sashayed:

sashayed:

sashayed:

not to be the No Fun Come On Internet Police but the real issue with that John Updike excerpt isn’t that he actually thinks the female urinary system is one of those tilt-a-marble mazes: the language he’s using is symbolic & that’s (probably) not what he thinks, or what the character thinks. the actual issue with it is that he positions women’s inner lives entirely as being about men!!! he’s trying to get inside this character and he’s trying to use this idiotic & bizarre device to make her go “god i wish i could act straightforwardly and have agency like the men in my life do,” which is not an unreasonable thing for a female character to think, but he’s so limited in his empathy for his female characters that he can’t actually imagine a woman f-ing sitting down to pee without thinking about dudes

anyway i have fucking unbelievable cramps and my body is turning itself inside out at my desk and this is one time that i do, perhaps, compare the Inner Workings of my body to the bodies of cis men, but mostly in that i wish they would come in reach of my claws so i could make them feel what i feel

I’m still thinking about this because I feel like I’ve read MULTIPLE female characters in books written by dudes being Amazed And Jealous Of How Men Pee, and while it’s never a good idea to speak for All Women, you know what, I think I can safely say on behalf of Almost All Women: We just don’t think it’s that cool that cis dudes pee standing up. We really don’t care about it or think about it at all. I guess I’ve absently considered it maybe once when I was squatting out in the woods somewhere but mostly I was like “ah, another reason camping isn’t something I’m interested in.” We don’t care, guys. Nobody cares.