Of Pens & Penises

And Prom Dresses With Pockets

Yesterday I organized pens. I’ve often described myself as a 0.5 girl living in a 0.7 world (IYKYK), and I always start the year by buying fresh notebooks and new pens. That’s the happy part of a new year for me because there’s nothing as hopeful as a blank notebook. Even with my blank notebooks and microfine points, it’s hard to feel hopeful at the start of this year, however. None of last year’s problems have been fixed, the election is looming, and attacks on sexual and reproductive rights are not slowing down.

Erin Reed of Erin in the Morning reports that in the first five days of this year lawmakers across the country introduced 125 bills targeting LGBTQ+ people. Some states are trying again with bills that failed to pass last year like Missouri which now has three proposed drag ban bills. The Show-Me State is also considering a bathroom ban. The legislation argues that transgender people using the bathroom of their choice violates the rights of cisgender people. If it passes, the law would weaponize the state’s Human Rights Commission forcing it to become the bathroom police. (The irony would almost be funny if it weren’t so horrifying).

Florida is once again taking a top spot in discrimination and cruelty. One proposed law would extend its infamous “Don’t Say Gay (or Trans)” rule to workplaces for companies that contract with the federal government. That same bill bans nonprofits in the state from mandating employee training on LGBTQ+ issues. Another proposed bill would replace gender with biological sex on driver’s licenses and require people to sign “biological sex affidavits.” Reed explains that this could not only lead to trans people in the state having their licenses revoked but could also give the state a way to track members of the trans community. In addition, the bill requires insurance companies that cover gender-affirming surgeries to cover trans conversion therapies as well.  

In abortion news, the Supreme Court is going to hear a case about Idaho’s strict law that bans all procedures even in the case of medical emergencies. Doctors in the state have said it puts them in a terrible position of not knowing when, how, or if to save a pregnant person’s life. Everyone should listen to this NPR piece on an Idaho OB/GYN married to an emergency medical doc. She describes constantly weighing what she knows to be the best course of treatment against the legal nightmare that could befall her family if someone disagrees with her assessment. Not only can doctors go to jail for performing an abortion, but the law also allows a patient’s family to sue the doctor for no less than $20,000. (The maximum is never specified.)

While a lower court had temporarily suspended the law, SCOTUS said it can remain in place until they rule. I can’t help but wonder (in a mock Carrie Bradshaw kind of way) which will come first, the court’s decision or a dead woman in Idaho?

Lawmakers and justices may not care if women die, but hey, at least one legislator in Tennessee is very concerned about our ability to keep having babies. As Jessica Valenti reports in Abortion Every Day, Senator Richard Briggs has introduced the Freedom to Have Children and a Family Act which would allow for an exception to the state’s strict abortion laws if a woman’s future fertility was at stake. The pathetic thing is that he thinks he’s taking care of women when all he’s really doing is turning a spotlight on the GOP’s increasingly obvious women-are-only-good-for-sex-and-babies misogyny.

Legislators have only been back at work for a week. There’s much more where this came from. Plus, there will be more book banning, plenty of school board fights over sex ed curricula, and ever-increasing rates of STIs. And, of course, this could be the year in which Trump is elected again despite the insurrection, the grift, and the obvious signs of dementia.

I will write about it all, I promise. Just not today.

Today, I’m going to write about a fascinating pregnancy, broken penises, and a pretty vulva dress with pockets. Consider this my way of easing us into the news of 2024 just as we ease ourselves into our New Year’s Resolutions. And no, for the record, I have not actually used the rowing machine in the basement yet this year (but it’s only day 10).

One Mom, Two Uteri, and a Baby in Each

Roxi and Rebel Hatcher are twins, but they do not share a birthday and they didn’t share a uterus during development.

Their mom, Kelsey, has an uncommon condition in which she has two uteri. She delivered Roxi vaginally from her right uterus at 7:45 pm on December 19th. Ten hours later, on December 20th, Rebel was born by C-section from her left uterus. The twins and their mom are doing well, and doctors at the University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital have a fascinating story to tell. 

Kelsey has a condition called uterine didelphys that can happen during fetal development and is estimated to affect about 0.3% of the population. All embryos start with paired tubes called Müllerian ducts. These ducts develop into the fallopian tubes, uterus, cervix, and upper part of the vagina in female embryos. (In male embryos, the Müllerian ducts break down while another structure called the Wolffian ducts become the vas deferens, seminal vesicles, and epididymis.)

Uterine didelphys happens when instead of fusing together to form one uterus, the ducts stay separate and form two. Each uterus is attached to one ovary/fallopian tube. In many cases like Kelsey’s, there is one vagina and two cervixes—which we remember from a few weeks ago is not a door to the mother’s belly but an opening to the vagina that allows sperm in and babies out. Menstruation should work the same way, but people with this condition often have pre-menstrual cramping and heavier than normal periods (because, y’know, two uteruses).

