How community theater changed my life
One day in fall 2010, my roommate Grace turned to me and asked if I wanted to audition with her for an all-female Shakespeare troupe she had found advertised on Craigslist. I immediately said yes. I had no idea then that that one “yes” would end up changing my life…
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…
A fat suit, really? Netflix’s new show Insatiable is not what we need right now
I was introduced to a new Netflix series “Insatiable,” which presents a fat teen bullied by her high school classmates who gets clocked in the face and loses a bunch of weight due to her jaw being wired shut over the summer. She comes back after losing a lot of weight, now perceived as “hot,” and exacts revenge on her bullying classmates.
I am curvy and that’s beautiful: my (ongoing) journey toward body positivity
To be honest, I don’t recall a time when I have looked in a mirror and thought I was skinny or loved what I saw. I have spent hours trying clothes on; searching for that one outfit that made me feel good about every part of my body. I’m still searching, pretty sure those clothes don’t exist.
But here’s how I promise to try my hardest to love myself in my journey toward body positivity…
How one woman tackled her body dysmorphia with pole dancing
I was completely inspired with hope as I sat across from Jillian and listened to her story. The room buzzed with her energy. She was dynamic and powerful. I would’ve never known that just five years before she was in the depths of her struggle with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). BDD is all consuming — a constant obsession about the shame of one’s appearance. This description did not characterize the woman who sat confidently before me. I asked what shifted. I was not prepared for her response.
World making you feel old? Here’s why I’m not letting it
Did you happen to see this 60th birthday boudoir shoot we posted recently? It’s deliciously sexy and makes age seem irrelevant, so much so that it sent a couple of our staff members into look-inward-mode about aging. It was a tiny reminder that age is just a number and you don’t have to succumb to those being-old tropes if you don’t want to. For me, it was a reminder that we don’t have to pre-age ourselves (AND especially not have it thrust upon us by our peers).
Just try not to be empowered by this stunning 60th birthday boudoir session
Mrs. MC wanted to do a 60th birthday boudoir session to celebrate the beginning of another decade and to give her husband of six years an exciting anniversary gift. And she surely wowed him as much as she wowed us. This session is classy, striking, timeless, and hot. Girl looks seriously GOOD.
Defying gender binaries with Alok Vaid-Menon — a gender non-conforming writer, performer, & fashion icon
Alok feels that the concepts of masculinity and femininity shouldn’t have relevance in this day and age. “We need to be much more colorful, expansive, and precise about what we mean rather than defaulting into ideological catchalls that do more harm than good,” he tells me.
Being that Alok is a person of color, I wonder if they feel that ethnicity/race ties into the equation in a meaningful way. Their reply is so profound that I’m still sort of reeling from it…