Sex Love Romance ( www.sell-out.trade )

This article was originally published on EverydayFeminism.com and is republished with permission. (Content Note: This article references partner abuse, include rape.) Here’s the truth: My ex-boyfriend abused me. He treated me worse than anyone outside of our relationship  will ever know . Some of you might believe me if I told you. But I’ve heard over and over again the common reasons for doubting survivors – and I can’t even begin to count how many of them can apply to me. Life can feel very lonely as a survivor of intimate partner violence. For me, there is perhaps no lonelier time than when I realize how many people would think I was lying if I told them the truth. I’m sure you don’t personally harbor all of the attitudes that lead people to doubt survivors. But for every reason I can name for why someone might not believe me, there’s somebody somewhere who would cite it as “proof” that my story is false. So I’m talking to any part of you that just might buy into some of...

No matter how long you’ve been politically conscious, you’ve probably figured out by now that activists are by no means perfect. Even while we’re trying to end oppression, we can sometimes make some harmful mistakes ourselves. So how do you address oppressive mistakes in your community? Say you’re at a social justice event that’s promising in some ways, but problematic in others. What do you do? Take over the microphone and call the organizers out? Leave early and write a lengthy post on the Facebook event page about what they’ve done wrong ? Invite the hosts out to coffee to point out their errors? All of these strategies have their pros and cons. There’s no one “right” way to address oppression in activist circles, which is why there have been many conversations among activists about approaches like  calling people out  and  calling them in . But there is one troubling trend that can get in the way of our attempts to build a more just world together. In many ways,...

A friend of mine recently asked me to close my eyes and imagine what Black liberation looked/smelled/tasted/sounded like to me. I told her: It smells floral; because I want Black folks to have flower gardens. It tastes like home cook meals; because I want Black people to have the time to cook if that’s what they into. It sounds like babies laughing; because I want Black parents and children to be thriving and joyous and carefree. I want Black folk off their feet. I want them on couches. I want Black people taking daytime naps. My liberation dreams for Black folk gather around leisure and pleasure. They gather around the things one is able to do and experience when all their emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual needs are met. Black people don’t get enough rest. That’s not anecdotal. Black people literally don’t get enough rest. Studies have shown that “fewer black people are able to sleep for the recommended six to nine nightly hours than any other ethnic group in the ...

Dear Mom, On November 17, 2005 you passed away. You were the only little person in your family, one of nine children eight of which had the Cecil trademark of red hair, green eyes and freckles. You had me at 24, and I came out the same way.  I must admit, I never thought about what a miracle that was until 35 years later, I had my own daughter, Kaya Rose. No red hair, no green eyes, one solitary freckle (for now) but also a little person. I find myself wondering daily if having grown up in a family of all average height siblings and parents, did you delight in having a smaller version of yourself? Was it exciting for you to be able to put into this child an acceptance, a love even, of her body? Because while at the time it was normal for me, I see now, 39 years later what a gift it was. Now that there are three generations of dwarf women in our family, I like to think that our bodies are our birthright. I never thought much about the differences between having a girl and having ...

As an Asian American woman who exists on the asexual spectrum, I navigate a tricky space when it comes to sexuality. On one hand, I experience hypersexualization and fetishization based on Orientalist assumptions about Asian women. On the other, I come from a culture of sexual conservatism , where families don’t speak about sex but the expectation of abstinence is always implied. My coming of age was a long, drawn out clash between these two cultural forces, resulting in much confusion and frustration about who I was, how I felt, and how I was perceived by others. Let me address the obvious first: asexuality is still widely misunderstood, no matter where you are or what culture you grew up in. To make matters even more difficult, much of the asexual community is dominated by white voices . Articles and resources centering asexual people of color are few and far between, leaving little room for dialogue about how race, ethnicity, and culture can affect the way a person experiences as...

This article was originally published on EverydayFeminsim.com and is republished with permission. I recently attended a presentation by Tony Porter, founder of A Call to Men . After watching his TED Talk , I was incredibly excited to see him speak because of how he demands of men that we consider the ways that all of us can act in abusive and violent ways. Seeing him in person, though, was disappointing. Early in the presentation, he held out his arms, asking us to imagine that his arms represented all men. He then gestured to the distance from his fingertips to his elbow on one arm and said, “These guys right here are the bad guys, the ones who are abusive and who commit sexual assault. Violence against women and girls can’t end until the rest of us, the good guys, call these men out and demand that they change!” When he said this, my heart sank. After all, setting aside the heterosexist implications of his statement, framing abuse in this way lets most men, including me, of...