life-deforming challenge. That’s a blunt biological reality if ever there was one.

Or, since sex is the subject here, what about how our society’s scientific community has treated female dyspareunia — the severe physical pain some women experience during sex — vs. erectile dysfunction (which, while lamentable, is not painful)? PubMed has 393 clinical trials studying dyspareunia. Vaginismus? 10. Vulvodynia? 43.

Erectile dysfunction? 1,954.

That’s right: PubMed has almost five times as many clinical trials on male sexual pleasure as it has on female sexual pain. And why? Because we live in a culture that sees female pain as normal and male pleasure as a right.

from The female price of male pleasure, Lili Loufbourow

[dragons-quill]

ANOTHER CAUSE for pain when anything is being inserted (sex, tampons, gynecological tests) is endometriosis, which can grow in the vaginal canal.  I was told by THREE gynecologists/complete assholes that my intense pain during pap smears wasn’t a real thing, that I was dramatic or straight-up lying.

As a result, it took me eight years to be diagnosed with endo, which by that time was all over my abdomen, womb, tubes, ovaries, AND bladder. While I had to co-existing conditions, endo isn’t even rare.  Doctors can just be major asshats.  

[ninanopitue]

Untuk kamu, yang wajahnya mulai aku lupakan dan namanya mulai berhenti aku sebut..

Ini sudah bulan ke.. keberapa sejak janji kita bertemu? Bahkan pesan terakhirku kau balaskan tidak. Panggilan terakhirku kau jawab pun tidak.

Tapi aku cukup yakin kamu masih hidup, di luar imajiku - dirimu masih nyata.

Kamu apa kabar? Aku kangen.

Tapi kangenku sudah makin usang, luntur hingga warna jingganya nyaris putih. Air mata sudah hampir tidak menetes waktu bayangmu melintas - hanya sesekali di pukul dua dini hari waktu mataku masih awas dan pikirku jalan-jalan jauh..

Cerita kita, ah mana ada kita ya di cerita ini, oke revisi - cerita sepihakku selesai sampai di sini. Bertahanhiduplah dan jangan pernah menyesal menampik tanganku. Berjuanglah dan jangan menyerah sampai minta tolong padaku. Kalau semesta sudah mengijinkan egomu luntur, panggil aku. Siapa yang tau, mungkin aku masih berkenan datang..

[nctinfo]

(1, 2)

[three--rings]

There’s always a lingering question that I ask myself, which is why do I, a cis bisexual woman, enjoy romance between two men so much?  

There are easy answers, like that it’s just fetishizing.  And like, I find men attractive, yes.  But I also find women attractive.  I don’t have a problem with enjoying het romance, assuming I can find good ones.  I enjoy stories with female characters I can relate to.

But there’s something much deeper at play, IMO.  A friend of mine who is a gender studies professor was the first person to point this out to me, but a lot of women enjoy m/m romance and gay porn because of the lack of women.  It removes a source of pressure and sexism.  Without any women present, you don’t have to constantly evaluate the sexism of their portrayal, or be reminded of negative experiences in your own life.  It allows women to experience romance and especially sexuality without all the baggage that comes with it in our patriarchal society.

This was recently illustrated to me rather dramatically.  I read a recommendation for a het romance.  And it sounded cute, and came highly recommended.  The tropes at play were fun.  Until I read a snippet and realized this was a romance between a woman and her boss.  I had a visceral negative reaction.  

Instantly I’m thinking of sexual harassment stories I’ve read and heard from other women. I’m thinking of how uncomfortable it would be to have your boss develop feelings for you.  How icky the power dynamics would be, etc.  

And then I realized…this wouldn’t bother me if it were two men.  Now, there’s no logical reason for that.  Sexual harassment is just as wrong when its object is a man.  But I know I’ve read fics with a similar premise and never thought about it.  Because when it’s two men I can accept this is just a light romance, a fantasy, meant to be fun and sexy and not to represent the real world.

But I can’t when it’s a het relationship.  There’s too much baggage there.  Too much societal history of abuse.  I can’t relax enough with the premise to enjoy that story.  

Now some people can.  And that’s fine.  And some people are never going to be okay with power imbalances like that regardless of gender.  That’s also fine.  I don’t think having either reaction makes one morally superior.  It’s okay to just enjoy light entertainment for what it is without going into deep analysis.

