Category: Sexuality

SPECIAL

Special

I’m still excited about my new book, Abidance: A Memoir of Love and Inevitability. Lots of  amazing responses. Actually, I continue to be excited by my old books, so I have a great offer:

Any one book – $15.00

Any two books – $25.00

Any three books – $35.00

All four – $45           THESE OFFERS ONLY APPLY ON ORDERS EMAILED DIRECTLY TO LOIS

And only $3.00 shipping on any size package!!  (You send your check when you get your package, IF YOU LIKE YOUR BOOKS.)

Email TODAY. lois.hjelmstad@gmail.com

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“This beautifully written love story inspires couples to renew their commitment to living fuller lives together. Whether you’ve been married for one year or seventy, this wonderful story will bring tears, laughter, and inspiration to your lives. A must for aging readers, which includes everyone.”

– Connie Shoemaker, author of The Good Daughter: Secrets, Life Stories, and Healing

“I truly adore Abidance. Lois has written a page-turner about two soul mates whose marriage has endured much struggle and yet have been blessed with boundless love and good times. In this day of social media and everything digital, this is a tale about something we often forget: The deep and abiding love two people can have for each other, and the life’s journey they share.”

-Fred Silverman, New York Producer

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Again, email TODAY. lois.hjelmstad@gmail.com

You can also pick up your full price copy here:

https://www.amazon.com/Abidance-Inevitability-Lois-Tschetter-Hjelmstad/dp/0963713906

 

Love you all, Lois

Poem for My Flat Chest

In keeping with my recent posts on whether or not to reconstruct/replace one's breasts after a mastectomy, I offer one of my poems:

Double Amputee

I have looked this way
before–
flat-chested, pencil-thin

when I was ten

Strange it is to seem
a sexless child
again

(Too bad about
the graying hair
and slightly sagging chin)

(Excerpted from Fine Black LIines (c) 1993, 2003 Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad)

Sexualization of the Pink Ribbon

This week I read a cogent post on NancysPoint dealing with how the pink ribbon has been commercialized and is now being sexualized as well. (She has some great pictures.)

As a survivor of breast cancer, I have lived without breasts or reconstruction for twenty-two years, It's almost to the place where I see breasts on others and feel puzzled. What are those funny-looking things? Why are there mounds of fat tissue on the fronts of women? Why are they placed at so many different levels?   

And then I wonder why, in this current societal climate, is it mandatory that we see almost the entirety of the  funny-looking things? It's almost impossible to buy clothes that aren't scooped out deeply. I see old women with crepey upper chests that should be in turtlenecks.

We don't proudly display the rolls of fat around our sides. Wait, I'll take that back. I've seen plenty of rolls. And muffin-tops. 

But to use sexy poses of breasts to commercialize the pink ribbon? Is it more important to save "boobies" or to save lives? I loved my breasts, but I'd rather be alive than to have saved them.

Do check out Nancy. And also go to http://www.xojane.com/issues/what-next-in-the-name-of-breast-cancer-awareness also. This post may curl your hair a bit, but it will also enlighten you. And xojane says, "…a lot of “awareness” campaigns make it sound like the great tragedy here is not that people are dying, but that funbags go away." What a great quote! And what a crock.