I grew up in a church that advocated ‘no sex before marriage’ and even outside of my church friends, I tended to hang around with kids who said they were going to ‘wait for the right person’ or ‘wait until I’m legal’ before having sex. We all knew enough of the basics of sex, pregnancy, and contraception to know what was and wasn’t possible.

Regardless of this, even if they had never had sex before, girls would still occasionally panic about a possible pregnancy if their periods were more than a couple days late (and they weren’t used to any irregularities). Although they’d never had sex, they were still panicking that maybe someone slipped them a roofie and raped them (although they couldn’t remember blacking out), maybe they were the one person in the world to ‘beat the odds’ and really get pregnant from a toilet seat, or whatever, even though they knew such scenarios shouldn’t have been possible.

Why were they so terrified? Perhaps some of it had to do with slut-shaming, especially in the ultra-conservative environment. I think a lot of it was fear of being raped, since the time I had an STI scare (although it was four years after I’d probably been roofied, but I wasn’t raped as far as I figured out) my first thing was a panicked thought of “How did this happen if I can’t remember having sex?!?!” and my second thought was what would happen if I went to the local Planned Parenthood for tests/treatments and, say, someone from my parents’ church was protesting there and recognised me. Also, there’s the fear, especially among this specific group of teenagers, that if they have a baby they’ll be stuck at home, unable to complete their education, and no man would want to marry a woman with a kid. Granted, when you’re 14-17 (these scares seemed to happen less frequently as girls learned that their period will be late/missing occasionally for no reason at all) having a child is going to be a lot more physically stressful and socially disruptive than it would be for an adult with a stable job and income.

I’ve enjoyed the relative safety of my middle class feminist friends for so many years that sometimes I have to slap myself back into reality….trying to remember those early 20′s when these issues were, truly, terrifying. And Patriarchy is frakking responsible no matter how I look at it. Patriarchy first. Second it is our decisions to remain silent, or let the fear guide our decisions on what to share. Its personal, and I sure as hell don’t know what is right for everyone. But for me its usually right to blurt out the truth and deal with the consequences. I always feel that when women tell the truth, they empower women. When humans tell the truth!

But sometimes your life, your story, your moment dictates otherwise and the truth may be that the fear is real. These are personal choices. I look forward to the day when that is all the baggage there is…..just a personal choice without the threat of a dozen stigmas.

My scare honestly felt like the person I was died at that moment, but—fake out!!–I was fine all along! A little shaken, a little bruised, but not dead, like an action hero at the end of a movie.

Plus, if you’re in a monogamous relationship, there’s always the possibility that “OH CRAP A BABY” could cause the man to be out the door. And if you’re not in a relationship or not monogamous, there’s the question of who the father actually IS, and…well…these are all complications that people generally try to avoid until they’re sure that the baby in question actually exists.

1) no, we don’t want to hear about medical issues. ICK, EEEK.

2) you want accommodations? Prove you aren’t faking, faker!

It is *impossible* to thread both of those. It’s a situation that is just contradictory for anyone who needs *any* sort of accommodations or who doesn’t fit the “default” human “ideal.”

If we trusted that people asking for accommodations really needed them, it wouldn’t be nearly as big a deal to ask that medical discussions be kept private, and not be big public disclosures at work, or to other acquaintances. But as much as I don’t want to hear about your hemorrhoid operation… I do recognize the societal assumptions at play, and setting any social “rule” on the topics not allowed is just going to be hopelessly ablist.

For the record, my D&C fucking hurt. And when I got pregnant (accidentally) the first thought in my head was “holy fuck I’m pregnant” which I then googled, and discovered a really cool blog.

A lot of women don’t talk about it though–I remember being in a college bio. class and there were these test strips from Genetically Modified Corn that had a line form on them, and I said “just like a pregnancy test” and it was only me and some labmates who I was friendly with, like three or four, and we were all women, and they all had this politely horrified look on their faces. Umm, oops.

amandaw (re Helen): I think it’s a bit more complicated and contextual than that. To me, seeing a co-worker take regular medication, for example, or say that they’re off for medical leave, would be very different from being regaled by, say, an unsolicited detailed description of their haemorrhoid operation aftermath or their erectile dysfunction treatment. I got the impression Helen was talking more about the latter than the former, though it’s not completely clear.

Maybe it’s that the difference between co-workers and friends is quite a big one here, and that not everyone is comfortable with them being collapsed. I think women, in particular, may be at greater risk when workplace conversations cross all sorts of social-distancing etiquette lines; not only are women then expected to listen to stuff that can be wielded in certain ways, but in an – hm – “over-sharing”? – environment, they can also be expected to submit to intrusive questioning about their bodies, reproductive choices, etc. There are very good reasons that sort of questioning by employers has been made illegal here.

Which is not to say that there is no situation where talking about erectile dysfunction treatment or haemorrhoid surgery or reproductive choices or any other medical issues is socially appropriate! This specific situation, with co-workers and bosses, is I think a rather more complicated one, in our current society. (I can imagine an ideal one where it might be far less so, but we’re not there.)

I don’t know. I mean, I’m actually working pretty hard uphill to _add_ that social distancing to my extended-family interactions, where I am sick to fucking death of being constantly assessed and questioned and cure-suggested and having family members getting all up in each other’s business. So I’m coming from a personal place where I’m looking for a little more medical distance in some of my relationships, and where that wish for distance isn’t limited to the workplace, so that’s probably inflecting my reaction.

Wouldn’t want to be forced to deal with the fact that people who are not perfect Adonis pictures of health exist. It’s much easier when you are protected from ever having to acknowledge that vulnerability is what defines humanity.