| | | The comedians Shugs & Fats talk Muslim representation, plus Gillian Jacobs, daily affirmations and more. | | | | | | | | | |  | | | | March 28, 2017 | Letter No. 79 | | | | | | | | | | | | Hi Lennys,
I've been thinking a lot the past few days about what it takes to change your life. I always assumed, growing up, that your life changes in one huge, obvious moment. I thought for your life to change, you had to receive an unexpected phone call, instantly be drawn to a certain person for inexplicable reasons, or begin a journey and have everything you need magically appear as you move ahead, falling into place right when you need it.
And sometimes, it works out that way. I think of the day I decided — against all the sound advice about how impossible being a professional writer is — to apply to grad school to study fiction. I realized, slowly, that no one else could make me a writer except for myself. But it took months of telling myself this, sheepishly, every morning when I woke up. Or I think of the night last spring I almost bailed on a blind date because I'd just seen a really depressing play — "I don't want any new people," I told my friend. But I went, and I met my now-partner, even though he had to put up with a half-hour's worth of frosty replies to his good-natured questions.
But even those moments, when life seemed to turn suddenly on its heel, were, I realize, the result of many smaller choices, shifts in time and perspective, till I got to a moment that masqueraded as an epiphany.
Our issue this week is all about changes in your life, big and small. There's the unexpected change that comes when you find your mentor, or mentors, like Gillian Jacobs describes in her essay about the "bonus moms" she's picked up over the years. The comedians Shugs and Fats (aka Nadia Manzoor and Radhika Vaz) talk about what happens when you realize your world doesn't support your girlhood and you work hard to change that. The novelist Hannah Tinti writes about the sudden change of what seems at first glance like a catastrophe but might be something different. And we have our daily affirmations, which encourage you to make changes in your outlook on a regular basis.
Finally, a bunch of Lennys talk about the life-changing magic of birth control, of taking responsibility for your own reproductive health. The exclusively male group who discussed alterations to Trump's failed health-care bill doesn't understand what it means for a woman to be able to manage her own fertility, but we do.
Here's to positive changes in our lives — the big, sudden surprises and the slow-churning revelations.
Kaitlyn | | | | | | | | | | | | I Can't Have Enough Mothers | | | | By Gillian Jacobs | | |
Ingrid was my first bonus mom. She started out as my acting teacher in junior high but quickly became much more. We bonded over stories about truly disastrous productions she'd been in, like the interactive dinner theater in Boston where human waste ran down the outside of the pipes backstage. Ingrid would drive me around Pittsburgh in her Volkswagen Golf, which lacked power steering. As she yanked the wheel around (great for the forearms, she'd tell me), Ingrid imparted her wisdom about Shakespeare, Chekhov, and dating.
After I received a very bad review in the local paper for my undercooked portrayal of Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream ("It's harder for Jacobs, who must segue from angry Mother Earth to playful seductress. Seeing her dolled up in flowing lingerie and silvered hair, you might have a fleeting thought of JonBenét Ramsey." Ouch), Ingrid gave me the gift of perspective. Instead of letting me wallow in self-pity, she insisted I read No Turn Unstoned, a collection of terrible reviews undeniably great actors received. It hurt to get panned, but I was in excellent company.
The book — and Ingrid — taught me to laugh at my failures. Despite the bad review, and my belief that I had been miscast, I still had to perform the play eight shows a week. Ingrid taught me to look at those performances as an opportunity instead of a burden. If I could stop feeling sorry for myself, I could view this as a chance to improve and learn about the role and the play.
I can't have enough mothers. Although my biological mother is wonderful, loving, and supportive, I've always craved more. To make a long, complicated, sad story short, my dad and I had a fraught relationship, so I sought out additional parents to fill the gap. Although I did have strong bonds with some men, most of the meaningful relationships have been with other women.
