Sometimes I Wish I Had Had an Abortion.

After a long break….

Life has been wild and has gotten away from me… a lot. But I’m happy to say that we will be moving away from this website to reposting/posting new content on Substack. The UX experience is better for blog-roll style writing, and we are looking forward to being able to post much more regularly there. See you soon, neighbor.

Guest Author 1/31/23 Guest Author 1/31/23

Does my Openness Scare You? by Michelle Cristiani

A dorm room desk with a laptop and second screen in front of a dappled sunlit wall covered in photographs and pleasant art. — *Image from tumblr user* *martaasnotes*

“What mattered to me then, and what matters to me now, is that women are allowed to be red and lacy without being disgusting.”

Youth, sometimes: wild experimentation, free abandon, headfirst dives into realms uncharted. Sometimes it takes a little longer. I bloomed late compared to some.

When I was 21, I was lucky enough to have a friend who was also a sexual tutor. We went on exactly one date, for which we were really just being polite, because we felt like we should. But really, there was no romance between us. We never kissed. We were good friends, and we also had a lot of sex. He was experienced, and I wasn’t. It was a beautiful way to experiment: I trusted him implicitly, and there was no shame between us.

The problem was that other people were ashamed for us. We were quite discreet. Sometimes I would creep into his dormitory room - I had a key – to surprise him upon his return. He did have a roommate, so we carefully worked around his schedule so as not to alarm him.

One particular weekend, the roommate was out of town, and I lounged in my friend’s room where he knew I would be waiting for him. I stripped off my clothes, and hung my red, lacy bra on the doorknob outside (not necessarily in that order). He was on his way, and we could be as alone as we wanted, for as long as we wanted. I slid under his covers, closed my eyes, and daydreamed.

My eyes jerked open when I heard a small commotion outside: confused and very grown-up voices and jangling keys. Certainly this wasn’t police or security – it’s not illegal to hang a bra on a door. Besides, this was his college. I couldn’t have been the first or the last.

But the door opened anyway, and in stormed the roommate. He was back early – a full 36 hours early. With his parents. Into his dorm room. A dorm room that contained not his roommate but an unknown girl, whose (admittedly gorgeous) bra was hanging outside.

What would you have done?

I pretended I was asleep.

They weren’t in the room long – my presence ensured that. But I was awake, and to tell the truth I was a little angry. I wanted to jump up and yell, so what! Am I supposed to be ashamed of playing a game? What if I left a chess piece hanging on the door? Or a Halloween mask?

But I didn’t. I lay there and let them judge me, quite openly, for the one facet they happened to see. I heard distinct muttering, of course. The only word I remember, repeated over and over, was “disgusting.”

Disgusting.

All right, I was indiscreet that time. But this word was a special sort of shock because with my friend, nothing we did was disgusting. It was, in fact, quite the opposite. No power plays, no emotional withholding, no jealousy, no games. It had a charming sort of purity that seemed at odds with a public, red lace bra. This was unexplainable, then. There was rage underneath that shame.

What mattered to me then, and what matters to me now, is that women are allowed to be red and lacy without being disgusting. That they are allowed to broadcast desire without shame, and fulfill desire without incident. Red Lace is not all there is to me - I don’t have to choose between it and everything else I do while I’m wearing it (or not wearing it, for that matter). I didn’t owe anyone that explanation then - and I still don’t.

I don’t remember if my friend and I had sex that day – I was spooked, and worried about being startled again. But I do know that it didn’t stop us. And I hope there are thousands of pretty bras right now, at this very moment, strung across door knobs, without shame and without disgust. It is who we are, and it is not all we are. I am determined to live in a world where both of those statements are true.

Michelle Cristiani teaches reading and writing at Portland Community College in Portland OR. She won the Margarita Donnelly Prose Prize from Calyx Press in 2018 for her memoir of stroke recovery at age 42 and has another memoir excerpt in Inverted Syntax fall 2022 issue which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She also has recent flash fiction in On The Run magazine.

You can find Michelle at heart-pages.com or on Twitter @heart_pages

The Whorticulturalist 1/19/23 The Whorticulturalist 1/19/23

Chloe Cherry and Porn, Waitressing, and Sex Work in the Mainstream.

“The way bodies have been commodified, sexualized, objectified, all the -fied’s really, by our culture in ways that have removed us from our enjoyment and ownership of our own bodies; making us gaslight and doubt our own pain, discomfort, experiences, and on the other end of the spectrum, our own pleasure, desires, and wellness journeys, is astonishing.”

I was one of those people who had Emily Ratajkowski's book on pre-order. I read it from start to finish in two days, and got in a fight with my boyfriend about it, upset that he didn't understand and couldn't sympathize with the body politics that Emily talked about in her book; and with which I, as a former sex worker, identified so strongly.

The way bodies have been commodified, sexualized, objectified, all the -fied's really, by our culture in ways that have removed us from our enjoyment and ownership of our own bodies; making us gaslight and doubt our own pain, discomfort, experiences, and on the other end of the spectrum, our own pleasure, desires, and wellness journeys, is astonishing and has been around for as long as we've lived in 'civilized' societies that have somehow only deemed society to function when there is a pecking order that puts straight white men at the top. This domination of women has been an intrinsic part of our understanding of culture, but for the last hundred years a pushback against that culture has also been a part of that conversation; from getting the vote to talking more freely about pleasure, the liberation of women from reproductive responsibility, and in the past decade or so, the destigmatization of sex work.

I love that Ratajowski feels comfortable exploring these themes, and in particular the relationship between modeling and sex work; how people have treated her as a sexual object or as someone to whom sexual access should be a given. I also love that she's taken to interviewing people on her podcast who have had close ties with the industry, the most recent of which is Chloe Cherry, a former porn star who recently starred in the last season of Euphoria. In this episode, Cherry spoke candidly about her experiences in the industry, and how she would want every young woman to choose it over a job in the service industry because porn has much more safety measures in place versus other less regulated industries. More precisely; she talked about how she would much rather young women have the opportunity to work in the sex industry rather than waitressing because the working conditions and pay were much better, and the environments safer. While many lauded EmRata and Cherry for the candid conversation on the many ways that sex work can be empowering for women, many others were swift to condemn the interview, most notably Mia Khalifa, who posted a TikTok video in response in which she expressed her outrage at the lack of consideration concerning the potential harms and dangers of the sex work industry.

