so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.
first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.
it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.
and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.
you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.
and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.
your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.
in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.
in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.
so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.
you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.
once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.
and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"
you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?
hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!
you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.
we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?
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this one goes out to all my Singin' in the Rain ot3 truthers—
Cosmo Brown had always known it would end like this.
Cosmo was a lot of things—in fact, you could argue he was too many—but he wasn’t dumb.
From the early years, when Cosmo and Don were just kids playing for pennies in pool halls, to their stint dodging rotten vegetables on Vaudeville stages across the very backwaters of America’s backwaters, to their first real breath of success in Hollywood (and then the second and the third and the fourth), Cosmo would catch a glimpse of his handsome, charismatic friend from the corner of his eye—a flash of dark hair, that perfect tooth powder ad smile—and know that for all Don’s protestations, someday the guy was gonna meet a wonderful girl and get married, settle down, and very gently slip off to the far edge of Cosmo’s life.
So yes, Cosmo had seen Kathy Selden coming. Not the details, not her sense of humor or her musical little laugh or the madcap way she really threw herself into dancing with them around Don’s place at 1:30 in the morning—and okay, certainly not the part at the beginning where she had jumped out of a cake at a party, but he thought a fella could be excused for not correctly divining that.
The general outline of the thing, though, how Don’s eyes followed her around a room...he had been preparing for Don to propose to Kathy ever since she’d tried to throw a pie at Don’s face. And when the happy day came, Cosmo had been ready with his best man suit, his best man speech, a slightly updated version of “Here Comes the Bride” that’d had Don and Kathy laughing all the way down the aisle.
Don and Kathy would buy a house together. They would have a swimming pool and a dog and then inevitably, a small parade of adorable little snot-nosed kids who would call him Uncle Cosmo, and they would spend less and less time with him, not on purpose but busy with the rest of their lives, and ultimately Cosmo would learn to make his peace with it because he’d have no other choice and he would have to try to move on and not live too much in his memories. He could picture it so clearly, he figured if the songwriting gig with Monumental didn’t pan out, he could always return to the backwater circuit with a new act: The Amazing Cosmo of the Cosmos—ladies and gentlemen, he sees the future, he reads the stars, he silently pines for his best married pal and all the while tap dancing!
Don and Kathy inviting him along on their honeymoon, though—that part was a surprise.
“What?” said Cosmo, hands frozen over the piano keys. He’d been busy with a brand-new assignment; on the heels of The Dancing Cavalier, offers were pouring in and he’d taken the first one scoring a movie that didn’t star anyone he was secretly in love with.
Don had looked a little wounded when Cosmo broke the news last week, but a guy had to start making his own way in the world. Besides, orchestrating layers of strings to swell as the camera zoomed in on Don and Kathy blissfully locking lips in radiant monochrome, oblivious to the rest of the world—well, Cosmo knew that dance, he had mastered the footwork, and he didn’t especially feel like a reprise.
It wasn’t lost on him that Kathy had dropped by his rehearsal space alone today. Of course, he had no idea what this meant—he didn’t think it was about the new job; Don didn’t tend to stay sore at him for that long—but Kathy was acting perfectly natural, and so probably the smart thing was to follow her lead.
“It’s a two-week transatlantic cruise,” she said now, gracefully dropping beside him on the piano bench. “We thought it would be nice to see Europe, take in the sights, get away from all the cameras.”
“Ah yes, such a wallflower, our dear Don,” said Cosmo solemnly. “Besieged on all sides by the love of his public, a tragedy of our times, up there with Lear! Hamlet! Caesar! The one with all the Greeks and the giant wooden horse, nay, nay, neigh.” He played a tragic little trill, for effect. Kathy huffed a laugh and smacked his arm.
“You know that’s not it,” she said. “Being watched all the time—we can’t always do what we want. It’s rotten.”
Tell me about it, thought Cosmo.
He was sort of seeing a fight choreographer named Archibald, who came from old money and was a “the third” or a “the fifth” but nice enough Cosmo might even forgive him for that. Archibald was trim and athletic, with dark brown hair that was just starting to go gray at the temples and enough discretion that Cosmo didn’t think they’d get caught. The only problem was that he didn’t laugh at Cosmo’s jokes, seemed to just tolerate them.
“What do you two even talk about, then?” Don had asked, when Cosmo had let this slip over drinks the same night he’d explained about the new movie project. (Cosmo had been trying to spend less time with Don and Kathy since the wedding but Don had said, “C’mon, pal, we miss you” and Kathy had laid one hand on his arm and peered up at him with her big green eyes and Cosmo was only one man.)