The summer before I started college at the Juilliard School, I met my next additional mother, Joan. Joan and I acted together in a production of The Cherry Orchard at the Pittsburgh Public Theater in which I played the daughter, Anya, and Joan played my nanny, Charlotta.
At the time, I wanted my mom to change my curfew to midnight. I argued that I was about to start college and should finally be allowed to stay out past eleven. My mom cautioned, "You'll have a curfew at Juilliard, so no." I started laughing. "A curfew? What are you talking about? There are no curfews at college." My mom blanched with fear. "You mean you'll be allowed to go out whenever you want in New York City and no one will know where you are?" Her glorified finishing school in the 1960s had had a strict curfew, so it never occurred to her that I would be allowed to come and go as I pleased. Thankfully, my mother had already paid the housing deposit or she might not have let me leave.
I started my college career confident, cocky even. I was finally free from my mother's watchful eye! But that quickly deteriorated (see previous Lenny essay for more details on that debacle). As my self-esteem took a nosedive, I realized Joan's apartment was close to my school, and it became my refuge. She'd feed me, let me cry on her shoulder, advise me on school, and counsel me on boys.
We had frank, if awkward, conversations about dating. I remember Joan had to order a double Scotch to get through some of these. Although I'd read and reread Our Bodies, Ourselves, I had a lot of questions about sex that I made Joan answer. I could be more vulnerable and open with her than with my own mother. I'd been so sheltered that I was experiencing many things for the first time, like dating, going to parties, and being around drugs and alcohol, that most kids did in high school.
Joan made me feel safe in the city. I retreated to a series of her couches — first, a brown leather number, then a red pull-out with a full mattress — after bad breakups and bouts of food poisoning. In fact, once I fainted at a bodega and called my mother from the ambulance, my mother called Joan, and Joan stood up from her dinner in Greenwich Village and took a cab all the way uptown to the hospital at 212th St. For the non–New Yorkers: That is an expensive cab ride.
Cella followed Joan. She was my first boss after college. I'd never held any job outside of acting besides babysitting, so I looked for a job as a nanny.
What started as simply a job turned into much more. I quickly bonded with both kids, but also with Cella and her husband, Hart. Cella was a successful executive who had her kids in her 40s. Because my mother was a single parent who struggled to keep us afloat financially, I viewed parenthood as a source of stress and worry. From my limited perspective, mothers sacrificed all of their personal time, friendships, and romance for their children. I didn't know if it was possible to be a mother and still have fun. It gave me hope to see Cella move through a stressful work life — she was the first female high-level executive in male-dominated fields I had ever met — while still enjoying her children and having a social life.
During my time babysitting for her family, she worked at several companies in the tech and media fields. Cella started her career in Silicon Valley in the 1990s and was an important member of the New York City tech community. Knowing what I know now about the lack of women in tech, I find her career remarkable. At the time, I had little interest in the specifics of her job but looked to her as an example of how to handle stress. No matter how bad her day may have been, she walked through the front door smiling. Cella would hug her kids and joke around with me.
Cella always believed in me and seemed convinced I would succeed. I was glad she was so sure, because I was not. I worked as an actor only sporadically during those years, and every job felt like it could be my last.
She would brag about me to friends and family. "She's just out of Juilliard and already booked a movie." I'd qualify that with "But it's a crappy independent film." "Doesn't matter. You're working!" To have a smart, successful woman practically shout from the rooftops that I would make it was so reassuring. Cella seemed right about everything else; perhaps she was right about me too.
Even when the kids gave me lice, it wasn't that bad. It turns out that Cella and I had all been afflicted. For two weeks, I went over to their apartment every day, whether I was working or not, and we combed out each other's hair. As we sat in a row applying baking soda and Pantene conditioner to each other's scalps, I felt weirdly happy. As an only child, I always longed to feel part of a larger family than just my mom and me. It felt nice to be part of a family activity, even if it was something as gross as combing dead lice.
