Feminist Neanderthal

My mother likes to practice Chinese medicine.

When I was young, we had this form of therapy in our house called "scrape back."

To relieve aches and pains in the body, dip a porcelain soup spoon (the kind you find at many Chinese restaurants) in a mixture of rice wine and ginger and then repeatedly scrape the patient's back with the tip of the spoon. Doing so supposedly releases the "poisons" pent up inside the muscles.

Do you know what it's like to fear an eating utensil?

"Mommy, I fell off my bike today."

"Are you okay? Do you want your back scraped?"

"NO! No, aspirin will do…"

The screaming from my parents' bedroom usually wasn't a result of sex.

There is no spoon anymore. My mother now uses cups.


Take a glass container and create a vacuum on an area of the body that aches. Fire burns oxygen.


The vacuum sucks up the skin and draws "poisons" out of the muscles underneath. In some cases, it also draws blood through the pores of the skin.


Repeat as many times as necessary.


The only drawback to "cupping" is that you might look like the rape victim of a thermos afterward.


Home "cupping" kits that use a suction gun instead of fire to create vacuums are popular in China. We have two at home.

One day, I was in my parents' room watching television when my mother walked in and said: "Oi, my back hurts so much. Jon, do me a favor and suck me."

[pause]

You love your mother.

And so, I raised the hairs on her half-naked body like a good boy as she moaned in relief.

When I finished, she wanted to return the favor.

"Your shoulder muscles are always so tense. You need to relax. Here, let me suck you."

I bled my first time.