GET YOUR SHRIEK ON
- Linda Irvine
- Dec 18, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 20, 2025
An Ode to Perfect Shrieking
I love my husband.
He’s great to talk to.
I talk to him more than I talk to anybody else.
But there’s something missing in our conversations; something he simply can’t provide.
There’s this thing that women do.
You’ll never see two men doing it; but you’ll often see large groups of women doing it; sometimes you’ll catch a lone woman on a phone doing it—apparently all alone. But she isn’t alone; on the other end of that line, there’s another woman doing exactly the same thing.
What is this activity, why are women everywhere doing it, and just how satisfying is it?
The activity, my female friends, is shrieking.
Women everywhere are doing it because it feels so darn good. It’s more satisfying than the best chocolate cake, or the most intense orgasm.
Remember those conversations you’ve had with other women where you both talk really fast and shriek, “Oh my GOD” and “You have GOT to be kidding me” and “You CAN’T be SERIOUS”?
These conversations are what I’m talking about.
John Gray’s new Venus on Fire Mars on Ice, explores the part hormones play in our relationships.
Gray discusses a little hormone called oxytocin, discussing research that has “revealed that women release...oxytocin to cope with stress.”
Oxytocin is “released in safe, cooperative, caring, supportive and nurturing situations.” In his “mother’s generation and before...a woman had the time and financial support to fill her day with an oxytocin-producing balance of nurturing and woman-to-woman support.” (Eg: Shrieking, giggling, and chattering) Something we simply don’t have the time, or resources, for today.
We’re all crazy busy.
We don’t have time to shave our legs, pluck our eyebrows, or read a book. Surely we can make time for a good phone shriek with a girlfriend—who understands us and shrieks right back.
So ladies, it’s time to get your shriek on!
By Linda Irvine . First Published in Island Gals Magazine . 2011 . Volume 1 . Issue 1
