Banned Column-the penis column

One of two columns the Daily Cardinal found too unsavory to print

I guess it could’ve happened any day, but for some reason, it happened last weekend. Maybe it was because it was Halloween, or maybe I just finally took the plunge and upped my status to completely psychotic, but last Friday, walking down State Street, I realized that many things our society values look a lot like penises.

First I looked at the fake gun in the kid in the cowboy costume kept in his belt. I noticed its long, erect barrel with the two- looped trigger dangling beneath it. Then I looked over to the guy walking beside me, eating a warm, burrito oozing with salsa. A little bit startled and sort of turned on, I looked up into the sky to clear my mind, where I noticed an airplane flying overhead. I traced the plane with my eyes, starting with the two wings emerging from either side and ending at the rounded-off tip.

Defense, sustenance and mobility, three essential aspects of society, all shaped like the male genitalia.

Suddenly it hit me. All of it. Why I was embarrassed to lick ice cream cones around my parents when I was a kid. Or why stroking the rubber grip on my pens in class always seemed to generate a lot of attention once I hit middle school.

Great, I thought, it’s not like so many guys aren’t eager to drop their pants and show you anyway, they had to rig the rest of the world to mimic their pride and joy.

But maybe the penises and their inanimate followers are shaped the way they are because it’s just more of a convenient way to shape things.

I mean, us women can complain about the man’s bond with his anatomy all we want, but when it comes down to it, that “thing” between his legs is very useful to us in more than one way.

So, maybe all the penises of the world are just catering to women. A burrito, if you really think about it, is sort of empowering because we get to eat it. We keep it around as long as we like, and then after some biting and chewing, it’s gone.

Besides, a burrito shaped like a vagina would just make a mess anyway.

And distracting boys with pens in class keeps their minds off the blackboard so that we are guaranteed to set the curve.

When I was in preschool I took the lump of play-dough we were playing with, twisted it into a long, narrow tube (for some reason I thought penises looked like rigatoni noodles), and shouted, “Look! I made a penis!”

My teacher quickly dropped what she was doing and dragged me out of my chair.

“Kiera!” she yelled. “We don’t say that word in here!”

I was humiliated. I hadn’t meant to act up or offend anyone. No one had ever told me I was supposed to be ashamed of penises.

Merely three years later, when I was in the first grade and had my first crush, I distinctly remember thinking there was something severely wrong with me for having those feelings for someone who possessed that diabolic appendage on his groin.

So somewhere between being a toddler and a young child, the switch inside me flicked from penis pride to penis guilt.

I don’t think that’s fair. Just because women aren’t born with them on their bodies doesn’t mean we don’t use them just as much, and there’s no reason to be ashamed of something so prevalent in our society.

So until vaginas and lactating nipples take over the world, we should embrace the penis. A world without them would be very, very hard to come by.

Banned Column-stories from the gyno

This is one of two columns the Daily Cardinal found too unsavory to print

Between the ages of 13 and 20 every blossoming woman’s life is filled with milestones: high school at 14, driver’s license at 16, adulthood at 18.

And then there are the milestones that aren’t defined by ages, but rather by firsts: first kiss, first heart break, first time realizing the stairs leading directly into your basement from the garage were a gift from God.

Somewhere in there, of course, is your first time, which is generally followed by a not-so-popular first: the first gyno appointment.

At 22, I am long past my first encounter with the gynecologist. Unfortunately, due to flighty college years, I’ve had first appointments with three different gynecologists all around the country.

Going to a gynecologist is not like going to a pediatrician or a family practitioner. During your standard physical, you get felt up at best. At the gyno, they actually have holsters to indicate how far to spread ‘em so the doc can ram her digits up your muffin.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Doe. I will be doing your physical today. May I start with your blood pressure?”

Or...

“Hello, I’m Dr. Pootang. I will be inserting myself inside you today. Will you open your vagina for me now?”

Two of the three gynecologists I’ve visited have used flattery to ease the awkward dynamic.

“Has anyone told you you have fantastic abs?” Gyno Number One asked me while she had one hand inside me and one on my lower abdomen to feel my ovaries. “How do you get them so firm?”

