Single women: it’s okay to look before you leap

Can’t believe I almost let Leap Day go by without making some mention of the only holiday that actively encourages women to proposition men. Oh wait, that’s propose to men. Gosh, I need to get those two straight one of these days. ; )

I actually wrote a column about this venerable holiday back in 2008 when I was doing the Single Shot column for the dearly-departed Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  The holiday (and the column) both came out on the heels of an infamous story in The Atlantic by Lori Gottlieb, entitled “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.” Here’s how it starts:

Happy Leap Day, everyone, especially all you single women.

Whether you know it or not, Feb. 29 is your special holiday, the one day every four years when you’re “allowed” to propose to a man.

And, no, I’m not kidding.

The whole thing actually started as a joke, back in the fifth century. As legend has it, St. Bridget asked St. Patrick if there could be one day out of the year when women could legitimately propose to men and he chose Leap Day. From then on, it has become what you might call a backhanded holiday, proffering a bit of independence for women but mainly poking fun at their predilection for wedlock.

Leap Day postcards from the early 20th century are rife with images of nervous bachelors being pursued by wart-nosed old maids and portly matrons, each with a hungry bridal gleam in her eye. “Help, they’re after me!” shouts a man being chased by a desperate female with one grossly oversized hand. “Rope him now or never!” reads another featuring a lasso-wielding bride on horseback.

Although they’re pretty horrible, these musty old stereotypes are also kind of a hoot. Except when you stumble across one in a current publication, such as The Atlantic, which is where I read Lori Gottlieb’s retrolicious “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.”

As you can imagine, reading Gottlieb’s arguments for marrying the overlooked “alcoholic who doesn’t always go to his meeting” just so you can have somebody in your bed (and bank account) every day and night didn’t sit too well with this happy singleton.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter if you’d care to share. If not, simply feel free to peruse this oldie but goodie (and yes, I’m talking about the column, not me) as you enjoy your extra day of fun and freedom. Take care and have a great Leap Day, people!

 

What’s new in the world of romance?

Incredibly, it’s February 14 today, otherwise known as International Quirkyalone Day. And oh, yeah, Valentine’s Day. To celebrate the holiday, I thought I’d throw out a few of the (hundreds) of fun stats and news items that have been stacking up in my email box since, oh I don’t know, Christmas.

Our survey says …
Pure Romance, a direct sales company specializing in relationship enhancement products and “intimacy education,” conducted some type of survey (although, they failed to provide any information as to who — or how many people — they talked with). Whatever the case, here are some of the tidbits they dug up about love, sex, V-Day, etc.

 Regarding Valentine’s Day …

• 27% of men said their romantic resolution this Valentine’s Day is to have sex with the lights on
• 38% of people would buy themselves a sex toy because they’re single on Valentine’s Day
• 80% of people believe they will be getting lucky this Valentine’s Day; less than 50% of people had good luck last year
• 40% of women want to try something new and kinky this Valentine’s Day

 Hmmm … am wondering if  “new and kinky” might include “leaving the lights on.”

Regarding sex and relationships in general …

• 85% of women surveyed own a sex toy
• More than 40% of people in a long-term relationship (3+ years) have sex at least twice a week
• 57% of people in a new relationship (less than one year) talk about sex every day
• For better sex in 2012, 37% of men would be willing to gain 10 pounds but only 10% of women are willing to pack on the pounds for better sex

Wait, you can have better sex by gaining 10 pounds? Bring on the chocolate!

Missed connections … 
A PR representative from www.bestpr.net took the time to compile and send along the “Best Missed Connections Posts of 2012” from everybody’s favorite freak fest, Craigslist. Looks like the ads are from all over the country and some of them are pretty fun. Not to mention romantic, particularly this first one.

So … fess up. Are you the woman in the minotaur mask and underpants?

