Letters to the Editor
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@ leftychris: What she said and what you said about her.
I just want to offer this recap of some of the things you have said about the particular Anonymous woman we have discussed at length.
First what she said: • "Twice, male doctors have actually acted inappropriately while examining me. If a guy goes to medical school and can't a clitoris from a vaginal canal there is either something wrong with him or wrong with his education. Once when I was waiting for a mammogram no less than four men came in and one after another attempted to give me a breast exam. I finally began yelling for the nurse. She said they were just trying to learn. Well, no one told me or asked my permission. I am not a guinea pig."
Things you have said about her or generally in reference to her post:
"if a woman declares that she's rejected male doctors in toto and offers up dubious rationales for doing so that are based in sexual neuroses and fears and unfair, offensive stereotypes of men, then I reserve the right to call bullsh*t. Sorry if you don't see it that way."
"Except that you missed the post that started this whole tangent, where an Anonymous said she rejected male doctors because she implied they're perverts. Yep, that has nothing to do with politics or society or sexism! And I'm not dictating to people "The Proper Choice" to make. I'm merely pointing out how offensive and retrograde the reasons that many of them gave for such a decision ARE."
"To whom on this thread did I ever say, or imply, "Get over it"? NO ONE, and you know it. You're just twisting my arguments yet again to suit your own purposes. There's a huge difference between telling someone who was sexually assaulted to "get over it" and finding fault with a woman for rejecting an entire group of people and implicitly defaming them due to a bad experience."
"I never said that the attitude of this specific poster was due to feminism. I said her attitude was due to an unfair and offensive generalization of all male OB/GYNs as perverts."
My thoughts: It is possible that this woman does not want to see a male OB-GYN because her experiences as she outlined them were traumatic to her. Your failure to acknowledge this possibility and to honor that people may deal and heal at their own pace and make those choices which promote that healing is what has me so very, very angry at you.
I do not hate you. What I hate is your insensitivity to that woman's experiences.
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@Canuckistan Bob
Lefty, you are quite right that AKA has been accusing you of things you never said and has been arguing dirty. On the other hand, you are getting way way too excited about what is a smallish issue.
Thank you, Canuckistan Bob, for your post. I hate being misrepresented and having my arguments maliciously distorted beyond all recognition to make me look like an ogre. It's a dirty and sleazy debating "tactic" and it's apparent from AKA Smith's post immediately following yours that she hasn't learned her lesson. Frankly, I'm not going to engage her anymore on this topic/thread because she's pissed me off too much and I've lost interest.
In my defense, although it appears that I've become too excited about a minor issue on this thread, please remember that I criticized the first poster who started us on the gynecology tangent, but my excitability only got ramped up later when a group of people ganged up on me. Even Holly Capote, with whom I've disagreed on other threads, came to my partial defense, disagreed with AKA Smith, and characterized the attacks on me as a "mob scene". I'd have been less agitated about the whole issue if some of the replies to me had been a little more measured and reasonable.
Finally, I appreciate the fact that you disagree with me on the modesty issue and can understand why you do. Even though we disagree, I think we each understand where the other is coming from. See what can happen when people treat each other respectfully and debate their points on their merits, rather than distorting them and going for the jugular?
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@ fetboy
You said: "Though, I wonder if women would feel more or less uncomfortable being felt up by a woman, when their wire frame bra causes a metal detector to beep?"
Good point. A little belatedly I would feel less uncomfortable with a woman doing this, even if she happened to be a lesbian. Somehow that just doesn't seem to be an issue with me.
Perhaps leftychris will now tell us that I am irrational for feeling that way.
BTW, I noticed yesterday your earlier message to me amid all the Merely Mortal Male crap. (Truly demented stuff in that thread. I would be terrified to meet that guy.) I hope you will give me a bit of time to think about your idea. I am quite fond of being AKA Smith and not really being ME. (Extremely private person here.) I do not discount your idea however, and I do extend a most sincere hand of friendship toward you.
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@AKASmith
Memoir is tricky. One can see how tricky it is by a couple recent memoirs where the author (and perhaps editor) decided that the author's agony wasn't sufficient and so they amplified it.
But what's trickiest is that so few care about a particular other, unless that other is already a celebrity. We're all navel-gazers and to snag a stranger's caring, we have to trick them into thinking that we're writing about them when we're writing about us.
So, good luck with that. It's a demanding genre!
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Bless me for I have sinned.
When my rather shy daughter was 17 almost 18 she came to me and told me that she and her boyfriend would like to have sex. She had not been sexually active before. She asked me to get her a gynecological appointment with a woman doctor in order to get a prescription for the pill, so I did. It was still a difficult exam for her. She neglected to tell the woman doctor that she was a virgin. It seems that the doctor had trouble imagining that a young woman would actually seek birth control prior to becoming sexually active.
I think it is complete crap that anyone thinks that there is anything wrong with a woman wanting a woman doctor.