Search results for:

  • Charging For Emotional Labor Is An Inherently Feminist Act

    by Andre Shakti
    "These girls have to deal with men in their lives every day…they don’t listen to them, they don’t even ask them what they want. All we have to do is ask them what they want...."
    ...

  • Don't Tell Me, A Queer Muslim, About Homophobia In Islam

     HPh RV
    by Aaminah Khan
    "Whenever my religion comes up, you can be sure that at least one sanctimonious white person will rush to remind me that Muslims are bloodthirsty, backwards savages..."
    ...

  • The Frequent Trauma of Dating While Black and Female
    by Zoé Samudzi
    "White people who practice so-called 'ethical' non-monogamy but still treat black women like trading cards are merely taking advantage of the perceived freedom these relationships afford them."
    ...

  • Femme is Radical, and Femme-Shaming Isn't Feminist

     TPh
    by Safíra Anouk
    "I am not femme because I am a woman, rather, I am femme because I am a feminist who is self-empowered to express herself and make choices according to her personal preferences."
    ...

  • What I Learned About Male Fragility Dating Comedians
    by Sofia Barrett-Ibarria
    If a white male comic tells a jerk-off joke in the forest and no one hears it, did it really happen? Will no one acknowledge this silent epidemic?"
    ...

  • Even Mothra, Queen of the Kaiju, Has To Lean In Sometimes
    by Kaitlin Tremblay
    "She’s calculated, smart, has a mind of her own, takes shit from literally nobody, and is incredibly strong. So why all the Mothra hate?"
    ...

  • The Monster Is You: Homophobia in Small Town America
    by Dorian Dawes
    "I was smaller than the others. I didn't go out for sports. I spent my time writing crappy poetry and ghost stories in a little black book. In a small town, that was enough."
    ...

  • Feminism, Madness, and Misogyny Within The Psychiatric Care System

    MV
    by Erin Stewart
    "I felt like the staff were trying to tamper with my ideas of wellness, as well as my identity, in pursuit of what’s 'best.'"
    ...

  • Your Revelations Are Not Necessarily Enlightening To Everyone

    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "By regurgitating information you have recently learned to someone who lives it every day, you are forcing them to attend a 101 class on a subject they teach (often for no pay)."
    ...

  • When Porn Complicates The Relationships Of Straight White Christian Hipsters, It’s Not Our Problem

    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "It will only be through deeper and broader education, and the empowerment and destigmatization of service workers (sex workers included) that justice and liberation will be possible."
    ...

  • 26 God Damn Years Later, Twin Peaks Still Has One Of The More Compassionate Trans Woman Characters On TV
    by Rani Baker
    She’s able to achieve things, rather than just show reacting to things happening to her. When her sexuality is invoked, it is hers to own rather than weaponized against her. This is a pretty big deal.
    ...

  • I'm A Trans Woman, and I'm Transphobic. So Are You.

     TPh
    by Safíra Anouk
    "In my zeal to be a 'real woman', I was once prepared to do anything and everything to pass as cisgender—banking my identity not on self acceptance, but on being accepted by everybody else. "
    ...

  • I Am Poly & So Can You: The Kind of Triad You Bring Home To Mother
    by Andre Shakti
    Polyamory pundit Andre Shakti is here to help you love responsibly.
    ...

  • Adult Industry Celebrates as Cal/OSHA Votes Against AHF Proposal to Regulate Porn

    by Kitty Stryker
    The 4 hour meeting included testimony from over 100 performers and producers, many of whom flew out from LA to be in Oakland to speak to the Cal/OSHA board.
    ...

  • Pounded In The Butt By An Interview With Chuck Tingle

    by Kyle Turner
    A bafflingly intimate conversation with the most important gonzo gay erotica writer of our time.
    ...

  • The Subtle, Subversive Feminism Of Jimmy Buffet
    by Rani Baker
    "Let’s let one of the finest male feminists have his day in the sun. But not too much sun; skin cancer is a hell of a way to go."
    ...

  • The Case for a Whiteness History Month

    by Zoé Samudzi
    "This country’s education system fails to be culturally inclusive in a way that decenters or characterizes violent domination as anything but normal."
    ...

  • Hindur Demonstrates How Arranged Marriages (Don't) Work
    by Aaminah Khan
    "To conflate coerced marriages and consensual arranged marriages isn’t just ignorant–it’s harmfully disingenuous."
    ...

  • How To Confront Femme Competition Within Polyamorous Relationships
    by Andre Shakti
    "Is there a stereotype threat at play, where queer women don't want to have these discussions for fear that straight people will laugh and say 'told you so' at our attempts to exist outside of their society?"
    ...