“Sit ups,” I muttered, vowing to binge on peanut butter by the spoonful and ice cream to assure my stomach flopped over my jeans if I ever decided to come back.

Astonishingly, the next one just got weirder.

“Ok, Kiera, I’m just going to take a quick peak,” my last gyno told me before we got started. “It might feel a little cold.”

“Alright.”

“Wow. You have a very pretty vagina. I mean gooorgeous. I bet the boys can’t wait to get in there!”

“Yeah, they’re just banging on my front door,” I said, resorting to my usual combo of sarcasm and innuendo I reserve for severe verbal violations of my body.

Unfortunately, my friends didn’t have much better luck during their first visits.

“Will this hurt?” my friend Melanie asked her gynecologist.

“Not if you’ve had a dick inside of you.”

Liz, who, in fact, had not had a dick inside of her, was met with advice for her sexual future.

“Here you go honey, let’s just get this situated in there. You know, sweetheart, this is what sex is going to feel like.”

We spent the evening convincing a very disturbed Liz that a penis was not a metal clamp that looked like a hair curler and that her first lay probably wouldn’t check her uterus for abnormalities.

It takes girls a long time, sometimes the duration of their teenage years, to allow someone else to touch them in that mysterious spot in- between their legs. There’s a lot of trust involved in building a relationship with someone else that will eventually lead to that.

But with a gynecologist, you just have to walk in there, endure awkward introductions, and open wide. The two of you could still be on “What year are you in school?” while she has her hand up your cooter.

Although it’s not on the same pedestal as losing your virginity or graduating high school, surviving your first Pap smear should be up there with one of those things that makes you that much more grown up.

So Ladies, your first gyno visit will probably be uncomfortable, humiliating, violating and an overall invasion of privacy. But keep in mind that we’ve all been through it. And you would be less of a woman if you didn’t bare it too.

And to all the guys out there: cut us some slack, would you? We all know you have invasive physicals as well, but has the pretty nurse ever stuck her fist so far inside of you that you wonder if there’d be an echo if you shouted? Yeah, didn’t think so.

So the next time your girlfriend complains about her upcoming gyno appointment, refrain from the “eeuws” and the puking noises and instead take a moment to appreciate everything she does just to have sex with you.

Scrabble spells snafu for summer snacking

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Sept. 9, 2008

I had been eating most of my lunches at Subway anyway, given its proximity to my summer job, so there was nothing out of the ordinary that prompted that visit.

I ordered my usual. Six-inch veggie on Italian herb & cheese, not toasted please. The works. No tomatoes.

As I made my way down the assembly line towards the register, I noticed something about Scrabble. Immediately I thought of the death of Facebook’s Scrabulous, and cried a little.

But then I got my sandwich and beverage and noticed a tiny message on the side of my cup and on the paper wrapping of my sandwich that dared me to “peel here.” Feeling adventurous, I peeled right there and was the proud owner of one free cookie (good on next order, no substitutes), and the letter “R.”

Turns out that Subway Scrabble was similar to McDonald’s Monopoly. You spell a word like “fresh,” “Subway” or “airplane” (or get a few letters from each) and you’ve won a trip to Jamaica, one hundred grand. An airline ticket (who could’ve guessed that one?).

From then on, I was hooked. I counted down the minutes at work until paper peeling pleasure at noon every day. Most of the time, I got more “R”s. There were a few “S”s and, once, even an “E.” That night, I drank to my first vowel.

But soon enough, my lunchtime rendezvous weren’t enough to feed my addiction. I started looking for other reasons to frequent the various Subways around Madison. Like to celebrate that the cicada living on my window ledge had sex (then died). Or because I remembered to refill my birth control this month (or forgot). Or maybe my boyfriend just lost all his groceries. And plates. And silverware (that usually reappear after our mealtime Scrabtastic satisfaction).

After a while, not only was one Scrabble meal a day not enough, but one meal’s worth of letters a day wasn’t cutting it anymore either. So I rounded up the troops.

“Where should we go for breakfast?” a friend asked on our way to the Dells.

“I could go for some bagels,” someone else responded.

“Pastries sound good,” another voice chimed in.

“I know the perfect place,” I said.

