CANCER is a serious disease and nobody – least of all me – wants to get cancer.

So when CNN urged “individuals with a cervix” to get tested, I immediately wondered how to find out if I was one of those individuals?

Individuals with a cervix are now recommended to start cervical cancers screening at 25 and continue through age 65, with HPV testing every five years as the preferred method of testing, according to a new guideline released by the American Cancer Society https://t.co/gUhYdIIx69

— CNN (@CNN) July 30, 2020

Individuals with a cervix. Did they mean, like, in a jar?

Is a cervix like a mole? I have a couple of those. My dad has a few too so it’s probably hereditary. Should I ask my dad if he has a cervix?

I dialled dad’s number but hung up the phone before he could answer. No point stressing out the old man about possibly having cancer of the cervix. He might not even have a cervix. Who could know!

While on hold trying to book an MRI to find out if I had a cervix – and if so, whether my cervix was cancerous – I googled “cervix” and learned that a cervix is a cylinder-shaped neck of tissue that connects the vagina and uterus.

“That’s odd,” I thought. “I don’t actually have a vagina. Or a uterus.”

And then I realised, “individuals with a cervix” are women.

You cannot imagine my relief. I don’t have cancer of the cervix. I can’t have cancer of the cervix. I’m a man!

Even so, you can’t trust everything you read on the internet. So I checked with my wife.

“Babe, do you mind making me a coffee? And how do I know if I have a cervix?”

She gave me that same weird look she gave me last week when, having read a CNN piece on transgender rights, I started to fear I might menstruate.

“Only females have a cervix,” she replied. And then she patiently explained: “Juvenile human females are called girls. Adult human females are called women. Since the beginning of time, individuals with a cervix have been referred to as women.”

And as an individual with a prostate, I tend to agree with her.

Why CNN would say “individuals with a cervix” rather than use the more succinct term, “women”, is a mystery. But I suspect they would really love to have said “Comrades with a cervix”.

CNN claimed that using the term “individuals with a cervix” rather than “women” was their way of being inclusive.

Well, using the term “idiots” rather than “journalists” when referring to CNN staff is my way of being inclusive.

When CNN deny a group of people who actually exist – like women – for a fantastical one they have imagined – like men with a cervix – they’ve lost me.

CNN should stop erasing women and pretending that they are being progressive.

Anyway, thanks to CNN I now understand that scene from the Titanic where Kate Winslet’s character Rose says: “Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French individuals with a Cervix”

I only now realise she meant a French girl!

And Michael Bolton crooning “When a maaaan loves an individual with a cervix” also makes sense now. He loved a woman!

But honestly, when you’re singing about individuals with a cervix, it’s hard to go past the late great Roy Orbison’s 1964 classic “Oh, Pretty Individual with a Cervix”

Individual with a cervix, walking down the street
Individual with a cervix, the kind I’d like to meet
Would be a woman … CNN I don’t believe you, you’re not the truth
No one could be as woke as you
Mercy!
Individual with a cervix, won’t you pardon me?
Individual with a cervix, I couldn’t help but see
You’re a woman … Not a man like you claim to be
That’s why you get a pap smear unlike me
*growl*

Individuals with a cerebral cortex might want to completely ignore CNN.