• I felt like I was attacked by locusts: m4w (Burning Man): You: beautiful person in the tail end of a Snuffleupagus outfit on the playa. Me: Stilted clown hobo next to camp earth mad max 2046. We met in a sandstorm, and you poked your head out of the costume. It looked like the miracle of birth. I think you had rainbow hair, but couldn’t tell in the alkaline flats. Maybe 2 septum piercings? Maybe it’s the mescaline talking, but it would be nice to meet again. We never talked, but I think you saw me and the earth shook. Then I threw up in front of you next to the naked bicyclist orgy. Coffee???
• Midnight girl in PJ bottoms and slippers at Walgreens – m4w – 24 (lower Haight) You had blond hair and a turtleneck sweater. I had just woken up and was trying to remember what I had come in for. You were playing with the singing kung fu hamsters at the register waiting to buy your items. I was watching you from over by the Cheetos. I made some rustling noises with the bags to get your attention and we had a brief moment of eye contact before the woman started ringing you up. I made some more rustling noises with the chips but you didn’t look over, I started really going at it with a couple of Doritos bags hoping maybe you’d come investigate but you still didn’t look and walked out. I was going to follow you but I was unfortunately and unlawfully detained by a Walgreens employee before I could get out. Maybe we could meet at the High Tide some time?
• Minotaur, Halloween, downtown – m4w – 22 (Santa Cruz) You were a tall blonde girl wearing a creepy minotaur mask, walking down Pacific Avenue with the sexiest strut I’ve ever seen. It’s nice to see a girl that can actually walk in high heels. Given, you were in your underpants, but I think even if you’d been dressed more modestly it would have had the same impact. Just….damn.

Yes, this really is a new online dating site
Apparently, the current glut of online dating sites aren’t cutting it when it comes to “serious” relationship people. So now we have MarryMeAlready.com, a dating site “solely for people seeking marriage long-term relationships.”

According to the press release I received from this mom-and-pop dating operation, “when it comes to conventional online dating, separating recreational daters from those sincerely looking for love and meaningful relationships can be tricky.” People jump from person to person (literally and figuratively, I’m assuming) and “too many online daters are also looking specifically for one-night stands or casual relationships, which can be frustrating for someone looking for a real relationship and not wanting to waste time.”

Aside from being a 100% free dating site (albeit one that aspires to become a paid site one day), MarryMeAlready.com includes member spotlights (and no, we’re not talking about the type of member spotlights you might find on Grindr), video links, and personal blogs where you can include your laundry list of must-have qualifications for your future spouse and/or post pictures of your wedding dress/groom suit and china. (I’m assuming members have already planned the date and purchased the basics and are just looking to fill in a gap here or there).  

That’s it for me, folks. As always, thanks for stopping by for the read. Have a great Valentine’s Day everybody. You’re all sweethearts in my book!

My Q&A on dating with breast cancer

While I’ve been trying to keep most of my breast cancer stuff over at http://doublewhammied.com/, I was recently asked to do a Q&A for TalkAboutHealth.com, a website “where patients and caregivers get personalized, helpful, and accurate answers from experts, survivors, and partner organizations.” Since some of the questions they tossed my way had to do with dating and breast cancer — and living with breast cancer as a single woman — I thought it might be appropriate to post about it here. 

For those who might be curious, I’m all done with treatment now and am spending the next few months writing, recuperating and researching the next phase of my exciting cancer adventure: reconstruction. I’m also trying to figure out what to do with my new hair (it’s growing in much darker and curlier than it was before). And — who knew? — starting to realize there’s a whole segment of men who like really, really short hair. ; )

As always, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my thoughts on the single life and that crazy thing we all call dating.

How did you get started dating after breast cancer? What was the most difficult aspect?
Oddly enough, I never really stopped dating through my whole breast cancer ordeal. I had just started seeing someone when I was diagnosed and that relationship (which was rather tenuous anyway) bowed and finally broke under the pressure of the cancer and a host of other things. After that, I went out with a couple of other guys (and even reconnected with my ex for a bit) but most of my time and energy was spent on doctors’ appointments and tests and of course freaking out about my upcoming double mastectomy. I thought losing my breasts would mean the end of my dating life, my sex life, etc. But as it turned out, I recovered from surgery much faster than I expected (both emotionally and physically) and ended up going out on a date just two weeks after losing my girls. To read more, click here.

