The exam's important even if it's not mandatory, since it will help the doc determine any sorts of problems that might impact the type of birth control that's right for you.

Plus, cervical cancer used to be the #1 killer of women- it's not even in the top ten now, all thanks to a pap smear once a year that makes it possible to detect cancer at the pre-cancerous stage.

GO GET ONE! It sucks, and it's embarrassing, and my vagina hates me for a week before I go, but i'd rather sign on for 20 minutes of embarassment than death or chemotherapy

__________________
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination. What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or not.
-John Keats