Pubic bone structure / Mons Pubis

Hi Cookie,

The long, strap-like muscles that rotate the thighs inward attach to the front of the pubic bones as does the outer layer of abdominal muscles. This area is also padded with fat. This is the reason the mons is rounded and cushioned and feels like there should be bone there. In fact the bones are further underneath, directly in front of the urethral opening. Perhaps you have more muscle and fat there than most women. Surgery would be a terrible response to the situation.

I say this quite seriously, not that it's the cure-all for everything, but I think you might explore the posture we are working with here and see if it pulls your musculoskeleton into a more natural alignment, smoothing out that are as well.

Also...what if you tried considering your bulge as a powerful, attractive, feminine feature? Who says women can't have a prominent mons? And who knows...you might start a new fashion trend where women wear a "cod piece" (ancient male trick to increase the size of the bulge in their pants) to make theirs look bigger!

Be bold!! Be brave!! Stand out!!

:-) Christine

Hi Cookie

That Christine is a funny lady!!

But seriously, I agree with her that the way you carry yourself can make an immense difference. So many of us have been brought up (for a lifetime) to tuck the butt in and stand with a straight spine, which makes the mons pubis stick out more. It is a very military and masculine way to stand, and may not do men any good either, only generals and sargeants who want to make life as challenging as possible for soldiers. ;-)

Learning to stand and sit in Wholewoman posture all the time has made my confront my female body which previously lived under androgenous disguise as a swaggering tomboy person.

I have had to learn to wear my breasts proudly up front, carry my butt in an unashamedly feminine way, and celebrate my feminine shape and lovely soft belly. My mons is tucked away, probably at least three inches further back than it used to be. It has at last become a pleasure for me to wear flowing skirts and buy sexy bras and really enjoy wearing them because they make me feel good. And my body is really enjoying it. Why should all the young porn stars with pneumatic boobs have all the fun displaying their bodies! We can all flaunt our bodies (in a nice way of course), except mine is real and theirs mostly aren't.

And they will all be 53 one day. I hope they feel as bootilicious then as they do now!! They will probably have a lot less prolapse problems than my generation.

The other thing is that the size of the mons pubis is just another variation in human shape. I guess it is the association with being a lump in the pants and the masculine connotations of it, that is so hurtful . It is pretty rude to point out to friends how their body is different from normal. In Australia it is termed 'pulling the piss out of someone', and is only done when a lot of alcohol has been consumed by a group of people who know and trust(!) each other, and people are feeling brave enough to criticise others for fun and see how they react; but you would never do it to a stranger. It is probably about bonding, and challenging friendships, and making your peers suffer for being your friend. The other factor is that nobody remembers it the following morning. We are a bit wierd Downunder.

If you are not Australian, and you certainly did remember it the following morning, I would be reconsidering some friendships. Life is too short for that sort of criticism from friends. Bodies can be darned difficult to live with at the best of times without that sort of help.

Cheers

Louise

I agree with Louise totally!
I always wear pantyhose with skirts etc--especially dressing up and now I cannot bear them at all! They are tight and feel as if they are pushing everything down --awful, but I love the way nylons look so I have bought a bunch of thigh highs and garter type hose--will buy an actual garter belt soon (my thighs are getting thinner --still losing baby weight and not holding up!) and I have to say I have never felt better. I wear them at home even under my skirts and I feel like I have a "secret". Silly huh? But it makes me feel more feminine just in an ordinary day--more sexy then I ever did in "tight" jeans...it is a bummer I guess to get over not being able to "flatten the stomach"--I was doing crunches to get my body back into shape after my fifth baby when I discovered I had prolapsed! UGH
but I have to look at it a different way now and clothing is one way to do that. As I said just knowing I have a "secret"--the garters and things makes me feel sexy and feninine--and I think it effects my husband too. He was a bit shocked--they do not see women in those kinds of hose anymore and a little visual stays with them all day too!
I had finally lost enough weight to get into my "jeans with pockets!!" and now I have to toss them out since it makes me feel so bad to wear anything tight--so this helps even that out. I can't wear the tight stuff, but I can wear nice skirts with a "secret" underneath!
If I could sew--I would try and copy some of Christine's creations--very nice--I may have my mom look at them and see if she can figure out the style--Christine ever think of selling your patterns?? My mom is a whiz with sewing and I would love to have some of those skirts you have made!!

I would love to create patterns - it's been a decades-long interest - but don't know if I'll get to it in my lifetime! Therese, that gathered skirt is really easy...I'm not making any promises because I have so much else to do, but I could probably write the instructions out here on the forum. It's sewn in a kind of renegade way, but is very sturdy and lasts forever...I'll see what I can write up...give me a few days...

Oohh Therese, you little devil you!