After directing three hungry and disappointed boys to Subway at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, I made sure they all ordered the jumbo sodas that have two letters instead of one.

It soon became my answer to everything: “Where should we have my birthday dinner this year?”

Well, the Monday Subway cashier girl is an ex-touring folk singer. I’m sure she does a fantastic “Happy Birthday.”

“My cat just died. Can we talk?”

Of course, we can have a good cry over a chicken teriyaki or a meatball marinara!

“I have mono. Stay away from me.”

I heard that Subway’s sandwiches are laced with Percocet and Vicodin. You’ll be back on your feet in no time.

I quit my job. It was getting in the way, and I couldn’t focus anymore with the voice in my head screaming (give me an “R,” give me an “M,” give me a “V”) over and over.

I lost weight. A lot. My eyes became permanently encircled by dark crevices. None of my friends wanted to hang out anymore. And I started injecting my sandwiches for more intense pleasure. I trolled the streets at night for letters. I found a dealer. Won a whole sandwich once. But I owe him money. I think he’s going to kill me.

Went to rehab. Made some good friends and finally shared the traumatic story from my childhood of the time my family went to Subway without me while I was at a sleepover party. I haven’t spoken to them since.

I went cold turkey for a while, but today I Scrabble a healthy number of times a week. My sponsor is proud.

I’m back to my normal weight now and have rekindled old relationships. But every time I peel back a new letter, I can’t help the adrenaline rush or the resulting euphoria. I’m pretty sure it’s not threatening anymore, though. It’s just a soft reminder of the beach vacation or Jacuzzi full of cash that could’ve been but is no more.

If you have an F, a U, a Y or a V, e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu and she’ll share her prize. Maybe.

All the weirdness ends, Kiera explains it all

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published May 6, 2009

After writing my column for two years, it’s time to say goodbye. Although all I really want to do right now is curl up in a ball and cry while excessively thanking my weekly readers (assuming they actually exist), I thought a good way to end things would be to clear up a few misconceptions.

Any good relationship is based on honesty, right? So I thought for my last column I’d let you all in on where I’ve been completely frank and where I’ve exaggerated. So I’m putting it all out on the table; no lies, no elaborations, just the plain, scary truth.

I’m not a sexual deviant Contrary to what I may have written over the past two years, I do not have sex, or fantasize about having sex, with young boys, puppies or any other illicit party. I have boring old vanilla sex with my boyfriend. End of story. The closest I’ve come to sexual deviancy was when my guinea pig pooped on my chest.

I don’t have an unnatural obsession with bodily functions Periods are funny. Vomit is funny. Most things that come out of your body are funny. Plus, they’re easy to make jokes about when I’m writing on deadline. But no, I don’t lie awake at night dreaming of feces. It’s just a funny word to say. Say it with me once. You know you want to. Feces. Wasn’t that awesome?

My family is not that crazy No, wait, they are. OK, first of all, if my family were completely sane, would I have turned out the way I did, typing away in the student newspaper trying to convince you that I’m not obsessed with my period and don’t commit sodomy with innocent puppies? Probably not.

Although many of my anecdotes have been exaggerated, the ones on my family are the few that I’ve rarely altered.

Yes, my grandma really did spit out her gum in her Diet Coke and then offer it to my aunt Julie, and yes, she often tells stories that begin with her defecating. She once asked if my brother’s babysitter ate his puke.

My mom really hosted an extended family “Would You Rather?” competition where we all had to write our own perverted “Would You Rathers.” And yes, I was proud of my victory.

My dad, the most sane of all of us, actually is a urologist, and we really do hear him say things such as, “How firm is your erection?” from the dinner table. And at one point, he tried to get a license plate to say “DICKDOC” or “ICUPEE” that was denied. Although I have a feeling my mom might have been the one pushing him to do it.

I get some weird e-mails A lot of you guys have sent me really awesome e-mails. But I’ve gotten some pretty fucked up ones, too. Like one girl wrote to me regarding my puppy obsession column, advising me that there’s more to raising a dog than cuddling. Really? Thanks, sweetheart. I thought I was writing a humor column, not a guide for caring for your new puppy. Another guy e-mailed me after my Shakespeare column to tell me that I was so dumb because I didn’t memorize every line of “Othello” before I went to the play that I should give up all hope of going to an Ivy League grad school. If he’s such an Ivy League scholar, why’s he reading my column and e-mailing me detailed criticism of it? If it’s so beneath you, don’t read it. I really don’t care.

