Does my Openness Scare You? by Michelle Cristiani

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.

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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

No, Mother.

When I first came out to my mother - and to me, coming out meant coming out to my mother - this woman I’d heard cry only from behind closed doors, choked tears on the other end of the phone and said, “Your life is going to be so hard, and life is hard enough.”

I was 19 years old. 

Now 31 years later at the cusp of 50, older than she was then, I can fully and truthfully respond, NO, MOTHER. 

No, mother. Being gay wasn’t hard; what’s hard is oppression. What’s hard is being denied history. Not knowing for instance that there were queer kings and queens and emperors - still memorialized on coins - women that rode into battle and married wives. Men who dressed in gowns and wore makeup and called themselves “husband” to the man they held dear yet STILL ran an empire. 

What’s hard is not knowing about the ancient sarcophagi containing some of the First People, male remains buried with tender female objects because these were the things treasured in life. It was hard to grow up in the South thinking I was the only one, all the while this history existed untold, the first people, gender-fluid, but still honored by their tribe, that was hard. It was difficult struggling inside with shame and guilt, shunned by classmates and threatened with damnation, all because I’d fallen in love with my friend, fell in love the way all teenagers do - an open, dazed stumble like falling into flowers – surviving that was hard. 

Being gay wasn’t hard.  It was being alone.  

Mother, the hard was you calling me queer, sneer in your voice. Belittling me, as I cried post-breakup on the bathroom floor.  The hard was learning later that so many queer children die needlessly for the same reason, taking their own lives, when had they known about Caleph Al-Hakeem and Queen Christina, and those Two Spirits, the absolute inevitability of LGBTQ people throughout time, well, they wouldn’t have died. 

No, mother.  Being gay isn’t hard. Seeing a college friend, jaw wired shut after being bashed in Alphabet City, that brings pause. Begging for politicians to recognize gay men dying of AIDS, to allow them healthcare, a basic human right, yeah, that sucked, I agree. But we threw the ashes of their dead bodies over the White House fence and eventually those inside got the point. 

Mother, you were worried about me in your own way, but what you missed was the joy. What  you didn’t foresee was the dancing. Limelight, NYC, a former church, now lit by spotlights.  You didn’t know about the Pyramid Club down in the Village, friends dancing to the all-80s night. Or Private Eyes, where they misted the room with wet smoke and how we swam through it like a sea to meet lovers on the other side. 

Mother, you missed the parades. We marched down 5th Ave from the Park, following a lavender line through the city.  Held kiss-ins in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, grabbed the person next to us and went to town. It reminded me of being young on Sundays when we’d say peace be with you and reach across the church to shake hands with strangers, only in the protest it was WITH TONGUE. Yes, mother that was fun. That was exultant. The great rainbow ribbon of balloons. The dykes on bikes. Rounding Christopher Street past the Stonewall, queers cheering from their balconies and throwing streamers down on our heads like we were wartime heroes. The parade would dump out on to the west side Piers, into a rally, and drag queens would lip sync from the stage.  They’d call us names, yell out, hey bitches happy Pride! And I’d be pressed in among the masses, a glorious press of bodies, love, and joy,  we’d say our goodbyes and plan to meet back later when we’d dance by the water and kiss beneath fireworks, and the moon. 

No, mother, that wasn’t hard. That was life.  That was being myself. Feeling myself, feeling free.  Free of hatred, particularly of self-hatred, and no, that wasn’t hard. THAT was grace.

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Laura Jones is a writer, journalist and teacher. Her nonfiction essays have been featured in two anthologies, including THEY SAID, edited by the poet, Simone Muench, and the upcoming, HOME IS WHERE THEY QUEER YOUR HEART. An excerpt of Jones’ graphic memoir "My Life in Movies" was published in 2019 in Fourth Genre, along with a companion essay commissioned by the journal. Her nonfiction work has also appeared in numerous literary journals including Creative Nonfiction, Foglifter, The Gay and Lesbian Review, The Drum, and Wraparound South, to name a few. Jones earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University, where she also won the 2015 AWP Journals Prize. She is currently co-teaching a curriculum she co-designed in LGBTQ+ history and theory to high school students at the Springhouse Community School.

STD Testing at Home: My Experience with NURX

Photo by Natali Voitkevich via Pexels

I was not paid to endorse or use NURX, I bought and took their STD test out of my own curiosity.

In the first couple weeks of the pandemic, the questions were all about the essentials. What's going to happen to me? Will I be able to get toilet paper? Will global distribution chains of food dry up? There were many immediate concerns such as these while we huddled indoors and bought camping equipment, pasta, and sourdough starters. But as the months wore on, other less pressing issues started coming to the forefront.

One of the pressing ones for me was the question of reproductive healthcare. My normal clinic was closed except for emergencies, and I didn't think my regular STD checkup would be considered one, although mentally I was close. As a sexually active person who is also polyamorous, I am usually fastidious about STD and sexual health checkups and until the pandemic, I would go every three months or so. But now, I didn't know where to go. It was starting to make me feel anxious, and I wanted to put my mind at ease, and take care of my health.

Almost as if by magic, the internet daddy Google started advertising Nurx to me via instagram and facebook and all of the other unmentionable places I lurk on the internet, and I was immediately interested. A STD test you could take at home? Perfect for quarantine. Nevertheless, I hemmed and hawed about getting it because I was unsure if it was as reliable as it said it was, and also it came with a decent price tag, whereas previously, all of my STD tests were free through my insurance. Not knowing when the pandemic would end though, I decided that it was worth a shot.

When the kit came, it was packaged in a cute little box that opened up in such a cute way I was almost disappointed that there wasn't shoes or chocolates inside. There were many different packages and labeled bits and bobs, but the instructions were really easy to read and easier to use. It was definitely a bit weird and uncomfortable to do the tests myself, but it was outweighed by my genuine curiosity and slight feeling of glee in doing these on my own. Finally, I can play the Doctor my mom always wanted me to be.

One throat swab and one vaginal swab later, I was left with the blood test. You use a little disposable lancet to prick the side of your finger and then you squeeze several drops of blood onto a little tab. I think of the many times I've been to the lab to get this test done, and how they've always taken two or three vials of blood out of my arm. Can they really accurately test me with just one finger of blood on a little business card? Time will tell. This process is not for the faint of heart, it does hurt a tiny bit, but surprisingly, it was not as bad as I thought it would be, and I could easily do it again if necessary.

After all of that, I packaged everything up neatly and put it into a little box to send back to the company. Postage is already prepaid so I just took it to my local post office to tip into the mail slot. It took about 10 days to get my results back, which is a little longer than they promised on the website (but considering the overworked state of healthcare in this pandemic I was more than willing to give them a break), but I got my results by text, email, and then through the private messaging function on their website. All negative! Yay for me.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. I really enjoyed the process and overall, it took me fifteen minutes maximum to do all the testing bits (I had to wait until the blood card fully dried before I could put it back into the packet which took a bit longer) but honestly, it was a lot more convenient than having to go to the clinic. A feature that I also liked was that you could reach out to your designated provider via the website at any time with your health questions, just as you would at the doctor's office. The cost can be a bit prohibitive, I think it was about $200 dollars for me overall, but during a pandemic in which my usual methods of sexual health monitoring aren't available? This worked just fine and I'll definitely be doing it again.

El Marianismo: The Trap of Latinx Femininity

El marianismo, as defined by Evelyn Stevens is “the cult of feminine spiritual superiority”. While machismo elevates men to the detriment of men and women alike, Stevens argues that women are the sole beneficiaries of this ideology. Stevens fails, however, to acknowledge the ways in which marianismo traps women in behaviours that ultimately benefit men.

The story of how this myth or cult of imagery surrounding women began in the New World is still retold today. The church says that ten years after the conquistadors first set foot on Mexican soil, an indigenous convert saw a vision of the Holy Mother of God in Tepeyac just north of modern-day Mexico City. 

Before colonisation, this area was a significant place of worship for the indigenous people, where they worshipped their own mother figure Tonantzin. One of the first converts to Catholicism renamed Juan Diego saw the image of the virgin mother in place of Tonantzin. When this happened the priests and the Pope upheld this apparition as a testament to the power of God. 

Since then, Mestizo culture has rallied around this image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, turning it into a national icon. Later, when this apparition became the patroness of not only Mexico but the whole of Latin America, marianismo spread through the whole region. 

Art by Natalia Tapia 

This cult of feminine spiritual superiority manifests in the duty of a good woman. 

Una Buena Mujer is one that fully embodies the image of the weeping mother, dutiful wife, and chaste daughter. These three dimensions govern much of what femininity meant and, in some places, still means in Mexico and Latin America. The belief that women have this spiritual superiority endows them with a heavy burden, that which they must carry with piety and grace. This comes with the recognition that men not only don’t have this same burden but are also not capable of handling this sacred duty. 

It is the belief that men could never be held to the same standards as women gives them the leeway to be violent, insolent and unproductive while still maintaining their superiority. Under a system of marianismo, women are at once exalted and persecuted, trapped in this mantle of the virgin mother. While machismo is the “exaltation of the masculine to the detriment of the constitution and feminine essence”, marianismo is about the exaltation of the feminine in the service of men. 

Una Buena Mujer doesn’t ask more of the men around her, she is submissive and accepting of their failures. As Stevens says in her paper: “Beneath the submissiveness, however, lies the strength of her conviction - shared by the entire society-- that men must be humored”. Women have been pictured in the region as the backbone of the society, filling in the gaps where the men in their lives falter. Yet, this is seen as her duty not her sacrifice. The problem of this myth, this cult of female superiority is that it is not to her benefit but to her detriment all the same. 

Under a system of machismo, womanhood is a vehicle, a functional space in society. Women are first daughters, chase and meek. Then they are wives and dutiful homemakers. Until finally they are mothers pious, caring and grieving. The perfect image of the Virgin Mother herself. But what comes next? Where do they go after they have fulfilled their purpose? After they have long overstayed their welcome? They die. 

Women exist in this macho society in relation to and for the pleasure of men. This is what life used looked like, especially in the underdeveloped Northern towns and villages. But the growing pressures of international debts, free trade agreements, and multinational corporations with shaky moral values have caught up with the developing nation. 

The idea of “una buena mujer” is deeply entrenched in most of Latin America, and while many young women have begun to challenge it, in states like Chihuahua the most radical stance in opposition to this archetype is the image of the working woman.

One of the drivers of the violence in Juarez is the invasion of global capitalist structures that have expanded the role of women in the workforce. While in much of Mexico globalisation has brought with it widespread development and a movement towards social justice, in the north, it has given rise to a wave of violence that threatens to drown the women that live there. 

The Maquiladora industry has swept over much of the northern states, as a part of the “Programa de Industrialización Fronteriza” (the Border Industrialisation Program or BIP).  The industry is synonymous with Mexican manufacturing, and features a variety of assembly line factories producing a wide range of export goods. The industry exploded under this program which allowed for foreign (and local) businesses to import machinery and raw materials essentially duty-free to industrialise and further develop the country, but particularly Northern states like Chihuahua. 

Before BIP was introduced in 1965, PRONAF, an initiative geared towards improving infrastructure and creating jobs in border states, led to the construction of huge factories. When la Programa de Industrialización Fronteriza was introduced, foreign manufacturers began to use it as a way to import raw materials and export consumer goods at lower prices than ever before. 

Art by Natalia Tapia

In the new era of global free trade agreements, the introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the ’90s propelled this once small fledgling industry into the economic powerhouse we know it to be today. As more North American investors saw the opportunity that came with mostly duty-free raw materials and little import taxes, Maquiladoras became a major means of production for primarily exported goods. But the rapid expansion of commercial spaces and central Mexican populations has led these factory jobs to be relegated to the North.

