just pull the trigger

Hello friend.

When I was writing two days ago I thought about including some trigger warnings at the beginning of the post. When I actually started to think about what potential trigger warnings to be, I realized just how much society tries to convince women that their bodies are wrong, insulting, provoking, etc. and I started to feel both angry and disgusted, mostly because even I had fallen victim to it. Even I was convinced that my talking about the natural processes that my body goes through could be considered offensive to some.

Seriously, what could I have put down as trigger warnings?

• Female reproduction system
• Female biology
• Period
• Menstrual cramps
• Flow
• Birth Control
• Pregnancy

I didn't even mention the words "blood" or "vagina" simply because I didn't need to. They would not have added anything to my post that is not already there. But if I had, would those have needed to become trigger warnings? What kind of world do we live in where someone needs to be warned of the usage of the word "vagina?" Furthermore, what kind of world do we live in where someone would choose to not read something because the word "vagina" is present?

Look at some of the male equivalents to the potential trigger warnings above.

• Penis
• Erection
• Ejaculation
• Semen
• Condom

These words are seen so much more regularly in every form of media than the previous list. They're so common that they would never be considered trigger words for a second.

The female equivalents need to be just as common. They need to elicit the same baseline response. Until that is the case, women will continually feel like they are in the wrong just for being women. Women will continually feel like their bodies are naturally offensive to others. Women will continually feel like they need to apologize for being women.

I am so glad that I didn't include trigger warnings on my previous post, because that would only be feeding the culture that I think we need to abolish.

And if, by chance, you were offended by my lack of trigger words, I challenge you to have a long think about what trigger words you would have liked to see, and why. Don't just say "Because it's gross" or "Because I don't need to read that." And if you say something like "Because I know nothing about that topic," then maybe it's time for you to educate yourself on half of the human population.