Date: July 26, 2013
Present: Shubha, Doris, Jen, Gill, Mark, (a triumphant return for ) Nathalie and special guests Alex and Davis
Unknown to Shubha, a return to our Christmas venue, where we'd all greatly enjoyed the food (and wine and cocktails) last December. Again, the food was freshly prepared (some cooked with great care at the table) and full of herbs and balanced (though not always delicate!) spices to produce flavoursome food that feels healthy but satisfying and which found appreciation with all.
The place was busy, loud and buzzy, making it hard for us all to converse and sometimes hard to order but, hopefully, protecting the other diners from some of our more controversial conversation: Caitlin's obsession with what to call her "lady parts" making for some ripe discussion. We all agreed, we'd never been driven, in the way Caitlin was to analyse and assess what to call them, as though feminism itself depended upon it. "Boobs" was our winner for up top. For the rest, Jen, as one might expect, takes a practical and no-nonsense, scientifically accurate approach. Others fudged it with phrases like "down there" being popular. "My lily" was a previously unheard description that we found endearing.
This was one of the best book discussions, though not necessarily best books, we could remember. Our debates about the porn and abortion chapters were particularly spirited and we held and (loudly) espoused a range of differing opinions on these sensitive topics. The abortion chapter, for example, was criticised for presenting only two possible choices - bring up another (unwanted) baby or have an abortion - and not addressing the possibility of giving birth and giving the child up for adoption where it would be very much wanted by a couple unable to have their own. But that "oversight" was not universally accepted - some pointed to high adoption failure rates and the problems suffered by adopted children, whilst others countered that was because most adopted children were not new babies given up in these circumstances but children from difficult backgrounds, troubled families often with abusive histories, whose problems were not helped by a society which considers adoption a stigma and castigates a woman as heartless for giving up her baby but empowered for having an abortion.
We didn't all like the book but we were all agreed that Caitlin was forthright and (brutally, bravely) honest, articulate, intelligent and frequently very funny. Whether the glimpses into her childhood were unwarranted or necessary background was a moot point, with special mention to the dog chewing her used sanitary pad. And, with that, the final word on this book, must go to Mark, who should get a special award for reading and discussing this, given that:
For a chap who becomes queasy even at the mention of ladies special parts, I found this quite a hard read ;-)