The industry has shifted Mexico’s socioeconomic landscape, but its greatest impact has been on the women in cities like Juarez. BIP failed to improve infrastructure in the North, it failed to bring the radical development it promised, and where it aimed to bring better jobs it has instead brought a second wave of indentured servitude.

Most workers at these factories are young women, from rural areas that surround cities like Juarez. And they have been targeted for stepping outside of their traditional role as women. A role which is rooted in religious dogma and machista oppression. We cannot pretend that this role exists in a cultural vacuum, it is inherently cultural. Machismo and marianismo have combined in the society to put forth an image of womanhood that is purposefully one dimensional. It is that picture perfect image of the barefoot pregnant housewife that dominates the minds of the many men who are outraged by female participation in the workforce.

Wright, in her research into the femicides that have erupted post-NAFTA, claims that it is the devaluation of female work under this new capitalist structure that has further devalued their lives. They have been made pawns in the capitalist game of low starting costs and high profits that characterises the modern Maquiladora industry.

Life in the industry is, however, highly undesirable. Much of the social friction that comes with women taking up space in this sector is rooted in them stepping out of their traditional roles and family structures. Women in this industry have been reportedly paid 25% less than the minimum wage, many have had miscarriages attributed to the long hours of menial labour. What infuriates the men in the society is this sense that women are being ripped from their homes, their proper duties, to focus instead on the working world. 

Women working in the Maquila industry put their lives on the line day in and day out. Immediately after the introduction of NAFTA which sparked this mass expansion of the industry in the 90’s, the homicide rate for women spiked by 600%. Every day as these women leave their homes in the early morning they feel the threat. As they make the march with the others in their communities and approach the company bus, they notice the women who went missing the night before. They know all too well that they could be next. And yet, they persist. 

They don’t have many options. 

They have already given up so much to simply be here. Leaving behind their families and communities to move to this new city and entering into this line of work the predicates on their oppression. The Maquila industry has incited the mass migration of vulnerable, poor, independent women to cities like Juarez. 

Where they are then preyed on by two systems; one that turns their victimhood into profit and another that turns it into symbolism. 

Late at night as shifts end there is little to protect these women. The city is underdeveloped, the buses run late and the street lights don’t work. There are men who see this as the perfect time to exact their revenge, release their anger, and express their frustrations. These murders are brutal. They are deliberate and painful, they leave the women’s bodies mangled and bruised. 

While there is little consensus between NGOs, academics, and politicians on who exactly is responsible for these crimes, the guaranteed side effect of this industry’s expansion is the increased vulnerability of these women. 

The system of capitalism that degrades these women, their labour and their economic value is the same system that degrades them culturally. It is a system that stands firm in the belief that women are superior in a singular dimension, the spiritual, and that men have dominion over all other dimensions in which people exist. Even that minor superiority diminishes, fading into the background of a world that is increasingly less focused on fate and more on profit. 

Capitalism is a patriarchal invention, and the pressures of global capitalism have only come to further gendered divides, not close them. But as Stevens observed in her research Latinx women have long been silent, and as she argues, unaware of this oppression. This is the crux of the issue. 

As these women step out of the mantel, that has secretly been their cage, they are grasping for feminist empowerment. Their work is degrading, their employers degrade them, but their empowerment is their financial freedom. The perpetrators of these crimes are well aware of what the working woman means, the power she holds. 

These murders, whether they are truly serial killers or simply gang members, are targeting these women because they have so boldly taken this step. When women are stuck in the social construct of marianismo, they are also stuck in the exaltation it gives them. They are trapped by terms of praise, the sense of piety that ultimately oppresses them further. 

Joining the workforce signifies a transition into the feminist culture that dominates in central Mexico. This minor empowerment and freedom is opening the door for Northern women to find the same emancipation from this subtle condemnation that so many of their compatriots have. With every protest, every riot, these women are firmly asserting themselves and affirming their human value. 

Asserting a value that exists outside of the spiritual, that takes its form in those fields they have so frequently been shunned from. The act of working in this industry while it oppresses them in a way that is much more overt, it is allowing them the chance to gain access to that feminism which has been previously unknown to them. These women are becoming educated, financially liberated and firmly aware of their own oppression. 

The infiltration of the Maquiladora industry into the fabric of  the Mexican economy represents many new and formidable threats. But it also represents a time of great, incomprehensible change. The agency and bravery these women are expressing as they take these first unsure steps outside of this caging mantel of the virgin mother, are laying the foundation for change.

Many activist movements and organisations have started in protest of the murders and as a way of providing support to the victims of gender violence in their communities.. The groups of women that have started to highlight these issues and call out for their rights are worth reading and learning about. We at the Whorticulturalist encourage you to do so. Here are some links to NGOs and feminist collectives from Jurarez and other cities and areas in the North of Mexico:

Casa Amiga is an organisation that provides immediate aid to women suffering from the violence in Juarez. If you click the link you can donate directly to them via paypal.

Ni En More is an organisation of women in Juarez that are combating the format of maquila work directly, they produce textiles and clothing that are rooted in activist foundations. You can donate and learn more about them here.

Ella Tienen Nombre maps the femicides in Juarez, with data going back all the way to the 90’s. This is a great resource to stay up to date on the realities of the violence, and you can see all the amazing work that is being done here.

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Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley

Lewds, Nudes, Dudes

“But the omnipresent fact is that the female body and its likeness remain hypervisible, bearing the official seal of a social trademark - easily recognizable, easily repackaged for consumption. ”

During my sophomore year of college, I took a costume design class as an open rebellion against the business degree that I had been maternally mandated to pursue. I sucked at drawing, but my professor from a theater class I’d taken the semester prior encouraged me - he believed that I would really enjoy it (they also really needed the students for the class to run so I’m sure they were willing to accept my crappy art).

This very small class of six had a ratio of all girls to one boy. Our teacher, a woman, presided. Our task was simple: we were to read plays and each individual class member would design a costume set for the entire dramatis personae. As the months progressed, our teacher repeated one resounding frustrated remark, “It’s like none of you know how to draw men. You’ve got these elaborate designs for your female characters and then the male characters look more like afterthoughts.”

She encouraged us, the female members of the class, to look up male bodies for reference because something had to give. I remember being slightly embarrassed by this - I was seventeen and felt like I was crossing a boundary. However, that class ended up teaching me something about fashion… and a lot about sexual politics.

*

I would like you to take a moment to visualize the nicest butt you’ve ever seen. Imagine the plumpness of the ass cheek, the rotundness of its curvatures. It could be a firm butt or a soft one, it just has to be a nice one. OK, now that we’re done with that indulgent exercise, tell me yourself what was the gender of the person with this lovely ass? More than likely, regardless of who you are or what you’re into, you were thinking about a female butt. Maybe it was Nicki’s, Beyonce’s, Kim’s, some random Instamodel you follow. The butt is female, the butt is always female.

Society, as a whole, is more inclined to look at women’s bodies because we have been actively encouraged and rewarded for doing so. Women’s bodies exist in this weird cultural public domain to serve as muse and canvas, our bodies are the clay from which male intellectuals and creatives mold and shape their careers. Of course, women also paint and theorize about women. We do this in efforts to reclaim our bodies, express our autonomy, show love and solidarity within the sisterhood, be transgressive. But the omnipresent fact is that the female body and its likeness remain hypervisible, bearing the official seal of a social trademark - easily recognizable, easily repackaged for consumption.

I read a study (Men Are Much Harder by Beth A. Eck) in which men and women were presented with two sets of images - one presenting female nudes and the other male. When presented with the female nudes, everyone knew what to say about them - both men and women would speak on how attractive the female bodies were; women would go on to talk about how they wished to look like the women in the images. Now, when presented with the male bodies? Oh boy. Men made sure to assert their heterosexuality (“No homo, bro.”) and would say things like, “This does nothing for me, I’m not interested in looking at this” while women would be slightly embarrassed by what they were looking at. Nobody knew how to engage with these images because men’s erotic bodies rarely appear in the open as the object of muse or fantasy, we have no lexicon with which to engage eroticized male nudity.

In our society, we conflate sex with the objectification of women. We speak of sex as a perfomance that plays out on female bodies for their male partner’s pleasure (I mean, have you seen mainstream porn?). Much of the language we use to communicate and express sexual desire is filtered through our patriarchal understanding of relationships and pre-set sexual “scripts.”

When I was in my late teens/early twenties, an aunt gave me a warning coated as advice: “Men are aroused by what they see.” I had heard some variation of this growing up but how she worded it so succinctly was nothing short of mastermind. As a young woman who had been repeatedly denied from exploring her sexuality for fear of reproach (and because, let’s face it, we as a society are not good about discussing sexuality at all) I let these be my governance for how I was to behave in relation to relationships. But it begged the question - what the heck were women aroused by? Because I sure as heck knew that I was aroused by what I saw and I had a private Tumblr exclusively dedicated to photos of dudes in all manner of undress to prove it. Yet, despite all this, I felt like I was doing something unnatural.

The gnawing sense of shame I felt for having that Tumblr lead me to delete it two years ago after a successful four year run (press F to pay respect). Why was I feeling shame about a blog that only I knew ever existed? Because I felt abnormal. Over the years I routinely explained to myself that I only had the blog so that I could gain better understanding of male anatomy but of course that wasn’t true - I kept it for my own visual pleasure, for my own titillation, for my own sexual satiety. That must have been what have been really scared the crap out of me:  I was a woman who was aroused by what I saw. After repeatedly hearing that female sexual desire is more duty than delight, an expense paid for the love from her male partner,  I felt like I was betraying womanhood and femininity.  

In Dr. Lucy Neville’s, Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: Women and Gay Male Pornography and Erotica, she makes a note on how we react to women who look - very poorly. She says, “To look critically at men goes against the feminine role and disrupts the established power relationship. Good girls don’t look. They particularly don’t look at men. Instead they get looked at.” Our society, so painfully unequipped to understand women’s sexualities  (especially when it entails looking at men with that same gaze with which men have been taught and conditioned to so freely look at women) decides to pretend that either we don’t exist or we’re in some way trying to be men. Our views on sexuality have been so thoroughly warped, so thoroughly androcentricized that we are willing to assume that one gender stands as sole paragon of sexual desire.

For me, the most powerful scene in the 2019 film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, comes when Héloïse asks Marianne if she draws men nude. Marianne replies, “I am not allowed to… I’m a woman… It’s mostly to prevent [me] from doing great art. Without any notion of male anatomy, the major subjects escape [me] [but] I do it in secret.”

This statement absolutely floored me. It reminded me of how I rarely find women artists who draw the male erotic as their primary subject and those that do tend to do so through the homoerotic lens. It’s as if women’s desire has been thoroughly quelled; we have a lack of social scripts to guide us.

In her video essay, Shame, Contrapoints points out that, “In the most patriarchal situation, straight women are ultimately attracted to men, and sexually aroused by male bodies. Or are they? … a lot of straight women are just kind of ‘meh’ about male bodies and men in general. What is that about?” But she’s right. I remember having a friend see my phone’s home screen (which is a really hot pin up I commissioned of an artist’s male original character [abbreviated to OC, for all you non-fandom plebs]) and she was really shocked to see it. The image isn’t explicit, it channels the power of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. When I asked her about her shock she said, “I just don’t look at men that way.” I believe what she meant was “sure I date guys but I’m not about to have a pin up of a dude as my screensaver.” I get it. Nobody really looks at men that way. While female bodies dominate our perceptions of erotic, male bodies are just… meh. We have had centuries of experience posing and styling the female body to make it aesthetically pleasing but when we do this with the male body it looks almost alien.

I used to be at that ‘meh’ point. But in coming into my sexual liberation, I have realized that I would rather openly challenge this than sit with it. I'm tired of hearing "be sexy for your man" as legit advice for women. Do guys hear from older guys that they need to "be sexy for their lady?" No they don’t.

