I'm going to go to the can and dry heave for a while.

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I'm glad that there are places like Jezebel where we can discuss our bodies and sex in honest detail. This book, however, sounds like it's a bull's-eye for one of my pet peeves. When will "artists" of various types finally figure out that there is nothing new or edgy about shit, piss, sex, or innards?

[research.uvu.edu]

"I haue etun a dyschfull of curdys, / Ande I haue schetun yowr mowth full of turdys."

" Yt ys wretyn wyth a colle, yt ys wretyn wyth a colle,/ He þat schytyth wyth hys hoyll, he þat schytyth wyth hys hoyll,/ But he wyppe hys ars clen, but he wyppe hys ars clen,/ On hys breche yt xall be sen, on hys breche yt xall be sen"

I'm getting more and more tempted to buy one of those replica medieval pilgrimage badges with the walking vulva wearing a hat.

[www.medievalbadges.org]

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First of all, I'm not accepting the "this is not art, this is shock schlock" from anyone who hasn't read the novel. I haven't read it. I'll decide if it's well-written if and when I do, and I don't plan to do that totally based on the content.

Now back to how gross the author should have gotten. I mean, why do your standards have to apply? Sure, you wouldn't wipe your vadge all over a public restroom. The limits of your gross behaviors aren't the rule, you know. I'm sure some people do it. Personally, I'd rather hear that story than read about someone who daintily lays TP all over the bowl before sitting.

And let's not pretend we haven't all done some weird shit (probably in our teens) just because we could, in privacy. And no, I'm not sharing which, if any, of Helen's exploits I've shared :)

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There is a plot, albeit one which needed a lot more exploring and could have been very interesting were it not for the totally gross descriptions every 2 seconds. In fact the subplot deals with divorce, abandonment, growing up, all sorts of interesting things. It's a shame Roche didn't make the writing in her book smaller, and the story larger because it could be a real stand out work.

Also there are grosser bits. Seriously. One moment made me, someone who reads about serial killers and STDs when they are bored, wince so much and then gag. Gag so hard I tasted sick. Honest. It crossed the line of everything and I felt horrified.

And finally the ending (WHICH I WILL NOT GIVE AWAY) was SO completely, 100% un-feminist that personally I think it negates any of the 'power' of the book. Think being rescued by a knight in shining white armour. Yeah.

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GET OFF J.D. SALINGER'S LAWN!!!1111!!11!

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And that's just it. Being a woman involves a lot of stuff that hitherto was seen as "weird" because "nice girls" don't talk about "down there." Vaginas need to be written about. They need to be seen as normal. They produce fluids and smells. That's what they do: they're vaginas. But Moe and Sadie weren't actively trying to fuck their shit up. They were dealing with forgotten tampons and yeast infection cures; they were trying to rectify situations in which something WASN'T the norm.

I think that's why Moe and Sadie's pieces resonated a lot more with me. They were writing about their experiences because they had a forum in which it was possible for women to share their embarrassing/harrowing vagina scare stories, and laugh it off and feel better about it all. Wetlands seems to only exist to be gross.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Just pontificating. Again. As usual.

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This doesn't read like feminism to me but the antithesis of it ... a shock book obsessed with the vagina, and by sticking all these weird things in it and her general lack of sanitation or hygiene for the glory box reads as yet another manifestation of the elusiveness towards the great vadge.

Let's not talk about it as human form or function but as some crazy box that some weird girl sticks things up! SEE - LOOK AT ME, so crazy!

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I have had no issue with telling people (men and women) about clotting, how I masturbated with the handle of my hairbrush/skinny hairspray bottles etc, my shitting habits and any number of other GENUINE, slightly unpleasant things that I have done, or my body has done. Why couldn't this woman simply have portrayed a female reality in order to 'empower' us all?

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I've read plenty of thought provoking, challenging works. Some have been gross and disturbing, but Lord, this doesn't even sound interesting. Just flat out gross.

The Piano Teacher is a much more interesting read if one wants feminist provocation, incredible distress, and a very high degree of nasty. There are plenty of gross enough and very bizarre things happening in that book.

I will never read it again, I felt so sick by the end of it.

And yet, I can't stand to get rid of it because its such an impressive work of art.

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