I actually found in my Mothers old stuff a couple of pairs of *real silk stockings with seams up the back*, maybe WWII vintage. No doubt Mum wore them with one of those stiffly-boned corsets that they used to wear to minimise the curves of their hips and thighs during the 1930's or 1940's. Nothing much has changed under this old sun, has it? They were probably the last of her stash that remained when those nice modern nylons came along!

I am on the lookout for a suspender belt too, so I can have my little secret. You can never have too many little secrets for the man in your life to discover!

Cheers

Louise

Hi Cookie

Thank goodness you understood the term. It is a bit hard to explain, isn't it, but I was way off the mark on the friendships, sorry. I can see now that these ladies know you well enough to discuss it with you.

I can only respond by saying that you just seem to be differently-built from your friends, and I can hear that you would like to be the same as them. From the sounds of what you are saying the only real problem you have is that you feel self-conscious about your mons. You have not mentioned any difficulty it causes with the functioning of your body. Being self-conscious about looking different doesn't sound like much when it is happening to somebody else, but it can be almost overwhelming when it is you. I understand that it distresses you.

Most of the women who visit this Forum have difficulties with prolapse of the uterus and/or bladder and/or rectum, which means that to a greater or lesser degree these organs are gradually being carried lower in the pelvis for different reasons, and may protrude through the vagina at times, which is uncomfortable and sometimes causes pain and other secondary medical conditions. Some women are quite young and have never had a pregnancy. The diagnosis of prolapse almost invariably also leads to an enormous blow to a woman's self-confidence. Reconstructive surgery is often offered to these women but the research shows that the results of the many types of surgery available are often unpredictable, can sometimes lead to significant loss of quality of life and also mostly create the need for further surgery in the following years.

A change in posture, which is sometimes radically different to how the woman carried herself before, is often enough to reposition the pelvic organs so that they are carried further forward, supported by the pubic bone, rather than balancing over the pelvic floor. In addition, avoiding straining on the toilet and keeping your dietary fibre up, and wearing no tight clothing around the abdomen also help greatly.

So I think all you can do is be aware of the necessity for maintaining the lumbar curve to keep the pelvis tilted forwards as much as is comfortable, and keeping the mid-back as tall as possible to prevent unnecessary development of prolapse, and to keep your pelvic organs supported as much as you can by the pubic bone, rather than making an effort to move with your bottom tucked under as far as possible, which so many of us have been taught in the past is the key to healthy posture.

There is an illustration in the first edition of Christine’s book, Saving the Wholewoman, that illustrates the pelvis as the keystone in an archway, with the legs as the columns of the arch, and the start of the spine as a block on top of the keystone (if you can visualise this). When constructing an archway, you have to make sure that the base of the keystone is solid and can keep the tops of the legs of the arch from crumbling inwards. If the keystone is not solid and wedged in the top of the archway to keep it stable, the whole structure will fall down, ie not be able to stand any more. In addition, feeling the underside of the pubic bone will reveal just hom many muscles are attached there. I would *imagine* that any surgery that tampered with the base of your keystone, the pubic bone, would weaken that area and possibly compromise your ability to stand, walk and move. However, that said, I am not a doctor, and you would need to talk to a doctor to be referred to an appropriate specialist to discuss this, as it does seem to be very important to you.

Just remember that your body is stable now, as it was created, even though you don’t like how it looks in tight clothing. Many women have a part of their body that they just hate, and will go to great lengths to disguise, or have surgically changed.

I guess you don’t really want to hear this, but it may be a better path for you to follow if you can accept that this is the way you are, and it is not any better or worse than your friends’ bodies with their flat mons. Many women dress in particular styles of clothing to ‘disguise figure faults’, or eventually say “Stuff this. This body of mine is OK as it is.” Fashions for face and body shape also change. Hence the demand for cosmetic surgery.

Actually it is not very good for your body to wear tight, (non-stretchy) clothing compressing your abdomen and hips because the pressure on your abdomen will try and squeeze your abdominal organs out through the only gap it has, which is your pelvic floor. If you really cannot get that lumbar curve happening to keep your pelvic organs forward of the pubic bone, then avoiding compressing your abdominal and pelvic organs with tight clothing will probably be very important to you in the long term.

I am sorry I can’t really say much more than this. Post again if you have more questions about it.

Cheers

Louise

Hi there, I just wanted to add that I have exactly the same problem as you cookie, with my mons pubis being more prominent than most women's. I'm slim and healthy, but I've had this problem since puberty (I'm 25 now) and it really gets me down. I've honestly felt suicidal over it, which may seem like an extreme reaction, but it makes me feel so unfeminine - as louiseds said, the masculine connotations of having a bulge in my pants is really upsetting! I've spoken to a surgeon who said he couldn't help me, as it's more to do with the underlying bone structure than excess fat, so I'm still looking for a solution.

