@sozobe,
sozobe wrote:
What's the big difference between a bimanual and a pap smear, though?
It's not like there are non-invasive ways to do a pap. Once the speculum is out, it's all pretty much the same to me. (An unpleasant chore to get through.)
apparantly that the doctor puts his/her fingers inside to palpate the ovaries and uterus.
big deal.
THAT is the most, well I won't say pleasant, but most, I don't know the right word....comforting, human, connecting with your body, immediately useful come to mind, part of the exam.
That's the time when my doctor is talking to me, and I to her, and I can totally concentrate on the conversation. There's the back and forth "How does this feel? Been having any pain/unusual discharge? and so forth and so on." It's 2 people interacting. It's my physician examining me. If anything feels wrong, she's going to tell me right then.
I don't feel any different about it than if she had to look around in my mouth, up my nose, or in my ears.
Once that speculum goes in, and I know the next thing is going to be a brisle brush scraping off some cells, I just concentrate on counting backwards from a hundred, and staring at the light fixture on the ceiling.
THAT's the unpleasant part. That's the part that feels invasive.
The use of stirrups was mentioned as a negative thing. I don't get that at all.
It's not a device that is tying you down, or restricting you. It's merely a concave place to place your heels, so you don't have to tense your muscles to keep you legs up and open.
You can easily bring your knees together when the doctor isn't examing you.
Every woman knows this, that if you just had your needs up and spread on the exam table, the doctor couldn't get close enough comfortably to even give you a pap.
It's just a place to put your feet so you can slide down the table far enough so that the area that's going to be examined, or have a pap taken, is closer.
I gotta tell ya, this femmes sure doesn't sound like an American, an advocate for women, or frankly, even a woman.
When I'm at my doctors office, my vagina, ovaries, uterus, cervix etc are on equal standing with any other of my body parts.