  • "Periods Suck": How I Lost an Ovary Because We Stigmatize Cisgender Women's Pain

    MV
    by Adrienne Gomez
    "If you're somebody who has both a uterus and vagina, you are told at an early age that menstruation is a burden. A terrible, painful, gross burden that we must endure for five to seven days every month. And keep quiet about it."
    ...

  • When Your Abuser Dies

     FPV
    by Julie S. Lalonde
    "You mustn’t speak ill of the dead because they aren’t here to defend themselves—but many of us can’t defend ourselves until the person is dead and gone."
    ...

  • Samus Is Trans, and Ronda Rousey Probably Shouldn't Play Her

     TPh
    by Colette Arrand
    "See, canon is a tricky thing, as tricky as gender itself."
    ...

  • Ain't I An Activist?: On Stevie Wonder and the Violence of Inaccessibility
    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "I hate to say this, but while we may, as individuals, be sad sometimes, our disabled lives are not sad. It is not sad, or touching, to be disabled, in and of itself. It is not a tearjerker, when a disabled person makes a political demand."
    ...

  • You Really Should Be Shopping At Curvy Girl Lingerie, You Know
    by Jetta Rae
    Chrystal Bougon of Curvy Girl Lingerie wants you to feel gorgeous in your fat body. So much so that she paid to talk to us about lingerie. Click and read for a 20% off coupon code!
    ...

  • Riding in Cars with Douchebags: When Ridesharing Is Inaccessible

     VD
    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "It's pretty triggering to have someone be all up in your space in a way your body and their job necessitates, and then have them scream at you for talking back about what they’ve just done to you."
    ...

  • Heritage In Subtitles: Speaking on Arab-American Identity
    by Amr Al-Aaser
    "At no point in the process did anyone even bother to check what the messages said. Having them in Arabic was threatening enough."
    ...

  • John Kasich Says "Let Them Eat Cupcakes"; We Have Other Ideas

    by Rani Baker
    "Let's see how Kasich likes it when the other a pâte á choux drops."
    ...

  • Role Play: The Oscars and the Exclusion of Queer Men

    by Kyle Turner
    "... the vision that the Academy Awards have seemed to gravitate to with regard to these people is one of tragedy, and also, knowingly or otherwise, one of whiteness."
    ...

  • Films That Ignore Realities of Race Can Never Be "Great Art"

    by Aaminah Khan
    "[The] film industry...derides and eschews escapism and fantasy in film as childish in favour of gritty realism, [yet finds] itself either unwilling or unable to reflect reality as it is."
    ...

  • Yes, Even Dommes Experience Misogyny

    GV SV
    by Lauren Parker
    "Under patriarchy, 'dominant' and 'masculine' occupy the same definition; by virtue of existing, I am a political figure. I don’t actually appreciate this very much."
    ...

  • Venus Lux Discusses TSA Abuse and Flying While Trans

    TPh
    by Kitty Stryker
    Venus Lux shares a recent experience of TSA agents confiscating her money.
    ...

  • Dream Command: Chapters 1 & 2

    by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
    "Sometimes, Lieutenant, you discover that a person you knew well–whom you trusted utterly–turns out to be quite the stranger after all."
    ...

  • Does The LFL Have A Place In The Women's Sports Revolution?
    by Scarlett Harris
    "Being the only choice for women who want to play gridiron affords the LFL a reluctance of its players to rock the boat. This leaves a lot of room for unaccountability."
    ...

  • Trans Sex, Y'all: On The Oversexualization of Trans Identity

     TPh
    by Riley Silverman
    "This desire to hypersexualize the trans experience actually requires a person to retroactively sexualize me as a child."
    ...

  • Putting on a "Brave" Face: On Ableism and Appropriation in the Film Industry
    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "How brave is a nondisabled actor who gets turned down for an able-bodied role, when they know a career-making disabled role might be just around the corner?"
    ...

  • I Need Black Women to Win

    by Cinnamon Maxine
    "... there is so much more to us than that struggle."
    ...

  • 6 Games Influenced By Feminism A Century Before GamerGate

    by Rani Baker
    "The notion that games have always existed as a pristinely apolitical escapism is an anachronism and, frankly, boring."
    ...

  • I Love God and I Love Fucking
    by KC Slack
    "There is no conflict between my calling and my coming. My religiosity and my ministry do not preclude me from fully experiencing my sexuality."
    ...

  • What Arkham Horror Gets Right And Very, Very Wrong

    by Dorian Dawes
    "Fighting against bigotry and systemic inequality can often times feels as maddening and daunting as challenging Cthulhu, but we have to keep trying.​"
    ...

