How Dungeons & Dragons Allows Us to Take Control of the Narrative
Joining up with friends to play out different conflicts, puzzles, and stories in a safe space where we accept each other’s identities is like cleansing myself of the weariness that comes from existing in our current world.
On Consent: A Love Letter to My Sons
This study is yours to do. You do not do it through the watching of porn. You do this through anatomy books, reading erotica, talking openly and candidly with friends and adults you trust about what you like, what you don’t like—and you listen.
Living with Trixie
I have never really wanted to fully stop, and I think that’s the problem. There’s too much benefit in the anxiety-building- then-quelling ritual of it. Do I want healthy hair? As a woman, I’m supposed to, right?
Good Sex is as Important as Consent
By centering the conversation on your pleasure in its various lusty forms, we dismantle further the idea that women are puzzles to be worked, games to be played, or objects to be won. Eventually the line between sex and rape will become so bright it will be clear they were never connected in the first place.
Autism is a Life Without Grace
The requirements of grace fight every single one of my instincts. Sometimes my instincts look quite honestly insane. But they keep me healthy and happy, safe and alive.
How I Learned to Love Not Having Sex with My Husband
As we begin to define consent and its extremities, we are beginning to learn that the definition is not cut and dry. I say this not to defend a grey area of consent, but to argue the inability to give full sexual consent without first deconstructing embedded ideas about sex.
Learning To Be Myself When My Icons Are Tedious
I was first called a lesbian in a cafeteria. I was 10 years old. I had just cut off all of my hair, because I didn’t want to look too much like a girl.
On Being A Bearded Woman
Nature contradicts the idea that women are hairless, dainty creatures and men are hairy, burly creatures, and we need to start contradicting those ideas more fiercely than ever.
White Women, Do Better
White women elected this man. So many of us did the wrong thing last November, or better yet nothing at all, that here we are.
Mixtape of Comfort
When you’re online, it can be hard to find comfort. But it’s important that you do.
Bully Rule
As much as it infuriates me, I have come to accept the fact that I shall be ruled by bullies yet again.
Ask Ada: Ready, Set, BAKE!
Dear Ada, I am an artist and I love creating my art, but even though I love it, I still find a million zillion ways to procrastinate. Why do I waste time binge watching The Great British Baking Show instead of doing the thing I love? Why is it so hard to find the motivation to get off my butt and make some art?
The Cost Of Living
What would you pay to assure yourself that someone you love has avoided such potential death? My mom, of course, is adamant; we pay the money.
What if 2018 Was Your Startup?
What if, rather than compiling a list of things I wish I’d do – quit a bad habit, adopt a good one – I approached the new year as a startup? It's what I've filled my days with the past 25 years, after all—telling startups how to grow and evolve. What if I started giving myself some of that advice?
Crumbs
We are used to accepting crumbs, aren’t we? Not only do we accept them when it comes to self-care and relationships, we accept them at work, in school, in politics, and in culture at large. We negotiate our own selves on the regular just to get a crumb of what we want because that is how life works for women.
My Battery Is at One Percent
Every December, I tell myself that this will be the year I keep my cool. That this Christmas will be filled with warmth and coziness and gratitude. And every December 26th, I find myself muttering, "Thank GOD that’s over."
Black Women Do Not Exist to Save You
Trust Black Women means nothing if your policies and institutions do not seek to elevate Black women and help combat issues that impact Black women.
No Country for "Good Guys"
The all-or-nothing worldview implied by the “good guy” label plays a number on the rest of us in society. It sends us the message that we can overlook allegations of sexual violence if the perceived sum total of the accused is deemed “good.”
Ask Ada: Working With Creepers And Giving Too Many Fucks
Our advice expert tackles working in a #MeToo world and how to give fewer (more deserving?) fucks.
I Was Invited To Give A TED Talk — Then Asked To 'Cut Black Lives Matter' From It
I was frustrated that I had been invited to give a talk on an idea I deemed worth sharing, only to be told that it was not worth sharing anymore because something similar had been shared 2–3 times recently. As if that’s anywhere near enough.