In 2014, a Vine user named Summerella uploaded a clip of a catchy little tune that asked the age old question: can you do a split on a dick? Four years later, Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B have provided an unwitting answer, proving to the general public that yes, if this is still a pressing matter, it seems like both of them certainly can. The video for “WAP” is a masterwork—a celebration of the female form and an anthem for people everywhere who woke up on an August morning in the middle of a global pandemic with the irrepressible urge to see if they, too, could put their pussy on the floor like Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B demonstrated so deftly.
I’ve never been particularly flexible, but at a point in high school, during what I will refer to lovingly as my “peak,” I could do a full split on my right side. Years of abstaining from physical exercise as if I were allergic and also the vagaries of limping towards middle age have left me with the sort of hamstrings that are so tightly wound that I tore one doing a Rockettes dance class in 2018, resulting in a bruise that took up the entire underside of my right thigh meat. My quest to “get my splits,” as YouTube’s fitness gurus refer to it, has been on ice until now. But “WAP” reawakened my desire to test my mobility and see if I can hoe like I could in the past.
A few weeks ago out of nothing other than boredom, I toyed with downloading an app that assured me I could do a split in 30 days. Other videos on YouTube recommend not rushing into this exercise. As someone who sits at a desk for roughly 9 hours a day and forgets to stretch after working out more often than not, rushing into a full-out, pussy on the floor moment is foolhardy at best and medically unsound at worst. But I am familiar enough with my body to know that if I do stretch regularly at night, in the morning, and whenever my body feels tight, I can do things that I previously couldn’t, like touch my toes from a standing position and rest in half-pigeon pose for longer than two excruciating seconds.
The human body is simply not meant to bend in the way a split requires and it remains an impressive feat. Sliding into a split from standing, or even unfurling the legs out from under and kissing the ground with the kitty in one fluid motion simply looks impressive in the way that few things do anymore. Strengthening the body for aesthetics is one thing, but getting stronger and more flexible in order to be able to do things like crush your enemies with your adductors is much more motivating. Since time is in great abundance now, it stands to reason that I could endure the 30-day torture of slowly easing into the splits. But patience has never been my strong suit. Over the course of quarantine, I have surprised myself, learning that my body is capable of doing things that I previously thought it wasn’t. Surely I could do a split for even a moment without grievous injury.
My guide for this journey is a random YouTube video I found that assured me I could do the splits in 5 minutes.
Miss Auti is in incredible shape and infinitely more flexible than I am currently, but she has a great attitude and that, in turn, moves me towards wanting to please her with my efforts. Though this video promises that I could technically achieve the splits on both sides of my body, I know myself well enough to understand that if I were to tell my left side that it was time for a split, they would ask to see the manager. Per Miss Auti’s instructions, I dutifully kicked my butt for two minutes, then eased into the runner’s lunge—a warmup I normally ignore when my fitness app asks that I do it. The small adjustment she suggests—pushing the hips forward and sitting up tall, instead of flopping forward like a bucatini—actually feels good. Pushing back on my heels and sitting on my foot to stretch my hamstring is not quite a revelation, but definitely an awakening of sorts. Though I feel my little knee trembling, I am impressed by my dexterity.
The final stretch in the brief sequence prepares the splitter for the brief, transformative experience of feeling Gaia’s support through their yoni. Miss Auti requested that I slide my back leg out while also, impossibly, sliding my right leg forward, so that my body will touch the ground in a way that looks effortless. Though for her, it is, for me, the task itself is a little more arduous. I breathed into the small knot of pain and imagined space in between my fascia, like the guided meditations I do to combat crushing existential anxiety tell me to do.
Miraculously, my body complied in a way that I did not think was possible.
There I am—Megan Thee Reynolds. My pussy hovered mere inches above the ground; were I a young gymnast being trained by Bela Karolyi, I’m sure a strapping Russian man would sit on my shoulders until my undercarriage touched carpet, but thankfully, that’s not the case. My form is off, my left leg is bent, and I can hear my high school dance teacher, Ms. Jacqueline Burgess, screaming at me to point my right foot. My pussy, on the other hand, is mere centimeters above the floor.
Straighten that back leg, un-sickle that foot, and in a week or so, the party trick I treasured in the year 2000 will be in my hands once more.