說三道四的男人請閉嘴

There is a rash of men explaining vaginas to me.
有一片男人向我解釋陰道。

That is what I have decided to name a collective of mansplainers. A murder of crows, a parliament of owls, a rash of mansplainers. In medicine a rash can be a mild annoyance that goes away and never returns. A rash can also portend a serious medical condition, even something malignant.
一片，我決定用這個字眼來形容男性說教者(mansplainer)的羣體。一殺烏鴉，一衆貓頭鷹（英語中烏鴉的集合名詞是murder，即“謀殺”；貓頭鷹的集合名詞是parliament，即“議會”。——譯註），一片男性說教者。在醫學上，一片皮疹可能是小恙，自己會消失，永遠不再出現。但皮疹也可能預示着嚴重疾病，甚至是惡性疾病。

There have always been a few men here and there explaining vaginas to me. I have suffered fools eager to use pickup lines about being an amateur gynecologist, detailing their imagined superior knowledge of female anatomy and physiology. Men who think sitting beside them at a bar and smiling — because if you don’t smile, you get told to smile — is an invitation to tell you how they will make you scream and moan.
不管在哪兒，總有一些男人向我解釋陰道。我曾經遇見過一些傻瓜，他們最喜歡的搭訕方式是聲稱自己是業餘婦科醫生，詳細講述他們一廂情願認爲很淵博的女性解剖學和生理學知識。那些男人認爲，女人在酒吧裏坐在他們身邊微笑——因爲如果你不笑，就會有人會叫你笑——就是邀請他們講述自己如何能讓女性尖叫和呻吟。

I know that many other women have had their vaginas explained to them, because for the past 25 years my career has been dedicated to treating vaginal and vulvar problems. I have listened to women with completely normal exams weep that they have been told that they do not smell or taste correctly. That they are too wet, or too loose, or too gross.
我知道，其他很多女性也遇到過男人向她們解釋陰道的情況，因爲在過去的25年裏，我的事業就是致力於治療陰道和外陰問題。一些檢驗完全正常的女人向我哭訴說，她們被告知自己陰道的氣味和味道不對。它們太溼了，太鬆了，或者太噁心了。

These women all shared something: They were told these things by men. While I admit this is anecdotal data, my years of listening to secret shame about healthy vaginas and vulvas seems to suggest it is largely, if not entirely, male partners who exploit vaginal and vulvar insecurities as a weapon of emotional abuse and control.
這些女人有一個共同點：那些話都是男人們告訴她們的。我承認這些都是道聽途說的數據，但這麼多年來我聽到的關於健康陰道和外陰的祕密羞恥感似乎表明，將女性對陰道和外陰的不安全感用作情感虐待和控制的武器的，大多——甚至全部——是她們的男性伴侶。

But it was the Vicks VapoRub that put me over the edge.
不過，最讓我受不了的是維克斯達姆膏(Vicks VapoRub)。

Around the internet I am known as the gynecologist who debunks unnecessary and often harmful vaginal trends. Vaginal steaming, douches, glitter, tightening sticks — these are all born from the same need to tame the normal female genital tract. Whether these products are sold by big companies or a lone purveyor on Etsy, whether sold as medicinal in drugstores or marketed under the guise of “natural” and artisanal by brands like Goop, the intent is the same: to monetize intimate fears about intimate places. The idea is to profit from our society’s inability to have public, non-sophomoric discussions about the vagina and vulva. These products and their messages are no different from the Lysol ads of the 1950s telling women they could be like the “the girl he married” again.
在互聯網上，人們知道我就是那個揭穿不必要的、往往有害的陰道潮流的婦科醫生。陰道燻蒸、灌洗、增亮、收緊棒——這些都是出於調教女性正常生殖道的需要。不管這些產品是大公司還是Etsy上的商家銷售的，不管是在藥店以醫療用途出售的，還是以Goop這樣的品牌打着“天然”和手工藝的幌子銷售的，其意圖都是一樣的：利用對私密部位的私密恐懼牟利。都是利用我們的社會無法公開地對陰道和外陰進行透徹的討論這一點謀取利益。這些產品以及它們所傳遞的信息，與20世紀50年代那些告訴女性她們可以再次變回“他當初娶的女孩”的Lysol廣告是一樣的。

Now, apparently, folks were suggesting that it was a good idea to put a mentholated petroleum product in one’s vagina. (It is not.)
而現在，看來有人認爲，把一種含有薄荷醇的石油產品放在陰道里是一個好主意。（並不是。）

Fed up, I wrote the story of how a man had tried to shame me about my healthy vagina. Once, I had dated a man who told me I would be desirable, if only my hair were straight, or if only I lost the weight, or if only I dressed differently. The metric for my supposed perfection kept changing, so it was a herculean task to keep up with my failings, which I now gather was the point.
我受夠了，於是寫文章講述了一個男人試圖用我健康的陰道羞辱我的故事。有一次，我和一個男人約會，他對我說，如果我的頭髮是直的，或者如果我能減減肥，或者如果我能變換穿衣風格，那麼我一定會很迷人。關於那些假想中我的完美狀態的標準一直在變，所以彌補我的不足是一項艱鉅的任務。現在，我明白過來，重點就是要說明這個。

But while I may not have complete confidence in my appearance, I have professional confidence in spades. There are few people, if any, who know more about the lower genital tract than I do. So when this man began to tell me how my healthy vagina could be better, I dumped him.
不過，雖然我對自己的外貌沒有完全的信心，但我對陰道有專業的信心。幾乎沒有人比我更瞭解下生殖道了。所以當這個男人對我說，我健康的陰道可以變得更好時，我就把他甩了。