What advice would you give to other survivors about dating after cancer?
Dating after cancer isn’t really all that scary. Seriously, after being pumped full of poison and having our bodies blasted with radiation, I think most of us can fake our way through an hour or two of coffee and conversation with a potential love interest. Sex after cancer, on the other hand, can be a bit daunting. Especially if you’re missing some essential body parts. And all of your hair. And the feeling in what used to be your chest.

What worked for me was to try to “rebuild” myself (paging the bionic woman!), to put myself back together using a wig and fake boobs and makeup. That helped me feel like myself so I felt more confident going out there meeting and interacting with men. But everybody’s different so trying to “pass” may not work for everybody. And dating so quickly after treatment (or even amid treatment) may not work for people, either. I was lucky in that I only had four infusions of chemo and I seemed to endure it pretty well (as long as I took my meds, anyway). Same goes for radiation. To read more, click here.

As a single woman, where did you get the support you needed while going through cancer treatment?
I’ve been single for most of my adult life and have even developed a bit of a writing platform regarding the single life with a book (How to Date in a Post-Dating World), an anthology of essays (Single State of the Union) and a humor column (Single Shot), published by the now-defunct Seattle P-I.

For me, singledom is a natural state. Instead of being cloistered away as one half of a couple, I have a huge circle of friends — people I’ve worked with, people I’ve gone to school with, fellow writers, gal pals, neighborhood buddies, drinking buddies, old boyfriends, sources that turned into friends, the list goes on and on. I also have four sisters, all of whom I’m close with. I had so many people I needed to tell about the breast cancer, in fact, I eventually started an email newsletter (the Cancertown Gazette). And then a blog (http://doublewhammied.com/).

My sisters probably did most of the heavy lifting when it came to day-to-day support during my breast cancer treatment. They were there for me before and after surgery, even helping me with drain duty (and an apartment makeover). They also went to some of the early doctors’ appointments, when things were still very dark and raw and scary, talked with me daily via phone, sat through a couple of sessions of chemo (and chemo recovery) with me and prepared a ton of meals for my freezer. My friends were equally supportive, doing everything from bringing me food (pie! lasagna! homemade soup!) to giving me lifts to radiation to sending flowers and other gifts to taking me on weekend getaways. Friends and family both chipped in financially to help me pay for a wig made from my own hair (and those are not cheap). They also stayed in contact with me regularly, took me for walks when the chemo knocked the legs out from under me, and in general, made me feel loved and appreciated and cared for at all times. To read more, click here.

Should you buy your date’s kids presents?

Colleague and fellow relationship writer Theo Pauline Nestor contacted me a couple of weeks back, asking if I’d be willing to weigh in on the question of gift giving and the holidays. While there are always tons of stories out this time of year about what and when and if and how you should buy a gift for someone you’re just starting to date, Theo wanted to know what you do about your date’s kids.

Do you put on the old Santa suit and bribe the little darlings with the latest smart phone and Wii games? Or do you play dumb and pretend that your new main squeeze has no children (despite the cookie frosting and pieces of Pirate Booty in their hair).

Along with tapping me for advice, Theo turned to Rachel Sarah, author of Single Mom Seeking, Tina B. Tessina, psychotherapist and author of The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again and others. Here’s how her story, which ran on Match.com’s online magazine Happen, starts.

As holiday shopping kicks into full gear, you might be wondering if “naughty or nice” should be the sole criterion for choosing the lucky ones that make up your gift list. Those actively dating single parents may be a bit perplexed about whether they should play Santa to their dates’ kids this holiday season. We’ve talked to dating experts, single parents and those who’ve dated single parents to get their insight on the subject, so read on and see how they’ve weighed in on this tricky question.