I feel even more nostalgia for these moments now, because Cella has passed away. She died last year from cancer, leaving behind her two amazing kids, Giovanna and Hudson, and her wonderful husband. Although we had remained in touch after I stopped babysitting for the family, I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Cella and thank her for not only employing me but mentoring, loving, and uplifting me.
Cella's death has made me reflect back on all of my bonus mothers. There were others, too: Pat, who pushed me out of my comfort zone to try writing and directing and introduced me to artists and great food; Ms. Keene, my ninth-grade English teacher, whom I loved so much that I burst into tears on the final day of class. They saw my potential, and in their eyes I saw the woman I could become. At times, I mistrusted their faith in me because I felt so lost and aimless. My career was stalled, I was making bad decisions, and I was depressed. Who was this Gillian in whom they believed? Was I tricking them, or did they see something I couldn't?
Occasionally I avoided their company because I feared their judgment. I didn't want to disappoint them or face their criticism. I've since realized that no one expected me to be perfect. They'd all been confused and lost at some point in their youth. They could see I was flawed but loved me anyway.
These days, I feel more stable and secure, although I don't pretend that I've got it all figured out. I still rely on my real and bonus moms (I talk to Joan every other day and still sleep on her couch in New York), but I'm ready to take on some bonus daughters of my own. For a long time, I was the youngest: the only child in the play, the baby of my class (my nickname was actually Baby GiGi), but I looked around one day and realized I'm no longer "the kid." I don't have children of my own, but it's time to give back some of the support and love I've received. That feels like the best tribute I can conceive of to honor all the Joans, Ingrids, and Cellas of the world.
Gillian Jacobs is an actress (Love season two is on Netflix) and director (The Queen of Code is at fivethirtyeight.com). | | | | | | | | | | | | Hijabis Not Seen on TV | | | | By Nadia Manzoor & Radhika Vaz | | |
We were not always feminists. Growing up in a conservative Pakistani Muslim community in North London (Nadia), and on an assortment of Air Force bases all over India (Radhika), we were immersed in places where young girls stayed thin and quiet. From birth, it seems, we were schooled on the importance of our roles, as wives and mothers, and how we would always be secondary to the ambitions and futures of men.
These gender norms were explicitly binary and unquestioned. Daddy brings home the bacon (or Halal beef, in Nadia's case), and Mummy stays home and takes on every domestic duty there is. Even if she does work, her reason for living is to support her family — and never herself.
Fortunately, we were able to sidestep the inevitability of living like our mothers by redefining these roles for ourselves. Now we perform comedy routines intended to provoke and challenge the ideologies we were raised on. We speak up about how women can and should be in charge of their own destinies — Nadia with her solo show "Burq Off," and Radhika with her book Unladylike and her stand-up show "Older. Angrier. Hairier." We have spoken on mainstream media addressing issues including Muslim modesty, women's rights in India, and, of course, sex.
Shugs & Fats, our comedy web series, is where our feminist voices came together. It's a show about two Hijabis forced to live with each other, and despite completely different worldviews — one is an entitled, optimistic millennial, the other a conservative old grump — they bond over their one common quest: to become "real Americans."
This show is a massive fuck-you to the notion that women belong in the shadows. It's our attempt at humanizing Muslim women, because that's what they are. Humans. This is a show about "oppressed women" leading the way.
We haven't always been feminists, but now that we are, we have become loudspeakers for our newfound beliefs, and we rant and rave about our journey into the #thefutureisfemale light at any given opportunity — which is why we are so excited to share our story.
Nadia Manzoor: From day one, my twin brother was reared for world domination, while I was not meant to get fat! We had vastly different rules. If I were to date before marriage, or show my skin in public, there would be severe consequences: disownment, and essentially extrication from "the tribe." Sadly, for some women this can mean death. Of course, honor killings are the extreme, but it's a result of the same ideology, that a woman's place is at home, maintaining the honor of her family. In fact, the very last place I was ever meant to be was on a stage, telling my story and making jokes. The only stage I was meant to be on was my wedding stage.
Radhika Vaz: The only thing India seems to have going for itself right now is that it isn't Pakistan! Although, our sex-selective abortions are so commonplace that the government had to launch a campaign called "Save the girl child" — PLEASE STOP KILLING GIRLS is basically what it means! As a woman in India, you do feel like you need a man's permission and protection to accomplish anything. And to, you know, be alive!
Nadia: Also, there weren't any cultural role models that exemplified a new way. I grew up with women who seemed to be fully accepting of the status quo. The few times that a quirky auntie appeared, with short hair and a career-based manifesto, I was told to stay away from her — God forbid they would teach me that a woman is capable of not being dependent on a man!
Radhika: I was fifteen when my Bharatnatyam dance teacher told me not to get married. She was in her 50s, single, and doing what she loved. However, she lived in a house that her brother — the only supportive family member — had given her. And I remember thinking, Wait a minute, if I don't get married, where in fuck's name would I live? I didn't have a brother. I also didn't have a prototype of the middle-class working girl.
Nadia: We don't come from a history of outspoken female voices, especially not in comedy. I think this is why there is a different degree of risk in what we do — being South Asian female comedians is still very revolutionary — because for the most part women don't expose themselves. There's a very big risk in that, the risk of bringing shame on our families, and fear of how our communities are going to respond.
Radhika: Never mind comedy — look at Malala, she literally took a bullet because she wanted to go to school.
Nadia: And last year, Qandeel Baloch, who was dubbed "Pakistan's Kim Kardashian" because she took bikini selfies and had a thriving Instagram account, was killed by her brother — for her open expression of sexuality.
Radhika: Now I'm relieved I don't have a bloody brother.
Nadia: I know! Last year, I had to cancel my one-woman show in Pakistan simply because we couldn't trust whether or not I would be safe.
Radhika: Very recently in Bangalore, a fairly progressive city in India, women on a very busy road suffered a violent and hateful mass sexual assault. Why? Because they dared to be out at night celebrating New Year's Eve, dressed as they pleased. The message seemed to be: if you are a woman with a mind of your own, you will be groped.
Nadia: Before moving to the U.S., I didn't have the understanding to identify as a feminist. I was in Boston studying social work and policy, working in domestic-violence shelters, and I became obsessed with the anti-porn movement. Now I had ways to understand and express my frustration at basically being sexually objectified my whole life and told to cover up so as to not tempt men! It was then that I became committed to women's rights.
Radhika: I realized I was a feminist after I wrote my first one-woman show. Until then I hadn't articulated how deeply I felt the gender disparity. I owe a lot to improv and performing — and so do you, because that is how you met me, your icon.
Nadia: It's true, actually. You were one of my comedy heroes, because you were funny, but mostly because you were Indian …
Radhika: Ah, thanks for that …
Nadia: You know what I mean — I hadn't seen anyone like you because there are so few of us. That's why it was so easy to work together, because we had this shared experience of South Asian sexism, and we wanted to make comedy out of it.
Radhika: Totally! Before Shugs & Fats, I would go on these awful auditions for the weeping mum of a terrorist, and all I kept thinking is, These women are so much more! The roles had no dimension, and they portrayed women from the culture as subservient to men, secondary to their children, and ignorant of all matters outside the home. Where are the funny, smart, subversive hijabis? So in the end, we just wrote them ourselves.
Nadia: I'm a Muslim who freestyles and dances hip-hop — but where's that person on TV, in movies, anywhere? Then how are we supposed to know that these people exist? On one hand, you have images of the oppressed and burdened wives of the Taliban, who are hidden behind closed doors and closed burqas, and on the other hand you have the onetime porn star Mia Khalifa, who broke the Internet giving blow jobs while wearing a hijab.
