Stirrups (not the horse kind)

[slemslempike]

When you go for a smear test (or similar), are there stirrups?

I've usually heard Americans talking about stirrups for such incidents, while I'm under the impression that I've only heard British women refer to them for ante-natal use. When I go, I just have to do that frogs' legs thing (which is awkward if the table is against the wall on one side).

I was watching Jo Brand on Live at the Apollo, and she talked about stirrups as if they would of course be used for a smear. Have I just always had lo-tech medical care? I don't feel like I have had a particularly sheltered outlook, at least four medical professionals have investigated my nethers.

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Clearly I spent too much time with my arm in the pond in childhood, with the first mental image thus being frog crouched as to spring rather than frog pinned for dissection.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

My main memory of ponds and frogs is my mother explaining to my brother and several wide-eyed little friends that what those frogs were doing was 'having a cuddle, because it's cold'.

Very soon after that we went to some kind of very mildly amusing park or possibly stately home with climbing frames and so on, and a petting zoo mostly featuring rabbits. It all made me wonder how on earth anyone in Victorian memoirs ever grew up as innocent as they claimed what with nature being so educational all over the place.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Maybe they were highly urban Victorian children?