If you’re dating a single parent this holiday season, the first question to answer is whether it’s a good idea to buy any gift for this person’s child (or children) at all. Some experts and single parents think the answer to this question lies in the relationship you’ve already cultivated with your date’s child. “I think it all depends on whether you have any kind of relationship with the kids or not. Not every single parent is comfortable introducing a date to their kids — at least, not for awhile,” says Diane Mapes, author of How to Date in a Post-Dating World.

Click here to read the rest.  In the meantime, I’m curious as to who out there does buy gifts for their dates’ kids and if so, how long it took you to get to this point. For that matter, I’m curious about how long it took for your date to introduce you to their child. I’ve dated men who’ve told me they absolutely refuse to introduce a new woman to their little one for “a year or year and a half.” Other singles have told me about meeting the kid and the date at the exact same time.

So what’s been the norm with you? Or is it like everything else with regard to the dating world – there is no norm. As always, thanks for the read and happy dating (and happy holidays), people.

Moving the party over to doublewhammied.com

Now that I’m done with radiation (finished up this last Tuesday, November 8 — woo hoo!) and have a bit more time on my hands, I decided to go ahead and start up a “proper” breast cancer blog (if you’ve been reading any of my recent posts here, you know that I can be a bit improper at times).  

Anyway, from now on I’ll be writing about my breast cancer experiences, thoughts on “treatment” (I’m still convinced breast cancer treatment is about three steps from those grueling ordeals they used to put  so-called witches through), tidbits regarding new cancer research, and whatever else over at www.doublewhammied.com. 

Hope you’ll come join the party there. In the meantime, take care, thanks so much for reading and hope to hear from you soon.

Burn, witch, burn

I don’t know if it’s the Halloween season or the fact that I’m currently going through radiation treatment (burn, baby, burn, radiation inferno!), but I’ve been feeling a lot like a witch in one of those old Vincent Price movies lately. You know, the ones that feature a variety of tortures for women accused of witchcraft. Or maybe they’re just accused of being women. Or single. It’s hard to keep all that straight.

Anyway, the bottom line is, it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference between breast cancer treatment and torture.

When I was diagnosed back in February, one of the first things I learned was that I was going to lose my breasts, i.e., in order to get rid of the cancer, they had to take away the most symbolically female parts of my body. Presto chango — no more boobs. If that doesn’t sound like something straight out of the Spanish Inquisition, I don’t know what does.

After that, there was more “good” news. The surgery showed that my tumors qualified me for additional treatment, i.e., chemo and radiation. For those unfamiliar with chemotherapy, it’s basically a concoction of poisons that are pumped into your body through a port.  In my case, the port was surgically placed just under my right clavicle (where it still resides to allow easy access to my blood), a walnut-shaped lump that reminds me at times of an alien eyeball.

A third eye, if you will. Very witchy.

One of the worst side effects of chemo (at least for breast cancer patients) is complete and total hair loss. In other words, you’re shorn of your womanly locks, your crowning glory. That fabulous blonde stuff you flick over your shoulder and fluff whenever an interesting man comes into view suddenly starts to come out by the handful. Just as in the good old days of stocks and imaginary spells that supposedly caused some farmer’s milk cow to dry up, you’re robbed of yet another symbol of your womanhood. (You’re also robbed of your strength, your appetite, your dignity and so many other things during chemo, but we’ll save that for another time).

Losing your hair is the worst, though, probably because for a woman, losing your hair means you’re being punished. You’re a witch, a Nazi sympathizer, a prisoner. As Wikipedia puts it, “prisoners commonly have their heads shaven, often ostensibly to prevent the spread of lice, but clearly also as a demeaning measure.”

Head shaving, it goes on, “can be a punishment prescribed in law, but also something done as ‘mob justice’ – a stark example of which was the thousands of European women who had their heads shaved in front of cheering crowds in the wake of World War II, as punishment for associating with occupying Nazis during the war.”

