Pain and Pleasure
The pain is back. It’s a subtle variation of a familiar monthly agony that refuses to retire.
It’s in my abdomen, back, hips, and thighs. It feels like my retroverted bicornate uterus is a blood-soaked rag that my body wrings out by twisting it so tightly nothing could remain between the densely packed fibers. My ovaries are like tiny balloons being inflated from the inside causing sharp pangs that project out toward my hips. My hip bones are not spared. The pain is bone deep. It moves. It envelops. It consumes. It wraps around my waist and clings to my lower back like two vises clamped around my torso. With each crank, sharp bursts of fire shoot down my thighs until it reaches my kneecaps and subsides. The pain is nauseating. Waves of nausea interrupt eating and drinking, which makes it difficult to take my pain meds. The nausea and pain cause shifts in body temperature. My forehead sweats while my body shivers. My muscles clench, creating tension in my upper back, shoulders, and neck. Today, the pain is enough to cause a tension headache behind my eyes. On the worst of days, it triggers a migraine. The bleeding is the least painful part of menstruation. It's everything underneath the surface that makes it debilitating.
My body is queer—just as queer as the rest of me. It functions differently. It is not an overstatement to call it a "medical outlier." It's statistically true. My internal reproductive anatomy was enough to give me three children, but at great cost and great pain. However, the pain of menstruation and pregnancy was meaningful because it gave me three children. Now that my children have safely arrived, the pain feels almost meaningless—almost.
My pain now serves as a reminder that there must be opposition in all things. (2 Nephi 2:11) The depth of my pain will be tantamount to the depth of my pleasure. One is here to enhance the other. Pain is the price of knowledge. (Genesis 3:16) I know pain, but in time, I will know pleasure again. (Moses 5:11)
Strangely, my pain has given me access to guiltless pleasure. To be clear, I do not speak of pleasures akin to chasing the wind, but rather a pleasure that delights in one’s toil. (Ecclesiastes 2:1–11) We are that we might have joy, and my body is essential to my fullness of joy. (2 Nephi 2:25; Doctrine and Covenants 93:33-34)
When my body wants food and drink, I give it to her. (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25) When my body wants to have her cake and eat it too, I give it to her. (Ecclesiastes 5:18-19) When my body wants a Sabbath, I give it to her. (Isaiah 58:13) When my body wants sleep, I give it to her. (Proverbs 3:24) When my body wants mental reprieve, I give it to her. (Matthew 11:28-30) When my body wants to walk and talk along the river trail, I give it to her. (Genesis 5:24) When my body wants to dance, I give it to her. (Ecclesiastes 3:4) When my body wants intoxicating passion, I give it to her. (Proverbs 5:18–19) When my body wants a love story, I give it to her. (Genesis 29:18-22) When my body wants poetry, I give it to her. (Song of Solomon 4) When my body wants ecstasy in the garden, I give it to her. (Song of Solomon 7:12)
Indeed, there is a fine boundary between intimacy and lasciviousness. (Song of Solomon 4:16; Ephesians 4:19) Enjoyment and gluttony. (Ecclesiastes 9:7; Proverbs 23:20–21) Wrestling with God and avoiding the spirit of contention. (Genesis 32:24-28; 3 Nephi 11:29) Rest and slothfulness. (Exodus 33:14; Proverbs 19:15) Anxiety that motivates and fear that thwarts. (Doctrine and Covenants 58:27; 1 John 4:18) I don’t pretend that pleasure for the sake of pleasure is any more godly than suffering for the sake of suffering. (2 Timothy 3:4; 1 Peter 2:20) However, my chronic pain has taught me the meaningful difference.
Today, my body writhes in agony. Yet, when it passes, my body will writhe in pleasure. (Psalm 30:5) My desires are godly. (Psalm 145:19) My passion is holy. (Romans 12:11) My yearning is righteous. (Proverbs 13:12) My body will know gratification through the fulfillment of my desires. (Psalm 37:4) Not only do I not shy from the divinity of physical joy. (Doctrine and Covenants 88:15) I run toward it with a shameless stride. (Alma 36:17–21)
