Censorship. It's a blight. It's an insult to our common sense. It is, apocryphally attributed to Mark Twain, telling a grown man he cannot eat a steak because a child might choke. It is also a law in Australia that dictates the vulva of women portrayed in porn magazines be photoshopped, airbrushed, whatever so the lady-folds don't show too much, and what is shown looks like a slot on a kid's piggy bank. It is, in my submission, the reason some women fear they are abnormal and feel it is necessary to undergo labioplasty, which in one of my other submissions, is a form of genital mutilation. I am not talking if someone has disproportionately large labia that causes them discomfort, and the owner of such labia undergoes 'corrective' surgery. I'm talking about I'm-Gonna-Cut-My-Flaps-'Cause-I'm-A-Product-Of-A-Society-That-Sees-Incorrect-Vulvas-Because-Some-Stuffed-Shirt-Thinks-'Oh-No-Normal-Woman's-Sex-Parts-=Bad!'. By the way, did you like my term 'lady-folds'? I made it up. Isn't it great? And it's used (WARNING: GRATUITOUS PLUG FOR NEW BOOK ALERT!) in my novel 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth', due out at the end of February 2014.
So I had a look at 'The Vagina Diaries' on ABC2 the other night. It was riveting, but disturbing, stuff. Disturbing because a young woman underwent labioplasty in what was likely an unnecessary operation. Now, I'm resilient about many things. I grew up on a farm. I loved to watch my father kill sheep and my favourite part was when he hung the carcass and pulled out its guts. True. But the other night, when I saw the surgeon making for that delicate fold (I'm not going to use floral metaphors as they annoy me) I shrieked, 'Eeeeuuuuw!' and looked away, with a hand clapped over my eyes for good measure. And my legs involuntarily crossed themselves. I looked back just in time to see a blackened piece of cauterized labia on a white cloth. Aarrrgghhhhh! It looked like - so help me, God, - overdone pork crackling, or a piece of over-cooked gristle from a chop. I slapped my hands over my face again. This is one of the few times I have ever looked away from a screen. I couldn't watch during the aversion therapy scene in 'A Clockwork Orange' because I'm a little bit squeamish about eyes. Watching my cousin put in contact lenses one day made me feel a little ill at ease. If I'm watching a nature program and there's a frog, I also have to look away because I hate those slimy, jumping, green fuckers. My equally amphibi-phobic bestie and I tried to watch the mockumentary 'Cane Toads - An Unnatural History' for therapy, and we kept cringing and looking away from the screen, and we are both still terrified of frogs and toads. But none of it held a candle to the revulsion and horror I felt watching someone undergo a needless mutilation the other night.
Some guys in the street were vox-popped for the show, and you know what, ladies? They don't mind what the lady-folds look like. They love you for you. So please, can the Censorship Board stop being numpties and metaphorically mutilating the womanly parts of our bodies that lead to the portal through which our children are often brought into the world? That would really be nice.
Know what else would be nice? If I became a best selling author. Check out the links on my page to my other novels.
Well, to use a poker metaphor that suits this post: I fold.
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