Sly Speaks: Why I Noped Out of my Hysterectomy

I'm 53 years old and I have a history of sexual trauma and issues with my endocrine system including my reproductive system. I have PCOS. I have a degree of endometriosis, and I have polyps and fibroids in my uterus. The fibroids are small, not some grapefruit-sized thing.

I avoided having pelvic exams for close to 30 years because of past sexual trauma and fear of being shamed for being a larger person. I finally found a doctor I could trust to be honest with about my plumbing problems, so to speak. I see her quarterly because of my endocrine issues. When I told her that I had my "annual period" and was hoping this would be the last year for that mess, she said that wasn't normal and referred me to a gynecologist.

The gynecologist was a very sweet person who made me feel at ease. She never shamed me for my size. She did a D&C, which sucked because I felt like someone had been up in my business with a cheese grater, but I wanted to rule out cancer. The biopsy showed that I have simple endometrial hyperplasia with no cellular atypia. My risk of developing uterine cancer is 1.6% greater than the risk for someone who has no hyperplasia.

Hyperplasia is par for the course in someone with diabetes and PCOS. I produce too much estrogen. My primary care doctor is having me try a bio-identical progesterone, which may reverse some of the issues with my plumbing. One can always hope.

I was scheduled to have a hysterectomy, but I canceled the night before. Let me be clear that I'm not fanatical about women keeping their uterus come hell or high water. My son's best friend's mother had such horrible endometriosis that it had invaded her digestive tract. Some people have fibroids the size of a full-term fetus. There is no reason that these people should be forced to keep an organ that is malfunctioning to that degree. But this is not my case.

I always had miserable periods from hell and was glad when they came to an end. Initially, I was gung-ho to get rid of my reproductive organs, but after doing some research I realized I might be trading one problem for another (i.e. my incontinence could get significantly worse) and the inside of my hoo-hah could turn into the Great Southern Desert for the remainder of my life. In the end, it didn't seem worth it to undergo major surgery for a 1.6% higher risk of possible uterine cancer down the line.

Although two of the doctors involved in the process are women themselves (the person who would have done the surgery is a man) and they were all respectful to me, not a single one of them said a thing about the downside of having a hysterectomy. I think that doctors are taught to have this attitude that post-menopausal women are no longer able to have children, so why not just take the uterus out? But major surgery comes with risks. For me to agree to it, the risks have to outweigh the benefits, and they simply do not in this case.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright Juliahenze @123rf.com

Sly Speaks: Me Too: The Work Edition

Copyright Tara O'Brien

I was thinking back to a "wonderful" incident which happened while I was working as an assistant district manager at the Denver Post in 1986. One of the carriers became friendly with me, initially in a perfectly acceptable and professional way, and I enjoyed our little chats. But then one day he said to me: "I'd like it if I could give you a hug sometime and maybe a kiss."

A lot of you ladies, particularly of my generation or older, will be able to relate when I say that I was trained from a young age to "be a lady" when a situation like this arises and to "not hurt his feelings," so rather than asking him in what the hell universe hitting on his supervisor was appropriate, my first response was to say "I'm married," so I wouldn't hurt his feelings. As if doing this sort of creepy thing would have been appropriate if his target wasn't married.

My initial reaction is to think what a doormat I was for reacting this way. Plus I never even told my supervisor, because I didn't want to get the guy in trouble. But my next reaction is to be angry that I believed his feelings were more important than mine, which was disgust and betrayal.

So, yeah, not going to be angry at my younger self for being taken aback and not behaving in a more assertive fashion in this lurid situation. The guy displayed not only gross sexism in having zero respect for my position of albeit mild authority just because I was a young woman, but he displayed zero respect for me as a human being in seeing me as an object that he could potentially grope and slobber on.

For some reason, when I was younger I seemed to draw a lot of creepers like this to me, probably because I tried to be nice. I'm honestly not at all sorry that my current age tends to render me invisible to this breed of asshole most of the time.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Graphic copyright Juliahenze @123rf.com

Insecure Writers Support Group + The Cheese Grates It: Banned on Tumblr

Image copyright prettysleepy2

Note: This post contains profanity. If that is a problem for you, please don't continue reading.