Hi Gingersnaps

It is now a while since Cookie posted the original topic and much has happened to both Christine's website and what's in her book, Saving the Wholewoman. If you go to the website www.wholewoman.com and click on the FAQ's there is now an enormous variety of answers and explanations of postural principles (which have been lifechanging for many Members of this Forum), which I think may be the way to go for you to become more comfortable in your own body. You will probably find that you won't even look the same when you use Wholewoman posture.

There is now a second edition of Christine's book available which has great explanations of how we can carry our bodies better.

As an aside, the medical textbook called Gray's Anatomy (not based on the TV series!) has a section on types of pelvic bone shapes. There are several quite different shapes and they would all look different, though they are *all* normal. You could probably wander into a Uni library and find a copy to have a look at. It is about 3inches thick so is a very expensive book to buy. There is a Gray's Anatomy online version (google it) but the one I use does not have this particular section with its very clear illustrations.

Take no notice of the angle of the bones in the illustrations. They were probably all drawn from dead specimens that were recumbent, and do not accurately represent healthy, standing posture which has the pelvis standing almost on end on its mons pubis.

There really is a lot of variety in the shapes of people's bodies. Its just that we wear clothes that hide the differences and if you are a bit overweight (which you are not) people can't tell anyway! LOL Also, people who are selfconscious about different parts of their bodies often hide them under big clothing, so we all wander around thinking everybody else's bodies are like Supermodels', *and they are not*.

Good luck on your quest to feel comfortable being just who you are.

Cheers

Louise

i have searched and searched about this on the net because i too, thought it was a problem. guess what! its not! its more common than you think and there have even been EXTREME cases that you can see if you do an image search. anyway i stumbled upon another forum in which someone mentioned it and the other people said it was not a problem be proud and even a man (!!!) posted and he said him and his friends PREFER them larger than flat and that he wishes all girls with em would wear bikinis.

and no offense people but you weren't the most supportive group of forumers. you made it sound like she was unfortunate.

Actually notalone, the ladies here were very supportive. The first answer from Christine said why not consider her bulge as a "powerful, feminine, attractive feature". Louise gave her support to a woman she felt distressed about her body and the ladies here know all too well what it is to be distressed about parts of their bodies.

She went on to say that "it may be a better path for you to follow if you can accept that this is the way you are, and it is not any better or worse than your friends’ bodies with their flat mons. Many women dress in particular styles of clothing to ‘disguise figure faults’, or eventually say “Stuff this. This body of mine is OK as it is."

They both talked about posture because EVERY woman should be adopting the posture to protect their organs. This was not said just to try and disguise her bulge but to protect her in the future. The women here are dealing with pelvic organ prolapses and believe me it is something you will want to protect yourself against. Have a look around and read some of the information.

If anyone feels unfortunate it is me having to deal with the descent of my organs. I am certainly not belittling the distress that Cookie is going through as I know for her it is genuine and I understand that but I would rather be dealing with a buldgy mons than my bladder and rectum herniating into my vagina and the problems associated with that!

Sorry Christine and Louise if you think I am out of line chiming in here but I had to say something as someone who is a member of this forum will know just how darn supportive we actually are!

A

I agree with you ATS! I re read the posts and also thought that they were very supportive and kind! I don't see how anyone could have interpreted them as anything else actually, but I suppose it is all subjective depending apon where we are coming from. :)

HEy i know exactly what you are talking about I used to get made fun off by my sisters and call me names. BUt it never really bothered me. I wear bikinis with no problems. ONe time my ex boyfriend mom tried to grab it! Because she couldn't believe it was real. I was like slow down lady, I like mine.. and it makes me feel sexy!

Hi there,

I'm a new member so I apologize in advance but I'm having trouble finding the posture discussion and exercises that I see being discussed.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could guide me. Thank you in advance.

Hi NextPhase and welcome,
You can start to familiarize yourself with the whole woman work by going to the tool bar above. Lots of great introductory and helpful information. Then, click on the whole woman store to find the products available. I would suggest the Saving the Whole Woman book and First Aid for Prolapse DVD as a good start into this very important work.

Thank you for the feedback. I don't have a Prolapse so the DVD probably doesn't make sense. I went to the store and didn't see a book called "Saving the Whole Woman". I'm specifically interested in the posture information (trying to be a proactive type :)).

Did it change it's name? If so, which one discusses posture?

Thanks,

Hi NextPhase - here is the book:

https://www.wholewomanstore.com/Saving-the-Whole-Woman-Book_p_27.html

The Store is pretty segmented; you wil find this under Pelvic Organ Prolapse/Books and DVDs/Individual Books and DVDs. - Surviving

PS: All of Christine's work is relevant to every woman.....whether you are trying to manage prolapse, hoping to prevent it, seeking to protect your spine and hip joints for a lifetime.....