Radhika: We want to play with people's perspectives about who we all are under the cultural garb that superficially defines us. What do we see when hijabis are walking down the street? What do we think we know about them?
Nadia: Unfortunately, the timing of this show couldn't be better. With Trump, we are all fearful of increasing hate toward marginalized communities — which is why we feel the urgency to depict diverse characters that are rarely seen on TV.
Radhika: Or on the cover of Vogue.
Nadia: That's because Muslim women are depicted, for the most part, as victims, hiding in the shadows and not determining their own lives. Of course, in some cases that can be true, but otherwise Muslims are normal. They shit and they shave, and they worry about what other people are going to think of them.
Radhika: Nothing makes me laugh more than these two characters, and, being comedians, we always try to go for broke, not have any boundaries and all that. But given we are dealing with a particular community, we did feel a responsibility to be sensitive.
Nadia: For sure — you have to tread lightly. We don't want to encourage the Islamophobes, but we want to shed light on our experiences and reflect on the traditions that have shaped us, while also being respectful of them.
Radhika: But be really funny while doing that.
Nadia: It's the only way we know how.
To watch all three seasons of Shugs & Fats, go here, and to learn more about Nadia Manzoor and Radhika Vaz, visit their websites. | | | | | | | | | | | | Daily Affirmations | | | | By Amy Rose Spiegel with illustrations by Janna Morton | | |
Amy Rose Spiegel is a writer and editor and the author of Action: A Book About Sex. Her interests include irises, style guides, and meatloaf. | | | | | | | | | | | | Smash It Up and Start Again | | | | By Hannah Tinti | | | |
Seven years ago, I picked up a rental car in downtown Seattle and drove five blocks toward Interstate 5, which would take me north to catch the Mukilteo ferry. I went up a steep hill and pushed hard on the brake at a red light, the car sloping at a precipitous 45 degrees. I was nervous, so I was being extra careful. You're nearly there, I told myself. Just hold on.
The journey to that rental car started on the other side of the country in a New York City subway full of commuters. The air conditioner was broken, and I was trapped between a briefcase and someone's sweaty armpit, listening to the conductor apologize for the delay. Outside the window was a dark tunnel and I thought: I have to get out of here.
At the time, things weren't going so great in my life. A love affair had ended badly. Several family members had been diagnosed with cancer. I had three jobs but struggled to make ends meet, crossing my fingers each month that the rent check wouldn't bounce. Nights and weekends I worked on a novel about a group of factory girls at the turn of the century that was as lost as I was. Deep down, I knew that the characters were flat, that the story had no spark. But for two years I had sweated over those sentences and even tried to publish them, revising and getting rejected over and over, tap-dancing for editors who shook their heads.
I'd done this before, at jobs and in relationships, believing that if I changed myself enough, I'd be accepted and recognized. Do you like me now? Do you like me now?
Clinging to the pole in that smelly subway car, stuck between stations, something broke in me, and I had a vision of exactly where I needed to go.
Ten years earlier, at age 26, I'd quit my job, sublet my apartment, and traveled to a place called Hedgebrook. Located on Whidbey Island, off the coast of Seattle, Hedgebrook is a writing retreat for women. Its mission is to strengthen female voices from around the world, and its advisory board includes visionaries like Sarah Jones, Eve Ensler, Ruth Ozeki, Suheir Hammad, and Gloria Steinem. I could write a whole column about all the ways that Hedgebrook has changed my life, but I'll sum it up with this: Before Hedgebrook, I did not call myself a writer. After Hedgebrook, I did.
When I was finally sprung from that subway car, I went home and looked up pictures of Whidbey Island. The dramatic cliffs topped with pine trees. The bleached driftwood lining rocky, misty shores. The woods covered with bright green moss and layers upon layers of ferns. It was perched at the edge of the country, but it might as well have been the edge of the world. That night, I reached out to Hedgebrook, and the next morning they reached back. The staff was entirely different from when I was there ten years before, but they kindly helped me find a cabin to rent for the week, and even offered to let me stay for free in an empty cottage on the property, so I could tack on a few precious writing days. I put the trip on my credit card, flew across the country to Seattle, picked up my rental car, drove five blocks, and there I was, idling on the corner of First Avenue and Wall Street, waiting for the light to change.
