Southern Lady Code: Essays(25)

Twitter writes: “We appreciate your help in improving everyone’s experience on Twitter. Your 7 reports over the past hour will help make this a safer and better place.” And then they list the accounts I reported, so I am made to see them again: avatars of penises and accounts named IWank, Bigman, Traphoe, and Dick Sanchez, whose avatar is Anthony Weiner.

My husband asks, “Did Twitter delete their accounts?”

I say, “I don’t know. They confirmed that I reported them but don’t say what they did about it.”

My husband says, “They should. Do you want me to check?”

“No!” I say. “I don’t want that in your history.”

“So you’ll check?”

“No!” I say. “I’m not going to go snooping around accounts I reported. Why is it my job to double-check if Twitter is doing something about it?”

But I do. I email Twitter and set up a phone call with someone in their public relations department. She is polite and patient, but the gist is: Twitter allows porn.

As long as the Twitter account or its tweets are marked as containing sensitive media, or the sensitive media is hidden behind an interstitial, or the sensitive media does not appear in the account’s avatar or header, it’s cool.

Sensitive media includes adult content, which is defined by Twitter as “Any media that is pornographic and/or may be intended to cause sexual arousal.” Examples given are “full or partial nudity (including close-ups of genitals, buttocks, or breasts),” “simulating a sexual act,” and “intercourse or any sexual act (may involve humans, humanoid animals, cartoons, or anime).”

I have no idea what a humanoid animal is, but like pornography, I guess I’ll know it when I see it. And if I see something that violates Twitter Rules, I’m told how to report it. As when I see pornography, I get the sinking feeling I’ve been doing it wrong. I need to report the tweet. And if I want to stop seeing pornography altogether, I should make my account private or go to my safety settings and uncheck the box that reads, “Display media that may contain sensitive content.”

But taking all of these actions won’t stop pornography accounts from following me.

I don’t know what Twitter gets out of hosting pornography accounts, or what pornography accounts get out of following me. Do they want me to visit their sites and type in my credit card to watch more than 1:12?

I’m not going to do that.

Do they want me to become desensitized to the abuse and objectification of women?

I’m not going to do that.

Do they want me to stop reporting and blocking, and just relax, reset my privacy settings, and accept that pornography is part of my world?

Honestly, I consider it.

But now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen, I can’t go back to watching what I thought was “okay” pornography. For every video of consensual adults playing Cuisinart in the kitchen, something sinister must exist. Doesn’t one form of pornography enable the other? It must. Within the Twitter walls, it’s multiplying like mice. In the last twenty-four hours, two out of six of my new followers have been bald gray silhouettes with a penchant for women who unroll their bodies like airplane evacuation slides. Plus, I still have more than thirteen thousand followers left to investigate. And I can tell you, I’m so repulsed and exhausted, I want to quit.

But I’m not going to do that.

This is my house, and I will escort every unwelcome guest out. Because I am a lady. And from now on, I’ll use my imagination to enjoy myself.





DUMB BOOBS





Right before my forty-seventh birthday, my gynecologist told me I had to get a follow-up mammogram because I have “dense breasts.” “Dense breasts” is the term du jour. This year, every woman I know has dense breasts. Or as I like to call them: dumb boobs. Dumb boobs flunk mammograms. Suddenly all the women in my age bracket have breasts that have thickened like congealed New England clam chowder. If cancer is a green pea in that soup, radiologists can’t see that pea. So our dumb boobs have to be retested. Or take harder tests. Dumb boobs.

So back I went to Lenox Hill Radiology, which is run like a Burger King. You’re in and you’re out in half an hour, and the technicians handle your tits with the ease and nonchalance of someone flipping flame-broiled patties.

And here’s my advice about radiology technicians: you want the ones who look like flight attendants who’ve been pushing a cart since the days of coffee, tea, or me. You want older women. Been there, done that women. Weathered women. “Weathered” is Southern Lady Code for someone left the cake out in the rain (and the cake is that someone).

The last time I had a technician under thirty, she was stunning, with winged eyeliner and red lipstick, but her answer to my hello was: “So you don’t get your period?”

I was there for a sonogram because I had a twinge in my belly where my low-rise jeans cut me off. I said, “How old do you think I am?”

She said, “I didn’t look at your age on your chart. Are you here for an abdominal or vaginal test?”

I said, “I don’t know.”

She said, “You’ve got good insurance, you might as well have both.”

I said, “No, thank you.”

She left to find out what test she was supposed to administer, then came back and said, “The front desk spoke to your doctor and he says it’s abdominal.”