I started that Tumblr back up again. I intend to keep it this time.

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Bracy Appeikumoh is a Sarah Lawrence College Creative Writing (Speculative Fiction) MFA candidate who writes to imagine a world wholly different from our own. She explores issues such as sexuality, gaze theory, the subversive effects of fandom culture, and internet culture. Also a nerd. You can find more from Bracy at Twitter or Instagram.

Mulan Shouldn’t Have to Act Like a Man to be a Hero

“We don’t want a female hero who acts like a man. We want a female hero who shows that women who act like women can be heroes too.”

My mom and I used to watch the original Mulan all the time. As a chinese immigrant, there were very few movies or cultural figures that my mother and I could bond over that were Asian, or were suitable for children, or ideally, both. Mulan was one of our favorite movies to watch together because it not only bridged that gap, but it went one step ahead and provided a disney princess at last that was strong, smart, independent, and doesn't need a prince to save her. She actually saves the prince. Hell, she saves all of China.

Last night, a lovely lover of mine came over for a night of takeout and to watch Mulan. I'd already had my misgivings about a movie that was going to cost 30 dollars on top of needing a subscription to Disneyplus, in the middle of a pandemic, with unemployment at 10%, but I was willing to give it a shot considering all the fanfare this movie had received. It seemed like a low blow for a corporation that had already bullied its way into reopening many of its theme parks despite high Covid infection rates, and that sits on top of money like a brooding chicken. I get it that they wanted Mulan to have a huge release in theaters, but was punishing their loyal fans with theater-prices the best way to do it?

When the movie starts out, there's a familiar scene involving some chickens and a younger Mulan, except this time she also has a sister. The colors are rich and vibrant, and gives a cheerful and gorgeous salute to the brightness of the animated movie. I was entranced, but I have to say it all went downhill from there.

What happened to you Mulan? The original movie was funny, clever, kind and caring and full of scenes that showcased her moments of kindness and individuality, like pulling the strand of hair from her updo before meeting the matchmaker, of giving her dog little brother his bone, or of taking care of her lucky cricket. All of those iconic bits gave us a sense of Mulan as a person whose courage and bravery lies not in masculine strength, but in emotional depth and intelligence. In the new movie, there is no sense of her wit or resourcefulness. Instead, what we're given is a Mulan who is quiet, sullen, and does her best to match up with the boys in terms of manly strength. Her chi, which is what they call her innate fighting skills, are really a poor prop to disguise the sad truth of so many action-hero movies that try to be more inclusive by making their heroes women. We don't want a female hero who acts like a man. We want a female hero who shows that women who act like women can be heroes too.

Mulan spends almost none of the movie showing watchers how its her cunning, and her ability to subvert male expectations of what strength looks like, that are her biggest strengths. Instead, she spends much of it moodily isolating herself from her peers, hiding her talents, and feeling guilty about her indescribably brave act of defiance. If I wanted to watch a movie of someone doing that, I would watch literally any Christopher Nolan movie and call it a day. I missed the sense of playful camaraderie and friendship of the original film, the clever tricks and tactics she uses, the light banter. This movie wants to be taken seriously so badly, that even hints of lightheartedness are whisked away before the watchers have time to blink. You don’t get to know the personalities of any of her friends or loyal sidekicks. Even Cricket is now a person in her battalion, but still has less than a tenth of the personality of the voiceless animated insect. The only character that could possibly be argued to have gotten more complex is the antagonist of the film. Mulan's new villain is no longer Shan Yu, a Han chieftain, but Xian Lang, a powerful shapeshifter and exiled witch. So powerful, in fact, it's hard to see why on earth she plays the simpering, downtrodden ally to the much more predictable and mundane bad guy of Bori Khan. While there is a more deep and emotional connection between Mulan and Xian Lang (hey, the one thing we have in common is that we are both female, and therefore always going to be exiles!) her character spends the majority of the movie being miserably one-dimensional and then, in her moment of much-needed triumph, instead of fighting she shows the backbone of a block of tofu and falls all to easily, because god forbid a woman be alone without also feeling suicidal.

Those costumes though 😍

Not to give too much away, but the live-action hardly sticks to the script of the main movie. There are glaring plot holes that took me out of the viewing to wonder out loud how that made any sense, and that was even after I accepted at face value the random phoenix (which is greek mythology, by the way) and the removal of her family dragon (although I will give them a point for not having Eddie Murphy in it this time around). But at the end of the day, this is still supposed to be a disney film that the whole family can enjoy. What happened to all the amazing songs that I could sing along to with my mom? What happened to all the funny jokes and hilarious moments? What we were given was a movie that took itself too seriously that was grim, unsympathetic, and downright boring that lacks entertainment value in its quest to try and force us to believe that women can be plausible heroes. Seriousness does not equate plausibility.

One of the other cruxes of the film is that Mulan cannot access her full chi until she is honest and true about who she is. That is a noble idea; but it makes it feel like being a woman is a shameful secret that she needs to out, and even when in one on one combat with her adversary, her reluctance to admit to her secret shows less about her need to keep her identity hidden and felt more like a moment of shame or embarrassment. I get it though, she’s worried about jeopardizing her family and whatnot, but did she really need to unleash her hair for one of her most hardcore battle scenes? Why can’t women warriors have their hair in ponytails?

Of course, I suspect most of most likely already know about the hot water Disney is in for filming parts of Mulan in the Xinjiang region, where the Chinese government has held Muslim ethnic minorities in detention camps. Apparently, if you look closely there are certain shots where you can see the detention camps in the background, but I didn’t want to watch the film again to try and find them, but I’m sure you can do that yourself. Finally, though, in the spirit of trying to find the silver linings because I want Disney to make more Asian-related content, I will say several good things about the film. Firstly, I thought that the costume and set designs were great. I really enjoyed the bright colors, rich details, and soft nods to traditional Chinese garb. I also really enjoyed how they made several nods to classic kung fu action movies in the styling of the choreography etc, and the sound track, which borrows heavily from the original, and it was lovely to see them actually choosing Chinese actors (goodbyeeee Eddie Murphy) as well. So, I guess it wasn’t a total wash?

All in all, the new Mulan teaches us that being a girl who does all the manly things will bring you success. If you're not a chi-wielding kung fu boss though, never you fear. You can still make a good match like Mulan's sister, whose sole purpose in the film is to be afraid of bugs before finally getting married to someone who will take care of the spiders for her. So being a woman will still work out fine for you! Really though, I'm so sad that this movie didn't live up to its potential. How could you fuck up the baseline plot of a woman who is so cunning, so resourceful, and so brave that she subverts the cultural narrative that war is a man's job, and that only men are strong, to save her entire country? Why make her a hero by forcing her to act like a boy? Because feminism isn't saying that women should act like men to be heroes. It's saying that being a woman is enough.

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The Whorticulturalist is the mother of this magazine. She is a sex-positive blogger and creative who enjoys rock climbing, dancing, and camping. In her spare time, she’s probably flirting.

El Machismo: A Lethal Construction of Masculinity

El machismo is a colonial mark, a permanent stain on the once rich and equal cultures of the Americas. It is at the core of the violence, mistreatment, and murder we have witnessed erupt over the past few years. Machismo is about weakness and power, the dichotomy that exists between the two, and how we who exist in gender binaries fit into it. It too transcends class and racial boundaries; it condemns all things not male, white, or wealthy. It lives in the collective unconscious that has gone unchallenged and uncorrected for years. 

In her paper “ Machismo y Violencia ”, Carmen Lugo defines machismo as:

“... the expression of the magnification of the masculine to the detriment of the constitution, the personality and the feminine essence; the exaltation of physical superiority, brute force and the legitimation of a stereotype that recreates and reproduces unjust power relations. "

“The expression of the magnification of the masculine to the detriment of the constitution, personality, and the feminine essence; the exaltation of physical superiority, brute force, and the legitimization of a stereotype that recreates and reproduces unjust power relations. " 

It manifests in many different ways and truly is a global model of oppression. Better known in the West as “toxic masculinity”, machismo is simply a product of a patriarchal system that governs the basic and complex systems and societies we all exist in. Waxing and waning in the background of our interactions, breeding slowly but surely a culture of hating women. 

Art by Lara Solis

And how then might we liberate ourselves from this inescapable model? How can we extricate ourselves, as women, from this transcendent oppression? Even if we can reject this system within ourselves, how do we go about unearthing the patriarchy from our country, from the men in our lives, from our systems of justice and education?

These are questions that feminist collectives have been endeavoring to answer for decades. LASTESIS offers one answer, through protest. When you are unheard and unrepresented you must take to the streets, voice your opinions so loudly they can not be ignored.

 “El patriarcado es un juez

que nos juzga por nacer,

y nuestro castigo

es la violencia que no ves.”

These opening lines to the feminist song that electrified the streets of Santiago, Chile. First performed in front of La Moneda by a crowd of hundreds of empowered and enraged women, the now-infamous piece “El Violador en Tu Camino” has since been performed in countries half a world away. Its lyrics transcending time, place, and circumstance. 

The sounds of this feminist anthem give us goosebumps, the fond and unfamiliar sensation of being fully expressed. Originally written in Chilean Spanish, the lyrics resonate regardless of understanding, regardless of culture or borders. Distance is not the defining factor. It is that widespread appeal that is eerie and encouraging. 

“The patriarchy is a judge

The judges us for being born

And our punishment 

Is the violence that you don’t see”

It captures the very soul of what it means to be a Latinx woman right now, to be oppressed - to be hunted. 

Chile is often touted as one of the “best” countries in the region, being one of the wealthiest with the lowest homicide rate. But we often forget the other side of the narrative, that the nation is also the most unequal, that crimes that do occur are brutal and violent, and that all of this disproportionately impacts women.

A country that seems almost perpetually on the brink of revolution Chile, has been no stranger to the scourge of gender-based violence that has swept the continent. And these murders are becoming increasingly graphic. They seem less like apathetic killings and more like performance pieces. Warning signs, sirens that scream: your womanhood is dangerous and our manhood is predatory

A study done in 2017 proved that nearly 40% of women ages 16-65 have or continue to experience domestic violence. In 2019, the nation saw 45 women fall victim to the government’s strict definition of “femicide”. There is a threat looming in the background of this seemingly peaceful society. While the Chilean government overlooks these issues, women are dying from a culture that long predates the independence of the nation.

El violador eres tú.

Son los pacos,

los jueces,

el Estado,

el presidente.

El Estado opresor es un macho violador.

These, the most notorious lines from the epic performance piece changed forever the way some women came to understand the nature of their oppression. 

“The r*pist is you

It is the police

The judges

The state

The president

The oppressive state is an (aggressive) male r*pist”

(from Nosotras Audiovisuales Chile of the first performance by LASTESIS)

Protests are the language of the unheard and unwanted. They are meant to uplift the oppressed and shine a light on our oppressors. These lines are awakening women a world over to realities that they have known but never acknowledged before. Helping them realise the all too present truth: there is a system of men who work against us. 

It is about more than just the aggressor in these crimes. It is also about the police who fail every year to actively seek out justice and shame women out of even trying to report. The judges who go against the best interest of the victim and prioritize the future, safety, and happiness of the men who violate and desecrate these women’s bodies. The state that narrows its definition of femicide and does the bare minimum to protect women. The president who seems more preoccupied with furthering inequalities than with saving the nearly 40% of women who are suffering in obscurity. 

This oppressive state forces them to be victims in their own homes.

This song has changed the work of activists all over the region and has propelled femicide, sexual violence, and all other forms of gender-based violence to the forefront of activist political discourse. The awakening it has incited is shifting the sociopolitical landscape in which these women fight. Slowly tipping the scales in their favour.