  • We Can't Trust White People: Blood Quantum and Appropriation

     RV
    by Safíra Anouk
    "...for people who have survived the greatest genocide in known history, it is justifiably important to fight, if need be, to keep our bloodlines alive and thriving, mixed or otherwise."
    ...

  • An Interview with Erika Lust on Crowdsourcing Feminist Porn

    by Jess Goodwin
    "Even though I love coming up with my own scenarios for films, it feels way more communal and diverse to let people tell me their erotic visions. Ordinary people have extraordinary stories to tell, and they are a joy to shoot."
    ...

  • An Interview with Writer and Documentarian Siana Bangura

    by Zoé Samudzi
    "I am out here trying to clapback at a society wanting to block my every blessing simply because I am not a white man."
    ...

  • Emma Watson: Check Out These Alternatives To Mainstream Porn
    by Kitty Stryker
    "What boggles my mind is this idea that there’s a distinction, a line that’s widely believed to be clear, between porn and art, or even obscenity or filth and art."
    ...

  • DiCaprio Win Proves The Oscars Really Are Equal Opportunity

    by Aaminah Khan
    "The Revenant will go down in history as a veritable harbinger for countless Oscar wins to come for white people starring in stories about people of colour."
    ...

  • Same/Different: How Bisexuality and Queerness Overlap and Diverge
    by Sara Habein
    "Words carry baggage; bisexuality has the deluxe matching set.​"
    ...

  • A Queer Film Critic Reviewed The Anti-Gay PSA "Boys Beware!"

    HPh SV
    by Kyle Turner
    "The search for verisimilitude, or reality, begins and ends with the title card of Boys Beware! Homosexuals Are on the Prowl (which, in my opinion, could use a colon, which is sort of ironic if you think about it)."
    ...

  • The KKK Are Not and Have Never Been a Progressive Movement

     RV
    by Zoé Samudzi
    "I don’t believe that the majority of the ideologies they express are fundamentally different from the ideologies that founded or are perpetuated by institutions in this country." CW: Descriptions of Supremacist Violence Against Black
    ...

  • How I Explored My Gender Identity Through Pony Play

    by Brandy Lewis
    "Being a pet gave way to me wanting to be someone’s female pet–that was where I found the woman inside of me."
    ...

  • Phoenix Goddess Temple Proves Need For Sex Worker Solidarity

    WPh
    by Kitty Stryker
    "As long as the law can come for some of us, they can come for all of us."
    ...

  • Sex Work is not "The World's Oldest Profession".

    by Bee D. Geiger
    "Prostitution was created and criminalized by men. Sex workers have gone into sex work and been punished for being sex workers largely because of men."
    ...

  • The 8 People Moving Into Your Gentrified Neighbourhood

    by Aaminah Khan
    "As your home is bulldozed to make room for a new block of condos, why not cheer yourself up with a little people-spotting?"
    ...

  • Topping As A Disabled Person
    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "I know all too well that bottoming is not passive; even when we are touched against our will, it takes every fiber of one's being to receive, or to not receive, psychically or physically."
    ...

  • I Am Poly & So Can You #2: Hey Mister, Got A Sister?
    by Andre Shakti
    "Once we start trying to regulate how people love one another we’re no better than those who oppress us."
    ...

  • We Need A Decolonized, Not A "Diverse", Education
    by Zoé Samudzi
    "Diversity is antithetical to critical education, to any politics that ultimately seek to dismantle oppressive systems."
    ...

  • A Bad Sign: Caitlyn Jenner and the Alleged Zodiac Killer

    GV
    by Rani Baker
    "On the off chance that a Cruz presidency does happen, this could prove a distinct reality check for her. "
    ...

  • Meet the French Aristocrats Who Throw Glitter Onto Buttholes (NSFW)

    by Kitty Stryker
    "Just wait until we bulldoze the ball park for our stables, then maybe people will get up in arms.​"
    ...

  • Taupe is French for "Mole": Explaining Colors To Men

    by Kate Foray
    "You might just find the smart salmon sportcoat was inside you all along."
    ...

  • Dream Command: Chapter 3

    by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
    "My wrists immobilized, my uniform grimed and ripped. Footfalls behind me. I can tell without looking to whom they belong: boots polished to a high luster, patent leather encasing powerful calves." CW: Depictions of gunfire and combat.
    ...

  • LBG Voice "Drops the T", and the Ball, in Pursuit of Equality

    TPh
    by Rani Baker
    "Remember the “Drop The T” petition? Neither do I, but it spawned a depressing website."
    ...

  • (Ho)ld That Thot: This Black Babe Doesn't Want To Be "Saved"

     RV
    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "Interesting: it's degrading for a femme or a woman to be self-employed and making informed choices surrounding her sexual agency...but it is not degrading for us to adhere to your rules and roles in order to be a respectable wife."
    ...

  • 5 Times “Law & Order: SVU” Kinda Got It Right

    SV TPh
    by Andre Shakti
    “That’s another thing. I hate being coddled. What, I have a baby and suddenly I can’t talk to serial killers anymore?”
    ...

  • I Want To Want It: On Female Sexual Dysfunction

    by Sarah Stanton
    The irony that so many of the conditions stigmatised in today’s society are those perceived as women’s illnesses is not lost on me.
    ...

  • When We Ask Straight Men About Their Desire For Trans Bodies

    TPh
    by Colette Arrand
    "Our cameras and our thinkpieces are never on the side of trans women."
    ...

  • An Interview with Ofunne Amaka, Creator of Cocoa Swatches
    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "I think people sometimes shy away from the fact that things like hair and obviously makeup are inherently political—but that's the reality of the world we live in, it just is."
    ...

  • Sharmin Hossain on Caste Apartheid and Cultural Amnesia

    by Zoé Samudzi
    "Bangladeshis are a resilient people. We have survived genocide and ethnic cleansing, and continue to feel the vibrations as we migrate and build Little Bangladeshi communities all over the world."
    ...

  • Know Your Magic Wand: The Real Danger of Fake Vibrators
    by Andre Shakti
    "...the force of the scream actually ejects my partner's hand from my cunt, and we scramble away from the affronting vibrator like crabs."
    ...

  • Coming Out To My Mom Twice Nearly Killed Me, Saved My Life

     TPh
    by Katelyn Burns
    "'I don’t know mom, I think it was just a phase,' I told her. Her whole body relaxed, she audibly sighed in relief. She didn’t want me to be her daughter."
    ...

  • 1957's "As Boys Grow..." is Creepy but in an Inclusive Way

    by Kyle Turner
    "I have no idea why a vintage sex education video like As Boys Grow… would include an ellipsis. I guess because... growing up is terrible?"
    ...

  • Eye See Myself: On Cosmetics and the Fear of Aging Womanhood

    by Kitty Stryker
    "I didn’t believe that any adult could actually be persuaded that some moisturizer is really going to make any difference–but this is a multi-billion dollar industry."
    ...

  • "Why Don't You Fuck Women?": On Biphobia and Anti-Blackness

    by Zoé Samudzi
    "For all its supposed liberating and contrarian qualities, the ironic rigidity of queer identities really constrains my ability to freely have sexual relationships with women when and where there might otherwise be interest."
    ...

  • Safe To Say #TheTriggering Was A Myopic, Laughable Failure
    by Aaminah Khan
    "The people behind #TheTriggering weren’t dauntless free speech advocates—just sad and spiteful little gremlins who genuinely think that trans people should die and women need to talk less."
    ...

  • We Don't Need Any More "Inspirational" Celebrity Trans Women

    by Rani Baker
    "There seems to be this undercurrent of who is going to become Highlander Queen Of The Trans or whatever."
    ...

  • J.K. Rowling Introduces Us To Magical World Of Appropriation
    by Safíra Anouk
    "It’s unlikely Rowling’s agenda in writing this series is to perpetuate the trauma of colonization; as an affluent white writer from Britain, a country which has reaped the spoils of the genocide on our peoples, that is precisely the outcome."
    ...

  • Non-Binary Twins Talk Family, Queerness, and Identity

    by Andre Shakti
    An interview with my partner Justin and his fraternal twin, Jackzon, both of whom are gender variant.
    ...

  • On The Joys of Cis People Telling Me How Well I Pass

    TPh
    by Jordan Wieleba
    "You suffer, you learn, you suffer, you learn, you suffer until you reach a point where you can finally be comfortable in your own skin (and sometimes that never happens). It’s a lifelong process."
    ...

  • Quean For A Day: The Love, Lust, & Longing of a Lesbian Cuck

    by Jetta Rae
    "It isn’t a compromise or some minor league of sexuality that I’ve been demoted to—it makes space for my idioms and nervosa to, not just be accounted for, but actively engaged. "
    ...

  • Dream Command: Chapter 4

    by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
    "They go, either in respect of the rank or in respect of the gun. Probably the gun."
    ...

  • Hillary's Liberal Cowardice Enables Trump's White Supremacy

     RV
    by Zoé Samudzi
    "I’m particularly taken aback by the idea that those families 'melted hearts in the statehouse,' because if black feelings truly mattered, it wouldn’t have taken a terrorist murdering nine black churchgoers to force the hand of South Carolina lawmakers."
    ...

  • Venger From Dungeons & Dragons Was Totally Trans, By The Way

    by Rani Baker
    "I mean come on; you have a flamboyant gender-non-conforming goth-witch in a dress with well-established daddy issues–"
    ...

  • An Interview with Matthew Bambach, Designer of Worry Quest
    by Courtney Hilden
    "You take a thought, you contextualize it, and you create a more realistic thought from that."
    ...

  • Free Freedia! or, Housing in America is a Racist Disaster

     RV
    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "To punish Big Freedia so extremely...would further reinforce the racist precedent that America believes black people, no matter how talented, are bodies for prisons, not houses."
    ...

  • Sex Workers Share Stories Of Clients Using The "L" Word

    by Andre Shakti
    "No one ever asked me if I felt oppressed, under-appreciated, or taken advantage of when I was a barista. Yet when I speak on sex worker panels, I can almost guarantee that someone will make it their personal mission to do just that."
    ...

  • How To Face-Sit Like A Lady
    by Lauren Parker
    "Some are born with ladyship assigned to them, others achieve ladyship through self-actualization, and others have ladyship thrust upon them (in consensual roleplays)."
    ...

  • Somewhere That's Green: Little Shop of (Gentrified) Horrors

    by Kyle Turner
    "Audrey II is the step to the American Dream that Seymour and Audrey crave, and in a desire to acquire that, Seymour feeds Audrey II endlessly, all in the hope that Audrey II will have enough."
    ...

  • Ellen Page's Gay Imperialism is Not Activism
    by Tovah Leibowitz
    "Ellen’s journey to 'explore what it means to be lesbian, gay, bi, or trans' is in fact a journey to impose what it means, then call that meaning 'evidence' in order to affirm a more palatable political ordering."
    ...

  • A Discerning Millennial's Intro To Presidential Porn Parody
    by Aaminah Khan
    "Presidential porn, like a lot of niche porn, exists partly as a way of proving social cachet, kind of like a red, white and blue-themed 2 Girls 1 Cup."
    ...

  • Dancing in Circles: On Being Triggered by Meanness

     SV RV VD
    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "Every time I am in a group of mostly white, able bodied or invisibly disabled people...my capacity for humiliation, no matter others' aim, is always large."
    ...

  • Radical Self-Reliance Is Killing People

    by Kitty Stryker
    "The attitude that other people are entirely responsible for managing their own emotions and you have nothing to do with it is selfish and lacks understanding of how human interactions work. "
    ...

  • I Didn't Have A Catchy Title For This; Send Help

    by Jetta Rae
    HARLOT Magazine is changing direction. We need your support to help us move forward.
    ...

  • Yoga in the West: A Colonial Machination of Appropriation
    by Lace Dagger
    "Yoga has been completely stripped of its power, strength, and glaring Indianness, repackaged into a symbol of contemptible, weak, nonthreatening, submissiveness: exactly what a colonial power looks for in a colony."
    ...

  • Yes A Stripper: Sex Workers Need To Take Back Pole Dancing
    by Bella Vendetta
    "It's awesome and inspiring and empowering if you pay for the privilege of pole dancing. But if you make a living at it, it's disgusting and degrading."
    ...

  • A Gift Guide For The Discerning Ballbuster

    by Jetta Rae
    A modest menagerie of wares to help the women and other non-men in your life fight back against patriarchy and bad taste.
    ...

  • When Black Hustlers Make Money, It Subverts The Social Order
    by Lyric Seal aka Neve Be
    "I am still an anarchist—I just don't anymore believe that making money as an artist to support and blast your message on high out into the world is antithetical to my radical politics."
    ...

  • The Porn Star's Guide To Hemorrhoids

    by Kitty Stryker
    "I want to help other people who find themselves with this condition without making them wade through the weirdness that is hemorrhoid licking porn."
    ...

  • When Being The Bigger Person Affords You Very Little
    by Kaitlin Tremblay
    "As women, being forced to be the bigger person puts us back into the position of caretaker. It forces us to continue sacrificing our own well-being for the well-being of others."
    ...

  • The Calculated Republican “Trans Bathroom” Wedge Strategy

    TPh
    by Rani Baker
    "Make no mistake, this isn't just about bathrooms.​"
    ...

  • Whorephobia & Misogyny in Wrestling—Still Real To Me, Dammit

    by Scarlett Harris
    "Laurer’s high-profile blackballing from the industry shows the punishment and shame brought on women who are seen profiting from their sexuality."
    ...