The other day, during a routine video chat, Tiff’s mom popped her head into the frame to say hello.
“Mom, tell Ashley what you told me the other day,” Tiff prompted. After a little hesitation, her mom spilled the news: she knew someone whose uterus had—quite literally—fallen out of her body.
It was shocking. And yet, just another addition to the growing list of things we were never taught about our wombs.
This week, we talk about what sex education missed, why we believe women’s cycles should run the world, and how we've shaped both our friendship and The Landline around the rhythms of our own bodies.
Tiff: I'm learning all of the womb care information through you since this friendship kicked off.
Ashley: Which is flattering. Also your mother.
Tiff: Yes.
Ashley: I didn't know that my uterus could fall out of my pussy. Where was that information In middle school sex ed?
Tiff: That right there is what we should be thinking about every time we get the inclination to conquer a more challenging experience.
Ashley: Say more?
Tiff: Big dicks.
Ashley: Oh, is that, wait, is that what did it?
Tiff: No, but I just feel like they have to be related. She was sharing it with me.
Tiff: 'Cause she was like, did you know that this happened to this family member?
Ashley: Okay.
Tiff: And I was like, What did you say outta your face hole? And then I had to Google it.
Ashley: No. I have literally chosen to never Google that.
Tiff: No, I am. I had to know if she was just being terrible to me or you know, like, Oh, I thought I'd tell you this and I don't know, traumatize you.
Ashley: You wanted to make sure you weren't being trolled by your mom?
Tiff: I wanted to make sure like, is she using the right words? Okay. Did she mishear? Is it an urban legend? Did this person tell her this in order to spook her. Was she exaggerating? Is she a known liar? So I Googled it and it is real.
Ashley: Okay.
Tiff: It is real. It's real. That can happen.that. That goes back to pelvic floor exercises.
Ashley: Pelvic floor exercises and general womb awareness.
Tiff: Wellness
Ashley: Let me know if your experience was different, but my entry point into womb awareness was sex ed and just kind of your period being something that when you're menstruating, you have to manage with this product, this product, and this product. And this is what it means for your body's development.
Like if someone explained to me what the luteal phase was when I was battling what felt like a mental health crisis every month, and not knowing that adding shame to that was only making it worse.
Tiff: And also like being socialized to think that wombs were just periods and periods were inconveniences that got in the way of school.
For me practice. I was an athlete and I was put on birth control because I was like cramping and falling after races because something was happening to my body. It was like messing with my period and my period would shift and then it would come at an inconvenient time and I needed to perform.
So then the way to have it be predictable and tame is birth control. So at what, 15, 16, I was put on birth control and then stayed on it for the next 15 years. That was how I managed my period. So when I got off of birth control in my thirties, minutes before I was pregnant is when I started to learn about my body. And I was immediately like a pregnant person. So like I stopped birth control and was pregnant in five minutes.
Ashley: Whore.
Tiff: Whore, whore. Minutes. Soon as the, soon as the pill, I peed that last pill out, it's like boom. Pregnant.
Ashley: Baby.
Tiff: Baby. And then nursed for a year.
Ashley: Yeah.
Tiff: So then no period. So no real need to know anything 'cause everything's working. I got a baby out of it. So it's working. It's fine. Nursed, no period. I stopped nursing and I was pregnant again like five, six months after that.
Nursed again for a year. Around 36 is when I got my period again for the first time in many years. And then at 36 it came back and like five minutes after that I'm moving into weird perimenopausal stuff.
Ashley: You know what's interesting about that is the fact that we forget the four phases of our cycle—we're always in cycle. So even after pregnancy, even during breastfeeding, you are still cycling. You might not be menstruating, but you are still going through phases.
And even that is an example of how disconnected from our bodies and how focused it's always been on the menstruation element because that's the part that Inconveniences the patriarchy and society.
Tiff: And it's also the part that produces the next crop of workers.
Ashley: I had a conversation with Chelsea VonChaz, the period doula. I spoke with her for Okayplayer. I also spoke with her for The Landline and we're including her wonderful insight in our feature.
Tiff: Nice.
Ashley: She described them as seasons and I was like, yes.
Tiff: Yes.
Ashley: She’s like, you have a Spring, you have a Fall, you have a Winter. And when we talk about things like, Oh, you know, this part of the month, I'm depressed and it sucks because I have meetings and blah, blah, blah.
What if when we are in our Winter when we're supposed to be chilled the fuck out and not super social and sleeping a little bit more, and all of those things, it was socially acceptable to like, I don't know, call out for three to four days and say, “I'm in my Winter and I need Winter rest.”
And that, that being so tied into the model of life that we're all, you know, building our lives on top of it doesn't disrupt business. It doesn't disrupt production. It doesn't disrupt things in life because it's built on that shit.
Tiff: Yes, yes. Astrology is the thing that brought me to womb care. Because tracking astrology to me is it feels like a good track of seasons. Because certain signs happen in certain times. You have all of your elements represented in those times. I can look at my relationships and my friends and kind of see the different things showing up.
And astrology is what introduced me to moons and moon cycles and that relationship to, you know, women's bodies. That was how, that was my entry point into this. And then really, you. Our conversations because you have a lot more knowledge. And then now, I mean now you have training and like even deeper understanding.
So that was like a deeper understanding of like, okay, so the thing that I'm feeling and sensing and that people call, like, woo-woo, you're telling me it's real. And then thinking about how we wanted to manage Landline and like what works for us and what works with our schedules. I think your cycle is like maybe like a week or so ahead of mine.
So even sort of how we cover and how we dip out and who kind of like has a burst of energy at a certain time and who else has a dip in energy of another time? It was like, oh my God, it, not only does it make sense, but it works.
Ashley: Mm-hmm.
Tiff: Like it still produces, and it doesn't tax. It honors.
Ashley: Yes. I love that about us!
Tiff: I love that for us.
Ashley: And I love how naturally that kind of evolved. Because I think it came from obviously like being transparent with each other because we're friends and we can say things like, “Bitch, I'm bleeding over here and my fucking ovaries are throbbing and I cannot get out of bed.”
Tiff: Yeah. Like, “I have to end this call because I have to sleep 'cause I think I'm gonna die.”
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Ashley: Mm-hmm.
Yes, exactly. And it's really great to have that kind of partnership, I love that that's the thing that sort of shaped the Landline.
Tiff: Even our rest period, you know. We didn't bounce on the scene with New Year's content.
Ashley: No.
Tiff: We didn't launch, you know, do a rebrand on January 5th or anything like that. It was like, you know what? We're not putting anything up.
Ashley: Yeah. Because we were resting in real life resting
Tiff: Because it was the depths of Winter.
Ashley: Yeah.
Tiff: And then we kind of like, we kind of followed, I mean, that was very astrological because I don't believe in the calendar new year. I believe in the astrological new year.
And I must say, not to toot too many horns, but it has tremendously paid off.
Ashley: Yeah. I just think any growth is so affirming and mostly it's like you said, it affirms that it works.
Tiff: Yes.
Ashley: You do not have to be on this grind culture, patriarchal, colonizer idea of what creative production looks like. And even the word “production” ew. Gross.
Tiff: Right. Literal creation follows this cycle.
Ashley: Which is why I do believe that the world should revolve around women's cycles because it does revolve around women's cycles. Pretending it doesn't is weird.
Tiff: It's weird.
Ashley: It's very, it's giving Handmaid's Tale. It's giving you all don't get it. It's giving, we're all witches and we're all magic.
Tiff: It's giving, “Doesn't even go here.”
Ashley: Stop being weird.
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