In Chile, this has led to more laws intended to further the pursuit of justice. However, new policies like the “Street Respect Bill” lack enforcement and seem to be the government’s attempt to appease the international pressure to crack down on the issue rather than create systemic change. While the crime of femicide does carry with it a long sentence, Chile’s definition of the crime is decidedly narrow. Limiting it to exclusively intimate femicide, lowering their official numbers, and creating greater barriers to finding justice. 

Art by Lara Solis

Many activists are quick to point out that laws don’t reform a macho society. There is no way to do that without first addressing that it is in fact a macho society. To confront that “el violador eres tu” (the rapist is you), to recognise that everyone is complicit and that their actions, culture, and mindsets need to be uprooted to make a change. 

Machismo began in Latin America during the era of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism. Carmen Lugo says:

“La cultura indígena es destruida, sobre las ruinas de las pirámides se erigen ostentosas catedrales, se nos impone un idioma extraño, una religión ajena; el orden de valores, la cosmogonía indígena es destruida; aparece una nueva sociedad, una nueva cultura donde lo indígena y lo femenino son relegados, son inferiores. Esa ecuación inconsciente, lo índio-femenino, se transforma en aquello que le recuerda al criollo, al mestizo, su superioridad sobre el vencido.”

“The indigenous culture is destroyed, in the ruins of the pyramids they erected ostentatious cathedrals and imposed on us a strange language, an alien religion; the order of values, cosmogony of the indigenous [people] are destroyed; there appears a new society, a new culture where the indigenous and the feminine are relegated, are inferior. This unconscious equation transforms the indo-feminine into that which reminds the Creole [those of Spanish/Portuguese and African descent], the mestizo [those of Spanish/Portuguese and Indigenous descent], of their superiority over the defeated” 

Much like racism, machismo doesn’t exist in the absence of the white European colonizer. The destruction of the indigenous cultures; the vicious slaughter of their people, the burning and destruction of their temples, and cultural artifacts were only superseded in brutality by the widespread sexual violence of the era. What they left behind was a societal structure that routinely demeans and dehumanises women. 

How then does this same structure, that has yet to be deconstructed, parsed apart and rebuilt, claim to protect women?

Chilean society and by extension no Latin American society can’t claim to uphold the rights and interests of these women. They have a foundation that is specifically built upon the defeat of them to further the superiority of men. 

Machismo is also about much more than systems, it is deeply entrenched in the culture. It is the casual and common dismissal of women. It is the constant jokes about their inferiority. Jokes and comments that seem small and insignificant are playing out in major ways. These minor, casual statements that stoke the flames of male egos and male violence. 

It is about the life cycle of these ideas. Abusers hear jokes or throw away comments and they continue to abuse the women in their homes. These women hear the same jokes from ‘pillars of their community’ and instead of reporting it, instead of trying to seek out better, they remain silent. Convinced that they have no supporters, no allies, and no options. These pillars of the community continue to live in ignorance of the very real, violence that plagues their cities. We get no change and the simple fact is no law will break these cycles. 

What these women need is to be freed from this sick oppressive culture. We cannot put another man on trial for these vicious crimes until we put this system on trial. We cannot seek out justice for another woman until we construct a system that will give it to her.

In understanding our complicity we might hope to educate ourselves. When we can finally comprehend the long previously untraversed road ahead, only then can we hope to bring change to the continent. To undo the centuries of suffering that began when Colon first tarnished Latinx soil with his flagpole. Only then can the region hope to heal.

LASTESIS finishes the song with these final lines, a mockery of the police anthem:

Sleep easy, innocent girl,

without worrying about the bandit,

that for your sweet and smiling dream

watch your carabinero lover.

Sleep peacefully innocent girl, 

Without worrying about the bandit

Your dreams sweet and smiling

Are guarded by your carabineer [a type of 17th-century soldier] lover

To support LASTESIS check out their instagram and facebook pages.

Make a note of:

Today marks 47 years since the military coup that instated Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. The dictatorship is a huge part of Chilean history and has forever changed its political landscape and its effects are still being felt today . We want to encourage everyone to take some time to learn about the dictatorship, here are some links to articles and projects that might help:

An art project to remember The Disappeared 

A timeline of the coup

A reflection written 40 years after the coup

An in depth history lesson

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Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram  @ hayley.headley

El Feminicidio: Redefining Womanhood and Female Activism in Mexico

Art by Sofia Vargas Aguayo

While millions of women in North America and Europe celebrated their women’s day with marches and fun social media posts, Mexico was learning what it meant to live without them. From Tijuana to Chetumal, the streets, subways, and offices of cities and towns all over the country were operating without women. 

#UnDiaSinMujeres was a countrywide sit-in. Abandoned by their government and the international community these women have been left to defend themselves against a country of men that seem hellbent on their extermination. This day was meant to awaken the police, prosecutors, and politicians to the future of their nation. It was meant to help these powerful men (and women) realise the gravity of the situation at hand.

“To understand that a war has been brewing in our voluntary negligence. ”

El feminicidio or femicide has been a growing issue across Latin America, and the past few years have seen these rates skyrocket. In 2018, UN Women put out a report saying that every day 12 women die from femicide in Latin America and just a year later 2019 the numbers topped out at about 10 women per day in Mexico alone. The numbers are staggering, and everyone is looking for a place to pin the blame; a single point source to this corrosive societal pollutant.

All eyes are on Ciudad Juarez and they have been since the early 90s. Amnesty International has been calling out the dire circumstances in Juarez since 2005. They revealed that over 370 young women and girls had been murdered without justice or cause since 1993. 

In a study of Ciudad Juarez, done as an analysis of a decades-long history of violence against women from 1993 to 2007, researchers identified that these offenses are primarily either intimate or systemic sexual femicide. Intimate refers to femicide that is perpetrated by someone close to the victim, while systemic sexual has its roots in patterns of violence against women and children like kidnapping and sexual assault. These two accounted for about 62% of all femicides in the city for that time. The pattern has since continued, with the bulk of women dying at the hands of violent men who knew them or men who simply saw them as yet another target. The only significant change is the sheer number of women who have fallen victim to these felonies.

While this city is best known for its reputation as the murder capital of the world or its features in shows like Narcos or El Chapo; it has an unspoken history of violence against women. It expands far beyond murder; it’s the hundreds of women that have gone missing since the 1990s, it’s the thousands of women who experience sexual violence every year, it’s the gross mistreatment of women and girls at home and in the streets. 

Moreover, the situation is about more than just Juarez. It is easy to push the blame around, to try and localise the situation to one city or one state. But the reality is that femicide is on the rise all over Mexico, that 1.4 of 100,000 women die each year from these heinous acts of violence, that Mexico doesn’t even chart in the top 5 worldwide for these crimes. And it is the globalised nature of these issues that prompts us to ask the question - why? Why is any of this happening? Why is the situation in Mexico the way it is at all? Why does it continue and how did it start?

Some point towards the cartels and gangs that see women as cannon fodder for their wars. Others to a culture of machismo that has stoked the flames of the male egos in the region for decades. And a few try to point to simple circumstances, that there are thousands of people who die every year in Mexico… of course some women will be caught in the crossfire. But the fact is undeniable that women and girls are being deliberately targeted by vile men who seek them out, violate their bodies, and leave them there to be displayed like a flag, or a warning. 

It is the impunity with which these murderers act that sickens me. It is the very fact that there is a system of people who fail every day to give these women the justice they deserve. After dying in such a graphic and brutal manner, the least the powers that be might offer is the meager gift of a sentence passed - a sliver of dignity.

Art by Sofia Vargas Aguayo

There is something eerily commonplace about these crimes. That is a part of their cultural danger. It is easy to get desensitized by these numbers and forget what they truly mean for the lives of millions of women and girls. It is easy to forget that day after day women turn on the news to hear of yet another young woman. One no different from themselves, no different from their sisters or daughters or mothers being slaughtered. But it is even easier to keep searching for an answer with no intent on finding one.

The women of this country know exactly why this is happening. They know how you can fix it, but they also know you refuse to listen. These women have been left to their own devices, to seek justice for themselves. Surely they are victims of a system and a society that sees them as nothing better than warm bodies or lambs to the slaughter but they have refused to trap themselves in their victimhood. 

The mothers of the women who have died as a result of femicide have empowered themselves. In early 2020 one of them took it upon herself to confront her country and the murderers who reside there with a poignant question :

“Cual es tu pinche problema?” 

“What is your fucking problem?”

 In a speech that went viral, she spoke with a fury that I sincerely hope shakes the nation. She spoke from her heart, and she spoke for everyone in the same situation. She knows there is nowhere to turn in her fight for justice other than the public.  Saying: 

“Yo no soy una colectiva, ni necesito un tambor, ni necesito de un pinche partido político que me represente”

“I am not a collective, and I don’t need a drum, or a fucking political party to represent me”

She can represent herself. This organic, grassroots activism has been the largest, strongest and most public opposition that has been displayed amid this crisis. Movements like Ni Una Mas and #UnDiaSinMujeres have been central in these women’s fight to be represented and heard. But no matter how many protestors pour into the streets, or mothers share their stories, or women stay home, it is impossible to ignore that they first took to their stand in the 90s.

It has been 30 years since this became a national and regional talking point. 18 years since Mexican women first spoke up and said that not one more girl or young woman should share this fate, and yet thousands more bodies have been buried - victims of this savage and unprovoked violence. 

The Mexican government only officially began to monitor femicide in 2012. Nonetheless in these 8 years it has offered little in the way of making practical amends. They have made special prosecutor offices and extended sentences, but femicide is still on the rise. After years of willful ignorance, feminists all over the country rejoiced in hope that their newest leftist president would turn the tide. But two years into his administration, next to nothing has been done. Activists and women all over the country are at a loss for what to do. 

The world has told them over and over again that they are each other's only allies, in this fight for the basic right to life. And it is the basic right to exist, that is reaffirmed in every human rights agreement, every constitution, and law, that is being affronted in this subtle warfare. This conflict has taken thousands of lives and scarred tens of thousands more. It is ushering a new era of female fear. 

For me, it is more terrifying to think that it will not be bringing with it a new era of women’s rights. Protests and riots have been reignited since the start of 2020, and while things have slowed due to the pandemic, these women are no less desperate and no less ready to fight. What happens over the coming months and years will forever reshape the geopolitical landscape in which  we, as women, all continue to live in. It will forever change how and if women get to exist.

All over the continent rights are eroding and they are being repackaged and resold to us as privileges. It isn’t a privilege to narrowly escape death. There is no surplus in simply awaking each day. What wealth is found in existence under constant threat? These women are being offered their next breath as a gift from the state. The very same state that fails to uphold these most basic rights day in and day out.

Even so, these women have continued to persevere. Unashamed and unconstrained they stand up for themselves even if there is no one standing with them. There is something unique about Latin America’s revolutionary spirit. There is something special about the ability of these women to unify in their fear and anger. That spark, the fervour and zest with which they seek out a better life for themselves and their children, is invaluable. 

Not much is certain for the future of femicide or feminism in the region, but one thing I am certain won’t be abandoned  is this burning desire for change. It is impossible to know how many more protests will be held, or how many more days there will be where women disappear from the streets, or if sustainable change will come at all. 

It is scary to think of what happens if this continues, or what it means to live in a world that doesn’t care if it does. El feminicidio is about more than just Mexican women, more than Latinx women, it is about the fate of womanhood everywhere. These women are fighting for a system that upholds more than just their rights, they are fighting for women’s rights everywhere.

How can you support them in this fight and get involved?

Check out and support local and regional activist organisations like:

• Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa

• Ni Una Mas

• Ni Una Menos

Donate to organisations that support women’s rights and the women fighting for them:

• Mamacash

• UN Women

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Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley

Where the Dancing Never Stops – an Essay

A couple of months ago I wrote a post about how shaming sex workers makes you a bad feminist, which you can read here. It was an argument that women who shame other women for their line of work was not uplifting, but instead incredibly harmful. One thing that this article failed to review however, is that sometimes the cost of empowerment is high; and the labor of feeling empowered in the face of misogynistic men in a sexist system can be overwhelming. We support all types of sex workers and think every reason to do sex work is valid, and understand that it is an excruciating job, while at the same time this essay is a different perspective on some of the potential effects working in such a marginalized industry can leave on a woman.

The walls are strange. They slant so the roof skims above my head in the darkness and a far off light shows what I’m wearing: suspenders, a black bra, thigh-high stockings. In this sloped room, the shadows are dancers, or should I say strippers, and the shapes around them their customers. My dream soon finds me in the changing room surrounded by fluorescent lights and big mirrors, the reflection showing something unformed, and when I stare at the beast, time stops. I’m in a night terror. I have them regularly in different variations. Here’s another: I’m in a Victorian-style house rich with velvet curtains and rugs and I’m crawling between rooms because a man is chasing me. I don’t know who the man is or why, but I keep going. I scuffle between rooms until I can’t tell one from the other. I never know how the dream ends because I usually wake before it ends, stiff with anxiety. I don’t tell anyone these anxieties because empathy is limited to those from the sex industry. There’s a level of shame implicit to sex work which sticks like warm molasses and marks every aspect of life, no matter how forward-thinking people are. I’ve danced for most of my 20s and still have a bitter taste in my mouth whenever asked of my past.

Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash

It’s not strange for a feminist to decry the sex industry, but it’s also not strange for feminist sex workers to tell of the empowerment they find from using their bodies as they wish. The dancers have agency when it comes to the right to choose, and a wield sexual mastery not otherwise seen in everyday life through pole dancing and expressing themselves sexually. You can be a feminist and a sex worker, but when considering the industry as a whole, the bitter taste only sours.

When writing this story, I contacted an old friend I’d stripped with to ask her perspective on the industry since she’d danced for almost a decade and was one of the biggest earners I knew. Quickly, she declined. She was doing the same thing I’d done since quitting, a voluntary witness protection program hiding her identity from society. Even for the most confident of dancers, anonymity is vital for self-preservation, both mentally and spiritually, something I understood well.

For a short while in 2012, I took it on myself to be proud of my job, mostly stripping, and told people about it honestly. Of the reactions I received, here are a few: one man asked what it was like to sleep on a mountain of cash for fucking men. Another sent a long, detailed email listing the reasons I was an embarrassment and disgusting, and some men asked for favors, either a boob flash or a 'private show' depending on their confidence and how well they knew me. Although the women's reactions were more supportive, there was still an air of concern for my career choice and that I was doing something wrong.

Sometime later, feeling discouraged, I looked up the nicer things people wrote on blogs and forums, finding perspectives from strippers. I read about sexual liberation and the choice to use the body and having a say over who could and couldn't use it. This was when the industry started to leave a mark, and something in those words resonated. I'd first started dancing for the rush of using my body and wanting to emulate the women who worked hard and saved for their future. They were confident, beautiful, interesting. But I was drained. I'd told myself I'd get used to the late hours, and the bruises on my knees, and the spiteful words, and the grabbing, and the managers trying to fuck me, and the security guards groping me, and the waitresses looking down on me, and the expectation of giving something for nothing, and the need to party, and the burning taste of vodka, and the 'extras' you needed to do to earn money because everyone else did them, and the dirty looks from women with their friends, and the men who got too attached, and the men who waited and followed me after my shift, and the constant bodily assessment, and the fingers that probed too close to my vagina, and the men who threw beer and coins on stage to make me feel cheap, and the way even after I showered the grime stuck to my skin and never quite washed out.

Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash

Looking back, the liberation is faint and unclear. Where is the liberation in an industry formed by a society that shames women? The job is sexually liberating but within a short spectrum of acceptability dictated by the men and club owners. I've never seen a hairy dancer. Nor have I seen larger dancers. I've seen curvy dancers and older dancers (I was told at 25 I'd soon be put to pasture), but on the whole, dancers are expected to look the same, dance the same and alternate the same outfits provided by the sex stores, usually lycra and seven-inch heels. On induction to some clubs, a pamphlet is given with the accepted attire and the places to get it.

In 2014, before I quit dancing, I started at a club known for its beautiful women and luxurious outfits. After my audition, I received a guide on the weekly outfit changes. Wednesday was lingerie, Monday bikinis and swimsuits, weekends for ballgowns, long spandex numbers provided by the club at a $150 fee. With fines for not dancing the correct way or wearing the correct outfits, we were the unified, undistinguishable embodiment of male desire.

The liberation fades further when I consider agency and the choice to dance, choosing who to strip for and when. Private dances work on a commission basis with a 70/30 cut between the dancer and the club, and when you're having a bad night and the money is slow, it's hard to say no to a half an hour private show paying a hundred dollars. I recall picking the bad eggs from the crowd when dancing on stage and groaning when they approached me afterward for a private show as I'd only earned fifteen dollars and couldn't say no. These were the men that grabbed too hard, probed too close, and requested things like 'spreading my lips apart' so they could get a better look. And for the right price, I indulged them because everyone else did. My threshold was someone else’s payday. But the point is if men didn’t feel the need to be sexually placated and need to indulge in a spectacle of feminine sexuality, these clubs, these requests wouldn’t exist. There’s also the drug use: customers constantly looking for a coke hook-up and the need to re-examine your limits each night if you want the big money.

Strippers aren’t always the victim in this narrative, but they’re not respected either, and the ramifications for working in the sex industry are far-reaching and insidious.

After I made a clean break from the industry, I experienced something beyond my usual anxiety, which kept me tense and unable to forget the past. At night I'd wake in a sweat with nightmares reliving a bad night dancing, or I wouldn’t dream at all, just wake frightened and lost. In the daytime, I’d have flashbacks. I’d stop and be lost in a private room or on the stage in a club while my chest squeezed around my heart, aching. The feeling was so strange and vague words can’t describe it, though it’s somewhat like being adrift in time and reliving the worst days, every day.

I approached a therapist, and after telling her my history and symptoms, she informed me I was experiencing PTSD. The words themselves felt strange on my tongue. I'd heard of soldiers and people with trauma experiencing PTSD but not for stripping and entertaining drunk men. The symptoms under the disorder include 're-experiencing trauma' through memory or flashbacks, 'physical and mental distress', 'avoidance of thoughts and feelings', and others like restlessness, anger, and sleep problems. I recognized and knew all the symptoms, but I couldn't connect my experience with the words. The place where the issue stuck was the fact I'd chosen to strip. There was no coercion or desperation. Usually, there's the perception workers of the sex industry are trapped with the need for money, but the money was only a bonus for me, and I never felt forced to maintain the lifestyle only that surrounding circumstances made it difficult to leave, like having a five-year gap on my resume and not adapting to the nine to five day. I wasn't a victim yet my body was telling me otherwise.

After leaving my therapist’s office, I thought about all the times I’d come home after work and cried, either from being groped in a private show or being shamed by men when they’d ask whether ‘my parents were proud of me’. I thought about this last incident in particular. On a Thursday or Friday night, I’d been dancing on stage and just finished my set, when two men called me over. Their table was on the path to the change room, so I walked over, holding my bra over my breasts. 'Your parents must be really proud of you,' one of the men said. The other laughed, and I didn't say anything. In isolation, this seems insignificant, though when taken in context with the physical harassment and countless other slurs, the abuse becomes more apparent. But an answer to this is why not leave? And an easier response is it didn't seem so bad at first. The first year, you mark it off as drunk men, not knowing what they're doing. You're sure he didn't mean to slap you that hard or touch your breasts that way. The second year, you expect the insults and the grabbing, but you're weathered to the fact. You make sure you're always watching for wandering fingers or unwanted slaps. The third year is when you start thinking about getting out, but it's harder than you think because the money's so easy and the work's so easy if you just put in the effort. Everyone else does, so why not you? The fourth year is when you question things in detail, like the motive of the man who verbally abused you in a private show for lying. He asked several times if I had kids and only got madder the more I said no, but that’s not the point. It’s not relevant whether I had children or not, the goal of this man, and most other men that I experienced who go to strip clubs is to enforce a level of power over women either physically or psychologically. This is where the trauma started for me.

For some, dancing is a way to control the narrative, to take back control of bodies and feminine power and sexuality. But if society weren't formed around a culture that shames and reduces women physically and psychologically, would these impulses need to be fulfilled in the first place? We can choose who we dance with and when, but we don't choose how men speak to us and how men treat us. It's them who choose, them who pay and they who decide to come back if we're good enough.

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Lisa Easey is a recent university graduate completing a Bachelor of Creative Writing and is currently a freelance writer on Upwork. She also hosts a small book review podcast called Book Island that you can follow on Instagram @bookislandthepodcast.

Body Positivity, Activism and Race in the Middle of a Pandemic; a Conversation with @amapoundcake

Danni, better known by her instagram handle @amapoundcake, is a force for social change in a world that seeks to undermine and snuff out any shred of confidence and activism that comes from fat black women. In this moment, she and other women like her are coming to the forefront of a movement they began. 

When I first sat down to talk with Danni, I wanted to know how she got started in the body positive activist space. Unlike many fat kids, Danni was never shamed for her body - in fact she was encouraged to love it. She saw fat black people all around her; remarking:

“  ... most of my family was either skinny and got fat or were fat when I met them.”

Growing up in a household that didn’t partake in the same causal body shaming that many of our own did, empowered by the words of Mo’nique, Danni began her first social movement - ‘Eat or Die’. She and some other big girls from her middle school took it upon themselves to walk around in matching t-shirts and talk about what it means to be fat.

All this positivity in her upbringing didn’t shelter her from the ‘real’ world, the one that wished her white and skinny. She was barred from many activities because she couldn’t fit the mold others made for her. But she stood out all the same, when the dance team rejected her she found herself on the step team. For her, a lot of life was about carving out a space for herself with people who could truly appreciate her. In highschool that meant joining the step team, nowadays it looks like building a network of support around herself.

In her undergrad experience she was heavily involved in black activism. She posted about being fat on many platforms, but it wasn’t at the centre of her work. This was around the time she began to notice that fat black women just weren’t a part of the narrative of black and intersectional feminism. 

Today, the world is radically different from the one we were all born into. Activism has changed, branding has changed, politics have changed - but this new wave of social justice has left behind thousands of women who look just like Danni. We see more and more black women occupying spaces they never had access to before, but the posterwomen for anti blackness still sit on the outskirts. 

This is something Danni understood at a young age, saying: 

“I understood fatness and blackness at the same time.”

These two things that were so central to her appearance were simultaneously at the centre of much controversy and socio political discourse. She noted that she wasn’t originally set out to be a body positivity icon, or an influencer of any kind. But her push to make all of this was when Plies made a music video that included not a single thick woman.

After claiming in a video that he loved big women and was so supremely attracted to them, in his latest music video at the time Plies failed to include even one of these women. She did what she could, she started a fight in the comments. And hundreds of women just like her rallied against the video. He listened. Plies put out a request calling on all the women who were angry to send him a video dancing to his song by the end of the day. And Danni did, for a long time she was the only one but just when she thought to take it down; there she was featured on Plies’ instagram. Soon after other women joined her, posting their own videos, dancing and being carefree and happy. It goes to show:

“You don’t need a following, you just need a voice.”

