What’s insidious about this phrase is that it assumes we have stable and agreed upon definitions of fraught terms like “sex” and “power.” The phrase ushers us past the physicality of sex and violence all together in favor of an abstraction. Read more
I did not cut myself, but was it fair to say I had not hurt myself? Without the physical marks, no one was aware anything was amiss. My self-harm had not gone away. It had become invisible. Read more
Watching Beyoncé stroll down that street, smashing car windows at random, with a big smile on her face, was therapeutic. It was refreshing. Read more
Mr. Gerrymandering has always your neighbor, but now, he’d like to clearcut the trees in your yard so you forget where you live. Now he’s worried that you’ll actually exercise your right to cast a ballot — if you can get off the couch and stay vertical long enough to vote. Read more
Like most women in demanding positions, Jocelyn’s appearance determines how seriously people take her: it decides whether or not a victim will scream when they see her coming; whether or not she’ll get the leading role in someone’s nightmare; and whether or not her legacy will live on in campfire ghost stories and Lifetime dramas. Read more
Quite frankly, we disabled people are everywhere right now, but not in the way many of us would like. If we’re not wielding chainsaws and going on murderous rampages, then we’re plotting world domination from our wheelchairs and reveling in a variety of gruesome deaths. Read more
We did our research and weighed the pros and cons alongside our specific circumstances. While I had lived paycheck to paycheck throughout my professional career, my husband had managed to put away a significant “nest egg” while working during and after graduate school—but it was a drop in the bucket compared to the expense of the transplant I needed. Read more
I wasn’t so focused on the painful bite of the needle anymore, or wondering when the session would end. I started to look forward to the distraction of the hurt. It was a hurt I could opt-into, one I could select. Read more
“If we don’t have the words we cannot understand what the vulva is or how it looks and works. In many languages there isn’t even a proper word for the female sexual organ—one that isn’t an insult.” Read more
For those millions of us who have always been held to a higher standard — who have never had the privilege to unleash any “wild” tendencies — we know collectively what’s possible. Read more
