A reader illustrates "why I love (and sometimes hate) threads on The Dish":
April 28th: "Yeah. Why hasn't the pill evolved?"
April 29th: "True. It is hard to imagine a drug that alters the body that much without any negative side effects."
April 29th: "Birth control for men? That's the ticket!"
May 5th: "Oh, that's right. The IUD is a superior form of birth control that exists right now. People should know more about it. Except … what? A kind of IUD is known to have injured many women. Hence, some women and doctors worry about its safety and Big Pharma is afraid to innovate. That makes sense."
May 5th: "Oh, that was just one kind of IUD that really was a dangerous product. IUDs in general are AMAZING!"
May 9th: "Hmm, IUDs sound amazing, but this person had a HORRIBLE experience. There's a whole support network for problems associated with IUDs? The pill seems safer/better/more familiar."
May 11th: "IUDs are more like abortion than the pill? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Am I comfortable with that?"
May 12th: "Oh, what a relief. Everything I learned about the IUD being a form of abortion isn't true. The IUD is AWESOME, again!"I'm starting to realize that I should never feel strongly about a topic until I have all the information … and I will NEVER have all the information. I look forward to learning more soon.
Drum roll:
With regard to the emails that have been posted about IUDs, I don't see anyone complaining about the drawback for men; namely, the excruciating pain that occurs when the head of the penis rams up against the silk thread coming out of the cervix. Double ouch!
Update: A reader responds:
An IUD should not be painful! If it is, something is wrong with the placement of the string (which isn't silk, but some sort of plastic wire that is actually pretty sharp). After a while of having no problems with my IUD, its string suddenly started stabbing my partner. Then it started stabbing me. (That's when fixing it became extremely urgent! I can't imagine any birth control any more effective than sharp pain during sex, but that's not really an ideal contraceptive method.) The stabbing can happen if the string was cut too short, so that it can't curl around the outside base of the cervix. When this happens, a gynecologist can try to fix it by cutting the string even shorter so it sits only inside the cervical canal, or they can remove the IUD altogether and replace it. They just cut my string shorter, and then I was free and clear again!
I guess it's worth noting an editorial principle that has increasingly guided this blogazine. It is that what a chronological blog format can do, better than any other, is to unfold the aspects of an issue or argument or experience in real time through an actual conversation between intelligent, reasonable people. That's opposed to an authoritative take on any particular matter, gathered in advance over time and presented as settled fact or opinion.
This may sound very pomo, but, in fact, I think of it as the opposite. The aim is to reach a settled body of fact. We do not allow people their own facts – just encourage those that we may not have absorbed yet or known about. But we do allow people their own perspectives, experiences and arguments around these settled facts. The goal is to flesh out the reality through a conversation, rather than a monologue. Sometimes, these threads will end ambiguously; at other times they will convince any reasonable individual of a particular line of argument. My goal is to host the conversation, as well as present my own view as an occasional anchor for the discussion. And to allow my own attempt to better understand the world be the thread that keeps the whole thing, with any luck, coherent.
But the longer I have engaged this medium the more I have appreciated its potential for truth through honest conversation. We're biased but balanced. At least, that's the goal.
The Dish 