But it’s much more difficult for me, and I think for many women, to relax and enjoy romantic and sexual stories when they involve female characters.  We’ve been burned too many times by shitty depictions, by shallow role models, by abuse portrayed as romantic.  We have developed a stress response, a trauma response to heterosexual romance.  We are hyper-reactive to a wide variety of triggers in regards to it.   But removing women from the equation makes stories safer for us.  And maybe it shouldn’t?  In an ideal world?  But for many of us, that’s the truth.

[three--rings]

So this post blew up in the last 24 hours, for whatever reason, and I was looking through people’s responses, as you do.  I’m quite moved that so many found it relatable.

But I wanted to highlight one set of tags (via @reallifepotato​ )

Because I AM comfortable with my sexuality and fairly comfortable with my body, but still, this resonates so hard as someone who has always been overweight.  The amount that our society teaches women to constantly compare ourselves, almost always negatively with every other woman out there, can utterly ruin our enjoyment of this kind of thing.  Like how many times have you tried to watch a mainstream romantic comedy where some utterly gorgeous actress is bemoaning that she can’t get a date, or WORSE is made out to be less than attractive.  And you look at her and go…but she’s fucking perfect?  And you just want to puke.  

But with m/m romance you can put yourself in the place of either character and…not compare yourself.  You can enjoy a character being attractive without feeling bad about yourself, which is REALLY HARD to do for any woman in our fucked up culture.  

[moki-dokie]

oh my god someone put it into words!!!!!

[flippyspoon]

there are soooo many nuances and reasons that many of us aren’t even conscious of which makes me doubly angry when it’s dismissed as fetishizing.  fuck off and let me read my love stories pls.

[dumbhotbitchknightgwaine-deacti]

nail on the goddamn head there

[notenufcaffeine]

Also, a lot of m/m fiction offers the notion of an actual friends-to-lovers storyline that isn’t cluttered by sex-first. There’s a foundation there that doesn’t get allowed for in m/f fiction. If there’s a m/f friendship in any media, it’s usually either an automatic love interest on the immediate horizon, or it’s dismissed and not explored as any kind of important to a story. People complain about m/m fiction like “Why can’t two guys just be FRIENDS?!” and i’m over here wanting to know “Why can’t two -anything- just be FRIENDS?!” and m/m fiction is usually the only place i can get that.  Also… “fuck off and let me read my love stories pls.” This.

[bootlegpotato-deactivated201711]

[spangledmystars]

I can’t click my reblog button hard enough

[masslyeffective]

It’s not just the ladies who get insecure, it’s all of us.  It’s a human trait, yo.

[baconjetswasyes-deactivated2013]

Fricken’ beautiful. Everything that I want to say about this has been said in the post above me.

[callmeisabel]

you can’t stop me from reblogging this over and over again

[greelin]

reading fics is basically like

heal what has been hurt

change the fates’ design

save what has been lost

bring back what once was mine

[ninanopitue]

I wanna be kissed when the falling star passed by..

[ninanopitue]

"Visiting old fandoms seems good at the moment because it's a strool to nostalgic series of fact when everything's good, even great in occations."

(Not the angst, nope, thanks!)

[ninanopitue]

It's pinkish and hairless. It was cum on and I'm jealous.

- sis

[the-humdrum-gatsby]

"If he writes her a few sonnets, he loves her. If he writes her 300 sonnets, he loves sonnets"

- my english professor

[pervocracy]

I think about this quote all the time and I feel like it explains a lot of things about human behavior

[ninanopitue]

I was hurting but I'm healing. Let me take my time, pave my path and fulfill my oath. I'm on my journey to get there.

[chokkilissa-nahollos]

you know what? go to your local library.

nobody cares if you just want to read Twitter with the free wifi. in fact we’re ecstatic you’re there.

don’t be afraid to touch the books. hell, taking them off the shelf and leaving them on shelving carts is one of the main ways the library counts usage and foot traffic, so don’t reshelve them yourself and don’t be afraid of looking at them!

most libraries now allow covered drinks, and many have special areas where you’re allowed to bring something to eat. have your lunch there, it’s quiet!

lovely large tables for crafts or art? they have you covered!

magazines and periodicals so you can read the newest events or pick up a new recipe? check!

you can even just watch a DVD if you have the appropriate portable screen and courtesy headphones.

GO to the library. LOVE the library. USE the library. you already paid for it!!

[ninanopitue]

Tonight, life is beautiful. Ask me the question tomorrow, I asure you the answer will be different 'cause tomorrow is.. Monday.

- Sis

[just-shower-thoughts]

Building a treehouse is the biggest insult to a tree. “I killed your friend, here hold him.”

[unclebeanbag]

“Friend”

Its more of I killed a potential enemy. Hold his dismembered corpse in victory.

[ulysseus]

Plants don’t wage war

[unclebeanbag]

Ever heard of blackberries?

Yes, plants do wage war

[kasaron]

Mint and strawberries, too. They need to be quarantined or they will kill basically everything else. 

[systlin]

I planted mint in the ground 2 years ago.

It’s currently fighting a bitter battle to the death against the raspberries attempting to invade from the east while trying to annex the patio.

Could go either way at this point TBH. Unless, of course, I take a shovel and the blowtorch out there and battle both back to within their original boundaries.

And anyone wondering if a blowtorch is overkill for weeding back mint has never actually planted mint.

[moirakatson]

This post did not go where I expected it to.

[deathbeforednf]

Our garden plot at my childhood home slowly got overrun by wild blackberries after we stopped managing it while my sister and I were in nursing school. And by overrun I mean it was like a 4 foot tall thicket of wild blackberries. It hadn’t been touched by humans in at least 4 years. I started the ultimately futile task of trying to clear this plot with a machete and discovered to my amazement a patch of mint several feet across underneath the canopy of blackberry, still fighting the good fight all those years later.

Ultimately it took two jars of homemade napalm and some creative fire placement to clear that patch but I damn sure saved that patch of mint. It earned the right to be there.

[norseminuteman]

Yall mother fuckers don’t even talk unless you’ve had to wage war on kudzu (it’s an ivy strain directly from Hell) that shit doesn’t just wage war with other plants, it wages war with all living things on planet earth. It’s some gnarly ass Blood for the Blood God, Chlorophyll for the Chlorophyll Throne demon weed. 

[breadgunner-deactivated20181003]

Can second the comments of Kudzu.

I forget where I read it but there’s this one tree that creates an extremely flammable substance that’s in both the bark and leaves. Dead trees become torches and crushed up leaves become dust-incendiary, all while the plant’s seeds are Giant Redwood levels of resilient to open flame. IE it has a goddamn scorched earth policy. It’s even more badass than plants that use toxins to starve other plants.

[booksandwildthings]

I’d like to third the comments on Kudzu. These are the battlefields:

See those weird pillars? Those were trees. See that strange lump in the middle? That was a house. Everything green you see in this photo is kudzu.

[ehyde]

Near my parents’ house in Oregon there’s an old WWII army training camp that’s long been abandoned, and it’s full of concrete remnants of buildings that are completely overrun with blackberries. It’s a really great spot to go berry picking, and it has an eerie, post-apocalyptic feel.

[momomorp]

That’s not even considering allelopathic interactions between plants-look up the black walnut tree (its toxin, juglone, is the most famous example)- basically, it wages chemical warfare on nearby plants through the root system (though the nutshells also contain juglone too). Juglone discourages germination rates and even inhibits root growth of already existing plants! Allelopathy in general is a new field-theres Discourse™ because each particular toxins only works on specific plants, which vary; therefore it’s really fucking hard to regulate & compile enough data to test out the effects of such chemicals compared to other factors (pests, soil depletion, etc), but theres a little community still because Targeted Pesticides™ would be really rad yo

[momomorp]

So yeah you go plants go poison that waterhole

[momomorp]

Um i was skimming the post and saw PLANT WARS so,,, I may have dumped a little too much,,, Suffice to say that plants are super versatile and should be feared Bow before them

[squeeful]

Phragmites australisa invades and conquers new territory by squirting acid on other plants so strong it dissolves roots in under half an hour.

(I watched a mint vs ivy showdown.  The ivy won.)

[philosopherking1887]

Nature, red in tooth, claw, and rhizome.

[the-seedling-witch]

This thread made my day so much better.

Also, I did have a mint plant a few years back, and I moved out and nobody in my family bothered to care for it, so it got BEYOND OVERGROWN and had taken over the entire plot I had for the mini garden. Mint needs to be restrained to a pot for the good of all gardens

[aggresively-dabbing]

@disgustingplants

[spinningorigins]

And not a single mention of mugwort or garlic mustard.

[mandalorianreynolds]

How about Scotchbroome?

[lizluvscupcakes]

So… can we have treehouses, or…?

[multishipping-goodness]

Yes.

[thedeadmemereturns]

Man this post was a fucking rollercoaster

[multishipping-goodness]

It was.