Cosmo had frowned, because Don hated Archibald, for reasons that were frankly mysterious. Then he’d looked up and grinned a grin he didn’t exactly feel and said,
“Tell you when you’re older,” and then Don had choked on his dry Martini even though Cosmo knew Don knew about Cosmo’s tendencies. It wasn’t something they discussed, and Cosmo had never properly gone with a guy before, but whenever a big-shot producer started complaining about all the degenerate queers in showbiz, Don always sharply steered the conversation someplace else. It was all very gallant and noble and knightly, and someday Don would play King Arthur and Kathy his lady Guinevere—
“Honestly, sometimes it feels as if we’re living in a fishbowl,” said Kathy now, in the present.
“And so your solution is to relocate,” said Cosmo, “to the biggest fishbowl on this here magnificent earth. The mighty ocean!” He struck up a sea shanty. “Oh blow the man down, blow the man down / way ay, blow the man down…”
Not everyone appreciated his musical flights of fancy, but when Cosmo turned, she was leaning with her elbow on the side arm of the piano, watching him with her chin on her hand and laughing.
“Just for two weeks,” she said. “So, are you coming?”
“With you two,” said Cosmo, just so there could be no misunderstandings. “On your one and only honeymoon.”
“Yes,” said Kathy.
“As what, your first mate?”
“Sure.” She grinned and threw him a quick salute. Cosmo was almost never attracted to women but in this case, he understood the appeal.
He swallowed. “You are aware of that ancient saying, ‘Two’s company and three’s a fast track to divorce court’?”
“You’re hardly a threat to our marriage, Cosmo,” she said, and he agreed, of course, in both directions, even, but it still stung to hear her say it out loud. For want of anything better to do, he gasped, clutched a hand to his chest and reeled backwards so hard, he threw himself off the piano bench, landing in a somersault on the floor.
Kathy spun around fluidly on the bench to face him, pleated skirt whirling a little, heels of her shoes clicking together.
“Oh, I said that badly,” she said. “I only mean that it’s more fun when you’re around. We have a better time, Don and me both. Remember the night we decided to make Dueling Cavalier a musical?”
“Do I remember the best night of my life?” Cosmo peered up at her from the hardwood. “Why yes, madam, now that you mention it, I believe it might ring a bell or two.”
“The best—” She frowned for a moment, and he remembered then that as a newly married woman, a newly married woman to Don Lockwood, no less, she’d no doubt experienced any number of evenings that blew that one out of the water.
Even besides that, it felt awfully revealing all of a sudden. Cosmo threw an arm over his eyes. He felt naked. He wished he was naked, because that might at least distract from whatever his face was doing.
“So it beats your time with Archibald, then?” said Kathy shrewdly.
Cosmo uncovered his eyes. He forgot, sometimes, that new as Kathy was to the moving pictures business, she was still a city girl, with a city girl’s worldliness. Also, Don had probably told her; that seemed like the kind of second-hand secrets married people shared with each other. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
“Hardly a topic for mixed company,” he said.
There was a pause.
“So yes,” she said and smiled with a smugness that would’ve been unbecoming were she not as cute as a button.
“What do you and Don have against the poor man anyway?” he groused. “He’s never done so much as sneezed in your direction, and if he did, I’m sure he’d use a handkerchief.”
“For one thing, we know you could do better,” said Kathy, folding her arms.
Cosmo elbowed his way back to sitting, brushing himself off with dignity. “Well, better’s not exactly knocking on my door right now.”
“This town doesn’t have an ounce of sense.” She reached down to offer him a hand up, pulling Cosmo to his feet; she was stronger than she looked. “Listen, two weeks away, it’ll be good for you.”
“What about you two?” Cosmo protested as he reclaimed his spot on the bench, Kathy sliding to make room.
“What about us?” said Kathy with wide eyes.
“Two newlyweds might want some alone time?” he offered weakly.
Kathy shrugged. “I told you, there won’t be reporters or cameras. It’ll be plenty private.”
“What about your matrimonial needs?”
“Which needs?”
His eyes narrowed; she was a terrific actress but suddenly he wasn’t sure he was buying it. Kathy wasn’t dumb either.
“You have to know what I mean. Don’t make me play Cole Porter at you,” said Cosmo. She hesitated, and Cosmo began to pluck out a melody: “Birds do it, bees do it / even educated fleas do it…” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Let’s do it,” sang Kathy, finishing the stanza in her lovely alto, “let’s fall in love.”
Cosmo stopped playing.
“I do know,” she said simply, “of course I do, and we’re not worried about it, alright? Listen, do you want to go?”
