Speaking of Which...

[xnotalovesong.livejournal.com]

Continuing on an earlier thread about happy period books, everytime I get my period I read CUNT by Inga Muscio. In fact, that was the book that taught me to live with my period and learn to love it cause it's not going anywhere. If you ever want to laugh and totally embrace your rocking-womanly self, I very much recommend this book.

Comments

[careless-lovex.livejournal.com]

AHHH!!!!!!
thats my FAVORITE book in the whole world.
and i read it from the day i get my period to the day it stops. EVERY TIME!
it has a lot of feminist points in it, so if people arent into that then they might not like it very much...but i think that even women out there who arent feminists, should still read it because it brings out faaaabulous points about our periods that most women probably never even thought about.
my. favorite. book. EVER.

[below-the-belt.livejournal.com]

that book is great in some ways, totally, and has helped countless folks i know to connect with their bodies in some great ways.. but i want to throw out there some criticism as well:
+ the original edition is totally transphobic and doesn't recognize trans folks or intersex folks as existing, at all - and when she redid it, she continued to not recognize intersex folks and did a pretty half-assed job of checking her transphobia.
+ the way she talks about abortion really pisses me off, for two reasons. one: she doesn't seem to get what a big deal it is that abortion stays legal in whatever capacity it is now, or how hard we abortion providers work; two: herbal abortion is totally brilliant and amazing but is also incredibly dangerous and i feel like inga's style of writing about it doesn't take into account all the folks who will read that chapter and, without understanding the risks and life threat, try it themselves without the necessary precautions.

no one is perfect. but if someone's gonna write a book that's gonna aim for status as a movement's bible, practically - then it ought to support everyone in the movement and be responsible in the ways it talks about self-care and self-diagnosis/self-treatment.

[stripling.livejournal.com]

i second that!

[xnotalovesong.livejournal.com]

I get what y'all are saying. I don't agree with every single thing in the book either. But I think these comments make a point as well - the book inspires debate, opinion, opposition, agreement, joy. It has controversial points (herbal abortion) as well as universal ones (rape = bad). But many chapters relating to one's monthly cycle I found very inspiring, a point of view I had never heard before, expressed with humor and reverence for the female body. That is what I felt related to this community.

[careless-lovex.livejournal.com]

well i think her effort was to try to liberate us to a certain degree.
i mean..if your anti-abortion, then you gotta back that up which is obviously not at all what she did.
but its her opinions that show us, as women, that we dont have to listen to everyting that we're told and we dont have to be ashamed that we bleed and things like that. i think you need extreme opinions like hers, like andrea dworkin (and so on), to really be able to form your own opninons. I absolutely love inga's work but i dont necessarily agree with everything she says. i mean if we did, then her ideas wouldnt be so extreme.
idk. i mean, basically, her opinions are there to show us that there are more ways to deal with stuff than just the average mundane way. I mean until i read CUNT i never even knew what a keeper/mooncup/divacup was. it is a good way to start learning about somethings that a lot of people consider very taboo.
but thats just my thought.