Intimate? Yes. Embarrassing? Sometimes. Funny? Of Course!
If you’re a woman, you may have had one of those moments when you were in your doctor’s office, poised to ask a difficult question. Maybe it was about hormonal changes. Lactation. Contraception. Your spouse’s moods. Menopause. Mysterious itching. Pregnancy or lack thereof. The HPV vaccine. Sexually transmitted diseases. And, basically, anything having to do with sex.
But you were afraid to ask. Why?
“Excellent question,” says Mary Jane Minkin, M.D. a nationally known expert on women’s health, sexuality, and menopause, who is from Guilford. “Anything involving sex is taboo for many people. People don’t want to talk about sex. But this is a part of life and people have to talk about it. And sex is only one part of it. I do a lot of menopause. That’s something that’s associated with aging, and people don’t want to deal with the fact that aging is a part of life. In fact, it’s not the end of anything at all, but there are changes, changes that can be dealt with, but people are reluctant to talk about it because it has to do with sex or aging. I think it’d be great if we can bring it all out and talk about what’s going on.”
To that end, Minkin and her good friend Amy Bloom, the famous writer and author of several novels including A Blind Man Can See How I Love You and Love Invents Us, also of Guilford, are reprising their recent performance in “Lady Parts: Car Talk for Women’s Bodies,” as a benefit for the Women & Family Life Center (WFLC), also in Guilford, an organization that serves women and their families, mostly along the shoreline but really anywhere in Connecticut, or just anywhere. (They once had a woman travel from Tennessee looking for help, and they helped her, because they don’t turn anyone away.) The fundraiser will be Sunday, March 5 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street, Ivoryton. Tickets are available at www.ivorytonplayhouse.org or by calling the box office at 860-767-7318.
The format will allow attendees to ask questions, anonymously if they’d like, in a friendly and supportive environment, and get answers. Bloom, in addition to being a best-selling author, is also a social worker with 30 years of experience. She’s written essays on human relationships, and a column on sexual etiquette, that appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other major publications. Minkin, a Yale-trained OB-GYN, also has doled out advice in national publications including Cosmopolitan magazine, Prevention, and Web M.D. She’s also been a guest on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and NPR.
They’ve known each other and been good buddies for years.
“She was my doctor when I had my first baby. We were both young people and we just hit it off, and she has been my doctor and friend ever since,” says Bloom. “Periodically, I’d ask questions about various events that had to do with women’s health. She would ask me a question. I would ask her a question. And we’d laugh. And we thought, you know what, we make each other laugh, we think the other person is smart and this might be a good project.”
Fun Just Like Car Talk
The talk is roughly based on the format of the long-running and very popular Car Talk radio show in which the hosts trouble shoot callers’ car problems, ranging from how to change the oil to why the wheels are falling off.
“I always thought it would be fun to make it just like Car Talk, with Tom and Ray playing off of each other,” Minkin says.
Minkin has a practice in Guilford and Essex, and she says she used to refer patients to Bloom when she was accepting new patients as a therapist in Middletown.
“She’d do the psychotherapy and I’d do the medical,” Minkin says.
Then Bloom went and became a successful and famous novelist, and had to stop taking new clients.
“I was pissed when she decided to become everyone’s favorite writer,” Minkin says, laughing. “People do the strangest things.”
They’ve already done the show at other venues, including The Kate in Old Saybrook.
“It’s a lot of fun. Anyone can ask a question. They can write it down on a piece of paper if they’re embarrassed,” she says. “They can ask whatever they darn well please.”
Minkin and Bloom hope it will achieve another objective, reducing or removing the taboos about talking about some of these subjects. They both say there can be real consequences for women, and their entire families, when questions don’t get answered and problems, some of them easy to solve, don’t get addressed.
“I think it’s great if we can bring it out and talk about what’s going on,” Minkin says. “Both Amy and I see that these unanswered questions can develop into relationship issues as well...You can see very unhappy people. You can see people in relationships being driven apart. People stop having sex for physical reasons, reasons that can be addressed, and the relationship suffers. All sorts of havoc can happen.”
Minkin says she has a growing group of people she’s working with, cancer survivors.
“I help run a clinic at Smilow, sexual intimacy and menopause for cancer survivors. These women are dealing with all of these issues, but multiplied, because chemo can do a number on you,” she says. “And they’ll say, ‘I’m a survivor, and I should be happy being a survivor, but I am extra miserable because of these problems.’ There are a lot of people like that out there.”
As cancers are getting detected earlier, increasing survival rates, this group is growing, Minkin says.
Minkin says her goal is to further reduce taboos about discussing these subjects through a website she’s developing called madameovary.com, working with her husband, Steve Pincus, a mathematician. The goal of the website is to help women, and the doctors who care for them, by helping them understand changes that occur in both the reproductive and post-reproductive years.
