Jezebel: post partum

So About That Harrowing "Ring Of Fire" Story…

Moe — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:30:00 EDT

We've written rather extensively on the month's Elle, but there is a meta elephant in the room we've been ignoring because, well duh. It's about what happens to your vagina during childbirth, and it's called "Ring of Fire," apparently an oft-used term for what happens during those final moments before the baby's head rips through your vadge. An additional, uh, "elephant" is that the author obviously read The Rachel Papers, the requisite horrifying exchange we've excerpted after the jump. But anyway. Author claims her vadge returns to something approaching normalcy and that sex is now good. Hm. Okay, so if you want to get married and have kids, you probably believe it's possible for sex to remain good and normal and lusty years into marriage. And it is. Maybe your parents did. Maybe you know one of those women who outrageously got pregnant again, like, right after the first baby came. My grandmother had seven kids and four miscarriages. I don't think she breastfed. I wasn't fucking breast fed, but my brother and sister were, and they're the ones who got all the allergies…

My best college friend, the one who got married in Israel, she's apparently breastfeeding. I just got an email about the kid. 10 POUNDS 2 OUNCES?? Oh, phew…C-section. What's so wrong with C-sections anyway? What's so wrong with baby formula? French women supposedly smoke throughout pregnancy so their babies will be smaller. True story. Not that that keeps French men from fucking around on their wives. But the women, they fuck around too. Maybe they have more options what with their preserved vaginas? Maybe it's all just really fucking hard. Maybe this is why dick size is so important, even though it's not, not now anyway. Maybe dying alone is just fine.

Okay, and maybe British men all have really small cocks and that would be the problem here.

"Have you ever fucked a tart who's had a kid?"
"No."
He didn't hear and turned to me mouth ajar. I shook my head." Well I…" He zig-zagged crazily, squeezed between a taxi and a newspaper van, and drifted two-wheeled up queensway.
"Well I fucking have, and it's no joke. Don't know you're there."
…
"Like waving a flag in space.
…
"Their guts flop, too. Jen'll be okay for one, maybe more.
"No fuck."
"I said she could adopt some, but tarts like having babies.
"Their cunts…" He flicked off the heater. "Turn to mush."
"Tits"
We pulled away
"Smell of bad milk. And they hang. Pancake tits."
Really?
"Yur."
"Jungle tits. But I thought, Fuck it. Jen's all right. Firm. And I don't fuck her that much now."

Ring Of Fire [Elle]
The Rachel Papers [Amazon]

One Baby's Barley Water Is Another Baby's Breast Milk

amparry — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:30:00 EDT

Yay, heart-warming story! The International Breast Milk Project ships breast milk, or liquid gold, to Africa, where nine-thousand bottles is enough to feed six babies for a year. Being that lil' Suri Cruise was weaned on a Hubbard-approved cocktail of barley water and corn syrup, we sure hope Katie didn't let her milk dry up and go to waste. [ABC News]
Capitol Hill finally takes notice that postpartum depression is more than just a few tears; Congress has authorized $3 million in federal funds for research. Brooke Shields, Britney Spears, and Andrea Yates all respond, "No shit!" and "That's it?!" [ABC News]
A woman dug up and stole her dead boyfriend's ashes after his family banned her from the funeral. Aww, that's kind of sweet! [CNN]

Kim Cunningham admits to killing her brother-in-law when she found out he had repeatedly raped her 9-year old daughter. She was acquitted of murder by two juries and though some say the ruling is condoning vigilante justice, we say, "You know what? Fuck that, good for her. Where's the parade?" [ABC News]
A burqa-wearing bandit robbed a bank in North Carolina, leaving the police scratching their heads as to whether the perp was a man or a woman. Umm, we see some pretty groomed brows in the photo so our vote is a woman... or gay drag queen. [ABC News]
Breast cancer patients find that friends, family, and even strangers offer loads of unsolicited advice and wisdom in an effort to be supportive, most of which is totally crappy. "Pshaw, chemo is no big deal!" is not the best way to tell someone you're there for them, okay? [MSNBC]
Shocker. State by state, the US sucks at caring for women's health, with Vermont being the best and Mississippi being the worst. As for who else failed miserably? Washington D.C., home of our nation's capital. Betcha the First Lady gets the best Pap smear in district! [MSNBC]
Heavy sigh. A top political strategist estimates that Republican women will, in the end, vote for Hilary Clinton because they want a female president. We're not sure if that's true, we'd take Clinton over any Republican any day of the week, but why is that people don't understand voting for any woman is not a feminist statement? [AP]

Handbag Designer Lulu Guinness: Probably No Friend To Tom Cruise

Jennifer — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:20:00 EDT

We've always been somewhat scornful of designer Lulu Guinness — there was always something too precious about her handbag collection, crafted to resemble pots of flowers and lipstick cases with that loopy-dee-loo swirl of a signature lambasted on everything. And, c'mon: She wrote a book called, Put on Your Pearls, Girls!. And yet, there appears to be more to this upper-crust obsessively ladylike purveyor of insanely performative femininity: The woman smokes! Obsessively! And better yet is bipolar. Just like Brooke Shields [Or Britney! -Ed.], girlfriend had a baby and went a little off the deep end. Says Guinness:

It's a very difficult illness to understand when it's happening to you, and not a pleasant thing, but the silver lining is that you spend a lot of time with other people who are depressed, you appreciate things a bit more and, through doing therapy and group sessions, you become a much wiser person. I think you learn to empathise. I'm not judgmental any more. I'm not as critical.

Wait, wait — Guinness is thankful for her depression because it made her nice? Ew, that doesn't sound like fun at all. Sorry, Lulu, we're going to have to go back to hating on you. Because that's the kind of depressives we are.

Pure Guinness [Telegraph]