It didn’t seem weird or overly personal to write this one paragraph about my experience. I talk about vaginas all day long. It is the inability to talk about vaginas without shame that is at the very core of genital-tract profiteering. If a gynecologist who specializes in vulvar and vaginal health can’t talk about it, then who can? I have revealed details of my son’s death, and that feels far more intimate and emotionally daring to me.
寫下我的這段個人經歷並不奇怪，它也不完全是個例。我整天都在談論陰道。正是因爲人們不具備在不感到羞恥的情況下談論陰道的能力，纔有人利用生殖道牟利。如果一名專門研究外陰和陰道健康的婦科醫生不能談論它，那麼還有誰能呢？我已經透露了我兒子的死亡細節，對我來說，那更私密，在情感上更需要勇氣。

What happened next was an article showed up in the The New York Post with the incorrect headline “My boyfriend dumped me because of my vagina smell,” accompanied with a big picture of me. The article itself was accurate — easy enough, since it was essentially quotations from my blog.
之後，《紐約郵報》上出現了一篇文章，它有一個錯誤的標題：“我男朋友因爲我的陰道有味把我甩了”，還附上了我的一張大照片。那篇文章本身沒問題——這不難辦到，因爲它實際上就是摘抄我的博客。

And then the men came. They came to share their opinions regarding my vagina, writing on my blog and at me on Twitter. They flocked to my Instagram and my Facebook. One group of gentlemen, in at least their 40s, even decided that this story of me being dumped supposedly because of my vagina was worthy of a laugh on their podcast.
然後，那些男人就出現了。他們開始分享他們對我的陰道的看法，在我的博客和Twitter上留言。他們在我的Instagram和Facebook上大量涌現。一羣至少40多歲的紳士甚至認爲，我因爲陰道而被拋棄的故事，可以稱爲他們的播客上的笑料。

This rash bombarded me in both public and private comments. Men wondered if I had washed “that thang yet?” One man wrote that I “must be INTO smelly ones! How nice for you — we prefer FRESH as a daisy ones!” Another man warned me that “We men had a meeting, all 3.5 billion of us.” At the meeting they had apparently decided to “double down on calling out” my smelly vagina.
這一片男人在公開和私人評論裏轟炸我。他們想知道我是否洗過“那個部位”。一個男人寫道，我“一定非常喜歡有味兒的！你倒好了——我們更喜歡像雛菊一樣清新的！”另一個男人警告我說：“我們男人開了個會，35億男人都參加了。”在會上，他們顯然決定“加倍努力批判”我的臭陰道。

A man said I should call my ex and thank him “for alerting me to my smelly vagina.” There was also the #notallmen contingent, who felt it was impossible that my personal experience and 25 years as a gynecologist could offer any evidence that men ever try to control women by preying on insecurities. Obviously it was just my vagina that stank.
一個男人說，我應該給我的前任打電話，感謝他“提醒我陰道有味”。還有一個名爲#notallmen（並非所有男人）的羣體認爲，我的個人經歷和25年的婦科從醫經驗不可能提供任何證據，證明男性試圖利用不安全感控制女性。很明顯，發臭的只是我的陰道。

More men sought me out to explain vaginas to me. They gave me false information on how to clean and prep them (for men, of course), and told me how gross my vagina must be, and hurled insults that I cannot print here.
有更多的男人找到我，向我解釋陰道。他們向我提供了關於如何清洗以及（當然是爲男人）準備陰道的錯誤信息，對我說，我的陰道一定很噁心，他們對我說的那些侮辱性的話語，我不能在這裏刊登出來。

The state of my healthy vagina brought more scorn from men than anything I have ever written about — and I write about second trimester abortions, so that is saying something.
我的健康陰道所招致的男人的嘲笑，超過了我寫過的任何內容——我寫過關於懷孕中期墮胎的文章，而引起了轟動的卻是這個。

To the women who have been told they were too wet, too dry, too messy, too smelly, too gross, too saggy or too bloody, I have heard you. I know you stand in drugstores wondering why there are all these hygiene products if they are unnecessary. I know you stare into the internet and wonder, if celebrities say they steam their vaginas, or have 10-step vaginal prep regimens, then maybe vaginal neglect really is a flaw that ruins relationships.
那些被告知陰道太溼、太乾、太髒、太臭、太噁心、太鬆弛或太充血的女人，我聽到了你們的聲音。我知道你們站在藥店裏，搞不清爲什麼會有那麼多衛生產品——如果它們沒必要的話。我知道你們盯着互聯網，想知道，如果名人說她們燻蒸陰道，或者有10步陰道準備法，那麼，對陰道的忽視也許真的是破壞戀愛關係的一個缺陷。

All I can say is, if you have a medical concern, see a doctor. And: If someone speaks to you about your body with anything but kindness and concern, it is he who has a problem. And: The vagina is like a self-cleaning oven.
我只能說，如果你有醫療問題，那麼去看醫生吧。如果有人不是帶着善意和關心談論你的身體，那麼，有問題的是他。陰道就像一個帶有自我清潔功能的烤箱。

To the rash of mansplainers and The New York Post, thank you. This experience proves that shaming women about physiologically normal and functioning vaginas is epidemic. The cure for this rash is information. You can either listen and learn or you can take a seat in the back of class and shut up. The era in which men can shame women for their perfectly healthy vaginas is now coming to an end.
對《紐約郵報》上的那片男性說教者皮疹，我要謝謝你們。我這次的經歷證明，讓女性對生理上和功能上正常的陰道感到羞恥是一種流行病。治療這種皮疹的方法是獲得信息。你們要麼傾聽、學習，要麼坐在教室後面，閉上嘴巴。男性可以讓女性爲完全健康的陰道感到羞恥的時代現在結束了。