And for so long, there was no one who wanted to hear the voices of influencers and women like amapoundcake. Fat black women were at the centre of black humiliation and degradation for centuries. The mammy stereotype kept all black people down, sure, but since then we have failed to distance ourselves from an image of fat black women that isn’t centered on being caring and nurturing. Both on television and in real life big black girls are nothing more than side characters; a shoulder to cry on, a place to dump your feelings and move on, a two dimensional figure in the background of someone else’s life. We don’t get love interests or sex scenes. We don’t get to be in the skin care commercial or the music video. Amidst all of this underrepresentation, it is nearly impossible to come to terms with yourself. 

It was in the middle of discerning all of this that Danni knew that she had to just get up and do it. Make representation where there was none. So she started taking her platform more seriously, speaking out about the intersections of race, class and fatness. She forced herself into the narrative when so many forces sought to erase her. Some black people don’t like her because she is fat, some white people don’t like her because she is black, capitalism hates her because she can own these two things unapologetically.

On her instagram page you will find that Danni is fiercely anti capitalist, anti racist and overall anti hate. She positions herself as a representative of the marginalised and she walks the talk too. She consistently speaks up on what it means to live in a world that refuses to accept you as you are. Moreover, she is creating a space where conventional, skinny, white and palatable feminism is not upheld. 

She talks about everything, from hard hitting critiques of capitalism and the state of modern activism to desirability and sex. I got the chance to pick her brain about it all. Especially right now in this time where  the coronavirus pandemic has us all stuck to our screens, all eyes are on this revolution. 

It has been a time of recognition and amplification for many spaces. One thing that many have been realising is how inextricably linked fatphobia is to race and anti blackness. As Danni put it:

“Fatphobia is a direct attack on black women.”

In turn, by virtue of living in a capitalist system, we have turned hate into an individual issue, and then we market it and make it lucrative for forces at play behind it all.  Danni cited just some of the many subtle ways our society seeks to punish and belittle fat people. “The doctor tells you need to lose weight, they sell you the pills, they make you pay for the consultation but they ignore your real problem - your flu, your broken foot. Airlines make it more expensive to fly, it is impossible to find comfortable seats in public spaces. Life insurance policies are next to impossible to find, and when you can find them they are expensive.” The unspoken tax on fatness. All this to punish the individual, but we never attempt to condemn major organizations for their role in manufacturing the obesity epidemic. 

To make it that much worse, all the strong black women that have taken the time to create out their own spaces and their own representation have been muted within their own community. Many white women are realizing that where they originally came to share they have stolen and co-opted. Danni pinpointed the use of the term “Phenomenal woman” a phrase originally thought of by a black woman [Maya Angelou] for other black women, in a time where it wasn’t okay or trendy for us to love our bodies. There is the unnerving sensation that much like other parts of black culture, our activism is also slipping away from us too. 

So, what does all of this mean, what does it all look like in the middle of a global pandemic? Well, in short, everyone needs the love and confidence that radiates off of the women in these spaces. Danni, outside of instagram, works as a body image coach and in these difficult times has seen her customer base expand. In the midst of all of this distress many people are gaining weight and losing it, moreover, they are losing their confidence. While we have to remain fiercely in support of the marginalised, insecurity is a universal experience. 

People are sad, routines have changed, lives have been uprooted so how do we navigate all of that? I think Danni put it best, saying: 

“We can be in this world alone or with others, with a support system even if it’s virtual.”

It's all about building a system of like minded people that help you achieve your next goal whether it's that next big step in your career, or starting a new relationship. It’s supremely important to feel supported in these endeavours. Many of us didn’t get a childhood that supported us in the way we so deeply desired, but we deserve to create an adulthood that does. That is what activism, body positivity and life really is about - taking that next step, fighting against the system and loving yourself with the people who love you. 

Something we can all stand to learn from Danni, her following, and the myriad of black women just like her is that in these strange times we need to recenter ourselves. Question your values and your position on the issues that matter, readjust where necessary. Reaffirm your activism, reaffirm your goals, reaffirm yourself. 

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Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley

10 Years Since Easy A; a Retrospect

It's been ten years since Hollywood has graced us with the glorious movie that is Easy A. Starring one of our favorite "not like the other girls" Emma Stone, who's not afraid to be goofy or silly, women everywhere saw it instantly as a smart film that was feminist, charming, and sweet. Obviously, it would never come close to beating Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, but it did it's best. It was a movie that challenged slut-shaming, that opened up new discussions about sexuality and relationships, and was a refreshing alternative to the battered and worn out hero of Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada (if she even IS the hero...) and our ironic love of Mean Girls and Clueless.

The moment I saw Easy A, I loved it. I loved that first tongue-in-cheek nude shot of Olive at her best friends Rhiannon’s parents house. I loved the lazy southern california vibe, which nestled in its comfortable arms teenagers that were way too cool and fashionable to actually be teenagers, and all of whom lived in houses that we could only dream of. I loved the witty dialogue, the parents that were cool beyond belief, and Olive's adorable awkwardness that all of us could only too easily identify with. It was gorgeous, full of light and life, with cultural nods to polyamory, swinging, exploring sexuality, and adopting. It felt like a movie made in Berkeley, and with a main character who becomes the heroine because she lets boys tell everyone that they've slept with her, it seemed eons away from the slut-shaming in such beloved films as Grease, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Juno (although this is one of the very rare films that lovingly and tenderly breaks down slut-shaming and teenage pregnancy to make the beloved heroine one of the best loved characters in modern teen films). But now, 10 years on, I find myself wondering if it was really just a film about fauxpowerment, and that maybe I shouldn't have been so enthusiastic.

For all of it's hilarity and silliness, the film's true themes are dark and dismal. While it starts out in good fun (who hasn't spent a weekend doing absolutely nothing while screaming Pocketful of Sunshine at the top of their lungs?) it quickly goes to dark depths. While Olive uses an innocent enough lie to get out of a weekend with her best friend, she realizes that it also comes with some positive male attention. For the first time, some of the guys at school are looking her way, and she kinda likes it. And it's through an act of the most generous kindness that she helps her friend Brandon out, by pretending to sleep with him at a classmate's party. The reaction to both is swift, and the punishment for Olive is almost immediate. While Brandon is instantly elevated in social status and is finally welcome to join the guys, Olive finds herself alone, and the temperature of the attention has shifted. Now it feels judgemental, and crude. She doesn't feel good about herself anymore, and the only thanks she gets in return for helping Brandon out is a gift card. Sex and sexuality is presented as something that can only benefit men, and while women are encouraged to be sexual, once Olive "crosses the line" she is perceived in a negative light. What then transpires is a classic example of slut-shaming, in which she is ostracized by many people at the school, while simultaneously men were still entitled to the privilege of easily taking advantage of her to improve their own social status. Their rise is directly correlated to her fall, so yea, fuck sexism and the double standard of patriarchy.

Olive leans into it, and as many of us can agree, even if it's a fake one we've all had some sort of slutty phase. Afterall, if we can't beat them, why don't we just join them? All my life I was told to wear conservative clothing, to lower my eyes when men stared at me, to smile when I was told to smile, and more. If men are going to sexualize me, didn't it make sense to at least control the narrative? That way, when men harass me for being sexual, at least I can pretend that I am inviting it. And while women such as Leora Tanenbaum write that the only way to counteract slut-shaming in our current cultural climate is to dress more modestly and try to not aggressively or openly 'ask for' harassment, and while some forms of fauxpowerment play right into patriarchy's hands by 'giving us permission' to be sexual objects, by carefully thinking about our intentions we can find a careful balance by which we are empowered and safe.

While I secretly loved that Olive gets paid for her labor through various gift cards and coupons, the shame that comes with being a sexualized woman also runs rampant and in the end, the cost is higher than the gains. The terrible cousins of slut-shaming are blackmail, coercion, and victim blaming and disbelief, and Olive finds new lows in which all the friends she's helped out are nowhere to be found. But in her female community, she does find support, enough to tell-all in a webcast, and ride off with her stunning male lead into the perfect Ojai sunset.

We are all meant to leave this film feeling good, but while the real villain of the movie is the sexual double standard that elevates men for their sexuality while putting down women for their sexuality, the more obvious and visible villain is the members of the christian abstinence club on campus. They're a foil that convinces us that religious conservatism is to blame instead of institutionalized whorephobia and sexism. The movie itself is even a bit of a shallow scam as well, because while we walk away feeling good and cute about everything, our heroine didn't *actually* have to sleep with anyone to gain her reputation. Get it guys, haha, it was just a joke. Don't worry, I'm still chaste and sexually pure, I'm not an *actual* slut.

Maybe this realization was a bit too deep for most people who watch this move, but nevertheless it exists and we should be careful about idolizing movies that actually reinforce negative stereotypes against women who want to have pleasurable sexual experiences. Along those lines as well, we should probably also extend an olive (forgive me the pun) branch to people who *don't* want to have sexual experiences too.... Marianne, Olive's enemy and head of the abstinence group, is vilified for being prudish and sexually chaste, but as Jaclyn Friedman points out in her book Unscrewed, not wanting to be sexual should be just as empowering and valid as choosing to be sexual, and that it's the sexual double standard that has us seeing both options as equally bad.

So where do we go from here? I do think the climate of feminist film is slowly changing. Movies like Booksmart and Animals are at the forefront of exploring female friendship, sexuality, and relationships in ways that are empowering, free, and safe. I've loved Euphoria and what that's done to explore the complexities of young adult relationships, particularly through the toxicity of high school. More than anything though, as we consume our media it's important to ground ourselves and ask, how does this make me feel, and who does this make me want to be? In a world that punishes women for being cold and punishes them for being slutty, find out what makes you feel good, and defend it with your life.

Planned Parenthood vs. My High Priced OBGYN - A Study in Comparisons by Jessica Stilling

Photo by Dainis Graveris from Pexels

I work at a religious school, and therefore I get my health insurance through them, which means that I was unable to get them to pay for my IUD (intrauterine device) for birth control. The unfairness of that situation is a whole other article in and of itself but I remember when I first took this job at said very progressive (and apparently feminist) religious institution and spoke with the insurance company about switching my insurance,  a very nice, fresh faced woman said, “Don’t worry about birth control, we’ll figure it out. We feel very strongly about a woman’s access to birth control.” But when I needed to have my old IUD taken out and replaced, the woman I talked to on the phone said, in a very sunny voice, “I’m sorry, we won’t pay for that if it’s for contraception.” I was reminded why I never, ever shop at Hobby Lobby. 

At the end of the day, I couldn’t afford to go to my regular OBGYN for an IUD and so I called Planned Parenthood. And they took me, right away. And they helped me get an IUD, no questions asked. But I was still nervous about going to Planned Parenthood. I wasn’t worried about the stigma of using the non-profit medical facility. I wasn’t worried that I’d walk into a Pro-Life rally outside their doors. But doctor’s offices can get crowded, especially in New York City. The wait once you get into the waiting room can run an hour, sometimes more, past your appointment time, ask any New Yorker who has ever had to see a doctor on their lunch break. And I was worried about that. Would it be crowded? Would it be discombobulated? Would the doctor spend three seconds with me and do a less than perfect job? Spoiler alert, all of my fears were unfounded, my Planned Parenthood experience was great but what surprised me so much was how much better I was treated there than at my regular doctor’s. While I originally decided to explore Planned Parenthood because of price, it turned out things like wait time and convenience were also factors. 

While my entire experience with my insurance and that ridiculous Obamacare add-on that has harmed so many women financially, not to mention medically, is definitely an issue I’d love to explore, here I’d like to compare my experience at Planned Parenthood with the experiences I’ve had with my very nice, very experience Upper West Side OBGYN. First, I should say that I’ve had two children and before my children were born I went to this same gynecologist for birth control for many years and so I’ve had experience with my OB. I also want to say that I live in New York City, a place where even when things are nice and expensive they can still be crowded, full of poor service and long waits - even when you have an appointment. Perhaps if I lived elsewhere I would not have the same complaints about my OB but then again, the Planned Parenthood I visited was also in New York City. I visited The Margaret Sanger Center on Bleeker Street. It’s the only Planned Parenthood in Manhattan. There is exactly one Planned Parenthood in each borough of New York City and as you can imagine, there are countless ONGYNs across the five boroughs. 

