Edit: I'm still learning terminology separating reproductive anatomy from gender so if anyone has suggestions on how I could improve please do let me know
Cw: discussion of medical proceedures around reproductive health including cervical biopsy)
I've always liked and respected Stoya. We're about the same age and I was learning a lot about sex, gender, women's lib, feminism, and medicine when she was just getting started. I've followed her career from alt-porn phenomena to elder sex educator and i've learned a great deal from her.
She's had some insightful posts on her substack about her ordeal with PCOS and endo, and all the medical fuckery and failure that surrounds women's reproductive and endocrine health. She's coming at it from the combination ovaries and a uterus side but her experiences are illustrative of the broader negligence and/or malice of medical indifference to the health of both women and of people with a womb and/or internal gonads.
Pcos and endo are kind of a personal crusade for me because they're common conditions that cause an immense amount of suffering for a huge number of people. Endo and pcos should be first priority topics for medical research. Effective treatment or cure would be a historic victory and alleviate untold suffering across the face of the world. Instead, at least in my experience, they're widely unknown conditions. Countless people with debilitating or even disabling periods are told to take motrin and endure the agony. It is, pardon my french, completely fucked.
And it ties directly in to other medical care problems: people are told to take a motrin for procedures which sample or pass through the cervix! That's not negligent, that's sadism! Local anesthetic should be the minimum for pain management with calming medications, additional painkillers, and general anesthesia as options. It makes me so angry that so many people are dismissively gaslit and then abandoned to suffer by medical professionals who are supposed to be helping them!
I can, and have, ranted about this for hours but i'ma stop now. Give Stoya's words a read she's a real smart lady with a lot of knowledge to share.___
Great post. This is a subject very close to my heart and was lucky enough to be able to take part in some uni courses on these things as well that completely opened my eyes to the problems in gynecology and in the ways medicine has treated people with uteruses.
I also have many personal experiences of this violence, including a badly inserted IUD that bled for a year.
Here is one blog post from a great activist also relating, cw would be medical violence.
There is absolutely a reason why I personally have skipped going for screenings. Love that this is being talked about here.
great point that I didn't mention. the horror and expense of mine was enough to keep me from doing follow-ups.