Gawker - We’re ova here

By Fran Hoepfner

I want it out — so why won’t any doctors do it?

I have an IUD, but I don’t want to have it anymore. There is a simple solution, in theory. What do you do with old clothes, used calendars, and books or computers you don’t want anymore? You get rid of them; they’ve served their purpose, done their job, and now it’s time to depart. I think of the IUD as something that belongs to me. I bought it, paid for it in my name. It is mine, my own.

Only once I tried to get rid of it did I come to understand that it was not really mine at all.

I got my Mirena hormonal IUD on a warm April morning a few years ago. I walked to my appointment from my apartment, considering all the ways in which the intrauterine device would change my life. I made the decision to go on birth control for the first time in many years not out of fear of pregnancy, nor owing to my friends’ crude but funny encouragement to start letting partners “bust raw,” but mostly because my periods were awful, and if there was anything I could do to mediate them, I was willing to give it a shot. Several of my friends on IUDs boasted of their mild or lack of periods altogether. I was envious of this, sick of the pain and soreness and messiness that came with a cycle that lasted a whole week, at minimum.

The IUD installation was quick but horrible, some of the worst pain I have experienced in my whole life, and perhaps a preview of the years to come. This is apparently not unusual; although most doctors and health information providers sum up the process of insertion as “uncomfortable,” some patients experience excruciating pain. My gynecologist, a woman I generally liked, did not walk me through the procedure or give me any sense of grounding, let alone the option for a painkiller. After a brief positioning, my doctor stabilized my cervix with a tenaculum, a hooked pair of forceps that pierces the soft tissue of the outer cervix to keep it from moving. As the sharp ends of the tool sank into this part of my body that had never before registered on a scale of physical sensation (let alone pain), I gripped the seat so hard I nearly passed out. My vision went black, then hazy, then ringed with auras, then, finally, the gleaming clarity of pain. I groaned — or cried — and a nurse put a small packet of Haribo gummy bears in my hand to boost my blood sugar. A few minutes later, they sent me on my way with my new constant companion. I spent the rest of the day in bed with a heating pad to help with the cramps. I felt like shit for a few days after, and then I leveled out, which in the IUD world means that I bled for two months straight before my period stopped altogether. Continue reading

By Tarpley Hitt

The effectively altrusitic billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has effectively bankrupted his crypto company

Over the summer, a coalition of America’s remaining print magazines — Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker — debuted a glossy, four-page advertising spread featuring supermodel Gisele Bündchen and Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old crypto billionaire, effective altruist, and Democratic megadonor. The caption read: “THE FUTURE OF INVESTING IS FTX. YOU IN?”

Bündchen had gone “in” with Bankman-Fried on a company that had, in a matter of three years, put him on the Bloomberg billionaires list and turned him into one of the most-trusted figures in the volatile crypto industry. FTX was a cryptocurrency exchange, or a kind of crypto bank, where users can deposit money in exchange for Bitcoin or Ethereum or any of their myriad and stupidly named competitors. The “In On” campaign marked the pair’s promise that crypto could create “positive change” and “impact for good.” Continue reading

By Allie Jones

This one has to do with acid reflux

It has been several months since Chrissy Teigen has found an occasion to post a nude mirror selfie to her Instagram story. Back in April, the 36-year-old model and influencer posted one under the pretense of showing off her “weird” tan lines. Yesterday, she posted another similar, fully nude shot in order to show her 39.7 million followers her “acid reflux tape.”

Okay, here it is: Continue reading

By Claire Carusillo

Authorities have cracked down on the climate activist who missed Charles and Camilla

Egg check!

On Wednesday, a strapping young member of the “non-violent civil disobedience” climate action group Extinction Rebellion threw four eggs at “King” Charles and Camilla R. while they were on a walkabout in York. He missed every time, so the story wasn’t as funny as it could have been.

Luckily for all of us reading about it and for the continued heft of the British monarchy, I guess, the 23-year-old eggressor Patrick Thelwell has been dealt with. In America, the state probably would have murdered him by now, but in England, the consequences are much more severe. According to the Daily Mail, he’s been charged with a section 4 offense for “causing fear or provocation of violence” and is awaiting sentencing. But even more draconian: “He said his bail conditions include staying at least 500 metres away from the King and not being allowed to possess any eggs in a public place.” Continue reading

By Kelly Conaboy

Can someone get me a tissue?

Who knew actor and bar owner Justin Theroux was also capable of penning swoon-worthy poetry? Talk about Leftovers!*

To catch you up, Allure hosted Jennifer Anison this month on the cover of its final print issue. In the accompanying photos, they made her look like a woman whose misguided younger friend from work somehow convinced her to, one year after a major divorce, dress like Julia Fox for a night out on the town in order to get her groove back. The odd visual choices were in contrast with the content of the interview, which focused primarily on Anison’s simultaneous struggles with IVF and public scrutiny for not yet becoming a mother.

“ … God forbid a woman is successful and doesn’t have a child,” Aniston told Allure. “And the reason my husband left me, why we broke up and ended our marriage, was because I wouldn’t give him a kid. It was absolute lies.”

Sounds like it fuckin sucked, which is why it is such a relief that Jennifer Aniston’s ex-husband Justin Theroux showed up in the comment section of her Instagram post, which featured photos from the story, to show his steady and clear-eyed support. Continue reading