Twat Tapestry, Free Bleeding and the Teabreak Challenge

The Dickie Beautique would like to thank Abi Sylvester at CraftyCrafty for bringing to our attention the weird and wonderful world of Christa Rowley’s Female Anatomy Cross Section Cross Stitch eggstravaganza on Crafster. We think this shit’s the tits.

Cyberworld does have a tendency to be a bit of a male-dominated maze so it was interesting to see, over on CraftyCrafty’s sister site, Dollymix, that Katie Lee has compiled a top ten of women’s sites on the web, which includes a couple of our favourites, The Lipster (a “pop culture broadsheet”) and Gawker’s women’s website, Jezebel.

We got so inspired we decided to launch forth and enter the labiarinth ourselves. On our quest we found what we believe to be the very best women’s website EVER….

MyVag.net has got everything you need to know about your vagina. Everything. With dedicated chapters to the clitoris, lopsided labia, masturbation, and how to pee standing, the site also sells t-shirts, offers free downloadable mp3s of “vaginal music”, and has a completely wonderful, refreshingly honest blob blog from a shameless “free bleeder”:

Until recently, I hadn’t thought much about “free bleeding,” because it seemed very obviously impractical to me to refrain from any kind of menstrual product and just bleed all over things during magic time. It seemed like a lot of laundry and public concern would ensue. I couldn’t think of any motivation to consider the idea, nor could I see any practical way to implement it even if I did decide it was a great plan. (”Hello coworkers– don’t be concerned. I’m not hemorraging; I’m a natural woman! Oh sorry, was that your upholstered chair?…”)

It suddenly occurred to me one morning that I am already, in fact, quite a shamelessly free bleeder. Up until then, I had considered myself just lazy about product refreshment schedules. I tend to go productless in the bath and shower, and often to bed for convenience in bedtime seductions…. Also, I tend to ignore signs that my products are becoming squishy and about to lose all effectiveness if I am doing something interesting. If I am not bleeding heavily, as is common these days on the evil pill, I often leave the house in a productless state, carrying something with me if I anticipate an emergency.

The thing is, I have always considered these acts to be instances of shirking my duty as a responsible person. Responsible people are tidy and don’t take risks with messes involving bodily functions! They don’t just wear dark coloured underwear on spotting days! Me: lazy….

The new, non-lazy view of my behaviour came about one morning after going to bed without a product, not ending up involved in any seduction after all, and being so warm and comfy and in love with the bed that getting up to retrieve a product seemed offensive, especially since I wasn’t bleeding very quickly….. In the morning, I hopped up first thing and ducked into the bathroom to discover two quite lovely smears of shiny, ruby-red blood on my thighs. It occurred to me that I liked being allowed to overflow. I don’t know how these two events go together, but that is how it happened. Perhaps because the blood was attractive for the first time, instead of looking like a mess. It was a nice colour and a nice shape and it was mine.

Anyway, it occurred to me that the situation is not that I am bad at using menstrual products. It is that I don’t mind overflowing. So there. Ha ha on responsible people. I don’t mind rinsing my panties out in the sink, or getting blood in the sheets now and then. I like not feeling like I have failed somehow when a product leaks….

I don’t know if I have expressed what a fun revelation this was. I am not lazy! I am not irresponsible! I just think it is ok to overflow sometimes! And it doesn’t make me a new age flake who organizes women’s retreats (not that there is anything wrong with that, it just isn’t me)! It is nice to notice that “free bleeding” can be a smaller, less extreme gesture than the way I usually see it portrayed…. Perhaps this is a whole new era (the era where I do things the same way I used to, but with new names for them). Mm-hm.

Brilliant.

To top it all, for those of you who fancy a crafty challenge, MyVag.net even offers free detailed instructions for sewing your own “lucky” vulva-shaped coinpurse, “complete with clitoris, labia, etc, and a toothy zipper where the vaginal opening should be…. Carry coins, cards, condoms, tampons, or whatever!” The easy-to-follow steps take you through the whole process, from fashioning the “clit hood” to fleshing out the “intralabial clefts”.

If, after all this, you’ve still got time on your hands, why not challenge your workmates to a round of “Whisker Biscuit”? See how many new names for the “afro clam” you can cram into casual conversation with unwitting colleagues (e.g. “Rinse out that fuzzy cup and fetch me a fun bun from the hot box, would you, Wendy?”). The loser is a pink-lipped custard sucker and gets the first round in after work. The winner is a cunt.