In other words, when you lose your hair as a woman — not when you shave it yourself during that bad punk rock phase — but when it’s taken away from you without your consent, it ain’t good.  

But wait — there’s more.

After that, the witch — excuse me, the breast cancer patient — is burned. Not at the stake, mind  you, but in the bowels of some type of radiation machine. In my case, a new tomography wonder that my professional and attentive rad techs refer to as Tina.  It’s all very clean and technologically impressive. The treatment I receive at their hands is friendly and, yes, even comforting. But the machine still burns you, causing your skin to redden and blister and peel and throb so much that it takes your breath away at times. Sometimes, it causes the skin to harden enough that reconstruction becomes impossible. Or requires additional torture … er, surgery … to achieve.

Again, maybe it’s just the Halloween season. Or the fact that I’m in the last few days of my treatment and I’ve reached critical mass. Who knows, maybe I have a gigantic plastic bug up my ass.

I know that I have a vivid imagination. I know that the people who are treating me are not trying to hurt me, but get rid of this horrific disease so I can live a long and happy life. I know that researchers are desperately trying to come up with better solutions — solutions that don’t require this kind of torture — each and every day. But truly, I can’t help but wonder what the frigging hold-up is. Or whether this tortuous treatment for breast cancer is somehow considered acceptable. Because, after all, we’re just women. And women have been taking this kind of shit for hundreds of years.

But this particular woman — who happens to be feeling particularly witchy (and yes, even bitchy) this particular night — would just like to say, one thing.

I’ve had it. Seriously. I’m done.

In fact, if I have to take any more of this crap, I may just break down and turn somebody into a frog.

Cancerspeak: the good, the bad, the you gotta be kidding me!

My latest (and perhaps last) essay about life with breast cancer went live this morning on Today/MSNBC.com.   Here’s how it starts:

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I was a wreck.  I tried my best to keep it together, to keep a muzzle on my hyperactive mouth, but inevitably some highly inappropriate comment would come tumbling out.

“Would you like paper or plastic?” a grocery clerk would ask.

“I have breast cancer,” I’d answer. “They found three masses and now they’re saying the masses are tumors and that I have to have a double mastectomy. I didn’t even know how to pronounce mastectomy until this happened! Oh … uh … paper would be great.”

After awhile, though, I didn’t have to worry so much about the inappropriate things I was saying because others were coming up with their own questionable cancerspeak.

Don’t get me wrong. My friends and family (and even a few kind strangers) have been there for me 100 percent — bringing by meals and flowers and homemade pies; taking me for walks and checking in to see how my 173 doctors’ appointments went that week.

It’s just that getting sideswiped by cancer — not to mention spending all of your time thinking and talking and waiting for test results about cancer — can make a body oversensitive.

Not to mention testy.

I certainly was the first time somebody made the mistake of wishing me well on my “journey.”

My journey? I wanted to yell at them. I’ve got breast cancer. I’m not going to Acapulco!

To read the rest, click here. To share your own stories of Breast Cancer Comments Gone Wild, send me a comment!

 

Cinderella after the ball

I went out the other night with some friends. We went to hear a swing/lounge type act  and because my girlfriend is glamorous and loves to dress up (much as I do), I put on the dog. Nothing too fancy, mind you, but simple and classic:  black pencil skirt, black V-neck shirt worn backwards to hide my radiation burns and a vintage cream sweater with a fur collar (a gift from a sister, who works in antiques).

Plus fishnets and black patent leather platforms.  Plus fake boobs. Plus a wig. Plus powdered on eyebrows, etc., etc.

And I had a lovely time. Probably drank a little too much (i.e., one and a half martinis), but then I’m in my sixth week of radiation and alcohol helps take the edge off the pain. Right now, my chest – especially the V of my neck — is lobster red and aches and itches and throbs all the time. One of my armpits is also deepening from a lovely tan to a dark brownish red and I’m starting to go about with my left arm a bit crooked all the time, as if I’m a pirate. Or just feeling rather jaunty.

