essays
-
Against the Discourse
The world, and the internet, is in flux. While Twitter was once a subversive stronghold for opinions that are not often enough given the credence or the attention they deserve – minority opinions,…
-
Men, Call Out Your Friends
It’s time for men to take some responsibility for men. Every time I post something online asking men to call out other men on shitty behavior, I invariably get multiple responses from…
-
The Origin of Pain
Or, The Worst Thing That’s Ever Happened To Me – Yet! Or, How the U.S. Health System Fucks You Up, Then Leaves You High and Dry Or, The Insidious Ways Doctors Weaponize Women’s…
-
Guest Post: Rewriting the Whorearchy with Stephanie Parent
I’m thrilled to present a guest post from my friend Stephanie Parent – a fantastic writer, poet, and author of the novel THE BRIARS (which I cannot recommend enough). Today, she’s discussing the…
-
On Britney’s Instagram, Selfies & the Mercurial Need to Be Perceived
I spend a fair amount of time defending women’s selfies in my head. Whenever I see comments on Instagram photos accusing women of “just wanting attention” or being “attention whores” because of the…
-
Revisiting CAM Five Years Later
I was just rewatching the brilliant film CAM (2018) yesterday – about a camgirl whose identity is stolen – and I was struck by how incredibly prescient the movie was when it first…
-
Ode to the Slutty Halloween Costume
“In girl world, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” That quote is uttered by…
-
Songs Are Spells, or, You Make Me Want You
The other night, I fell into a deep, velvety-dark hole of nostalgia. It began with a few Christina Aguilera music videos (the Dirrty years), which led me to Avril Lavigne (and her most…
-
On Girls and Goths in the Early Aughts
I think horror was always a part of my identity, lurking somewhere deep in my bones, long before I realized it. All things being relative, coming of age during the early aughts as…
-
A Feminine Manifesto
It’s been four whole years since I published my first (and thus far, only) book. Four years that feel like a lifetime and a blink simultaneously. Four years that I look back on…