The light turned green. I slowly eased off the brake and put my foot on the gas, sliding back for a moment on the hill before inching forward. And then, halfway through the intersection, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something blue hurtling toward me.
Everything moved in slow motion — like I was in a dream and knew what was going to happen but couldn't stop it from happening. The blue car smashed into the passenger side of my rental, crumpling the metal frame, spinning me round like an amusement-park ride. Then everything stopped. I saw people running and other cars swerving, and I saw smoke. The next thing I remember, a policeman was prying open my door. He helped me onto the sidewalk. He'd been stopped at the light — the same one the blue car had run through, crashing into me and two other people.
I looked at the rental car I'd been driving. It had been transformed into something completely different. The side crumpled like an accordion, the wheels twisted and bent, the headlights smashed, the glass in the window shattered. Coming to Seattle was supposed to be a fresh start, but my string of bad luck had followed me across the country. What else could go wrong? Then I remembered that I had not taken any rental insurance. If the woman who hit me did not have coverage, I would be on the hook for over $20,000.
The policeman asked me if I was all right. When I nodded, pieces of broken glass fell to the sidewalk, catching the light like tiny stars.
I realized then that I was lucky. Lucky I wasn't dead. My cheeks flushed, and I felt my body start to vibrate, like it was tuned to a new kind of frequency. I shook the rest of the fragments from my hair and got to my feet. After the paperwork was signed and our statements were taken and the tow companies came and pulled the wrecks away, I limped the five blocks back to the rental store. Remember me?
I got a second car. I drove through the same intersection, my heart beating like crazy, my palms slick on the wheel. This time, no one hit me. I made it to the ferry. Crossed the Puget Sound. Drove off the boat and onto Whidbey Island. When I arrived at the cabin, I poured myself a stiff drink. My back hurt and my neck hurt and my hands were still shaking. But I was alive. And that was a place to start.
I decided to let go of the novel I'd been struggling with, abandoning it like the smashed-up rental car on the side of the road. It was time to stop tap-dancing. A lot of people were never going to like me or my work, especially this factory-girl novel that was making each day at my desk feel like a chore instead of a joy. I needed a fresh start. A new car. The next day I started writing The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, a novel that weaves back and forth in time and spans across America, using the legend of Hercules's twelve labors to tell the story of an ex-criminal and his daughter, and all the ways he risks his life to keep living.
The insurance came through from the woman who hit me, and with some more luck, my family members survived their hospital stays and operations. I picked up another part-time job and slowly pulled myself out of debt, chipping away each month at those credit-card statements. I painted over my broken heart.
And for the next seven years, I poured everything I had into what I'd started on Whidbey. This time, the novel sparked, even as it led me to dark places. I put my protagonists through the wringer and looked for ways to keep living. To keep trying. Sometimes you spend a long time on the wrong path, and it takes everything getting smashed to set you on the right one. I'm not sure I would have ever found my story if I hadn't brushed that broken glass from my hair.
Hannah Tinti is the co-founder of One Story magazine and the author of the novel The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, out now. | | | | | | | | | | | | Mama's Got the Pill | | | | By Team Lenny | | |
Republicans are hell-bent on defunding Planned Parenthood, at both the state and federal levels. Millions of women could lose access to family planning if this happens, and, as the state of Texas has demonstrated, there will likely be many more unplanned pregnancies, particularly among low-income women.
Yesterday, Into The Gloss published a very informative breakdown of birth-control options, and now we're adding to the conversation. To show that we stand with Planned Parenthood today and every day, we asked some of our favorite contributors what birth-control methods they use and why.