It's opened up a debate that I think sex work has had to consider for a very long time; how do we start a conversation about the pros of sex work while also acknowledging the harms and dangers of the industry? At its root, sex work is an industry made up of primarily women, trans folks, people with disabilities, and members of other minority groups for which sex work is one of the few available avenues for liveable wages, flexible hours, and professional autonomy, all of which are quite unique to the industry and make it a haven for those who struggle to work in other areas. However, because many parts of it are unregulated and criminalized, it also means that sex workers’ abilities to protect themselves from harm are often very limited, and sex workers are known to underreport instances of assault, robbery, rape, and more because of fears of being arrested. While waitressing is a job that is widely criticized for its sexism, the pressure to flirt with customers for tips, and more, it shows an alarming lack of awareness to say that sex work is much safer than waitressing, especially if you’re saying that to young people.

There is also an issue of privilege. Chloe Cherry is an incredibly popular porn star, and has a huge social media following. Celebrity affords you accountability, and very few people have that sort of clout in an industry that is often secretive and anonymous. In addition, the privilege of being blonde, thin and white is one that not everyone in the sex work industry has. This of course doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t have an opinion, but it should mean that she should be more self-aware of her advantages in the industry, much in the same way that Emily Ratajkowski should be aware of how her privilege gives her the platform to voice opinions and experiences that could help, or harm the very people she’s trying to destigmatize.

It’s irritating to be held to a different standard. Porn and sex work at large is often required to include caveats and warnings about assault and violence when workers talk about how they enjoy their work, or think it’s a better fit than other industries. It’s unfair that sex workers need to include a warning label when they talk about how empowering their work is. But it seems right now that we are in the fulcrum swing that glamorizes sex work (easy money, sexual attention) without also talking about just how much work it can be. This is obviously just the start to a longer conversation about sex work, and I’m glad that Chloe Cherry started it on Ratajkowski’s podcast. But I’m also looking forward to hearing other experiences about sex work from less conventional and/or famous sex workers, from disabled camgirls or escorts who aren’t white. It would be great to hear from curvy girls or masc folks, fetish performers or dungeon masters/dommes. It was great to read My Body, but I would love to hear about other bodies too.

Guest Author 1/16/23 Guest Author 1/16/23

Playing House by Emma Yahr

*Image from tumblr user* *ladybabyfairy*

He’s the daddy.

Boy’s boy with a briefcase.

I visit him every day at work, imaginary

casserole dish resting in the dip

of my feminine hip.

It’s 1952 with iPhones

and craft coffee and don’t

we make a handsome couple?

He’s God

and I’m Tour Guide Barbie! Leading

every conversation back to him:

his long day, his stressful meeting,

his big dick. I’m smart,

but still fuckable. Prude

in public, slut in his sheets,

mirroring the mothers before me.

I’ve learned how to stare up at him

through my eyelashes and moan.

He’s learned to expect dinner, pretend

like he isn’t obsessed with me. But he is?

Isn’t he? You are? Obsessed with me, aren’t you?

His lips, infinitely more gentle

than his hands, remind me

that this is a non-speaking role.

I never did learn how to keep my legs open

and my mouth shut.

Emma Yahr is a recent alumna of North Central College, graduating in May of 2021 with her Bachelor of Arts in English Studies. Most recently, her chapbook, "Healing: An Index" was long listed for the 2020 Button Poetry Chapbook Contest. Her work has been featured on Poets.org, the 30 North Literary Review, as well as on various post-it notes and napkin corners scattered across the greater Chicago area. Emma is a poet, storyteller, and freelance writer living in the suburbs and figuring it all out.

The Whorticulturalist 11/7/22 The Whorticulturalist 11/7/22

Luckiest Girl Alive; the Emotional Evolution of Men Should not be Bought at the Cost of Women’s Trauma

I've been traveling a lot for work and one of my favorite things to see is people watching planes on movies. No, I do not watch planes on movies, I prefer to watch other people watching movies. You can tell a lot about the person in 12C by the films they choose to watch on an 8-hour red eye from New York to London. Why would you watch the entire Need for Speed trilogy? Or what would compel the parent in 24F to put on the movie Chucky for their nine year old daughter. Sometimes the movie is auxilary to the real show; how people react to films on planes. Flying tends to bring out the best and the worst in people, and it's hard to look away when you see someone sobbing while watching Sharknado. A movie that I've recently seen a lot of people watching on planes is Luckiest Girl Alive, a recent film starring Mila Kunis, Finn Wittrock, Scoot McNairy, Thomas Barbusca, Jennifer Beals, and Connie Britton and is based on a novel by the same name.

The people who watch this film on planes are almost all women, and almost all of them have cried. As a result, it's been really hard to get myself to watch the movie because I, like most people, do not necessarily enjoy crying. While it can be soothing, cathartic crying can easily snowball into crippling sobs and bawling in the shower for twenty minutes. As a result, I've avoided most dramas in recent years and refuse to watch My Octopus Teacher. A movie that makes people swear off of eating Octopus might make me depressed enough to swear off eating anything, in general.

Luckiest Girl Alive is a movie about a highly ambitious, socially elegant young woman by the name of Ani, who has gone to the right schools, has the perfect job, and is set to be married to a gorgeous man in a perfectly gorgeous wedding. She doesn't eat carbs because she is disciplined, and her narration is the only clue we have to the fact that her entire outward persona is a sham. The narration we get reveals that she is spiteful, sarcastic, biting, and deceitful, while her outward appearance remains poised, controlled, and perfect. As the movie goes on, little by little we discover the complicated layers that make up Ani and her need for control and power. A documentarian has been trying to convince her to sit down to talk about her role surviving a school shooting; but, as flashbacks and her deteriorating mental health and stability show, there is much more to the story than that.