I’m actually nice to my boyfriend Regardless of the constant references to me doing awkwardly erotic things to other people, I don’t cheat on my boyfriend. I did once ask him to make a celebrity crush list, basically a get out of jail free card to have sex with specific celebrities, but that was when I was still jaded after seeing Emile Hirsch’s penis in “Into the Wild.” I’m over that now. Honest.

I don’t make that much up If it doesn’t seem realistic, like an animal lover making animal sacrifices, or trying to get an abortion when I wasn’t actually pregnant, it didn’t actually happen. But if it seems semi-feasible—like making passes at truckers over my friend’s radio, or my masseuse groping my breast and seeming to enjoy it—it happened.

Only e-mail me if you’re going to be nice. Otherwise I’ll find another way to make fun of you in a public forum. wiatrak@wisc.edu.

Art fair teaches lessons, brings confidence

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published April 28, 2009

I don’t want to do this,” my mom whined from the front seat.

“Did you say something?”

“I’m nervous. What if people don’t like them?”

“How did I get here? What time is it?” I looked at my watch. It was 7 a.m. and I was on my way to Temple Israel in the suburbs of Detroit, where my mom grew up, on a Sunday morning.

My mom had flown in from Tennessee for the synagogue’s art fair. She was showing framed fabric collages and tallitot—Jewish prayer shawls—that she designed and created using an array of fabrics and textures.

Although she’d been doing this for years for family, this was her first time going public, and she was terrified. “They’re all going to say, ‘What is she even doing here? She’s not an artist.’”

“I remember going to bed at two and now I’m driving. What the hell? Did you drug me or something?”

“I know what I’m going to do! I’m going to tell them that you made them. You’re young and cute and they’ll react much better to you.”

“Mom, that’s ridiculous.”

It was ridiculous. Whatever artistic talent she has she did not courteously pass along to me. I can hardly match my clothes in the morning, and am pretty sure that mauve is a fungus.

Lucky for me, though, she forgot all about her brilliant idea once my grandma and my aunt Julie arrived to help us set up. The vast majority of my aunt’s anecdotes start out with, “So I was on the toilet when…” and my grandma is probably the only 80-year-old woman who uses Youtube to find videos of birds dancing to Ray Charles.

I decided to wake up with a chai latte from a cart set up in the lobby from a man who looked to be in his late 50s. “Why hello there! We have biscuits this morning for only 50 cents apiece.”

“No thanks, just the chai for me.”

“Oh,” he said looking me up and down disappointedly. “Are you on like a diet or something?”

Before I had a chance to answer, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a bar of soap.

“Special for you, my dear,” she said.

When I returned with my latte in one hand and soap in the other I grimaced at my mom and said, “Apparently I’m fat and smelly,” I replied.

“My Diet Coke tastes like gum,” my aunt Julie chimed in.

“What?”

“It’s like Mom spit out her gum in here or something,” she said.

“Mom?” aunt Julie yelled across the room. “Did you spit out your gum in the Diet Coke?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I forgot,” my grandma yelled back.

About 30 minutes later, we finished setting up and the show opened to the public. To my relief, people loved my mom’s stuff, and she managed to sell over $1,000 worth of merchandise.

The thing that impressed me the most, though, was she was never ready to sacrifice her integrity for the sake of a sale. A few people came by and asked if she would custom make a tallit with fabric they picked out. She agreed to custom make them along with a theme of their choice, but she refused to let them pick out the fabric. She wouldn’t be able to design them as effectively, she said, if she were restricted in the fabrics she could use.

At that moment I wished I had her courage not to sell out. If someone offered me hundreds of dollars to forge a piece reflecting on, say, reflections of a gay Episcopalian man, I can’t say I wouldn’t accept.

A couple of hours later, after my mom sold a few pieces and I reluctantly accepted three more gratuitous bars of soap, an older woman walked by with her husband.

“This looks like wallpaper,” she huffed.