You may wonder what this post has to do with the Insecure Writer's Support Group. I argue that freedom of speech is something all writers should be concerned about, and that is why I think this post is appropriate.

Tumblr shadow-banned my slightly naughty Supernatural fan blog.

Not for filthy, filthy Wincest pictures, like you might think. You actually have to go to about the 13th page to find an even remotely NSFW image. 

Nope. I can’t publish or reblog anything to this blog because I was being snarky about Tumblr becoming a kid-friendly playground instead of a platform for adults.

I’m moving wincestshippingtrash to nibblebit, a platform that is similar to Tumblr in the way it functions, and which is a platform geared to adult bloggers. Which is what Tumblr used to pride itself on, but now that they've sold their souls to Yahoo and Verizon, they're trying to present themselves as family friendly. Heck, a lot of the stuff that Tumblr was proud to allow was too rich for my blood, and I'm the founder, editor, and co-writer of the very torrid tales at Naughty Netherworld Press. If I'm nope-ing out because it's too raunchy, you know that shit's raunchy.

Here’s what’s funny. I have blogs on Blogger which I’ve deemed NSFW, even though most of them only contain harsh language. I flag these blogs as “adult” and when people type in the URL, they come to a notice which says “material on this blog has been flagged as only appropriate for adults. Do you wish to continue?” 

Tumblr has something called "safe mode," which prevents adult-flagged blogs from appearing in searches. Wincestshippingtrash was flagged as “adult” by me. It shouldn’t appear in Safe Mode, like, ever.

But it wasn’t even adult content that got the blog banned. It was the fact that I was being cheeky to Tumblr Staff, and they couldn’t deal.

I may be a mess health-wise at this point in my life, but I would fight to the death to preserve freedom of speech. I think that what Tumblr is doing is some East Block level shit. I guess we’ll see how long my primary Tumblr blog remains active what with me speaking out against the Evil Empire this way.

Also, what is this “female presenting nipple” bullshit, Tumblr? To me, that’s sexist AF.

Tumblr looks the other way when it comes to cyberbullying, including telling people to kill themselves or death threats. It's okay to call someone a "fat, ugly cunt," apparently. It's okay to promote violence by encouraging people to "punch a TERF." But Heavens forbid someone shows a bit of butt crack or a "female presenting nipple."

Folks have been circulating this around Tumblr to see how long it takes for it to get flagged. This is how ridiculous things have become.

Tumblr will either do what Blogger did a few years back and backpedal on their decision to ban adult content when they saw that their longtime users were leaving in droves, or they will become a wasteland like Myspace.

Nobody (well, nobody who shouldn't be in jail) wants child porn. The way to deal with that problem is not to ban all adult content. It is to remove the blog presenting it from public view, and do not delete the content because the FBI and Interpol will need access to it, but report the content to the FBI and Interpol. 

Again, freedom of speech is an issue which every writer needs to be concerned about. There are a lot of things which I find offensive, and there are a lot of things that I'm just plain not interested in. However, I believe it is appropriate that even things I deem offensive (such as Stormfront) are allowed a platform. If they go underground, they become even more dangerous. If they are allowed to spout their rhetoric, it is easier to refute them, and also easier for agencies such as the FBI to keep an eye on them.

Tumblr really screwed the pooch with their blanket adult content ban. This pooch. It is not a happy camper and is coming back to bite them on the ass.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Twitter Kowtows to "Trans Activists." Sly is Not Suprised.

Meghan Murphy, the founder of Feminist Current, has been locked out of her Twitter account for making critical statements about the behaviors of Lisa Kreut, a transgender dominatrix. Ms. Murphy never called for harassment or endangerment of Ms. Kreut, something which radical transgender activists do to radical feminists (and anyone else whom they've branded a TERF) all the time. Yet Twitter seems perfectly okay with tweets calling Ms. Murphy a "TERF cunt." It's almost as if violence against women is okay with Twitter as long as those women don't identify as transgender.

I haven't had my account shut down because I don't use it that much and, frankly, I mostly use it to poke the bear whenever our beloved Lord Dampnut says something stupid. 

Okay, I do use it at least a couple of times a month. However, although I'm not a heavy user, I get accused of "spreading TERF ideology" whenever I retweet something that is critical of the extreme trans activist agenda.

