II. NO, IT’S NOT A SECOND BUTT My beginning years as a vagina bearer, a clam wearer, a vulva-possessing penis ensnarer, were smooth sailing. In a household with two sisters, things were thornier for my vagless brother. Vaginal privilege was undeniable. When Sam and I accompanied Mom to make Nordstrom returns and one of us needed to pee, to the ladies’ room we’d march. In that special room for dress wearers, my scandalized brother turned menstrual red while women reapplied makeup and adjusted their cleavage and shouted, “Does anyone have a t*mpon?” During my early schooling, I felt insecure about my vagina for the same reason I felt insecure about most things: A boy said something stupid. One sunny afternoon at Little Village Nursery School, Bobby with the widow’s peak bragged to a group of male snotblasters that he knew what “girl parts” looked like. “It’s like a second smaller butt,” he proclaimed, and I swear his widow’s peak got a little pointier as he said it. “Is not!” I whined from the tin-roofed play structure above. Feces came out of butts, so to suggest that I had not one but two poop chutes was unacceptable, defamatory, slanderous! Of course, when asked to “prove it,” I refused to “drop trou,” so who knows for how long those boys thought women were doubled-assed. Even more upsetting was in first grade, when Davey Mernick teased me for having to pee sitting down. Although well aware of this reality, hearing it spelled out, I couldn’t understand why God in Her infinite wisdom would curse women with such anatomical inefficiency. I practiced my stream in the shower, impressed with my arc and aim. However, my aquatic testing didn’t translate well to terra firma, and after the third round of de-urining the bathroom with half a roll of scrunched up toilet paper, I accepted that vaginas weren’t made for vertical peeing — but they weren’t made for pooping either, Bobby!
14 | Wallace Prize 2018