What’s a death doula? (And why I became one)
Death doulas see death not only as something that’s a necessary part of life… but something that can even be beautiful.
Gender roles are soul crushing so why are we still gendering kids clothes?
I was two minutes into writing a post about shoes for toddlers when I had to stop and throw a public fit. Why the hell are we still gendering kids clothes? Why am I forced to gender my child before they even have a chance to figure it out themselves just so I can them get some damned shoes?
Does choosing an LGBTQ+ label mean you’re THAT forever?
Some people have asked me: if I identify with a term today does that mean you always have to identify that way? The answer to that question can be complicated and contentious. Here’s my take: HELL FREAKING NO!
My heartfelt advice: Don’t worry so much about labels. Labels are great, but, in some ways, they’re also for cans.
Move over “spinster”: this old term for an unmarried woman is bad-ass
Back when I was buying a condo as an unmarried woman about a decade back, I was confronted with the term “spinster” in the legal documentation declaring that I *gasp* had no husband in the process of buying this home. Get your fainting couches ready. I think it would have been far less jarring had I been confronted with the term THORNBACK, though. What’s a thornback you ask? Come with me on this journey of fantastic singlehood, friends…
Requiem for Tumblr: pouring one out for a fat-positive space for nudes
Besides being a huge blow to sex workers and LGBTQ people, Tumblr’s recent decision to ban adult content from its platform is a misguided form of censorship that will remove an outlet of self-expression for those who fall outside of typical Western beauty standards. There was something else, though, and that something is what I and I think many other people will miss most now that Tumblr has moved to ban adult content from its site…
Will Tumblr’s adult content ban be catastrophic for sex work and queer communities?
Tumblr announced that they are going scorched earth with pornographic content by removing it from the site entirely. Tumblr’s decision feels very much like a condemnation of sex work and pornography as a whole, and specifically ends up targeting marginalized groups who rely on the site in a number of ways. For those of us who don’t have a problem with safe, consensual sex work, this has the appearance of making it unnecessarily harder for folks to make a living online. For others, it feels like the only way to save the children (why won’t somebody think of the children?!).
Book club: Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram
The Enneagram is not especially cool right now. It came to popularity in the US in the ’70s, and while astrology has gotten a breath of fresh air through the social justice lens of folks like Chani Nicholas, there’s no similarly hot new take on The Enneagram.
So this is not new, and it’s not hip. But you know what? This book cracked some things WIDE open for me…
Talking about sexuality: the big dirty elephant in the room
Talking about sexuality is a conversation that can make folks a tad uncomfortable. Sexuality is always some big dirty elephant in the room — it’s there and obvious but everyone avoids talking about it. That’s because, for many of us, it has been taught for generations that sex is a dirty thing we keep to ourselves.
We offer sexual education in some schools, we talk to our kids about the birds and the bees, but beyond that, how often do we ever really talk about sexuality?