I looked at my mom nervously. This was what she was afraid of all morning. But to my relief, she started laughing.

“Did you hear that? Wallpaper. Ha!”

That’s when I finally understood what it was about, this Detroit community that allowed so many people to go from completely self-conscious to 100-percent confident in a matter of hours. From bathroom stories, dancing birds, soiled beverages, diets and wallpaper, everyone is just so crazy that you can feel normal doing things you wouldn’t dare to do elsewhere.

I returned to Madison Sunday evening knowing a little bit more about my mother, and a little bit more of where I came from.

For the last two years I’ve been exaggerating my life for your entertainment, but next week, for my last column, I’m going to tell the truth… about everything. If you have any questions about me or anything I’ve written, no matter how personal or offensive they may be, that you’d like answered in my final column, e-mail me at wiatrak@wisc.edu.

Be mindful of clothing choices at blessings

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Feb. 17, 2009

Two weekends ago I flew to St. Louis with my boyfriend to celebrate his parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. To my dismay, a few days before we set off, my boyfriend Jeff informed me that we would be accompanying his parents to synagogue where they would receive a special anniversary blessing.

Jeff and his family go to a conservative synagogue, whereas I was raised in a reform one. Having been to both, I’ve only found very few key differences between the two, one of them being they speak a hell of a lot less English in the conservative one, upping the boredom factor by a zillion.

Another is the dress code. Reform synagogues tend to have more of an “anything goes” policy. That’s not to say showing up in a leather mini skirt and hooker boots wouldn’t get you a few shaming glares (we’re famous for those) from your Aunt Edna, or an extremely enthusiastic “Shabbat Shalom!” from cousin Yitzchak, but generally, as long as your outfit doesn’t suggest a possible pole dance on the Bima, you’re in good shape.

Conservative synagogues, on the other hand, generally expect women to cover their knees and elbows.

I wasn’t dressed conservatively, but I wasn’t dressed like a slut either. Although my top showed no cleavage, the sleeves hit just above my elbows, and though my skirt wasn’t a mini, it didn’t quite reach above my knees.

I figured as long as I didn’t look like a total whore no one would notice, because why would anyone be looking at me anyway? I found the answer to that question when they asked Jeff and me to go up on the Bima and open the Arc, where they keep the Torah, the holiest book in Judaism.

They handed me a Tallit, which basically looks like a giant scarf, and amplifies your individual holiness. They also gave me a palm-sized circle of black lace, which for some reason, I really wanted to put in my bra to taunt my boyfriend.

Turns out, the lace is for married women to put on their heads, a fact I was unaware of when I clipped it in, and remained unaware of as Jeff’s parents went up to the Bima to receive their blessing while Jeff and I waited to be told when it was time to open the arc.

“We’d all like to congratulate Bob and Rosalie on their 25th wedding anniversary,” the president of the synagogue said before the prayer. Jeff reached over and grabbed my hand.

“It’s so wonderful that their children are here to celebrate with them,” he continued, motioning toward Jeff and his younger brother. I leaned over and kissed Jeff on the cheek.

“And having their grandchildren here with them is truly a blessing.”

Jeff and I instinctively pulled away from each other. Given that Jeff’s only sibling didn’t even have a significant other, he couldn’t have been referring to anyone but us. His parents vehemently shook their heads.

“No! We don’t have grandchildren!” I saw them mouth to the president.

“Well, then your grandchildren on the way,” he said warmly.

I buried my head in my hands and whispered to a woman staring disapprovingly at my ringless left hand, “I’m just bloated,” but her grimace quickly turned to a smile when she noticed the black lace on my head.

After what seemed like an eternity, Jeff and I were called to the Bima to open the arc. I nervously stood up, black boots, short skirt, giant scarf, head lace and all.

I tried not to think about what everyone else thought of my outfit as I took the walk of shame toward the Torahs. Once we opened the arc, we waited on either side as they sang a blessing for the Torah.

I noticed Jeff looking angrily at the floor.

“What’s wrong?” I mouthed, when I finally met his gaze. He shook his head in defeat as he clasped his hands together across his waist.

“That skirt looks really, really good on you,” he mouthed back.