This movie is a gorgeous criticism of victim blaming, of purity culture, of women being told to protect and hide men from the consequences of their actions, because it would be a shame to ruin the life of 'a promising young man,' a phrase now made infamous because of its use in the trial of Brock Turner, a Stanford student who was caught raping an unconscious girl and was giving a mockingly light sentence for his crime. It peels back the layers of hypocrisy in our society that say that a man should be allowed to have sex with whomever he pleases, and that a woman should be flattered if he picks her, even if she doesn't want it. It forces us to confront that we would much rather women deal with the trauma of being a victim in silence and isolation, while men are allowed to use their victimhood to elevate themselves to hero status. It shows that if we are shown a man who is doing good and the shattered woman he broke on his way, we think it is a fair price to pay.

In a post #metoo era of reckoning, this film confronts how often we are more concerned that it will hurt men's feelings to be painted as the bad guys, than we are concerned with the wellbeing of the women they hurt. The film can be wrapped up in the final moments, when a fellow reporter who has followed Dean's career in campaigning for increased gun restrictions basically tells Ani that she has ruined things for everyone. Complicity is expected. Women are the stones that men sharpen themselves against, so they can do battle with anything other than themselves.

I was shattered when I watched this movie, which, as expected, I watched on a plane. Statistically, there were probably several women on my plane who have been victims of sexual violence. Statistically, there were probably several men on my plane who had been perpetrators of violence, But it comforts me to see Kunis's face on screen. Not in a romcom, but in a role with gravitas and meaning; a film that confronts what we don't want to talk about and is willing to splash it across the screens of hundreds of planes filling the sky. Perhaps if enough people watch it, if enough people are forced to confront the reality of what women are expected to suffer silently, maybe we will get somewhere and move the needle just a little bit forward.

The Whorticulturalist 10/29/22 The Whorticulturalist 10/29/22

Finding Home and Being Alone

A long time ago, a mysterious man in a black velvet jacket met me at a party and told me he was going to read my tarot cards. We sat down in the corner of a crowded living room, and he pulled a tattered pack of cards out of the inner pocket of his jacket and asked me to put my hands on top of them.

"What do you want to ask the cards?" he asked me.

I didn't want to pick something hokey, like will I ever fall in love or be rich. I thought for a moment about the things I really wanted; what did I want to know, and more importantly, what did I want the answer to, no matter how bad the answer could be? I had had tarot readings in the past that had predicted dark things about my future, about my children, things that I was afraid of, even if I didn't tell anyone about them.

I thought about all the times growing up when I felt like I lived between worlds; I wasn't quite Asian enough for my mother, but also felt foreign when I was among my Seattle friends. Ever since school, I had been trying to find myself, but more importantly, find a place where I belonged. I had run to Connecticut to escape my problems, and to be with someone who loved me, but whom I eventually realized I didn't love back. I had chosen to go abroad to try and find myself once again, but it was to a place that was cold and dark, that reminded me too much of the past that I had tried so hard to escape from. I had been hellbent on finding home in places that had already burnt down, on land that was salted and scarred. I wanted so badly to feel like I belonged somewhere. I closed my eyes and tried to think hard about the rough feeling of the cards beneath my fingertips. I want to know if I will ever find home.

He laid the cards out carefully in a complex pattern of cards circling a set of four in the middle. I watched as he carefully flipped them over one at a time. He asked me what my question was and I told him, and he smiled in a shy way; as if it was a rare act for him.

"No one has ever asked these cards that question before," he told me.

I smiled back, "I hope that means the cards will still understand me."

He nodded knowingly and pointed at the cards on the perimeter of the circle, in a counterclockwise pattern. "These represent the four life paths you can take. They all have to do with the position of your head and your heart." He gestured at the cards in the middle, one of which was in reverse. "You are a person led by your heart, a romantic. You love to love and be loved. You always chase the person, that is your form of home."

He then gestured to the card in reverse. "This is your mind. You are a smart person, no doubt, but logic comes secondary to your heart, always. You lead with your feelings, not your thoughts. And this will get you in trouble."

He took in a deep breath, looking intently into my face before continuing. "If you follow your heart, you will never find home. If you follow your head, you will find home. If you are alone, you will find home."

He took a deep breath and looked deeply into me. "If you follow your heart, you will never find home."

There were other bits about my reading, but those have faded away over time. This reading was nearly six years ago, but I carry it with me and think of it often. I think about the places I've moved for other people; for a job, for a partner, for a roommate who needed me more than I needed her. How those moves have always left me feeling more alone and more dispossessed than when I lived in my car, for the last three months of college. At least that car was mine.

I'm thinking about this as I sit on a plane on my way to New York; to my home. It feels surreal still, that I'm here. If you told me ten years ago that I was going to be living in an exposed brick studio apartment in Manhattan by myself, with gorgeous furniture and the strand bookstore right across the street, I wouldn't have believed you. I think of all the things I gave up; money, friends, relationships, love, to be here. That I chose this for myself when it didn't make sense (when would it ever make sense to live in a studio apartment that cost nearly three thousand dollars a month?). It feels good to be here; it feels good to follow my head and not my heart for once, even though the heart may feel a little lonely from time to time.

If you had told me that I was someone to follow my head over my heart, I would have disagreed with you. But here I am. Perhaps I've finally learned from my lessons, and kept things a little closer to my chest. More likely, I've just gotten tired of pushing for a romantic ideal that probably couldn't be achieved. But this apartment is pretty damn romantic, it just didn't come with a partner. And that's okay. For the first time, I'm realizing that home wasn't a person I was chasing, trying to nestle between their ribs like a bird into a cage, but it was me. My neck is my chimney, and my beating heart is my door. My feet are my foundation, and my fingers fold into windchimes.

The Whorticulturalist 10/8/22 The Whorticulturalist 10/8/22

How do We Know We’ve Changed? White Lotus and Becoming a Better Person, Whatever that is.

This week I finished watching White Lotus. Yes, I know the show came out ages ago and no one is talking about it anymore, but I'm a busy person, and so I didn't get to watch it, or write about it until now. The White Lotus is a limited-series on HBO that focuses on the high-end luxury resort of the same name located in Hawaii, and the interactions between its staff and the wealthy guests who visit the hotel. It is equal parts cringy, suspenseful, heartbreaking, and hilarious, centering on guests who at times attempt to be woke to their privilege and advantages, but in time slip back into the complacency that wealth and huge amounts of resources can afford you.