Pregnancy can also work the same way. Kelsey already had three children before welcoming the twins. She’d carried two pregnancies in her right uterus and one in her left. Roxi and Rebel were conceived like any other set of fraternal twins: two eggs were released during the same menstrual cycle, both were fertilized, and both implanted in the wall of the uterus. The difference here is that it wasn’t the same uterus. Experts estimate that the chance of having this kind of pregnancy is literally one in a million.

Richard O. Davis, a maternal and fetal medical specialist who co-managed Kelsey’s pregnancy, noted that in some ways this made the pregnancy better for the babies. He explained, “In a typical twin pregnancy, the twins share one womb, which can limit the amount of space each has, making preterm or early birth a high possibility. With Kelsey’s babies, they each had their own womb, sac, placenta, and umbilical cord, allowing them extra space to grow and develop.”

What doctors didn’t know was how labor and delivery would go when two uteruses were involved. While a scheduled C-section would have been the easiest plan, Kelsey wanted to deliver vaginally like she’d done with her other pregnancies. Her team decided to induce her at 39 weeks and wait to see what would happen. Ultimately, the right uterus progressed normally, and she delivered one baby vaginally. The left uterus did not progress, and the team decided to deliver the second twin by C-section.

Kelsey already had my admiration for having to deal with years of double periods and gets even more for enduring a total of 20 hours of labor, contractions that moved from one side to the other, and breast feeding one baby will still in labor with another.

Uteri is one of my favorite words (though more than one editor has told me that uteruses is the correct pluralization) but now that I think about it, one uterus has been more than enough for me.

(Picture credit: University of Alabama at Birmingham.)

More Broken Penises Around Christmas Time

If you’ve made it through the holiday season with your penis intact, you can breathe a sigh of relief as new research found December can be a disaster for your dick (at least in Germany). Lead researcher Nikolaos Pyrgides summed up their findings by saying, “if every day were like Christmas, 43% more penile fractures would have occurred in Germany since 2005.” A broken wanker is not what I immediately associate with the yuletide season, but math is math.

There is no bone in your penis, but it can be broken nonetheless. When a penis-owner gets turned on, two spongy cylinders known as the corpa cavernosa fill with blood. This is what causes an erection. If the penis experiences trauma while erect—such as being suddenly bent—one of these cylinders can rupture. This is referred to as a penis fracture.    

People who fracture their penises often say they hear a loud “pop” or “snap” (sorry crackle), followed by intense pain and loss of erection. A fractured penis may appear bent or bruised, and there may be blood. Penile fractures need to be treated immediately to prevent permanent damage or loss of function.

Pyrgides and his colleagues wondered if there was a seasonal pattern to the injury. (Of all the things to wonder about when it comes to cracked cocks, this one seems pretty boring, but okay.) The researchers looked at hospital data for 3,421 men who sustained penile fractures in Germany between 2005 and 2021. They found that more of these events took place at Christmas time. The researchers speculated that the “intimacy and euphoria of the festive season” might be a “risk factor.” Hmm, they didn’t cover this on the Hallmark Channel.

Interestingly, New Year’s Eve did not have more than its fair share of broken bits. Pyrgides admits that this may be unique to Germany, “It would be interesting to see data from other countries, but in Germany, Christmas week is widely celebrated, while New Year’s Eve tends to be a bit quieter.”

Regardless of the time of year or the country you’re in, penile fractures are more common in heterosexual men and are usually caused by rigorous sex or masturbation. Certain sex positions—woman on top, reverse cowgirl, and doggy style—are more likely to cause the kind of trauma that can lead to a fracture.

I’m not saying dicks are fragile, but handle with care.

Gillian Anderson Wears Vulva Dress to Golden Globes

The red carpet at Sunday’s Golden Globes was awash in colorful gowns. Margot Robbie donned Barbie pink, JLo chose a softer pink with huge flower sleeves, Brie Larson wore pastel lavender, Selena Gomez sported bright red, and Taylor Swift sparkled in green (chartreuse?) sequins. The dress that made the biggest statement in this sex educator’s opinion, however, was an understated ivory number with tone-on-tone embroidery on the skirt.

Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame wore the strapless gown embroidered with whimsical vulvas. More recently, Anderson played sex therapist Jean Millburn on the Netflix hit Sex Education and launched a line of natural soft drinks called G-spot during the pandemic. She described the dress as “on brand.” In an Instagram post, Anderson thanked designer Gabriela Hearst and noted that each vulva took 3.5 hours to embroider. The dress had pockets like any good yoni-inspired dress would.  

I think it’s a beautiful dress and Gillian Anderson looked stunning in it. I am, however, annoyed that many news outlets—like the LA Times, USA Today, and People—used the word vagina in the headline. That’s not how it f**king works, guys.

The wavy line drawings on the gown represent the inner and outer lips, the clitoral hood, tip of the clit, and the vaginal opening. These are all part of the vulva which is the umbrella term for the external female genitals.

Vaginas are pretty much straight lines from the vulva to the cervix so they wouldn’t make for particularly interesting embroidery. In contrast, vulvas have inspired whole catalogues of art. Georgia O’Keefe, anyone?  

(Picture credit: Golden Globes 2024 via Getty Images)