Cosmo, who had been carefully not asking himself that question, stared down at the piano keys. Did he want to go? He thought back to that night at Don’s, the three of them giddy with excitement and inspiration and sleep deprivation, running through the house, clowning around and dancing with no audience except each other—he hadn’t felt like a hanger-on then, like a third wheel or an extra limb or a chaperone. He’d felt like he was exactly where he was supposed to be, one note of a perfect chord.
Still.
“I can’t swim,” he said.
“They’ll have lifejackets,” said Kathy.
“I’ll have to work.”
“We’ll bring a piano.”
“All my houseplants will die,” said Cosmo.
“All your houseplants are fake,” she said. This was true, although he wasn’t sure how she knew since she’d never been to his house. She sighed. “Remember the night of that first screening, when you were about to expose Lina and instead of explaining what was happening, Don told me I had to sing, that I didn’t have a choice?”
He winced, thinking of Kathy’s heartbroken, tear-stained face before they’d pulled up the curtain and revealed who was really singing when Lina moved her lips.
“Yes, and I feel just awful about it.”
“Well, Don doesn’t,” said Kathy. “Because he knew it would take too long to convince me to do something that mean to her.”
“Mean?” Cosmo echoed. “She tried to trap you in a lifelong contract and steal your voice. A common sea witch wouldn’t stoop so low.”
“But there wasn’t time,” she pressed. “And anyway, he knew how it would end.”
“What’s your point?”
“We already bought your tickets,” said Kathy.
Cosmo gaped at her.
“We’ve cleared the trip with everyone at Monumental and anyway, like I said, we’ll have a piano on the boat.”
Distantly, he was aware his mouth was still hanging open. Kathy reached over with one light finger under his chin and gently closed it.
“That’s better,” she said, folding her hands daintily in her lap. It was around this time she seemed to realize it wasn’t some routine, that Cosmo really was well and truly stunned. “Of course, nobody is going to force you to go with us if you truly don’t want to,” she said into the silence.
“These tickets,” he said at last, “are they refundable?”
“Gosh,” said Kathy easily, “I can’t imagine they are, no.”
The thing was, none of them were hurting for money or work anymore, so the fact that Don and Kathy might be out even a few hundred dollars didn’t catch at him the way it might’ve some years earlier. No, the thought that really seized his imagination was the mental image of Don and Kathy planning this together, Don and Kathy discussing the matter with each other, maybe over breakfast—toast and coffee in their dressing gowns, so sure it was the right thing to do that they’d decided to just go ahead and make preparations: oh and a ticket for Cosmo, of course.
He could do it, he realized. He could go. He wanted to go. It was foolish, but Cosmo was an entertainer; he’d been doing foolish things in front of a roomful of witnesses since he was in shortpants.
“I’ll pack tonight,” he said.
“Perfect!” Kathy hopped off the bench and straightened out her dress. “And bring something nice to wear at dinner for a night or two; it doesn’t need to be black-tie formal, a good suit will do.”
He nodded. “I shall leave the top hat and monocle at home. Two weeks, you say?”
“Yes, and another half-day on either side flying to the harbor and back.” She reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “The itinerary,” she said. “Don and I are so glad you’ll be coming.”
“Uh-huh,” said Cosmo. “Say, where is that fella, anyway? What’s the big idea, can’t even stick around to ask his best pal to his own honeymoon?”
“He’s planning the trip,” said Kathy brightly. “Last-minute details. Anyway, he thought you and I should have a chat, one on one. He thought it might help.”
He blinked. “Help what?”
“Help us,” she said.
It was all starting to feel like a farce, like one of those old Vaudeville acts with a lot of fast talking.
“Did it?” he asked.
“I think so,” said Kathy warmly. She turned and began to walk towards the door. “See you at the airport tomorrow. Six AM sharp.”
“Six AM,” he said, and then, foolishly, “You know, I can see why he likes you.”
Kathy dimpled. “Oh, likewise!” She tossed him another smile and then she was heading out of sight down the hallway, shoes clacking rhythmically on the tile.
“Well,” said Cosmo to no one. He felt pole-axed, he decided. He wasn’t sure he had ever felt pole-axed in his life before, but there was no other word for it.
He played a chord, then another chord, then a few more.
“Pole-axed,” he sang, “out of whack,
when you are near there’s only one drawback:
I can’t be clever, no I lack the knack,
Darling, I’m pole-axed, out of whack around you!”
It wasn’t exactly Cole Porter, but he’d take it, he thought, reaching for his pen. There was still an hour or two left before he’d need to race traffic home and dig out his suitcase. Apparently, he had early morning plans.
(ETA: if you didn't see, there is now a second part here!)
(ETA THE SECOND: the whole finished thing is now here!
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