Peppermint Vagina

Cup of tea anyone? How would you like it served? In your vagina?

I don’t think I’ve ever Googled something so much or worried about my vagina so much as when I suffered a Bartholin cyst, a mysterious little, or big, swelling on the Bartholin glands. 

Overnight I became an expert on these little glands on both sides of my vagina.

Several weeks later I woke up in a pool of my own blood with a sore vagina after an operation on my infected cyst called marsupialisation.

I experienced a lot of pain and annoyance from this episode, as you'd expect from gynecological surgery, alleviated only mildly by a box of oxycontin from my doctor mum (thanks to my gyne for the box of Panadeine Forte but I think I'll take Endone instead.) The bottom line though, is a cure I want to share that I inadvertently discovered. 

Teabags.

Four months after the operation, I was still experiencing pain and regular eruptions of inflamed glands, probably due to the stress of work and study while parenting. They completely stopped and healed almost magically after I applied a hot, wet, plain old teabag.

Another several hours on Google bought up scores of cures, and this was first on my list, just before turmeric paste and milk soaked bread. It actually worked. I placed three teabags over a day inside the vagina, and by the next day the infected cysts had ejected the gunk inside and were soothed and normal looking. I couldn't believe it. This apparently also works for boils. If I had a boil I would apply disinfectant and boiling water, but I tired of doing this on my poor vagina. I'm so glad to have found a very easy and accessible cure.

So any of my readers who may suffer from blocked Bartholin's cysts - about 2-5 per cent of women - please do try teabags. Lady Grey is my natural choice, with high notes of bergamot and citrus, but ginger and lemon worked well as well. Just don’t add milk and honey.

Fifty Shades of Nothing

Where's a real bondage queen when you need one?

Besides the silliness of the plot and the shocking writing, this bestselling book is doing a great disservice to authentic BDSM communities, to bona fide Christians who would hate to meet someone like Ana, and to writers who can actually write erotica without resorting to cliche.

Why even bother? But yes I have to admit that before I slag it off, I have yet to read the most discarded book on earth. I will go to a hotel room to find a copy this week.

My daughter's child care worker has the full Anastasia meets Christian - (and-bites-her-lip-and-crosses-her-legs- and-wonders-if-her-hymen-may-tear-from-too-much-masturbation) set in her front room bookshelf and declared it the best thing she ever read. I think it may be the only thing she's ever read but that's not very nice of me to say.

Until I borrow it from her, the loveliest lady from a small village in Croatia, I am happy to make do with the slather of hilarious reviews on the book from amazon ("Did a teenager write this? 16,691 of 17,270 people found this helful"!! ha ha), and my favourite part of The Guardian, their digested read section. It really does save a lot of time and I do honestly doubt, from what I can surmise thus far, that I will be capable of reading more than a few pages before I toss the offensive item to the dust.

But who knows? Judgement shall be reserved as I do have a chequered literary past including, truth be told, trysts with Virginia Andrews, Marianna Keyes, The Sweet Valley High and Babysitters Club and other light chick lit. I may yet fall for some steamy clit lit, who knows? I'll keep you posted.

And the Zoe Williams of the Guardian, thank you:

That's what the pornographic slavering was about – not sex, but diamond bracelets, jet skis, hosiery, purest silks, smart day-to-night dresses, Power Macs and 19-bedroomed houses with glass walls. In the orgy of self-adornment that was meant to characterise her sexual discovery, along with the torrent of outlandish gift-giving that supposedly betokened the adoration in which she was held, Steele fixated on the stuff. Her only moral quandary was whether or not it made her a whore, or a "kept-woman", to accept an expensive gift. What a tangential, trivial consideration, set against the travesty of letting your sex drive be all but erased by your consumer impulses.

ps: Couldn't resist tearing a chuck off amazon for your amusement if you don't go to the link:

The main male character is a billionaire (not a millionaire but a billionaire) who speaks fluent French, is basically a concert level pianist, is a fully trained pilot, is athletic, drop dead gorgeous, tall, built perfectly with an enormous penis, and the best lover on the planet. In addition, he's not only self made but is using his money to combat world hunger. Oh yeah, and all of this at the ripe old age of 26! And on top of that, he's never working. Every second is spent having sex or texting and emailing the female character. His billions seem to have just come about by magic. It seriously feels like 2 teenage girls got together and decided to create their "dream man" and came up with Christian Grey.

Then come the sex scenes. The first one is tolerable but as she goes on, they become so unbelievable that it becomes more laughable than erotic. She orgasms at the drop of a hat. He says her name and she orgasms. He simply touches her and she orgasms. It seems that she's climaxing on every page.

Then there's the writing.

characters roll their eyes 41 times, Ana bites her lip 35 times, Christian's lips "quirk up" 16 times, Christian "cocks his head to one side" 17 times, characters "purse" their lips 15 times, and characters raise their eyebrows a whopping 50 times. Add to that 80 references to Ana's anthropomorphic "subconscious" (which also rolls its eyes and purses its lips, by the way), 58 references to Ana's "inner goddess," and 92 repetitions of Ana saying some form of "oh crap" 

the entire first-person narrative is filled with Britishisms. How many American college students do you know who talk about "prams," "ringing" someone on the phone, or choosing a "smart rucksack" to take "on holiday"? And the author's geography sounds like she put together a jigsaw puzzle of the Pacific Northwest while drunk and ended up with several pieces in the wrong place.

an awful lot of frowning for a woman who experiences "intense," "body-shattering," "delicious," "violent," "all-consuming," "turbulent," "agonizing" and "exhausting" orgasms on just about every page.

I am no literature snob. However, this book feels like it us on a 5th grade level made to seem better with a thesaurus. It's repetitive and just plain bad.

Next, the non-existent plot. Seriously, nothing happens. They meet, they have sex, they email each other, the have more sex, the bite lips, they have more sex, the end. Just plain boring.

Last, bad sex. "Down There?" are you kidding me? It's called a vagina. Grow up. This book most likely intrigues bored housewives and hormonal teenagers. If the author was aiming to give that demographic the tingles she most likely succeeded. However, a book that it 70% sex should at least be good sex.

While I was out...

Leopard print for the boy!!!!!!!

So I haven't posted anything for about two fat months but they have not been slow lazy sun and sex fuelled months, believe me.

While I was finishing the practicum placement of my teaching degree in Sydney, which involves me teaching four grades of pimply but rather hilarious teenagers for 80 days full time, ten hours weekly commute, $500pw in childcare and fuel bills, no income, student fees and tiresome hard to communicate with lecturers...the media simply did not let up on mothers and mothers kept on bitching about other mothers!

I felt exhausted just thinking of all the problems mothers are responsible for, including that my daughter turned up to childcare wearing wispy Balinese sundresses in the middle of winter because my husband said she wanted it, and that Sue on Puberty Blues had developed a drinking problem and a nasty habit of teenage sex.

The media was busily keeping tabs on the mothers of the world while I was swotting away. August and September saw Jessica Simpson pilloried for not shedding her baby weight in under six months, Kendra defend her by saying she was focused on her baby and couldn't run due to her large tits anyway, some unfamous British personal trainer given a tongue lashing for telling new mums to get a grip and stop getting so fat, and my favourite Kardashian, Khloe, start fertility treatment. Snooki also happily birthed a baby boy and showed him off in a bassinet replete with leopard print blankets. Awww...a must have for every guido baby.

The shock event of the month was when X grade celebrity Charlotte Dawson tried unsuccessfully to top herself after being urged to do so by several 4chan members on Twitter. I mean, this is someone who makes a living being nasty to vulnerable people, which may explain her fragility of self. A feature quite apparent in her shaky psych ward 60 Minutes interview. If 4chan told me to put my head in an oven I'd chide them for putting me in the same literary league as Sylvia Plath.

And even while I was up to my teeth in lesson plans on medieval Europe, Mussolini, women's lib and federation Australia, I still had time to start yet another novel, this time a fan fiction inspired by yet another sex fuelled debut novel, book several flights, organise my daughter's 2nd birthday party (that's an overstatement as there's nothing to organise, just a box of booze, some fairy bread and turn up at Sydney's Palm Beach next week) and read several interesting books to undermine my cultural values including Sex at Dawn, The Sex Starved Marriage, and Mating in Captivity. Darned good reads I will review shortly.

I have nothing of value to add at this late hour in the day. I think the media sums it up best by saying to mums: "if you can't cope with your kids, why did you have them in the first place? YOU made the lifestyle choice, YOU deal with it!!"

On that note, remind me to write something soon on private school mothers, and on darling Khloe and her imminent baby with Lamar, what a treat that child will be, and so dearly awaited.