I considered slowly inching it up to watch him suffer, but wasn’t quite sure how to do that without the entire congregation noticing. Plus, I figured he had been tortured enough for one day.

As we drove home, no one mentioned anything about the grandchildren, the head lace or, thankfully, the incident with the skirt on the Bima. But they all must be thinking about it, I thought, as I decided that I’d rather celebrate my 25th anniversary in a brothel than a conservative synagogue.

Ever made an awkward situation more-so with only your clothing? E-mail Kiera your story at wiatrak@wisc.edu.

Classmates battle timetable, each other

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Nov. 18, 2008

Last week, I started watching a new reality show—“Enrollment Frenzy”—where five strangers at one university grapple with one incredibly inconvenient timetable. The prize: getting the classes you need to graduate.

The five students—Rosie, Lilah, Casco, Coby and Jake—thrust into this course-choosing mania together, seemed to hit it off really well at first. Lilah had a crush on Jake, but Jake had a crush on her best friend Rosie who had a crush on Casco who had a crush on Coby, but swore he was straight.

But then the second episode premiered with the incestuous bunch receiving Enrollment E-mails, assigning them individual enrollment times. That’s when the backstabbing began.

“We designed enrollment as a test of character,” said the advisor, who oversees the show. “Who has the inner strength to turn on all of their friends in the name of self-interest? Who copes with their classes filling up by drinking themselves into a coma, and who will chuck their laptop at the nearest life form?”

While the cast is told that the advisor is there to assist with registration, he actually works behind the scenes to further complicate the process by unplugging the internet during enrollment appointments, adding and subtracting classes from the timetable at random and replacing the Student Center with angry clown porn for ten minutes every half hour.

Rosie’s appointment time came first. Lilah, her BFF, asked Rosie to hold a class for her since her enrollment time was the last of the group. But Rosie had to say no because she was already at 18 credits—she was trying to choose between “Deconstructionist Political Modernization in a Post-Existential Platonic Society” and “Modernizing a Political Deconstructionist Plato in an Existentialistic Manner.”

Overwhelmed with guilt, Rosie promised to sleep with Coby to get his password and hold Lilah’s “No One Loves You and That’s Why You Always Register After Everyone Else” (Sucks to be You 433) course. “I slept with Coby because I probably would have anyway,” Rosie said in the confession room. “I have really low self-esteem so I tend to sleep with anyone who asks me. Plus, it’s really, really good for my reality TV career.”

But Coby was too quick for her. Having overheard Rosie and Lilah’s conversation, he slept with Casco first, stole his password and passed it onto Rosie as his own.

“You gotta do what you gotta do to graduate,” Coby said of his conniving antics. “You’re never going to get into the right classes without sleeping with some people you wouldn’t otherwise. I learned that from VH1.”

Jake kept to himself through most of the process.

“No one understands the dark abyss that consumes my life,” he said. “So I don’t think the others were interested in my classes. I enrolled in ‘My Blood is a River of Feelings (Rich Kids Rebelling Against their Parents by Turning Emo 583),’ ‘My Body is a Jacket of Constraint (Self Loathing 322),’ and bowling.” Once all five students had registered for classes, the advisor arranged for a get-together to “talk about schedules.” Jealousy-driven pandemonium ensued.

“I knew that if I got them together to compare their schedules, they’d realize they weren’t actually content with their classes,” the advisor said. “This meeting was guaranteed to bring the most drama this network has seen since Pluto chose its replacement in ‘Who Wants to be a Planet?’”

Coby and Casco immediately began fighting over the 8:52 comp lit slot, given the two were both enrolled in the 8:49 lecture. As Casco stabbed Coby, Jake sobbed quietly in the corner at the omission of bowling in the timetable. Rosie, afraid she was being outdone with all the blood on Casco and Coby’s end of the room, began making out with Lilah.

The show ended with a memorial service for Coby, Rosie giving birth to her third child, Jake sacrificing a goat to Satan, Casco doing time and Lilah, the winner, graduating.

“Being on the show was an amazing experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything,” she said, showing off her diploma to the camera. “Be sure to look for me next season in ‘Living Law School!’”

If you’d like to audition for next season, e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu.