Brigham Young University student Keli Byers penned a bold open letter for Cosmopolitan this month, in which she challenges her school's regressive, anti-woman ban on sex. It's an incredibly brave move, considering that, as a teen, Byers was suspended from church for being sexually assaulted by an older Mormon…
A company has created a kit that has everything a woman needs to survive the dreaded (or not-so-dreaded) "walk of shame."
We need to talk about "slut-shaming." As a term, it's enjoyed a rapid proliferation —likely because it's useful and very pertinent to the experience of being a woman. The phrase "slut-shaming" takes an insidious, malignant cultural tendency to police, judge and condemn women for being comfortable with their own…
An ill-advised prostitution arrest in New York City (golly gee wilikers!) led to a hilarious courtroom disquisition about what sort of women's clothing is actually part of a sex worker's wardrobe. Much to the surprise of certain finger-wagging old-timers, tight, contour-enhancing jeans and a pea coat are most…
Spirits, alcoholic ones, have their way of sinking their depressive tendrils deep inside, drawing up everything we keep locked away. My man and I spent the night apart, out and about Brooklyn. We lace fingers and make our way home, bellies full of fried food and spirits. He falls asleep soundly, peacefully.
In case you were worried Michelle Duggar wasn't teaching her daughters, all 75,312* of them, not to dress like sluts, you can put your mind at ease!
Texas Governor Rick Perry has already solidified his place in the annals of women's history as the has the political equivalent of scheisse porn *don't Google that*. But as frustrating as it is to read about Perry's antics from elsewhere, what Texas women face in Perry's disastrous wake is much, much worse.
The weight of the entire world's sexuality is on the shoulders of teen girls. Or is it their legs? It seems like all day long we in a frenzy over their dark magical powers. Do they know what they are doing? Are they doing it ON PURPOSE? Because from the Salem witch trials to the modern day devil harlots, girls have…
If we were to envision Twitter as a vast, wind-torched desert in which bedraggled humans scrounge for any semblance of meaning or purpose, then insensitive Tweets penned by privileged white "liberal" dudes are like the water-conserving plants speckling the landscape. They should not be able to thrive and propagate…
According to a recent study, girls as young as thirteen are consuming as much alcohol as early as boys. If you're a reasonable human person over the age of, like, sixteen (+/- 2 years), your response to this tidbit will most likely be, "That seems unhealthy that children as young as thirteen are consuming alcoholic…
Last month, science geek and costumer Emily Finke attended a sci fi convention dressed in a screen-accurate uniform from Star Trek: TOS, where she was met with microaggression, mock-concern and men intent on outing her as a Fake Geek Girl. So she decided to write something, "because I haven't caused enough flame wars…
Those darn slutty, slutty sluts, all going around and having sex with other human people when they want to and other WACK shit like that, are not too busy being sluts to have female friends, but we don't want them because we're all Patty Simcox, according to a graduate study from the Cornell College of Human Ecology.
Model Chrissy Teigen took to Twitter yesterday, to call someone a whore and was promptly accused by her followers of slut-shaming. She responded with a full-on, crazy-ass ignorant rant for hours that began with: "uh 1, i'm too old to know the term 'slut shaming' and 2, what the fuck is wrong with slut shaming." Uh 1,…
By the end of the first chapter of Amanda Knox's memoir Waiting to Be Heard, she got her first vibrator, flew to Italy, had sex with a stranger she met on a train, smoked weed, and got herpes. She's, like, cool. Or at the very least she was normal. So, so normal. And if being a young woman having fun while exploring…
Once you get some chronological and emotional distance from the arbitrary cruelty of middle school, it's easy to write off your tormentors because these days they're posting Facebook selfies of themselves drinking sizzurp as their toddler watches Caillou in the background. But that shit, in real time, was rough.
Rihanna debuted a collection of assorted fabrics Saturday night at River Island as part of London Fashion Week, and, if the outrage expressed by Tom Sykes of The Daily Beast is any indication of the prevailing critical sentiment, things did not go well.
It may be freezing cold outside, but as the store windows remind us, spring is on its way. Along with the Easter bunny and the return of baseball, the rapidly approaching season is sure to bring a new round of hand-wringing and pearl-clutching about young women's "immodest" attire. The viral response this month to…
The wacky musings of 26-year-old Jenna Mourey, vlogger moniker Jenna Marbles, usually accompanied by little more than her dogs, a few props and her living room wall in Santa Monica, have made her the fifth-most popular YouTube presence to date. I've watched her videos before—How To Trick People Into Thinking You're…
Chalk off FetLife, a members-only social network run by and for fetish enthusiasts, as yet another purportedly non-judgmental, welcoming online community that hosts a shocking number of slut-shaming misogynist assholes.
Pepperdine University is a private Christian college overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the celebrity-enclave of Malibu, CA. The school is known for its sports teams, mandatory attendance at spiritual events, and for its strong journalism department — with "Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs" majors…
