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I was just working on my health insurance application. They ask some funny questions.

They consider "menstruation" to be a medical risk factor. I checked the box "yes" and then I had to refer to another part of the application to explain in detail how I was having it treated, by whom, with what result, etc. I dunno, but I expect it to be chronic for the next 20 years. Yup, I don't know about the other women, but as soon as that bleeding starts, I high-tail to my ob-gyn. Whatever. I had no idea being a healthy adult woman was a medical handicap. I think being alive is a medical handicap.

One of the questions for the men, was if they were expecting a child with anyone. Out of a total of 2. What does that specifically have to do with male repro-health? They asked the women 6 specific questions that had nothing to do with the men in their lives. If a man is expecting a child, does it make his prostrate behave erratically?

Get yo' womb beast under control, woman!

This makes me think of the "Women in the Church" class I took oh, so long ago at USF. 75% of all Greek BC era medical literature was devoted to women. Of course, most of it was pretty ridiculous. Like if women don't O during sex, they'll conceive an "undercooked" girl-child. They were under the impression that a vagina was simply an underdeveloped penis. Aristototle was of the opinion that women couldn't O. I think he wasn't very talented. My favorite bit was the womb-beast story. Once a women loses her virginity, her womb beast awakes and takes over her body, making her a raging nympho. If it gets really out of control, it wanders into her brain, making her "hysterical", or it goes into her arm, or leg. If it was endangering her life (or she was endangering those around her) she'd get a hysterectomy (I shudder at the thought of an ancient hysterectomy). Then skip a couple millenia to Freud, and one realizes that nothing changes at all. And today we have the amusing health insurance forms.

I roll my eyes and smile indulgently. That is why I go to a girl doctor, I am confident she'll get me my antibiotics.