After my time at Planned Parenthood I started to wonder not just about my OBGYN but about other experiences with high priced New York City doctors and came to the conclusion that maybe New Yorkers aren’t getting what they pay for.  

Wait Time

When I called my OB to get an appointment for an IUD at first my OBGYN, a woman who had delivered my children, who I had gone to many times throughout the years, could not find my information and asked me to enter their system as a new patient. Then they told me I would need to make three or four appointments in order to get the IUD put in. “You’ll need to come for a consultation, then you’ll need an appointment to take your current IUD out. Then you’ll need to make another appointment to have the IUD put in and you might need a follow-up appointment.” I asked then they could get me in. They told me they could see me for the first appointment in about four months. I thought I had left plenty of time, calling with about two months advance notice before my IUD was set to expire. I never thought they’d make me wait that long. 

Planned Parenthood actually had my information on file from a time I had gone there when I was in college, many, many years ago. I’d never updated that information since I only saw them once, during a time when I was between insurance providers when I was in college. They still had the address of the apartment where I lived when I was in college. They still had my maiden name. But they were happy to update my information. 

I figured that it would take longer to get an appointment with Planned Parenthood than it would my OBGYN and so I braced for a long wait. At Planned Parenthood I was able to get an appointment for three weeks in the future. The system asked me what I needed done and there was an option for “IUD removal and reinsertion of new IUD” right on the menu. It would take one appointment to do all three. That meant that I only had to take off one afternoon from work. I only had to take the long subway ride downtown once. I only needed to pay for one appointment. 

Price

This is of course why I decided to go to Planned Parenthood to begin with. Since my insurance company wouldn’t pay for my IUD it was all going to be out of pocket and we all know that insurance companies can negotiate a rate with a provider but out of pocket payers pay more. When I asked my OB’s office what they thought the IUD would cost they said, “You’ll need to pay out of pocket for at least two of the three appointments, and that’s assuming nothing goes wrong. And you’ll need to pay for the IUD itself. It’ll probably be around $5000.00” 

I honestly went to Planned Parenthood thinking it would cost around $500 for an IUD there, especially since I only needed to do one appointment with them. I was willing to spend up to $1000 before I started to wonder if an IUD was really worth it if I had to pay out of pocket. When I got to Planned Parenthood, ready to write them a check, I was told to go to the Finance Desk. When I spoke with the woman there she was very kind. I told her I was getting an IUD and then asked how much it would all cost. I braced myself as she said, “Okay, that’s free of charge. We received a grant for that, you won’t pay anything.” I asked them what that meant and apparently Planned Parenthood had recently received a grant to cover the cost of IUDs but even when there was a cost to the patient, it was minimal. I will say I wrote a big check (just not a $5000 check) as a donation to Planned Parenthood that day. 

Experience 

I only went to get my IUD once, from Planned Parenthood, and so my comparison when it comes to my experience really goes back to my other experiences with my OBGYN throughout the years. She not only delivered my children and was my primary OB for many years, but she put in my first IUD, the one I got after I had my second child. 

Wait Time

The usual wait time at my OB was about 45 minutes. There were times when it took an hour, other times when it took thirty minutes, but I always waited. And I understand why, sometimes an OB gets called away to deliver a child or handle an emergency. But there are other less noble reasons for a long wait time at the doctor’s office. I’ve also read about overbooking and how many doctors are forced to overbook to cover the cost of rent and insurance issues. But I would usually wait 30 to 45 minutes before I was called back to get my vitals taken by a nurse. I would then wait another 10 to 15 minutes for the doctor. 

When I went to Planned Parenthood they called me right back to speak to the Finance Department, where they promptly told me I owned them nothing. I then waited all of five minutes to be called back to the nurse, who explained the process of IUD insertion to me. She also explained the basic differences between the two types of IUDs they offered. She counseled me on which IUD to choose and then asked if I wanted to get tested for any STDs. She took my blood, she took my vitals. Then she sent me back to another waiting area. I took out my book, thinking I’d be waiting a while only to be called back to the doctor about 5 minutes later. I remember being a little let down that I hadn’t gotten to read more of my book.

The Doctor

This is where the comparison is much less. Both my doctor’s were great. I like my OBGYN. We would always chat a bit before getting started. She had a dry sense of humor that I enjoyed. She did her job, had a nice bedside manner. Her staff was very friendly as well. But even with all the small talk, I was usually out of her hair in about fifteen to twenty minutes. 

The doctor at Planned Parenthood was very friendly as well - all smiles and she was really willing to talk to me. I had a few questions about the type of IUD to use. In fact I told her (this might be TMI) that I hadn’t really had a steady period in many years. The doctor paused, then she said, “Actually with this new information I would recommend the other IUD. It is said to be better for women who do not have regular periods.” I won’t go into the medical nitty-gritty of what she said, but basically she did a very good job explaining in both medical (with her sources cited, she checked and showed them on her computer which was right next to her) and then in layman’s terms, just why she thought I should go with the other IUD. She then went through the process of going through the paperwork to change the IUD. A few minutes later, she took my old IUD out and reinserted the other. The experience wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t painful. She gave me a maximum strength aspirin and then left the room so I could change. After I had changed she returned to debrief and I told her, “I just want to say, you guys do great work here.” We then had a ten minute conversation about Planned Parenthood, woman to woman, feminist to feminist, before I left her exam room. 

I left feeling taken care of and respected as a person and a patient. The doctor spent nearly an hour with me from the time I entered the exam room to the time I left and when I left her office and returned to the waiting room, it was not crowded, only a couple of people were waiting, which seemed to say that even when the doctor spent so much time on a patient, other patients were also being taken care of. 

The Facilities 

Obviously my Upper West Side doctor’s office is very nice. The walk there is pleasant, it’s near a subway station, when you go inside the chairs are nice, it is air conditioned/well heated. It is well lit. There is water out for the patients. There is not a lot of noise and there are many magazines for people to read. 

The Planned Parenthood that I went to is also in a nice neighborhood - the East Village of Manhattan. It had been in the area for a very long time and I know that the East Village wasn’t always a nice place to be. However, when I went, it was a pleasant stroll by book stores and bistros, hipsters wandered the streets alongside business people and moms in yoga pants. The neighborhood is not for everyone, but it’s pleasant. There was more security when I walked into Planned Parenthood, which is to be expected when its doctors are constantly receiving death threats. My bag was searched by a security guard and I had to walk through metal detectors when I came in. The space was large and there were many rooms of chairs for people to sit. They did not have water out but it was well lit and decorated in a modern style. There wasn’t any reading material out for patients, except materials relating to Planned Parenthood and its services. 

Cavate 

I understand that this is just one experience that I had with Planned Parenthood and that other people may have had vastly different experiences. I also understand that I went to the flagship Planned Parenthood in Manhattan and if I had gone to a Planned Parenthood in a small town or in the Bronx, where it is located in a much more inner-city area, I might have seen different sights and had a vastly different experience. But I wanted to explore not just my personal experience with Planned Parenthood, but the fact that my experience differed so much to my experience with my own OBGYN, who is also based in Manhattan. 

Analysis 

The questions I really have after considering both experiences are not, why was my Planned Parenthood experience so pleasant, but why isn’t my regular OBGYN more like this? Why do I wait so long for an appointment and then have to wait so long to see the doctor once I get there? Why did my doctor want me to make three appointments when Planned Parenthood only wanted me to make one? What I found so interesting about my two different experiences really comes down to money. My OBGYN is paid mostly through insurance companies and so she stands to make more money charging for three or four appointments to do a procedure that Planned Parenthood did for me in one single one hour visit. My OBGYN gets paid for each visit, Planned Parenthood usually doesn’t get paid anything for a visit and so it incentivises them to do what they need to do without asking a patient to come in for multiple appointments. The difference in wait time for appointments and the wait time in the office’s waiting room also comes down to money, as more and more doctor’s offices overbook so that they can cram in more appointments, and therefore more insurance dollars. I did not sacrifice anything as far as care at Planned Parenthood. My Planned Parenthood doctor obviously cared about my health, just like my regular OBGYN does. I remember being very nervous to go to Planned Parenthood, and it turns out not only were those fears unfounded but I had the best experience at a New York City doctor’s office that I have had in a very long time. 

On Unlearning

 Body Image and Identity Crisis in the “Love Yourself” Era

In the age of relentless visual stimulation from applications constantly vying for our attention, it is refreshing to see that one particular movement has finally gripped the masses – the message of loving yourself as you are, and that beauty comes in every shape, size, and form. It was only a matter of time, but stuffy middle-aged men (and some women) still gaped at the viral results, sincerely shocked on finding that women respond better to images of real women. In a world where money talks, the beauty and fashion industry quickly picked their jaws up off the floor and unleashed a slew of campaigns responding directly to this phenomenon. The start of the new decade has brought more inclusive models, less retouching, and arguably best of all, the slow-burn demise of Victoria’s Secret, cannibalized by brands that promised more variety, more realness, and less push-up bras that gave football pads a run for their money. 

While body inclusivity has progressed leaps and bounds within the last decade, the movement brings with it remnants of the same problematic mindsets of the past. The body positivity movement desperately wants to be the end-all solution to the body dysmorphia that plagues women – but it’s not, nor can it be in its current state. Brands seeking to capitalize on profit-inducing marketing campaigns including plus-size models and promising more inclusive size lines have wholly missed the point, and more dangerously, they may be unintentionally contributing to the greater problem. In 2018, Madewell attempted to aim high on the body positivity revolution and announced an extension to their denim sizes – up to size 20, when originally they stopped at size 14 – but failed when customers realized the size 20 was essentially just a size 14 with a new label.  Madewell managed to survive the controversy fairly unscathed, but they still haven’t repented entirely for their mistakes. Shopping for denim on Madewell’s site today still includes the extended size run but is separated into its own section (“Curvy Denim”). The separation of size runs is a fashion crime committed by far more brands than just Madewell, stemming from the tiresome idea that larger sizing needs to be singled out and put into its own special corner. It’s no surprise that brands would opt for a lazy, haphazard effort when it came to tapping into the body positivity movement, but it is nevertheless disappointing that the lack of effort has largely been accepted by consumers and, regretfully, has become the norm in women’s fashion. The most concerning message being reinforced by Madewell and other brands attempting to be more inclusive is the idea that being curvy and larger is a bold statement against the status quo, which allows them to applaud their half-assed efforts at creating a more dynamic size run as groundbreaking and an instant fix to the industry’s most complicated offenses. 

On another front, the body positivity movement has found burgeoning success on Instagram, the application queen that has single-handedly transformed the marketing industry in less than a decade while simultaneously making us all her loyal subjects. If Instagram had a royal court, it would be filled with her powerful and ad-wheeling influencers. While most of Instagram’s most-followed accounts are celebrities, there is an epidemic of normal and mostly talentless individuals who harnessed the power of Instagram to their advantage, reaping millions and producing more ads of weird teeth-whitening lights and mint-colored gummy bears than we can stomach. Instagram has become a hive of perceived authenticity, and within it are influencers who provide small snippets of their lives, pawning off messages of self-love, confidence, and body positivity. While it sounds idyllic, how can we possibly find satisfaction in our own boring bodies and our own boring lives when constantly flooded with images of happier, healthier, sexier people? Consequently, how can we ever find self-satisfaction when we are then made to feel bad for not radically loving our own imperfect, non-influencer bodies? 

The problem is not us, it’s the subliminal messaging behind the images flooding our feeds. While we are seeing more images of real women and real bodies, it is covered in a thin veil of societal expectations. Having a large derrière would have been frowned upon in the early ‘00s and is now highly revered, but mostly when combined with a 25-inch waist. Being flat-chested is in, but only to wear lacy bralettes. Being “thick” has been revolutionized by women with real thighs and real curves but still maintains that a certain level of sex appeal be upheld. Another mold has been created, and while it may be different from its predecessors, we’re still falling into the same ugly snares of ideal body image, sending the masses running towards the welcoming arms of “fitspo”, waist trainers, and detox teas. The age-old question then becomes: Are we really revolutionizing the beauty and fashion industry, or did she just put on a new guise that we have an easier time stomaching? After all, in the sovereignty of Instagram, the law of posting a thirst trap instills that the subject is desirable.

This is not to say that the progress of the body positivity movement should be ignored. Many of the leading messages behind the movement have brought about healthier and more promising mindsets for women to consume, and it seems inevitable that the movement would resort to uplifting, repost-friendly sound bites in order to stay relevant. Body positive accounts such as @hi.ur.beautiful, which hails 408 thousand followers, offers square-sized remedies to the toxicity of the female experience with sweet notes such as “Am I too ‘wide’ or is your mind too narrow?” and “Don’t value your body over your being.” Actor and activist Jameela Jamil’s @i_weigh community has now amassed 1 million followers and offers more action-based solutions, such as a book club and a self-reflection challenge that encourages women to redirect their weight into descriptive words that better encompass their being. The conversation surrounding the body positivity movement is expanding, and more importantly, it is beginning to highlight the importance of intersectionality in regards the female experience. With any kind of social movement comes missteps and faux pas and the body positivity movement is certainly no exception – but it can recover by continuing honest and empathetic discussions on women’s bodies in general. This is where the dirty work begins: talking about female empowerment in a genuine light requires talking about female pain, something that will necessitate far more effort than a few aesthetically pleasing quotes on an Instagram grid.  

It is inevitable that social media is and always will be a stage upon which fantasies are portrayed. The body positivity movement faces a unique challenge in the need to balance the power of the aesthetically pleasing versus the less enchanting, dully complicated reality. Overly optimistic, ra-ra body positive cheerleaders posting before and after photos of weight loss journeys (sorry Kayla Itsines, but this one is on you) and sultry bikini pics captioned with paragraphs describing their journey to self-acceptance are genuinely fine, but they have become problematic by taking the mic from women who don’t fit the influencer mold that deserve the movement to recognize the validity of their existence. The movement needs to realize that pressuring women to “just love yourself!” without providing realistic tools on how to get there is unrealistic and, frankly, annoying. Adding a lengthy caption on body positivity underneath a photo of a glamorous, conventionally beautiful woman will never be a bad thing, but it can be counterproductive if it sends the message that the body positivity movement can only be accessed by a specific kind of spokesperson. Body positivity will look different for every woman, and while that can be a daunting task for the movement to tackle, it can veer towards a more productive direction by acknowledging that its solutions will need to have variety, openness, and intersectionality. 

Several Instagram queens have already spurred necessary conversations to tackle the complex existence of the body positive movement on social media. Mental illness advocate Raffela Mancuso (@raffela_mancuso) used her platform to critically reflect on the phenomenon of “thin bopo” and the amplification of thin women who still experience a fair amount of privilege that have enjoyed success as leaders in the body positivity movement. Mancuso celebrated the success of these women and the importance of their stories, but also stressed the necessity of using their platform to pass the mic to more marginalized voices and acknowledge the privileges they do enjoy. Mancuso’s message resonated immensely with her 20 thousand followers and garnered a collaborative response from Sarah Nicole Landry (@thebirdspapaya), whose own account has 1.3 million followers. Mancuso’s observation was frank and may have felt uncomfortable to hear for those who benefit from thin bopo, but she managed to get her point across gracefully and with the opportunity for open, honest, and empathetic conversation. Sometimes the movement will need to hear uncomfortable truths in order to bring about positive growth, and as long as leaders within it are willing to accommodate its growing pains, the outcome will create a community that can be more inclusive, loving, and understanding. 

Deeply engrained in the psyche of women and our relationship with our bodies is a powerful and persistent emotion: shame. Shame can stem from a variety of different experiences, be it inherited from our mothers, acquired through trauma, or reinforced by constant objectification.  For almost all women, disrobing in front of a mirror brings with it a critical eye ready to channel the feelings of shame into specific parts of the body, and while we can rattle off a list of the things we dislike about our physical appearance, we almost never talk about why we feel ashamed of them in the first place. Here’s where the body positivity movement can put the ra-ra optimism to good use – by acknowledging that working through feelings of shame is a personal, intimate process that will look and feel different for every woman, but the burden can be carried collectively to ease the discomfort we’ve carried throughout our lives. Not everyone is going to feel the motivation to unearth deeply rooted trauma and transform it into something positive, nor should they feel the pressure to, but the movement should still keep a space open for these women anyway. It is necessary to acknowledge that participation in the body positive movement is not obligatory in order for women to start feeling better about themselves. Sometimes, shame will never go away. Some experiences will have left wounds too deep to heal entirely, and spaces must be reserved for women who need a safe haven to lament the fact that they may never feel completely comfortable existing in their bodies. 

Radical change will need to start at the foundation, namely, by revolutionizing the idea that women’s bodies are just that – bodies. They are and can be non-sexual. They are and can be small, big, round, flat, scarred, differently-abled – they can be anything and their existence does not and should not have to coincide with a scale of sexual attractiveness. Nor should the expectation be that everyone must radically love their bodies. Behind the glittery idea of self-love comes the harsh reality for many: it’s hard work, and it takes time. Progress that has been gained can be more easily lost, making us reluctant to start over. After generations of learning what is and what isn’t beautiful, it requires bitter work to weed through what should and shouldn’t be kept, and no filter can make the lifetime of grunt work required more glamorous. It has become second nature to hate certain aspects of ourselves and it is going to require double the effort to unlearn the deeply engrained prejudices against our bodies. The end result might not even be love – it might just be acceptance, or even yet, it might just be tolerance – and that has to be okay in order for us to feel motivated to even begin. The most disliked parts of our physical bodies are intimately intertwined with deeper traumas and beliefs about our identity – aspects of our true selves that no one wants to reduce to a few posts on social media. And really, no one should. The body positivity movement has the ability to amplify productive conversations about the female experience and where we go from here. It can start by passing the mic. 

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Anna Luo is an American traveler/writer currently teaching English in Europe. Her writing portfolio can be found here. She am fairly new to freelance writing and am most passionate about writing on feminism, reproductive health care access, vulnerable feelings, and environmental responsibility. Her Instagram can be found here.

Beginning in a Time of Corona

Photo credit to @cottonbro

The weekend before shelter-in-place, I went on four different dates with four different men. If sexual interactions could be saved up like water in a camel's hump, I wanted to make sure I was full up. I dated like I was going to be shot into space the next day. I kissed like I was getting shipped to war, and I had the feeling that, as I said goodbye to each man, I was obliged to light a candle in the window.

Living in San Francisco is like being a third grader at a school designed by drag queens. The city is obsessed with its own culture of work hard play harder. There are putt-putt golf courses featuring holeside bottle service, bowling alleys hidden underneath concert venues, and underground raves that take place in hastily rearranged WeWork spaces. At 29, the city made me feel ancient and out of touch. I was already falling behind in every aspect of my life, and my weekends had begun to revolve around avoiding missing out on the “Next Big Thing.” This desperation extended to the men in my life, who, while on dates with me, would always look over my right ear as if a slightly better, more successful or better-networked woman would appear out of nowhere that would be more worthwhile of their time. Dating was less about personal connection and romance as it was an algorithm that needed to be optimized. And I had fully bought into the system with a devil-may-care, volume-focused approach to tindering that would've put Mae West to shame.

There was a desperation and strange nostalgia that tinged my last four dates. Meeting up at bars felt tender and fragile. My boys and I would spend long silent minutes observing the chaos and camaraderie of people crowding in for their drink orders like we were watching black and white films of our grandparents dancing. Things used to be so good, we thought to ourselves, while still living it. We clutched at each other and squeezed hands like we'd just struck the iceberg, and later on in the night when we were in bed, we would face each other and cuddle, pretending we could feel the icy black water lap around our ankles.

The following Monday I opened the windows at midnight to listen to the city shut down. The streets had already been empty for hours, and for the first time since moving to the city, I could hear the birds. I went to bed alone, thinking that it would be a good time to masturbate, but not having the emotional energy to give myself that small reprieve.

The next weeks were strange ones. I started having incredibly vivid sex dreams about people I went to highschool with, but was too dorky to talk to. I started sexting with a guy I had hooked up with three years previously. I brutishly and forcefully sent unsolicited nudes to the guys I had been seeing, with varying levels of joy at one end of the scale to one guy on the other end telling me, 'I know you meant to cheer me up, but this is just more depressing.' I started to fantasize about elaborate rituals for washing hands in which men I couldn't see would come over and shower immediately, changing into sterilized robes that I had someho prepared. We would rub soap over our hands for hours on end and squirt purell into each others palms, gazing iris to iris while we rubbed it in and waited for it to dry. We would then carefully, delicately intertwine our fingers.

I started going for walks late at night so I could avoid as many people as possible, but walking past all the shuttered and boarded up restaurants and bars made me cry. I pictured the neighbors starting to refer to me as the weird sobbing girl. The highlight of the second week was starting to communicate with my neighbors across the street with post-it note missives and incredibly detailed drawings. I started to chat with the woman on the third floor, and found out her cat was named Oliver. One night at the end of one of my walks I stood under her window to feel a little closer to her and looked at my own dark apartment. I saw that my neighbors above and below me had all also been communicating with Oliver's owner, and I felt a deep sense of betrayal that could only be equaled by my childhood trauma of watching the Sonics move to Oklahoma City. A different neighbor across the street with a penchant for wandering around his apartment shirtless also caught my attention. He asked for my number via paper towel and permanent marker taped to his window, and we've been flirting ever since. I rearranged my desk for a better view, my apartment being higher than his I suddenly feel protective over him. I start doing my hair and posting more on instagram. I started walking around my apartment naked.

It's week three and I find myself unspooling gently. I feel constantly high, although it's been four days since my last edible. I've started to get to know my neighbors so intimately that now I feel like I can trust them with their own privacy again. They will be safe without my care, without my vigilent watching. I'm texting the boys less, and masturbating more. I've taken up painting more, and reading the books I always said I would read later. I started to write without irony about setting boundaries with men. And I started to gather little dust bunnies of courage from under all the responsibilities I had been ignoring and started planning this magazine.

This magazine was something I had wanted to do for a long time, and I had even had the name treasured since childhood, when my dad would let me read chain letters outloud to him while I spun around in his office chair. "You can lead a whorticulture," one read, "but you can't make her think." In another email, my dad chuckles as I say aloud, "a good cowgirl always keeps her calves together." It took me a long time to understand these jokes, to read these as ideals or cautionary tales, and I carefully grafted them onto my personality as a form of performative chasteness. It took me longer to shed that mantle in exchange for a short skirt and a pair of Docs. I think about feminist labor, and consider the pros and cons of charging my boyfriend for every time he has to ask when our anniversary is. I think about how much I spend on shampoo and then look up projected earnings for girls on onlyfans.com. I think about how I used to write but I've been too scared, and too traumatized, to write for years now. I think maybe this is the time to take the plunge. When the world is falling apart, the space is created for radical change. In this space, perhaps it is the time in which we can tend to and cultivate the cultural institutions we live under, and perhaps grow something a little more beautiful.