Signs of the Times

FINALLY...!

Virginia Prince

Well, I finally did it! Many of you have thought I'd already done it and many others maintain that you just can't be a "real" woman unless you have it done. But I have fought against it for a long time and argued with many that it really wasn't ncessary in order to be a woman. Why alter your body when it is really a mental attitude that counts, I said. But let's face it-every TV toys with the idea of such an operation. To be honest, I've toyed with it for years. I sometimes found myself envious of other girls who had had it done but then I'd say, "Get off it, girl, they can't do anything that you can't do—except one thing," and I'd put it behind me for awhile.

But it would keep cropping up when I'd see a pretty woman in a beautiful dress, wearing a lovely necklace and with long earrings dangling from her pierced ears. I'd say to myself, "I'd like to be like her. She has a wider choice in her life than I have." But the thought of the pain, the danger of infection, of possibly not having the operation performed quite right so that the result might not be perfectly sym- metrical and off center or one sided. And then having to wear some- thing in the cavity for so long so that it wouldn't grow together and close up. And you have to take the plug out, wash it, clean and re- insert it and that can be messy, inconvenient, even painful. Moreover, you have to wear it continually for a long time and then you can later leave it out for an hour at a time and you can increase it to two hours, etc. Takes a long time before you can leave it out completely and feel safe about allowing anything else to be put in it-if you know what I mean. All of this deterred me. So I rationalized that I didn't have to do it, that I was just as well off without it, etc. But finally it got too much and I had to give in.

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