Like an American version of Parasite, it's hard at times to know who is taking advantage of whom; is it the guests who use their immense wealth as a tool to get what they want, or wax depressed on the incredible burden of wealth while not even acknowledging the labor of those immediately around them? Is it the college age girls who read books about colonialism whilst lazily exploiting their rich parents, or the surrounding staff. The most painful part is the glimmers you see of realization, and self-knowledge that peek out; the acceptance and understanding that 'yes, I hold immense privilege and power,' and there is an opportunity to use it that just floats gently by. Tonya, the wealthy socialite who has come to the resort to heal and let go of her mother's death; leans on the spa manager Belinda for emotional support, while bribing her along with the promise of helping her open her own wellness center. She is aware of herself enough to know she is deeply insecure and reaches for temporary romantic safety over actual self-reflection, and yet when push comes to shove, she chooses to pursue a romantic interest that she knows will most likely end up in heartache rather than doing the harder work of helping Belinda achieve her dreams. Paula tries to help Kai rebalance the historic injustices that have harmed his family and taken their land by proposing a plan that ultimately ruins his life. When she has opportunities to own up to her part in it, she instead chooses to read books about deconstructing racism, comforting herself with academic self-righteousness over concrete action. In all their own ways, they are confronted with their own issues and the weight of their privilege and the potential good, or harm, it can do. When faced with situations where they can learn and grow, they instead choose complacency and stillness.

The show is scathing, painful to watch, and yet thoroughly consuming. It forces us to confront our own privilege and power, and see how the ways in which we move through the world can knowingly or unknowingly impact others. It demonstrates that empty gestures are often just as dangerous or harmful as actual actions, and most of all, I think the show asks us, how do we know if we've ever actually changed? All the resort guests go home feeling like they've learned some sort of important truth, and perhaps they even feel like they've learned an important lesson, but how do we know that they, or we, have actually changed?

I was confronted with this a couple of weeks ago when an ex asked me whether I felt like I had properly processed our breakup, or if I had moved on to soon. The lines are gray when you are in multiple relationships simultaneously. Polyamory means the support of a community when you are hurt or grieving, but perhaps it also means that sometimes you don't do the heart work that can be accomplished when you are alone. What are the important things you learn as you move through life, and how do you know that you've applied those lessons? Sitcoms are shows all about how people will never change. Despite how many seasons they air, what makes them hilarious and bingeworthy is the inability of the main characters to adapt or truly transform themselves. In mythology, we learn all about characters such as Tantalus who, no matter how hard he reaches, cannot reach the tree branch above him bearing fruit, or the pool of water below him; thus being cursed with an eternity of deprivation. We also have Sisyphus, who rolled a large boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down once it neared the top for eternity. In many ways, the idea of eternity or unchanging, is itself a form of punishment, like the idea of hell, or the restlessness of a vampire; someone who is not alive and yet cannot die. We are fascinated by things that cannot change, and yet the world around us is constantly changing. We aspire to growth and yet find ourselves making the same mistakes over and over; falling for the same people, reaching for the same unhealthy coping mechanisms, and more.

Often it feels like it takes something catastrophic to change us for good; something to really shake our foundations. As demonstrated by Shane in The White Lotus however, sometimes even that doesn't break through to us. And Rachel is a perfect example of someone who wants so badly to change, and still finds herself absolutely incapable of doing so. She knows that she CANNOT change, and will not, even if the thought makes her absolutely despise herself.

So how do we know we've changed? Maybe it's that we act differently when we are put in the same situations that test us before. Maybe you no longer yell in arguments, but speak calmly. Maybe you are kinder where you used to get frustrated, or maybe you see need where you previously would've ignored it. We don't know that we've changed until maybe even the surrounding circumstances do, or the people. Maybe it's when we are confronted with bits of the past that we see how we've grown older, or added a couple more rings to our trunks. Or maybe we ask the people around us, trusting that they will be brutally honest. Maybe you just hope you're a good person, and you start spending the rest of your life desperately trying to prove it.

Guest Author 9/15/22 Guest Author 9/15/22

A Love Letter to My Breasts by Eloísa Pérez-Lozano

From barely-there buds to voluptuous curves

you have enjoyed the freedom of undershirts

before bouncing into Jockey training bras

and finally becoming familiar with

the metal smiles of underwire.

In college, at the peak of your perkiness,

You hid away under baggy t-shirts with

the rest of my rolls and freshman fifteen.

But I worked the weight off, blossoming

enjoying the fabric now hugging our figure.

But your time is ticking, my tender twins

Tightly bound and tumbling when I run

sagging au naturel after a growing baby

latched, suckled, and stroked you gently

the boobs on high balancing hefty hips.

O bountiful breasts, overflowing fatty tissue

sites of playful pleasure and essential sustenance:

Though gravity insists on your inevitable descent

I am grateful for your curves, your cushion

and the overwhelming world of sensation you bring.

Eloísa Pérez-Lozano (she/her) writes poems and essays about Mexican-American identity, women’s issues and motherhood. She graduated from Iowa State University with a B.S. in psychology and an M.S. in journalism and mass communications. A Best of the Net-nominated writer, her work has been featured in The Texas Observer, Houston Chronicle, Houston Public Media, and Poets Reading the News, among others. She lives with her family in Houston, Texas. She can be found on Instagram at @elodisneygirl and twitter @EloPoeta.

Guest Author 8/31/22 Guest Author 8/31/22

My Mother was not a Feminist by Heather Paladini

My mother was not a feminist

But she suffered all the same

For in all of the ways her life was poor,

A man was always to blame.

My mother spoke not of equality

But surely she noticed it didn’t exist

So then who was this woman who raised me

If she was not a feminist?

My mother was raised in poverty

In a family plagued with violence

They say children learn what they live

And she watched her own mother suffer in silence.

My mother did not speak of this until I was older

These horrible truths that were part of her history

It did not occur to me at the time that the past

Would repeat itself and become her story.

My mother spoke not against domestic violence

As I watched her use makeup to cover a bruise

Surely she did not want this life for her daughter

So then why did she tolerate the abuse?

My mother did not model healthy relationships

She always said she hated being alone

I watched her time and time again slide back into the arms

Of men I had hoped she’d outgrown.

My mother once wore a scarlet letter

That tainted both her reputation and mine

But through rumors and gossip, I learned from my mother

One action does not a person define.

My mother spoke not about mental illness

As I sometimes watched her cry in bed for days

She took Prozac, and one time, a few too many

But I was told it was just a phase.

My mother spoke out against no stigmas

After all, what would people think?

She’d just take it in stride, brush it off with a smile,

And pour herself another drink.

My mother spoke not about women and addiction

As I watched and learned how to become comfortably numb

I never properly learned about addiction

Until after my own addictions, I had overcome.

My mother spoke not about women’s rights

But as a teen, she let me make my own choice

A haunting experience we never spoke of again

I think that was the seed from which grew my voice.

My mother spoke not of equality

But surely she noticed it didn’t exist

So then who was this woman who raised me

If she was not a feminist?

My mother - a feminist - she was not

She did not raise me to stand up, to resist

But after all, I am my mother’s legacy

She bore me - I AM A FEMINIST.

Heather Paladini is a poet, writer, and artist living as a transplant in the PNW. She finds her inspiration from the natural world all around her and from her personal experiences in life. Heather is a wild woman, a mother, a student of the Earth, a dreamer, a seeker, a maker and creator, a spiritual being, a romantic optimist, an environmentalist, and a feminist.

The Whorticulturalist 6/3/22 The Whorticulturalist 6/3/22

Putting Myself First is Not Selfish

I like to communicate with words. I like to write them down. Things make more sense to me, feel more familiar and personal, and feel more honest and heartfelt, when they are written down. I don't like talking to people; because jokes and sarcasm and quick wits and misunderstood tones get in the way. I like to hide behind my words, and wrap them around myself like a blanket. I love love letters and romantic novels and autobiographies, I like to marvel at how gorgeous and true they can be, even hundreds of years later. I actually prefer breakups over text, because I like to be in my emotions; and to keep them to myself.

I hate when other people see me emotional. I hate when other people see me cry.

Sex has always been something I can throw around, or barter, or sell, or gift. I'm indifferent to it, often bored of it, and obsess about it constantly. I hate when I can't have it, and am often disgusted with myself right after intimacy. I hate how so often intimacy is given to me only in the form of sex, or when they are inextricably tied together.

The best romantic relationships I've ever had were ones where sex was unimportant, or ones in which we never had sex at all.

I like to write about my experiences here because it helps me process, but I've fallen away when it feels like they've been used against me. I wrote about trying monogamy because I felt like a lot of people have been unhappy with the way I've lived my life; being out and non-monogamous and casual. The resentment-filled backlash was not immediate, but it was palpable. How come you could settle down for that guy and not for me? Why did you break up with me and not with him? Perhaps there is more to relationships than just a sense of entitlement. Perhaps the reason we didn't stay together is that you felt I owed you something, or anything at all.

People think of me as rude, and audacious, selfish and impulsive. I tend to think that that just comes with the territory of being a woman who prioritizes my own needs above the needs of others. How dare I take the time to do that. How dare I care more about myself than about romantic or sexual partners. I've lived a short and lonely life thus far as a result, but at least I belong to me.

There's not really a point to this post. Not really a reason I wanted to write it, except just to say that if you're reading this for evidence of how I wronged you, you'll probably find it. And if you're hurting because of me, I'm sorry about that. If you're reading this and you're angry because I broke up with you over written words, you're a hypocrite.

The Whorticulturalist 5/12/22 The Whorticulturalist 5/12/22

Sometimes I wish I had had an abortion.

Don't get me wrong, I love my son. I love him when I get to see him, which is only very occasionally, and I marvel at how similar he is to me, even though I didn't raise him. I had him when I was 19; he was the consequence of an incredibly abusive and toxic relationship. We don't have to speak of it except that it hurt and hardened me, and never have I since been in a room in which I didn't automatically look for the exit.

I was young, and I was alone, and I was panicked, and I thought the good thing to do was to carry my son through the pregnancy, while I waddled through my college classes and my complicated feelings and traumas. I wanted to be a good mama to him; loving him lopsidedly with my crooked heart.

When I had first told my father about being pregnant, he wanted to know how. What I was wearing, what I was drinking, how I ended up so fucked up. He told me I should keep him; and raise him. He told me that it was the only right thing to do.

The bills piled up. I was on WIC and ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and drank a lot of milk. I went to the food bank a couple of times but I was embarrassed to be there because of my age and my pregnancy. Was I really such a cliche? Was I really that dumb that I ended up being a teen mother?

I asked my dad for help, and he said 'this is your problem to deal with.' I realized that he didn't want me to keep my son because he thought it was the best thing for me, I realized that my father wanted me to keep my son to punish me. How else could a grandfather abandon his first and only grandchild, how could the father of a daddy's girl abandon his darling daughter so easily?

I read a lot of books while lying on the couch, and I would balance the book on the round tautness of my belly. Sometimes I would feel him hiccup inside me and it made me want to curl around him; a little comma of love from this crooked girl. It hurt to feel like I wanted to give him the world, but I couldn't even afford the books for my class.

When he came it was quick and it was easy; to easy. The hard part was letting him go the next morning. I felt empty; a balloon that had slowly lost its air over the course of nine months. I felt bitterly jealous of people who had lost relatives to old age. When someone dies; they slowly fade and become less and less of a person in your mind, and more and more an idea, a feeling, a memory. Giving my son away felt like a betrayal, and with every passing day that he grew bigger, older, smarter, more experienced, he was becoming more and more a person. It was the opposite of death, and yet it hurt so much to know I wasn't going to be the one to watch him grow.

My dad and I stopped talking. I couldn't get over the feeling of abandonment, a distrust I had that he wouldn't do it again. The distrust he has in me, that I was nothing but a whore. What a disappointment I must still be to him.

I felt empty for a long time, but I had the stretchmarks that proved I had been full once; that I used to be someone's home. I started spending every waking hour looking for that feeling again. I wanted to be full of whatever I could put in my body. I binge-ate, I slept with anyone who looked at me, I swallowed any pill placed on my tongue.

I just wanted to go home to a place that had burnt down. I just wanted absolution for a sin that was sewn in red to the front of my dress.

With all the stuff happening with Roe vs Wade I've had to reexamine my feelings about my pregnancy. Am I glad I had him? I am glad he's here. I'm glad he's alive. I'm glad I get to love him from a distance. But sometimes watching him grow apart from me is so painful, so impossible. Sometimes I feel like only a sad, pitiful approximation of a whole person after he left and it hurts so bad that I wished he didn't exist at all. Sometimes I fear that the trauma and complex feelings he has to process; of being an adopted baby, will mess him up as badly as it messed me up. I am pro-choice, but sometimes writing this makes me a traitor. Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I had had an abortion; if I hadn't gone through nine months and more of humiliation, isolation, and pain. I am glad I at least had the freedom to choose, that despite a parent telling me that my child was not only my responsibility but my penalty, I still was able to make a choice that was good for me.

I don't know if motherhood is in my future. I've had partners in my past who have wanted children and I have pictured it happily with them. I worry that having a baby won't fill the hole of that loss; that I'll feel like I'm being disloyal to my firstborn. I worry that I don't deserve it. Those are issues I'm working through. But motherhood should be chosen. It shouldn't be forced on people who don't want it, or aren't ready for it. I know that if I choose it, it will be because there was so much support and love behind me that I would know that my baby would be taken care of, this time.

I used to be pro-life until I experienced how me and my unborn baby were treated. How there was no support for us, and in fact, there was a cruel glee in seeing how I suffered for my mistake, for trying to find love in a bad place. I wouldn't wish that betrayal on anybody. I don't think abortion is easy, but I do think it's a better option than treachery and judgement.

If you've had an abortion, I see you and I support you. I love you and I hope you feel that. If you haven't but wish you had, I see you too. I can understand that feeling because I've experienced it myself. It takes a lot of bravery to lead a true life in this rocky world. My crooked heart is yours.

The Whorticulturalist 3/2/22 The Whorticulturalist 3/2/22

Saving Me: Consent in a Digital Age

The internet has given us the assumption that if you take it, they will take it from you.

“The internet has given us the assumption that if you take it, they will take it from you.”

I’m writing about an incident that happened over a year ago. I was hooking up with one of my best friends during the pandemic, which was not a good idea in the long term, but at the time it was so nice to have a best friend that I could cuddle and wake up to. The pandemic was not as cold when I was at your house, dearest friend, and even when we were watching movies alone, in our respective apartments, it felt like you were with me. Thank you for that.

I learned a lot from that relationship, and yet not enough. It ended explosively, like many of my relationships do. I didn’t stand up for myself when I felt uncomfortable, or I made compromises I wasn’t happy with. It came to a head, as things often do for me; during a work trip. When I have a lot on my plate professionally, one of my ways to cope is to absolutely sabotage my personal relationships, which is something else I’m working on. But I said goodbye in all the wrong ways, and while we are cordial, I know we will never go back to the times when we watched movies together.

What I think about a lot in that relationship is the creativity and sensuality of it. You lived two states over, and so we communicated over messenger a lot, via voice memos or long calls, and of course, with sexy photos. With a background in sex work and someone who loves to dabble in erotic art, I love a good nude selfie. I sent you loads because I loved you in so many ways, and to my delight, you spent an equal amount of time sending back creative sexy photos of your own, always including some sort of detail or another that you knew I would devour. It was a delicious game, and an innocent appreciation of each other’s bodies, communicated mostly through our pure appreciation of each other. What I loved most about it though, was that every time I sent you a nude, you’d always ask for permission to save it on your phone. It was a question I had never been asked before, me, the girl who has sent hundreds, if not thousands, of nudes.

Can I save this on my phone?

The internet has given us the assumption that if you take it, they will take it from you. If you shoot a sex tape for personal enjoyment, people feel entitled to that footage and will even share it without your permission, because it already exists right? Your consent to making the film is an assumed consent that you’re okay with anyone whatsoever watching it. Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian are just the famous ones, but everyday thousands of women are victims of revenge porn and unwanted exposure of their naked bodies to the Internet, at the hands of malicious lovers, exes, or hackers. It’s so assumed that photos will be saved and shared that the idea that someone wouldn’t do that is shocking to me. It’s the only time I’ve ever been asked by a man for permission to save a photo, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the last time.

The digital age has conditioned us to believe that our bodies are no longer ours. Famously, even Emily Ratajowski (SP) had to buy back the rights to her own photo. Her image didn’t belong to her, it belonged to men who assumed they could have access and control of her body because she was beautiful. OTHER AUTHOR This is contrasted with the women of bygone years, who only found safety in assuming a male name when they penned anything, because exposure would’ve only brought embarrassment and shame.

To be given the agency over your work, over your body, even when it’s been given freely away, is powerful. To be asked for permission to save a photo, to cherish it and look at it in quiet moments, is an honor. While we are no longer close friends, I will always love you as a person, for the way you made me feel beautiful and honored, both in person and in selfie mode.

Pattie Bee 2/24/22 Pattie Bee 2/24/22

The Tinder Swindler and Why We Love to Hate Loving Women

“I think we like to believe that those women are stupid or greedy because to see them as otherwise; loving, caring, and trusting people who simply found the wrong person, would be to admit that the same thing could happen to us. ”

Last weekend, I watched the Tinder Swindler with my boyfriend. The documentary is two hours long, but the discussion we had around it took three hours. It mainly circled around victim blaming, and why as a collective culture we chose to so vehemently hate Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjöholm and Ayleen Charlotte for being conned into giving Shimon Hayut, or “Simon Leviev” all of their money.

What makes this comparison feel all the more stark is that the limited series "Inventing Anna" came out at the same time on Netflix. A show focused on unraveling Anna Sorokin, better known by her fake identity as German heiress, Anna Delvey. Inventing Anna follows journalist Vivian Kent – based on real-life journalist Jessica Pressler, whose 2018 The Cut article about Sorokin’s crimes inspired the series and uncovered the faux-socialites manipulative actions. However, followers of that show had only sympathy for the people that Anna defrauded; seeing them as unfortunate victims and loyal friends who were taken advantage of, rather than the opposite.

The response to both shows has been shocking, in particular because while essentially the situation is the same (master manipulator cons innocent victims out of thousands of dollars through deceit and by abusing their trust) the women that Hayut conned are seen as gold-diggers, shallow and greedy women who got what they deserved, while Anna's victims are seen as poor unsuspecting and overly generous kind-hearted individuals.

What is it about romantic scams that gives us permission to hate the women that fall for them? Why are we so quick to blame the women who are manipulated and abused into giving their life savings to a conman? To quote Cecilie Fjellhøy who gave over 100,000 pounds to Hayut, "if we were gold-diggers, we would be the worst ones in the world."

Historically, women haven't had access to financial independence until very recently. We haven't been able to own property, have our own bank account, and for a long time, we couldn't even control our own money. We were given allowances, or open accounts at certain stores where the men in our lives (our brothers, our fathers, our husbands) could carefully monitor what we spent money on. Futhermore, we weren't allowed to work, and so our value laid in what we could provide for our families, and namely, who we could marry. For a long time, women were a currency in a financial system that only valued (mainly, white) men as active participants. Our value lay in what sort of partner we could attract, and without access to our own money, it only made sense that we, or our parents, would look for a partner that could provide for us financially as much as possible. It's no wonder that we learned to value a man's wealth as a priority.

Hayut's victims were abused and attacked online for being gold-diggers, for only valuing his money over anything else. The documentary cruelly didn't focus on how long these women had been in romantic relationships with Hayut, some of them for over a year, in which he showered them with love and affection, and emotionally manipulated them into thinking he loved and cared for them. While many have said "it would be stupid to give money to a near stranger" wouldn't you think differently if it was your boyfriend who you've been seeing for 14 months? On top of that, the movie didn't do a good job of showing how psychologically challenging it can be to act rationally when you've been put into emergency mode, such as when Hayut told each of these women that he was in trouble, and that bad men were imminently out to get him. As women, we've been raised in this society to be carers, to value community and relationships. To try and turn off this innate responsibility in the midst of a crisis in which you think a loved one is in harm's way is nearly impossible.

I think we like to believe that those women are stupid or greedy because to see them as otherwise; loving, caring, and trusting people who simply found the wrong person, would be to admit that the same thing could happen to us. To punish and decry women for acting the exact way the way we are all supposed to act; to be loving to a romantic partner, to be trusting to someone they are in love with, is to say that we are stupid to trust our loved ones, or try to help them out when they're in need. It's saying that our kindness is a character flaw, and that our trust in people is a weakness.

What's ironic about this is that the men who are financially distrusting of women (assuming the women they are dating are just trying to take advantage of them, are trying to get their money etc.), who see romantic relationships as inherently suspicious and the kindness and cooperation required of relationships as a trap, will turn around and be bitter about women who embody the same characteristics. When a woman enters a relationship and is distrustful or cautious because she doesn't want to get scammed, she gets the #notallmen hashtag thrown in her face.

If a sex worker goes out and expects compensation for her time, her energy, and her body, she gets labeled a selfish, greedy, money-obsessed bitch. If a woman gets into a romantic relationship with someone who says that he loves and cares about her and needs her help, and she gives him money as a result, she's labeled a selfish, greedy, money-obsessed bitch. If she enters a romantic relationship with a man and as a result of her past trauma (or the learned trauma from other women's experiences) is slow to trust or reluctant to share financial responsibilities, she's labeled as a selfish, greedy, money-obsessed bitch. Whichever way, we can't win.

The Whorticulturalist 2/19/22 The Whorticulturalist 2/19/22

I Can’t Stop Loving the Bad Guy; The Undoing and Toxic Men

I finally got around to watching The Undoing... and it reminded me of all the ways I love to love toxic men.

I don't like to watch shows until after the final season has aired. I was burned by Lost when it first came on the TV when I was in high school, and then three years ago when Game of Thrones finished its last season. I ride the careful balance between spoiler and gentle suggestion that this show that I'm about to obsess over for the next six months wasn't a huge, colossal waste of my time. It's made me really appreciative of limited series shows like Fleabag, Sharp Objects, Chernobyl, and Little Fires, shows that gleefully plunge you into a dark, heavy, wet plot with incredibly complex characters, enchanting dialogue, and heaving emotional weight, only to throw you back onto the shore, soaked and gasping for air, after the tenth episode. I love that. A cold-plunge for the soul, and one that fits my busy schedule.

Even then, it was only a month ago that I finally watched Kate Winslet's incredible show Mare of Easttown, and it was only this past week that I watched The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. While it normally takes me a couple of weeks to finish a show, I completely devoured it over two days. To say I was gobsmacked is to be an understatement. A show about a wealthy couple generally untouched by the fears and failures that haunt many of the rest of us, the world of Grace and Jonathan Fraser is turned upside down when a young mother from their son's prestigious private school turns up brutally murdered, and they become swept up in the resulting storm. The stark contrast between wealth and power, effortless influence and life of ease, with that of the growing feeling of dread that everything in your life was not what it seemed to be is powerful in this show; a brutal and naked reminder that even the most powerful, the best equipped, can sometimes be taken advantage of.

From a visual point of view, this show was interesting for showing graphic tidbits and flashbacks to the last moments of Elena Alves's life, and the cast is so tight and small that it feels claustrophobic at times. There is no stranger from out of town who randomly murdered this woman. The call is coming from inside the house. One of these people killed poor Elena, but who could it possibly be? Much in the same way of Jessica Biel's The Sinner, which focused less on the whodunit and more on the question, 'why?' It feels overwhelming almost from the first episode of The Undoing that something is very, very wrong. And yet we are dragged along through a masterful suspension of disbelief, and into almost willing something to be true when it so clearly isn't. At the end we realize this isn't a show about a crime, but a show about gaslighting, about emotional manipulation, and about our own hesitance to change our views about someone we care about deeply, about someone we love.

When this show first came out, I listened to an NPR interview with Hugh Grant where they discussed his experience being involved in such a unique project, and how it must've felt to go from someone who traditionally gets cast as the hero to suddenly find himself playing the villain. Armed with that knowledge about the show, I remember still watching it and thinking, "well, maybe he's just playing the pretend villain. Possibly it was really Grace. Maybe it was really the son, even." I balked at the idea that someone so charming, loving, successful and sweet could be a bad guy. As I watched, I was reminded of my ex-husband, a man who was always the most popular guy in the room, who could charm the ice off a Midwest winter. I remembered an old ex from college, who I had continued dating even after a mutual friend had warned me that he was not a good person. I remembered all the times I looked at the red flags in front of me and consciously decided to tell myself that they were green. We have all been colorblind at some point in our life; we have all known a monster. We have all believed in the good in someone, even when we have evidence of the contrary. We love to think that we know who the bad guy is, but The Undoing taught us all that even when all the pieces fall into place, we have no fucking clue.

This show felt like a painful reminder and a warning, all wrapped up in one. It reminded me of why I continue to write this blog, because even as a sex activist and a feminist, as someone who was literally in the middle of writing a book about boundaries, I let a man stealth me last year and I said nothing. The lengths of disbelief we will extend to men who are charming is a reminder that while every woman either has or know a woman who has been sexually assaulted, so few of us know a man who's been an assaulter. This show was a reminder that monsters don't have to lurk in alleyways. Sometimes they can be spooning you in bed.

All my life I’ve been led to believe that men would act in my best interest, that there would always be a motive unveiled to me at the final moment, where I would see that the betrayal was really just a play to save my life. Being fed the belief that all charming men are good guys has been patriarchy’s biggest achievement; giving bad men a path of no resistance to get what they want. You can get away with anything, as long as you do it with a charming smile. Our definition of who and what a bad guy is so narrowly defined, that even when it stares us in the face, even if the evidence is almost overwhelmingly in support of guilt, we are reluctant to believe it. What a grift. What a brilliant strategy. That’s why The Undoing is so good, is it challenges our beliefs that we can judge people based not on their looks alone, but also their actions. It challenges the belief that “he can’t be the bad guy, because he’s always been nice to me.” It also challenges the belief that we can always see and prevent bad behavior or bad actors from being in our lives. Grace Fraser is a clinical psychologist and a brilliant one, yes, but she is also a woman who was married to a monster for fifteen years and had absolutely no idea. It’s not your fault if you get charmed by a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It’s not my fault that I’ve been trained to see charm as a reasonable excuse for bad behavior. It’s not my fault that patriarchy has duped me into automatically overlooking suspicious actions as long as they're coated in love. But I can certainly do something about it now. I can undo my assumptions, and examine my proclivities more carefully. A monster can look like a knight in shining armor if I squint hard enough. It’s time to open my eyes.

The Whorticulturalist 1/23/22 The Whorticulturalist 1/23/22

On Learning to Love a Locked Door.

On slowly going monogamous, and confronting the chameleons.

There's something about meeting new people that I am addicted to. I'm not sure if that's why I was attracted to sex work, or that I loved sex work so much because it helped me discover this secret need in me. The longing to reinvent myself, to go into a space where I am a stranger and a blank slate. I can be the caged animal whose door was just slid open. Do I want to slink away quietly into the forest? Maybe I will turn around and lick the hand that freed me, or maybe I will bite it. The power and choice to be whomever I want, freed of the constraints of prior expectations, or past behavior.

I long constantly to reinvent myself. I want to be more poised, creative, controlled, elegant, wild, biting. I miss the way sex work used to make me feel because it was fun to go onto stage and figure out in seconds what my role is supposed to be. Am I supposed to be lithe, cool, and haughty? Small and impressionable, cute and innocent? Maybe a client is looking for a listening ear, or a shoulder rub. Maybe they want a pet for the evening. I loved the possibilities of it, like a night of improv, every night. Similarly, when I dated, I could be whomever I wanted. I kept my photos on tinder and bumble purposefully vague for that reason; I wanted people to project an idea on me so I could make a game of how easily I could become that thing. While this feels like an exercise in extreme insecurity, it was actually the opposite for me. It was a practice of the highest form of narcissism and self discovery to see who I could become. I felt like a shopping addict, going into dressing rooms to try on personalities to see how well they fit. This person looks good on me, I would preen. This character brings out the gold flecks in my eyes.

I miss that, the multi-faceted complexity of fucking multiple people at a time, sometimes more than one in a day. I loved the rush and the excitement of it. I felt like Carmen Sandiego. I was powerful, invincible. I loved the feeling of being able to pick and choose my sexual partners, which didn't always feel like the case. I liked being in charge of who I was in any given moment, and I loved the creative freedom it afforded me to express myself without the harm of permanence or even accountability.

The pandemic was about slowing down. It was about things coming to a full stop for me socially, an abrupt end to casually sleeping with so many people. I settled on one or two partners at the most, people I had to thoughtfully choose and then plan around, based on whether I could trust them, and how well they could fit into my calendar between the weeks of self-quarantine after every meeting. After the first year of casually sleeping with J, he asked me if we could be partners. But not like the partners I had had in the past; ones where we were couples in name, but I was essentially allowed to run around and be free, but more intentional, and yes, monogamous partners.

My initial reaction was to immediately run away. I was allergic to the idea of being controlled, monitored, or limited in any way. I didn't want people close to me. I enjoyed intimacy as a performance, or a game, or even an appointment. If I heard a door close behind me, my first assumption was that it had also been locked. We talked about it for hours and for days, carefully laying out expectations and specific rules of engagement. I didn't want to feel trapped, I wanted to feel protected, comforted. But like a stray dog, I've been struggling to get used to having a food bowl and a bed of my own.

Impermanence has been my protection, and now I feel like the veil is inevitably shedding itself. Something that I hold onto more ferociously and more protectively than anything else is, ironically, my anger and my rage. I am not a patient woman. Nor am I a lenient one. I have the wrath of a dying mama bear when provoked, and this part of me, the monster in me, is my greatest weakness and my biggest ally. She cannot be tamed, and she will embarrass me on the highway or in a swanky restaurant, but she will also protect me from bullying boyfriends or creepy bosses. I don't like people seeing my secret weapon, recognizing the wolf under the wool, because she is secretly me.