I remember vividly when the Guardasil vaccine was created. It was heralded as a scientific miracle. At the time studies suggested almost everyone who was sexually active had HPV at some point and the virus could morph into cervical cancer and often did. Cervical cancer is hard to screen for and advances quickly. Although other cancers have become very survivable with treatment cervical cancer remained just as severe as it always was. Women were dying and this vaccine could prevent that. It could save thousands of lives.
I was in my early twenties when Guardasil hit the market and I was excited about it. I hadn’t had any sexual partners yet but I wanted the vaccine as insurance anyway because who knows, maybe someday I would have lovers. So I asked. I was told the vaccine was “too new” and that I should wait a few years and maybe ask again if I took on a boyfriend. This made no sense to me. Why should I wait to take a preventative measure until I was possibly in contact with what it was supposed to prevent? It smacked of a misguided maternal instinct to protect me from the big bad world and I found gynecology is rife with this. You’d think the field would be very sex positive but it far from that. Ever since I started taking The Pill at 14 to ease my horrific periods I encountered a medical world that seemed more intent to slut shame it’s patients into behaving than actually doing anything useful for them. And in part I get it. I can’t imagine how many women come in for a routine pap smear or other little issue only to learn that their monogamous relationship really isn’t. Straight men have an overabundance of bad apples in their ranks and I can understand how this can result in hating men in general but to go a step further and slut shame the women that love them?? This is over the fucking top! So was asking to be seen by a doctor every year just to be on birth control when it’s over the counter in other countries!
A few years went by. I was still on The Pill and still praised highly for being a virgin by my gynecologist to the students who she was teaching! All while being told abstinence is the best for my health but if I had to give in condoms were a girl’s best friend. I thought this sentiment was kind of cute and folksy and I didn’t disagree with it. I mean when it comes to STD’s condoms are a girl’s best friend. But then at 25 I got a boyfriend and returned. Things seemed to change. The paperwork, nurses, and gynecologist all wanted to know exactly what I was doing sexually which I had no ambivalence in stating but it was clear by their silence and expressions they weren’t happy with it.
I asked again for my HPV vaccine. I was told this time that I was in a long term monogamous relationship and therefore didn’t need it. Great, so first I had to wait to have a boyfriend and then when I found one that disqualified me?! Not convinced this was the right path for me I asked again when I was 31. I’d just been through a breakup and I wanted someone to fuck. You can’t blame me, that’s human nature, but this still got me nowhere because this time I was told that people in their thirties who didn’t already have HPV were unlikely to get it so it’d be useless to get a vaccine. Excuse me?! What if I take on a different partner?! By this time I had asked one primary care physician and three different gynecologists and was denied every time.
And then I saw a commercial on the TV. I always made fun of the commercials that sold drugs during the wee morning hours but this one caught my attention. It was saying that Guardasil, the HPV vaccine, was now approved for people up to 45 years of age. Now, I know, this is Big Pharma trying to cash in on more patients now that it has already cornered the childhood vaccines market but I didn’t care. I made an appointment with Planned Parenthood. I was done with private practices.
I made the appointment online. It took all of a minute. I walked in, filled out the paperwork, talked to the doctor to make sure I was of sound mind, and they just fucking gave it to me. No fuss, no muss, I didn’t even have to make up a long stupid cover story about why I wanted it. I am never going to a private practice ever again. From what I saw in the waiting room Planned Parenthood was very sex and gender positive and I am all for that. No more of this “protective” bullshit that’s really just misogyny at it’s core. I want my reproductive care given to me by people who believe I, as an owner of a vagina, am capable of making my own basic decisions on sex and sexuality. And boy does it feel good to be treated as equal! As a human! As capable!
I can only imagine if it was this hard to get a damn vaccine how hard it must be to get your tubes tied. Generally speaking women are told repeatedly no unless they are at least 35 years of age or have at least 3 children or some fatal medical condition where a pregnancy might result in death. Why? Because the women who want them might change their mind. All the meanwhile I man can get a vasectomy just by saying so at any point in his life. It’s generally believed a man wanting to cut his reproductive life short has the right to do so and is of sound enough mind to make that choice for himself but a woman? Noooooope. We have to doctor shop like we’re Trick or treating and jumpt hrough all sorts of goddamn hoops!
I cannot tell you how many women I know about suffered years of terrible side effects being on the birth control pill because the medical community refused to listen to them and just tie their tubes. This is insanity. Stop infantilizing women, we know what’s best for ourselves, just let us be our own fucking advocate.