Lena Dunham:
I've been on the birth-control pill on and off for almost fifteen years. It's the only thing that can control my endometriosis pain, and it's made my skin clearer, my moods more even, and my life altogether finer. In college, before I had a diagnosis of endo, I'd go off it whenever I broke up with someone or just felt restless. During one of those pill-less periods, I decided I was going to use the contraceptive sponge, newly back on the market. I was visiting a boyfriend and taking an eleven-hour Greyhound bus to get there. I was so excited to have sex and so intent on making it seamless and romantic that I inserted the sponge in the bathroom of the moving bus five hours before we arrived. I emerged to find a man auctioning off a Subway sandwich, because that's the joy of a Greyhound. I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to leave a spermicidal sponge in your pussy for that long, and by the time I got to him I had insane burning, and my distress was palpable. The rest of the weekend was a wash. I did not use the sponge anymore despite Elaine Benes's endorsement.
Since then, I've tried a bunch of different birth-control pills and settled on an extended-cycle pill called Seasonique. My periods are painful and disruptive and can put me out of commission, so limiting them to a few times a year is better for my health and happiness. I know that without the pill, I would not have been able to be a productive and functioning member of society, and that's not an exaggeration. I am genuinely nervous for the day I go off it in an attempt to get pregnant because it's such a big part of regulating my body, and the routine makes me feel really safe. Also, my pill case is a gorgeous, appropriately fleshy pink.
Keah Brown:
I take a birth-control pill to regulate my periods. I've been on it since my freshman year of college. Right now, I take a generic version of Ortho Tri-Cyclen, which has different hormone levels week to week. The month starts off with a high dose, and then by the time that I get to the week before my placebo week, it's a lower one. I'm on this type of birth control because the last three that I tried made me bleed during a non-placebo week, but this one finally seems to be working (knock on wood). I've been on quite a few different pills over the years, because my insurance has changed and things fall out of the coverage line. I went from being able to take name brand to generic versions, but the generics work just as well so far. The pill makes my period less heavy and my cramps less debilitating. When I'm not on it, my periods are nearly impossible to handle.
Lauren Bohn:
I'm currently debating going on the combination pill Yaz because I have hormonal acne, which my gyno says is a result of higher testosterone levels, and which my psychic witch of a tarot-card guru and yoga teacher in Savannah, Georgia, says is because I have too much "divine masculine." That means even though I love makeup and lacy bras and other performances of the female gender, I'm a bit of an aggro dude at times. Part of the Yin solution, according to my guru? Be around water. But I'm hesitant to go on Yaz. For the past five and a half years, I have been in a monogamous relationship. I'm scared of hormonal birth control (I'm a "triple Leo," so I have a lot of fire and don't want any more emotions). And I've heard horror stories from friends about their cramping from IUDs, which my phone always autocorrects to IEDs because I'm a Middle East correspondent. So the past half a decade has been a mixture of condoms and coitus interruptus and the occasional pregnancy test. I'm pretty confident that if men got pregnant, birth control by now would be as simple as a no-side-effects implantable chip. Sigh. A luta continua.
Kathryn Hahn:
I was a birth-control-pill girl until I went so hormone crazy I had to stop. Never found the right one. Now I'm 43, so who cares? I hated condoms, though, and was thrilled when I finally was in enough of a long-term relationship that I could stop wrestling with that bullshit. I remember a health educator in my Catholic high school saying "Men are like basketballs! They dribble before they shoot!" when talking about the effectiveness of ye-olde-pull-out method.
Now? We have two kids and two pretty demanding jobs, which does the trick. We are back to pull-out, which is NOT recommended for the young and fertile.
Meena Harris:
Monophasic pills. I've been taking them since I was a teenager, and, what can I say, I'm a creature of habit. I also prefer pills because they feel the least intrusive, and I feel most in control.
