Speaking here truth. Sarah Silverman opened up about her uncomfortable mammogram appointment in an emotional Instagram post.
The comedian, 48, detailed her experience with a seemingly unprofessional radiologist while she was having an ultrasound following a mammogram. “He opened my gown and put gel on my breasts and smeared it around with his bare hands,” she explained on Wednesday, February 6. “Then he started talking to see about my chest X-ray (I also got a chest X-Ray) and was pontificating with my boobs just out and covered in gel and cold and finally I said ‘Hey-can we either talk about this when I’m dressed or WHILE your doing the ultrasound? I’m not comfortable with my breasts out and just shooting the s–t with you.’”
Silverman then noted that the radiologist applied the gel to his bare hands instead of wearing gloves. “When he glides the ultrasound wand thing over my breasts he drags his fingers on them and it f–king bothers me. Again, AS I TOLD HIM LAST YEAR, I said ‘Hey! Do you need to be touching me with your fingers?’ He said ‘No.’ And then he pulled them off of me,” she recalled. “Then he added ‘I do that for balance.’ I said ‘Well I believe in you and I think you can do without your fingers on me.’ Look, I truly don’t think he was getting off on it, BUT it is his job to be aware that this is vulnerable for a woman. Wear f–king GLOVES — this isn’t a date.”
“For him to be so arrogant that he didn’t even internalize the problem when I said something to him about it last year is obnoxious and probably a subconscious power thing if we’re getting deep. That was my last mammogram with this dude. Or any dude,” the Emmy winner continued. “Look. I’m a grown woman and I’m fine. But this guy does this with everyone and I know that personally it took many years into adulthood before I spoke up for myself. It’s uncomfortable and too easy to think it’s all in your head.”
She added: “And arrogant f–ks like this doctor take advantage of women’s socialized instinct to not speak up. All this to say speak up. Trust that thing in your gut that tells you this sh–t ain’t right.”
Silverman’s celebrity friends took to the comments to voice their support for her. “#metoo on this s–t,” Elizabeth Banks wrote. “Those of you in this industry — please do the best you can do to empathize with the vulnerability of women in this situation and act accordingly.”
Busy Philipps noted, “Ughhhh I hate this.” Added Beth Behrs, “I have been there too and it makes me sick. With a doctor when I was a young teenager. Thank you for this.”
