Light up my life

Someone posted on Facebook today that she had completely finished her Christmas shopping. And that made me think, Oh, shit! What if other people are out there Christmas shopping for me, and I haven't even posted my list here yet this year? This could be a disaster. So I decided I'd better do my part and post a few things I'd like to receive for Christmas and make everybody's job a little bit easier.

How well, you might ask, has posting your Christmas list on your blog worked in years past? I'd have to answer not that well. OK, utter failure. In fact, let's just say I'm continuing my list from last year and the year before and the year before that ..... Nobody has given me any of those items, although I had such high hopes for the vagina coloring book.

Nevertheless, any of you who have ever ridden in a car while I was driving will want to run right out and get me this Facial Expression 5 Message Car Emoticons Signal LED Display Light.

It's a fuck-you tail light with a smiley face for when you hit the afterburners! Genius! The description says the light contains "thank you, back off, sorry, smile and wink face[s]."  Maybe somebody in China thinks flipping someone the middle finger is a digital (as in finger) wink, but you and I know better.

Can you imagine a more satisfactory expression of road rage than a big, red LED bird flashing from the rear of my car as I finally pass that ubiquitous asshole who's texting while driving five under in the left lane next to two semis playing "pass me, pass you"? I can't. I need this thing. It's only $38.95 and the shipping is free. A generous person could have Amazon wrap it and send it directly to my home where I would put it under my Christmas tree (if I get it up before Christmas) to open Christmas morning.

I'm not going to beg, but please?

If you want to know what not to get me, it would be this penis-shaped water bottle. I'm pretty sure the fun went out of drinking water from a penis sometime back in the 80's. This just goes to prove not everything should be made into a penis and sucked on.

I know some of you will shop late in spite of your good intentions this year, so don't worry. I'll find other items for my list and post them over the next few weeks. You'll be able to get me something cool. I'll act surprised, because I can't remember what I ate for breakfast today, much less what I wrote here a week ago or a month ago. Some of you have had the experience of saying to me at a party, "Hey, Reticula, I really liked that post you wrote about blah blah blah vaginas." And me saying, "I wrote about what? I had no idea you could do that with a vagina! I would write about that, if I hadn't already. Are you sure you read it on my blog?"

Lists are good. Don't lose this one.

Sunday Sharing

Tomorrow is the last day of September and the last day of my commitment to write every day. To be honest, I didn't meet the challenge amyway. I dropped a few days when I went adventuring in Chicago and the wilds of Illinois. It was totally worth it, and someday you'll get that story.

Tonght I want to share with you a few items readers sent me this week after all those inspiring vagina conversations.

First, a pair of uterus earrings.

(http://www.etsy.com/listing/9926498/uterus-earrings)

I was really stunned glad when I saw these sold 5 years ago, so thank you, grilled cheesus, nobody can buy them for me. I think this is the tackiest thing I've ever seen, and I remember the 80's. I've seen seen some tacky. Not only is this more than a uterus -- it's the entire female reproductive system -- but it's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. These earrings prove there's a reason the uterus and Fallopian tubes are hidden away inside a woman's body and that they aren't made out of Shrinky Dinks.

The reader who sent me this will receive a vagina-shaped whoopie cushion in the mail. Thanks for playing.

Another reader sent this example of vaginas and the use of metaphor. 

(I have no idea where this came from.)

These look nothing like the photos I posted the other day.  Obviously gay people need to see those photos more than most of us do.

And finally, a reader sent a link to this art exhibit called The Great Wall of Vagina. The panels consist of rows of molded casts of women's lady bits. The artist is a guy named Jamie McCartney who says he's trying to show women that our vulvas all look different. Or something like that.

(http://www.greatwallofvagina.co.uk/home)

I'm going to admit I'm conflicted over this body of work, as is the friend who sent me the link. My first reaction is that I'm not sure how this is art any more than the plaster cast of my hand I made in kindergarten is art. Or the imprint of my teeth my dentist made when I needed a crown. They look more like forensic artifacts than art.

My second reaction is strongly that I don't need some guy trying to fix my vulva dysmorphia by getting a bunch of women to take off their panties to he can cast molds of their pussies. I don't need a man to do that. Back the fuck off and don't try to fix us as if you're doing us a big fucking favor.

As I said to my friend, this has a Hugo Schwyzer feel to it. There's a difference between men supporting feminism and men taking it over because they want to "help" us. And it's like art: I can't define that boundary very easily, but I sure as hell know it when it's been crossed.

You want to make this about women? Make your show anonymous. Don't fucking get famous doing something feminists have been doing for decades, which is to show real women's bodies to women. Why the hell didn't any of them get famous? Because they're not men, and the real problem is much bigger than how women perceive their vulvas. I really don't want a man to get a bunch of kudos for this.

It's patronizing. How about you get famous for casts of penises or ball sacks or beer bellies? Why not help out your own tribe by showing a wall of their genitals with the color sucked out of them? Is it because pussy sells?

Or is it because you wouldn't be able to come up with such a clever title? The Great Wall of Vagina? Really? Is this a serious show or is it not?

Third (or maybe it's fourth or fifth), this isn't what real vulvas look like. I posted a photo of real vulvas. Yes, they show the many varieties of lady snowflakes, but they are a representation. Maybe that's what makes them art, but it's also what makes this feel so patronizing.

You're saying women should see ourselves as we really are and appreciate our differences, but you've given us colorless, mashed vulvas masquerading as art. That's not what I see when I put my head between my legs.

And yet, some women seem to be impressed by it. They seem to be soothed by it. They seem to be reassured and normalized. Empowered. That is, I suppose, a good thing.

I don't feel empowered by a man showing me what vulvas look like though. I like those college girls in Australia doing it, owning their power, slapping it on the cover of their newspaper. I don't see how women gain any power or authority over their own bodies by seeing this guy's pussy casts.

Oh, dear. It appears I've gone off on a rant. Maybe I'm not as conflicted as I thought.

What do you think? Have I gone off the deep end? Do any of my women readers feel empowered by this wall of vulvas?