“Female health encompasses all of our body’s organ systems, and we need an integrative appreciation of how these systems interconnect and evolve,” she says on the website, which includes essays, blog posts, and videos.
“People can watch the videos, they can read the written didactic materials, there are lots of references. And there is a need for this information because people don’t feel comfortable dealing with these issues. I’m using it with my medical students, so they can watch first and then ask questions,” Minkin says. “So anyway, I’m trying to get the word out so people can get comfortable talking about these issues.”
‘My Buddies There Will Help You’
Another goal for both Minkin and Bloom is to help raise money for the WFLC.
“I regularly refer people there, my patients who have life issues. I say, ‘you know, go down to Fair Street and take a look, my buddies there will help you.’ Kids misbehaving? Losing your job? Divorce? They can help you. We’re really happy about that. We want to support them.”
Mirjana Toyn, the WFLC development director, says they are happy to have the support, which will help them support and develop programs.
“We could definitely do with the money,” she says. “And International Women’s Day is March 8, so it’s a nice time to tie it in,” adding that the Ivoryton is hosting a Women Playwright’s Initiative, with staged readings of the winning scripts on Friday, March 3 and Saturday, March 4, followed by discussions with playwrights, actors, and directors. “So the stars aligned and it’s a wonderful way to wrap up a women’s weekend at the Ivoryton.”
For more information about the plays, search “women playwright” at Zip06.com.
A goal for the center, which can be reached at 203-458-6699, is to emphasize that they serve all women along the shoreline and in Connecticut, not just in Guilford.
“We will never turn anyone away, no matter where they come from,” Toyn says. “We once had a woman drive all the way from Tennessee. She had family locally and was getting away from a bad situation. Our funding is not specific to townships, so we will never turn anyone away. We will try to set them up with services.”
She says that most of their clients come from the area that includes New Haven to Old Saybrook, along with Hamden, and Middletown, and that they serve about 1,000 women and their families every year.
“We are grateful because this helps us draw attention to our mission and the center. And we do need the funding, because we don’t receive governmental funding. Every penny we raise goes to good use. We’re very frugal. It’s granny chic over here,” she says, with a laugh. “So whatever we raise, can help us put on more programs.”
Their programs include the following:
• Safe Search: This is for women looking for a quiet place to make sensitive phone calls or search the Internet for help or a job. Access is provided to computers and the Internet; a printer, copier, and fax machine; a phone; locked storage to secure documents for future use; and a referral book of local resources.
• Support programs: Including divorce and separation programs, domestic violence crisis services, a food allergy support group, pregnancy and infant loss support group, and sexual assault crisis services. The divorce services also include time with a lawyer for an initial consultation.
• Girls Coach, Girls Run: Open to all shoreline families, this program is a leadership, running, and mentoring program that takes place while the girls are training for a 5K run. No running experience is required. The program is open to junior and senior high school girls, 8th grade girls, and 4th grade girls.
There are also yoga programs, writing programs, self-defense programs, walking programs, and more.
“The program with Jane and Amy is for people to just come and have a good time. And it will be interesting and educational. We want people to be comfortable in these political times to support women’s health, it’s an important issue for so many reasons. We don’t want women’s health to be put on the sideline. We’re hoping lots of people come and ask lots of questions,” Toyn says.
‘Ask Away’
Minkin agrees—”Ask away,” she says. “We like people to get out and learn about these things and learn that other people are dealing with the same issues. You’re not alone, you’re in good company. And for most everything, we can do something to help. Educate and entertain, that’s our goal.”
Bloom says she hopes that people will walk away with a greater understanding of a wide range of issue, including sexuality and relationships. She references a quote from the author Willa Cather: “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.”
“It’s extraordinary how often these human stories repeat themselves,” she says. “Parents. Children. Money. Sex. Power. That pretty much wraps things up.”
Despite the common themes and common troubles, she agrees it can be hard for women to reach out for help. “Some women, if they are in pain or difficulty, it can be unbearable for them to talk about it,” she says. “On the one hand, they’ll put certain things all out on the table, and on Facebook, and Instagram. But my experience with people is that there is that which we are willing to share. And then there is whatever is underneath that, and that varies enormously. Someone might be candid about their chemotherapy, but very quiet about a problem they are having with their kid.”
She says she is looking forward to another evening with Minkin and people in the audience.
“They have been enormously fun, and revealing, and frank evenings,” she says, noting she hopes people will come away with the notion that they don’t have to be perfect, that it’s OK to have problems.
“The general stance that some people take with Photoshopping”—a photography software program that allows people to make pictures perfect—”I take about life,” she says. “Let’s not always make everything look perfect and delightful. Let’s not require that of each other. Everybody struggles with something, everybody struggles with someone, and while we don’t always have to make that struggle the center of our existence, we don’t have to struggle in silence. So don’t.”