Alex Ronan:
The whole point of long-lasting reversible birth control is that, in the parlance of the industry, you can set it and forget it. But that's not exactly what happened with my Mirena and me. Instead, after years of worrying about pregnancy, begging for my period to come, trying two types of birth-control pills and, of course, condoms, plus an occasional morning-after pill, I can't stop thinking about my IUD. It's been a little over three years now, and I still find it utterly unbelievable that such an easy solution exists. IUDs are wildly effective, so I (most likely) won't get pregnant accidentally, but I also don't have to expend energy thinking about how to not become pregnant, which frees me to think about how great not thinking about that really is.
Jackie Snow:
I am a Depo-Provera devotee. After proving incapable of taking birth-control pills regularly, I switched to the more foolproof once-every-three-months shot. I was warned that I might bleed continuously or have random spotting, but eventually my period disappeared. This was an added bonus for someone who couldn't be counted on to take birth-control pills on time, much less remember to carry tampons. After seven years, the only side effect is an increased likelihood of crying at commercials toward the end of the shot's cycle, but it's a small price to pay for peace of mind.
Alli Maloney:
I always call it "the copper one," but my IUD, a hormone-free intrauterine birth-control device, is formally ParaGard brand. It picked me in 2012. I was a failure of Southern-public-school sex education, a shattered, unstable 22-year-old who'd just had her second abortion. I'd never used protection. With my mental health in mind, a doctor recommended I return to Planned Parenthood after I recovered to get an IUD insertion — for free — to offset another pregnancy. The procedure was hellish, but I'm an advocate for the IUD because it offers a decade or more of prevention. (The failure rate of the pill is 9 percent; it's .08 for the copper IUD.) It afforded control and stability when I had none. Five years in, I'm steadier on my feet and grateful for this method of birth control because it gave me time to become my adult self, without children.
Alexis Coe:
"It's tearing up my dick," my ex-boyfriend yelled from the bathroom.
"It" was the NuvaRing, a small, bendable piece of plastic I jimmied inside myself once a month. I had a different theory as to why we were both being rubbed dry, but he was as uninterested in that as he was in my pointers about how to make me wet. I suspect the NuvaRing was probably a fine option for me, but I got rid of it, and then I got rid of him. (I wish, dear reader, that I could confess a different order.)
That's not to say my body has gotten along with every form of birth control I've taken, a relationship that began at the age of seventeen. In college, Depo-Provera was all the rage, and while it put five pounds on my small frame in what felt like five minutes, I appreciated the convenience it provided; once a month, I'd go to the campus health center, and they'd shoot me in butt with a syringe and then hand me a flyer on the dangers of licking other people's eyeballs. Within a few years, however, news broke that the shot caused significant bone-density loss. I moved on, to the patch, but it kept falling off and was highly visible and vexing to my grandfather. Now I rely on pills, which feels as if the process has come full circle. I don't remember the brand I took at first, but this one is called Sprintec, which sounds zippy, like it's fueling the woman I've become, one I trust my younger self would be proud of.
Kendra James:
While there is a certain pain management to the act of not getting pregnant (i.e., not having to give birth), my use of birth control has always been about a more immediate sort of pain control. Periods through middle school were cramping, heavy-flow nightmares. The amount of Tylenol I took to get through a day on the rag was going to give me the liver of a 60-year-old alcoholic. The pill wasn't a magic wand, but it made it possible for teenage me to sit through history class in a chair, rather than writhing around on the floor in pain.
At 29, my body's calmed down a little. I can get my period without the pill now and still exist as a functional human being, but I still pop my Lutera three to four months out of the year. Have you ever tried changing a tampon hidden underneath three layers of costume petticoats? Neither have I, thanks to the pill, which I now take to stave off my period during important things like comic-book conventions. Pain or no pain, when has a constant flow of blood from between your legs ever actually been a convenience? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The email newsletter where there's no such thing as too much information.
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