Mule-work and Gender

Abstract

I had the natural reaction like [the capsules are] really big, and it’s in your throat, and I just kept coughing the capsules up until I got really, really tired and kind of frustrated with myself, but once I said yes, I felt like I could not back down now. […] I was just like… ‘I really cannot do it,’ you know. And I tell this guy, and he’s like, ‘No, you can, and it’s safe, and people do it all the time,’ and I’m like ‘How?’ And he’s like, ‘No, try again.’…and, OK… and he’s telling me it was more in this time… It definitely wasn’t… and he kind of opened my jaw and like really… like pushed it in. Basically… so that it went through this barrier. By this time I was really exhausted, and I could not feel in control because it was against my body.’