I guess you could say I was feeling jaunty the other night. Loved the music. Loved my friends. Loved the venue, although considering the talent,  it should have been packed (Hey Seattle, what gives?). After the band shut down, I got a lift home from my buds, then got a phone call and spent some time with a recent suitor. Nothing too scandalous. We sat in his car outside my building talking … for the most part. It was a lovely night, a tipsy night, and thankfully, a night when I was able to  forget for five minutes the cancer and the daily radiation blasts and the fact that I’m bald and that my chest looks like somebody dropped a piano on it.

At some point (midnight, perhaps?), I left my suitor in the car and hurried upstairs. Where I took off my wig to reveal my ashy gray stubble. And stripped down to my skivvies, unveiling my flattened red chest. Then I put on a camisole, nothing too fancy since I have to grease up every night with special Eucerin cream that’s made for burn victims. Days back, I’d mistakenly used some of the cream – or my other standby, castor oil – with a lovely black satin nightgown and it had loosened the dye from the cloth so I woke to black smudges all over my sheets. As if I’d cleaned a chimney before bed.

This night,  I looked into the mirror at the end of it all and the glamorous blonde from earlier that evening was gone.  Disappeared — as if by magic. No sexy black silhouette, no halo of blonde hair. No hair at all, except for the wig perched on a white foam head on my dresser. I was the ash and cinder girl again. Complete with chimney stains on her bed sheets.

In some ways, it feels Grimm. In some ways, it feels grim. But for the most part, it feels like my life. And on nights like this, it ain’t no fairy tale. 

 

Love in the time of chemotherapy

My second personal essay on breast cancer, Love in the Time of Chemotherapy, went live this morning on Today/MSNBC and yet again, I’m wondering if I’ve done something completely stupid, self-sabotaging, or — who knows — slightly inspirational. Here’s how it starts:

Call me crazy, but I went on a date two weeks after my double mastectomy.

It was also my first social outing since the surgery, not counting the shambling walks around my neighborhood or the sobering follow-ups with my doc who told me I needed both chemo and radiation since my cancer had been upgraded from Stage 1 to what I called Stage WTF.

The date — a double date, to be specific — was with some married friends and a buddy of theirs. It was very casual, which was good since I was still wearing my surgical drains (stuffed down the front of my pants at this point) and was about as prepared to hold a conversation with an eligible man as I was to walk on the moon.

Thanks to the painkillers, half the time I thought I was on the moon.

To read the rest, click here.

From the online comments so far, it appears that the essay seems to have provided a little humor and inspiration for people (particularly people who’ve gone through something similar) although my guess is the trolls will be waking up shortly and sharpening their knives (and keyboards) for the kill.

Needless to say, I’m feeling slightly exposed.

Not so much because of the essay itself but because of the before-and-after photo shoot that accompanied it. I normally don’t go out of my apartment — or even down to the basement to do my laundry — without makeup and hair. Granted, I do go “commando” (sans wig) when I run, but I wear a baseball hat and sunglasses and figure as long as I keep moving, no one’s going to recognize me. (Of course, the first time I ran without hair, one woman in my ‘hood did the whole sunglasses-pull-down-open-jawed-gape. Nice!)

Anyway, I’d love to discuss the difficulty of “coming out” to a national audience (not to mention every single man within a 1,000-mile radius) at some point, but need to leave that for another day. Right now, I’ve got a deadline looming and a radiation treatment awaiting me in just six short hours. Burn, baby, burn – radiation inferno!  (I’ve been trying to come up with soundtrack to encapsulate each phase of treatment. Hey, you do what you can.)

