Huh. Atwood's never struck me as the kind of author who cares enough about tiny world building details to retcon things.

"Mexico probably can't, because of their culture, examine women for fertility easily"

Cambridge, just outside Boston.

I think these were invented as one of those "stim toys" for people who fidget (or stim because of autism - that hand-flapping / hair-pulling thing people do)?

That seems like the flipside of my "I can't bring myself to feel sorry for her but can find her tragic". Or maybe just a different way of expressing it.

There's no way they allow non-procreative sex, imo.

I don't know if women who have had FGM have higher rates of infertility (and FGM isn't normally done in sterile medical environments in real life, so even if it does that might not apply to Emily), but I do know they have lots of childbirth complications because scar tissue doesn't stretch.

No, sorry, I read that, I mentioned the previews too, I just thought you were leaving open the possibility she might rebel again and ultimately end up with Moira's ending, a gay woman at Jezebel's.

< spoiler > what you want to say < / spoiler >

I don't see what they did to her - probably at least a clitorodectomy, that removed her ability to feel sexual pleasure or have sex without pain, similar to real-world FGM - as compatible with her being chosen as a sex worker. And they did clarify she can still bear children with her "surgery". I think we're meant to…

Oh, I meant it's jarring because June seems to be basically living my exact life (pre-husband and kid, anyway). Same publishing editorial job, same Somerville / Cambridge area. But it not being Boston is also jarring, I suppose.

If they reveal a backstory at all close to the books, she simultaneously becomes less sympathetic (because she fought and campaigned for this to happen) and more tragic (because there's nothing more tragic than a good "getting what you wished for" story) than show-only viewers probably see her as right now.

We haven't seen any examples of elites who already had kids before the Gilead takeover, or who are both fertile and having babies without handmaids, but they must exist and I can't IMAGINE how much the other Commanders and Wives must resent them.

*comically slips and falls on banana peel while carrying sperm sample*

It's more of a direct reflection on Serena Joy. She's the same age as Offred, but Offred is the one who wasn't "cursed" with the infertility plague or whatever. (Setting aside that there's no way of knowing if SJ really is fertile or not, given that they don't know Fred's status.)

I thought the exact same thing when I actually saw Yvonne Strahovski in the role for the first time. I wasn't a big fan of them de-aging her and prettying her up in theory, but then I saw her on screen and was like "Ohhhh, of course this lady wasn't an '80s televangelist. This lady was on Fox and Friends."

That's a fair counterpoint to what I wrote. Hadn't noticed the guy in suit or the photos of couples yet.

Witch trial history, too. Parallels there.

Not that Canadians, especially urban liberal ones, don't also have smug "Bad things don't happen here" attitudes to be punctured, come to think of it.

Oh, and in response to your last question you edited in: