Rather than letting someone shame you, wear your sexuality as a badge of honor. Being a slut is not a bad thing. Are you a woman? Do you have sex? If you answered “yes” to these two questions, then someone, somewhere, thinks you are a slut. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a slut is “a […]
Dear Dana is a bi-weekly advice column for humans who engage in romantic relationships. Please send your dilemmas, issues, conundrums, assumptions, conflicts, anxieties, worriments, obstacles, complications, predicaments, queries, questions, and any other synonyms for “problems” to deardana@rolereboot.org. Dear Dana, In a recent game of “I have never” with a group of friends, I discovered that my […]
Too many survivors of these crimes struggle against myths that deny their experience—or worse, blame them for their trauma. Unfortunately, you probably know someone who has been sexually assaulted. One out of 6 American women are survivors of attempted or completed rape. It’s not just women: 1 out of 33 men are survivors as well. […]
I wanted to have sex when I was 15, and you probably did too. My own teenage years are pressed into the back of my mind, and from a certain angle, in a particularly rosy light, they are nostalgic rather than shameful and full of bad decisions. I sometimes pull out an anecdote or two, […]
From the workplace to relationships, simply by being male, men experience privilege that makes their lives easier—and that they (usually) don’t even notice. Morning: a man shuffles out of a cab in last night’s rumpled suit, holding a pair of dress shoes in his hands that have begun to pinch. The neighbors stare. This is the walk […]
My high school refused to print my picture in the yearbook because my A-cups were demanding too much attention. “I can see your cleavage all the way across the court.” That’s what my female Bible teacher told me when I was just 15. I was the new kid at a private Christian school. What could […]
We explore the dubious claims of familiar relationship maxims. Many lifestyle websites, talk shows, podcasts, and parenting puff pieces aim to give readers and viewers the best relationship advice. But many of the common adages debated and discussed in popular threads these days actually provide questionable advice. Below we explore the dubious claims of frequent […]
If we didn’t already judge women for how they dressed every day of the year, maybe Halloween wouldn’t feel like such a pressure cooker for the intersection of shame and exhibitionism. Oh the Halloween lists I could write! 17 Intersectional Non-Appropriating Feminist Costumes 10 Sex-Positive But Not Slutty* But Still Cute* But Not Trying-to-Hard* Costumes (*What […]
The average mom is terrified that her daughter’s sexual activity will deem her a “slut,” and the average dad knows that she could be objectified by boys and men, just as he was programmed to do. The most panicked calls and emails that I receive from parents are the ones that go something like this: […]
A version of this originally appeared on The Huffington Post. Republished here with permission. Don’t believe them when they teach you in hundreds of ways that you are inherently more sinful, corrupt, less worthy, and in need of constant male guidance. Reject them. Dear Girls, You are powerful beyond words, because you threaten to unravel the control […]
We live in a culture that tells boys it’s OK to shed clothing in the heat in order to be more comfortable, but tells girls that their comfort is secondary to how others perceive them. If you’re a teenage girl, you may have seen the photo of a message taped to a high school window making the […]
This originally appeared on The Daily Life. Republished here with permission. Instead of being praised for her friendliness, people have started commenting on my daughter’s flirtatiousness. Not even 2 years old and she’s already being slut-shamed. My baby daughter likes to kiss. A lot. She kisses her friends as she greets them at the playground (when […]