Again, thanks for all your support, kind words and interest in my writing.  And Enchilada01, if you’re reading this, thanks for the offer of the date! I’ll give it some thought. ; )

Penis v breasts: The debate continues

I’ve been a bit harried since the publication of Mastectomy and the Single Girl, but have managed to make it to radiation every day, flirt with a few men here and there, do a photo shoot for this Friday’s installment (Love in the Time of Chemotherapy) and get started on my final Today/MSNBC essay for October, which is on all the inappropriate things people say to you when you have breast cancer. (If you’ve got a good story on this, feel free to share!)

What I haven’t managed to do, of course, is to throw up another blog post (if you’ll pardon the expression).  So here goes.

I usually try to keep myself from reading the online comments for my stories (trust me, once you’re called a “feminazi cow” a few times, the process loses its charm), but I couldn’t help diving into to the abyss last week to see what people had to say about my essay. And in addition to a handful of curmudgeons (like the guy whose entire takeaway from the story was that I was “promiscuous”) and a huge amount of support, I found some interesting debates.

One was about how breasts were nothing like penises, that there’s no comparison, they serve different functions, yadda yadda yadda.  I get that argument; it’s the kind of argument you might hear from someone who thinks very logically and linearly. It’s just hard for some people — especially perhaps for some men — to acknowledge that anything could be as spectacular as a penis.

As one reader put it (a reader who has apparently given this a lot of thought):

To say losing ones breasts are as bad as a man losing his penis is not true. Both are terrible, thats a given. But with out breasts you will still be able to have sex and function normally. I hate mens identity is tied to his sexual organ, but it is and with out it or even if it just dont work a man falls into DEEP despair and would just as soon die rather than live without, breasts although awful to lose as well are not as detrimental to a womans well being as a penis is to a man, it aint even a close race, now if you had your v-jay cut out and concreted and your boobs too that would be equal.”

Hand that man a trowel!  Not.  Another reader offered this argument (and again, I’m reproducing the comments exactly as written, as much as it’s killing my inner copy editor):

Breasts are not sexual organs. They’re reproductive organs that aren’t actually necessary for reproduction. Medically speaking, loosing your breasts is absolutely nothing like loosing a penis. It’s medically the same as a man with breast cancer… where I can understand the feeling of loosing some part of your sexuality with loosing your breasts, do not confuse them with being a sexual organ. That’s just outright wrong.

The thing is, though, we’re not talking tit for tat here (yeah, I went there). Reproduction function versus maternal function versus sexual function, etc., etc. This is about comparing how we feel about these particular body parts. And I think that women feel about their breasts the same way men feel about their penises.

I also think culture gives the two the same sort of heft, if you will.

For instance, when it comes to both breasts and penises, larger is generally preferred over smaller. Although to be fair, I think men are more appreciative of small breasts than women generally are of small penises. So just a shout-out to the guys. You’re better men than we. But I digress.

Breasts and penises are also the only two parts of the body that get full-on erections. I suppose you could argue that a woman’s clitoris gets a hard-on, too, but erect nipples — at least to me — are a lot more like an erect penis. They stick out. They’re readily accessible. They make themselves known to friends and strangers alike (a homeless guy once told me I could “pop balloons with those things” when I jogged by one morning).  Anyway, they’re body parts and they serve all kinds of other functions. But they’re also these fun fleshy toys that perform cool tricks. For many of us, they’re the absolute favorite part of our body, sexually-speaking and otherwise. And for society, they seem to be the body parts that truly encapsulate the essence of our sexual identity, our femaleness or our maleness. (Imagine a large-breasted woman walking by a construction site. Do you think the guys there are going to express their admiration for the amount of milk her breasts can produce?)

Anyway, that’s my take on the whole penis v breast smackdown. There were some other funny memes going through the comments section that I was going to mention, but it’s late, I’ve had a glass of wine and my sternum is starting to burn from my daily dose of radiation, so I think it’s time to quit typing.

Again, huge thanks for all of your support. Wish I could reply to each of your comments individually, but it’s been a busy week (a busy year!) and as a friend recently reminded me to say whenever I can’t get to the things I’d really like to get to, “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m still in treatment.”