My Craigslist Chronicles

 It was all in the name of science of course - researching muscle tone in women and I, having great that, made a fantastic control subject. Although I didn’t get a sticker and a lollypop at the end informing others of that fact. It must be a truly horrible thing to be incontinent from one part or the other. The closest I’ve come is when I’ve had a lovely long bath and then I’m late for where I’m going, and have had to quickly shove clothes on and, well, many women may know what can happen a little while after a bath, there can be, um, leakage.

 This research is being carried out at UCSD Medical Center, a huge hospital jammed with a million departments. It tested my spatial abilities and I failed. How can I have be able to get a PhD yet not to retain a map in my head for a bare 30 seconds before I have to hunt for another “You are here” floor plan? My friend once said of his wife “Turn Betty round three times and she’s lost”. I’m the same. The pee-pee urological center is apparently an afterthought as it appears in what was probably a car park, around the back, through many doors and turns, all of which I initially took the wrong one of, like a child doing a maze very badly because they’re so bored when they’ve finished eating their kids meal and the adults are still talking, except normally the kid gets it right first time and then fills in all the dead ends, I do it the other way round, like a mouse who’s brain ... you get the idea of me and my best pal getting lost.  Bring on the brain implant that solves this – I will be the volunteer when they are trying them out.

 When I did finally reach the right place I, don’t know why, expected some big fancy research center, but it was just two women – the clinician heading the study, a woman of my age, and her younger assistant – in a cramped room. It still freaks me slightly when doctors are my peers. This is insane, being, 1) 40, and 2) a doctor who’s worked with both clinicians and other researchers for many, many years. I always expect them to be more professional than me. I admit it, despite all of my upbringing, all of my education, and all of my work, I still expect *Doctors* to be bearded old Caucasian men in pristine white coats. This is probably why I’ve spent the last twelve years being told “but you don’t look like a scientist”, when I tell people I am.

 For the purposes of the experiment I merely had to lie down on an exam table with my legs spread for two hours. The ceiling was the regulation tiled one (see also ‘Brazillian Wax Model’), there was a clock with pictures of horses heads on it, an advertising poster for some mountains and a light fixture that made my eyes go funny in an Escher type way. These are the things you have to concentrate on when someone is probing about down there for an extended period of time.

 First was the vaginal probe. Now look here people, a vagina is a perfectly natural part of a woman’s body so anyone who’s snickering at this point just calm down and grow up. Any woman who’s had a baby will have had this probe. It’s no less like a vibrator than you can imagine and having something that sexual put in sexual places for non-sexual means is rather disconcerting. She kept getting really near to all the nice bits and part of my brain was saying “come on Eleanor, concentrate, this is a perfectly legitimate medical procedure” and another part was “okay, up a bit, right a bit, a bit faster, now sloooooww”.

 Meanwhile I was being given very precise instructions: “Now sqeeeeeeze, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, and let go”. “Now squeeze and let go, squeeze and let go, squeeze and let go”. And so on, for six trials, while some machine measured my muscle tone and I got to see what the inside of my cervical canal looks like (beautiful of course).

 Then the same but up the arse! It’s not something I’ve ever done sexually, and any attempt has had me yelling “STOOOOP” at less than half a speck – eeeeek. The most I’ve had up there was a finger to check my appendix was swollen when I was 7 (it was, it was taken out, I have the scar, it looks like a stick insect viewed from underwater) so having a 4 inch probe up there and left, with the same “Sqeeeeeeeze, and hold it …” instructions was definitely a new experience and not one I’d personally do for fun, but hey, many women love it. Although actually, thinking back about it now, it was kind of pleasant ...