These people don't listen when I say that I don't have an issue with transgender people, that I approach people from an above the neck perspective. I really don't care what's going on below the waist. But I do have problems with giving kids hormones that are going to permanently change their bodies, I do have problems with referring to people as "menstruators" and with foolish ideas such as terms like "mother" and "clitoris" being "violence against trans women." I have problems with statements which call for violence against women, such as "punch a TERF." 

I have problems with people being completely unwilling to examine their brain-dead agenda. They want a scapegoat and are angry that the bad old Feminazis--excuse me, TERFS, are fighting against being their scapegoat. How dare we not want to be doxxed, threatened, beat up, or called vile names. How dare we not know our place.

If you sling the term "TERF" about without considering that it has become a call for violence regardless of what its original intent may have been, then perhaps you need to take a close look at your agenda. Does disagreeing with someone really make it okay to promote violence against that person?
Again, Ms. Murphy was locked out of her account for tweets which, while controversial, were not violent in nature. The following tweet, however, is deemed acceptable by Twitter. Yes, I do have a problem with that, and I have a problem with the fact that people who deem themselves "good people" are not willing to examine their use of a term which is a call for violence.
Anyone can be branded a "TERF" regardless of whether they actually want harm to come to transgender people or whether they are simply critical of certain aspects of identity politics or gender norms. Since TERF is a call to violence, why do these "good people" not have a problem with this?

~Sly Has Spoken~

Graphic copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Caregiving Techniques: Slide Sheet + Sly Speaks: Devalued Professions

SMART Slide Sheets, Patient Not Able to Assist

This series of videos from MedCo Technology is helpful for both professional and home caregivers. They offer techniques to minimize the likelihood of injury to the caregiver.

Most injuries in both institutional and home settings happen because the caregiver is rushed. Institutional settings, particularly long-term care facilities, are often understaffed. Many times at-home caregivers are without help and may be caring for other children if the handicapped loved one is a child, or for children as well as an aging parent.

Caregiving tends to be a profession/skill which is devalued. It is seen as something which uneducated people do, and tends to be seen as a “woman’s profession.” “Women’s professions” tend to be paid less well than so-called “men’s professions.”

Modern society will remain mired in misery until people in all walks of life and in the devalued helping professions and situations are seen as worthwhile, contributing members of society, which they, in fact, are.

~Sly Has Spoken~

 Image copyright juliahenze

Purchased from 123rf.com

Trump Hates the American Public — Here's How He Reveals His Disdain @alternet

Trump Hates the American Public — Here's How He Reveals His Disdain @alternet: He has a billionaire's antipathy for the general good. Donald Trump hates you. But don't take it personally, he hates me, too -- and all of us who constitute The Public. The billionaire's antipathy is not directed at us as individuals, but as users of publicly provided services -- such as schools, parks, health care, buses, collective bargaining, libraries and environmental protections. From his privileged perspective, all of that is welfare, nothing but an expensive waste that puts burdensome taxes and annoying regulatory constraints on the entrepreneurial creative class, i.e., him.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 13: National Disgrace

Copyright Geralt

Being kind is

What everyone should do

Do you?

You do not

Not do right

Right is might

Might you consider

Consider the absolute

Absolute power

Power corrupts

Corrupts when misused

Misused to abuse

Abuse those you see

See as less

Less than nothing

Nothing is what

What you discover

Discover within 

Within your rotten

Rotten, shriveled heart

Heart hard as stone

Stone over graves

Graves of those

Those who died

Died in vain

Vain sacrifice

Sacrifice for what

What but ambition

Ambition of soulless

Soulless rich men

Men who don't care

Care for anything

Anything but money

Money to buy

Buy the best tomb

Tomb to commemorate

Commemorate their lives

Lives full of lies

Lies always bellowing 

Bellowing forth

Forth from your mouth

Mouth always open

Open like a sewer

Sewer spewing waste

Waste of words

Words of deception

Deception of the masses

Masses left wanting

Wanting

Masses

~Sly Has Spoken~

Note:

Written by Cie's civic-minded alter-ego, Sly Fawkes.

Dedicated to the crook in the White House

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com