What The F Issue 18

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What the f Your Irregular Periodical

Staff

Caylin Luebeck President Emily Spilman President

Alexandra Niforos Blog Editor Lia Baldori Cielle Waters-Umfleet Rocio Cuesta Julia Haberfield Aditi Kannan Elya Kaplan Maria Wuerker Maggie McConnell Jessica Burkle Ariana Shaw Regina Egan Emma Goodman Hayleigh Proskin Lindsay Calka Gillian Graham Olivia Hintz Kendall Lauber Sophia Jacobs Claire Blestas Isabelle Fisher Nikki Keramati JJ Wright Bailey Yonkman Hiba Dagher Gracie Meinke Emily Bedolis

Editor-In-Chief Assitant Editor Staff Writer Staff Writer Staff Writer/Artist Staff Writer Staff Writer Art Director Assistant Art Director Assistant Art Director Staff Artist Staff Artist Staff Artist Design Director Designer Designer Designer Events Events Events Events Events

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Social Media Director Social Media Staff Social Media Staff Photographer

Lindsey Hentschel Lindsey Smiles Arden Shapiro Emma Keer

Finance Finance Finance Finance

Maria Marginean

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What the F is a non-partisan, non-profit publication operated by

students at the University of Michigan. What the F’s purpose is to encourage discussion on significant issues of campus, national, and world interest. The magazine, the executive board, and our sponsors, do not endorse the ideas presented by the writers. We do, however, support and encourage different ideas in our community and in campus discussion.

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issue 18 november 2019

Letter from the Editor

Shit I’m Afraid to Ask My Doctor: Abortion Dear Mom,

Afilando Su Lenga Waves in a Teacup Can Porn Stars Be Role Models?

The Public Shaming of Ilhan Omar Body Language With Purpose and Pace, Walk by my blue lens Buying a Mattress for My Future husband An Observation: AirPods De-Romaniticize Music “I Don’t Wanna Talk, Babygirl”: E-Boys, E-Girls, and the Gendered Narrative Silently Propagated on TikTok

funny, fresh, fierce, feminist & fuck!

28 30

Ode to An E-Boy Aparecium: What J.K. Rowling said by omitting race and sexuality from Harry Potter

Letter

from the editor Welcome to What the F, your feminist periodical !

If issues were years, What the F would be old enough to buy our own cigarettes1. That’s right! We’ve hit Issue 18 baybee! Congratulate us with a lottery ticket. Or a case of fireworks. Or a...blood donation opportunity? I don’t know!

If you’ve paid any attention to the news over the past three years, you’ll have noticed that idols are dropping like flies in the public sphere. The constant stream of confessions, callouts, and controversies have all of us wondering: What makes a person worthy of our admiration? With that in mind, we thought “Role Models” would be an apt prompt for this batch of submissions. The turnout was a broad selection of works that, when put together, transform the simple idea of “looking up to someone” into something far more thought-provoking. Here’s a quick peek at what we’re working with: If you’re looking for some new music, check out “Afilando Su Lengua” (page 6) to read all about iLe, an empowering femme fatale who sings for social change in Puerto Rico.

In “I Don’t Wanna Talk, Babygirl,” (page 10) Brooks Eisenbise examines the TikTok “E-Boy” fad: a trend with potentially harmful implications about gender roles, relationships, and teenage identity. As someone who barely understands the concept of TikTok, I can testify to the piece’s user-friendliness. And the fact that it will send you down a YouTube-compilation rabbit hole after reading. You’ve been warned.

Tired of the rampant misogyny that shoves its huge throbbing d*ng through all mainstream porn? Flip to (page 24) for feminist erotica recommendations and an in-depth critique of the ~adult film~ industry that begs the question: Can porn stars be role models? (Spoiler: Yes!!!)

Before I sign off, I want to remind you all to take care of yourselves. Yes, the days are getting shorter and colder. Yes, finals are approaching. Yes, our lives are descending into the bleak hellscape that is Midwestern winter on a college campus. Which is why I’m inviting you to use Issue 18 as an opportunity to take a break. Get comfortable before you dive in. Pour yourself some tea. Or coffee. Or wine. And then take a nap when you’re done. You’ve earned it.

Bye!

Lia Baldori Editor-in-Chief 1. Not that we would. Smoking kills and it’s all about Juuls and dab pens these days anyway.

By Cielle Waters-Umfleet

Sh*t I’m Afraid To Ask My Doctor: ABORTION

As anyone who has scrolled through a newsfeed recently knows, women and AFAB people in conservative states did not have the greatest summer. At all. Within the last several months, nine states have passed draconic new laws regarding reproductive health, with Georgia and Alabama being notables. Many of these laws effectively eliminate access to abortion, leading to heated pushback from health organizations and the political left. But amidst all the rhetoric, sometimes the facts can be obscured. What is abortion, anyway? Is it still legal? What does “two weeks late” on your period actually mean? (Hint: Not a baby.) It’s time to clear the air and get answers we need.

So, What Is Abortion?

Abortion, also known as termination of pregnancy, refers to ending a pregnancy by external means, that is, not a miscarriage. There are three recognized safe procedures: medication abortion, aka “the pill”; vacuum aspiration; and dilation and evacuation. Each has its own risks and benefits, but the reason why these are used over other methods is that they are shown to be safe and effective by decades of research and data collection.

Before you decide on one, though, you will have to make a consultation and check-up appointment at your clinic. There, a healthcare professional will discuss with you the pros and cons of your options, both abortion and continuing the pregnancy, to ensure that you are making the best and most informed decision you can and that no one else is pressuring you on your choice. If you choose to go through with an abortion, the clinic will do a series of physical tests, including pelvic exams, bloodwork, and ultrasounds. The purpose of these tests is to evaluate your health, determine how far along you are in your pregnancy, and figure out the best course of action for your particular case.

Medication Abortion

Medication abortions can be done anytime from 0-24 weeks of pregnancy, though they’re typically conducted before 15 weeks. They consist of two pills: the first (mifepristone) taken orally at the clinic, and the second (misoprostol) taken orally or inserted vaginally a couple hours later. The mifepristone stops the flow of progesterone, which maintains pregnancy tissue, to the uterus, which allows the tissue to break down. Misoprostol then induces a miscarriage, which is when the tissue is expelled. From 0-10 weeks, you take the misoprostol at home, and typically one dose suffices to remove the tissue. You should expect cramping and heavy bleeding to begin one hour after taking the misoprostol, but if it has not begun within 24 hours of taking the medication, call your clinic for advice. For most, this procedure feels like a strong period and can be controlled with sanitary products and over-the-counter painkillers (except aspirin, as that can make you bleed more). At 10 weeks, the fetus is developed enough to be visible and may be recognizable in shape, which can be disturbing. If you are concerned about what you may see, a healthcare professional can counsel you on your options.

After 10 weeks, the procedure is the same except that the misoprostol is taken at the clinic rather than at home, and it may need to be administered in multiple doses. Some patients have to stay overnight in the clinic to rest, but once the abortion has been completed, the recovery time is short– about an hour in-clinic and a day before returning to normal activities. From 22-24 weeks, you will need an additional injection in the abdomen to stop the fetus’s heartbeat prior to inducing a miscarriage. This is called feticide and ensures that the fetus will not be born alive and thus will feel no pain. At that stage, a vacuum aspiration may also be necessary to remove any remaining tissue, but this isn’t common.

As far as side effects go, the pill comes with possible period-like symptoms such as nausea, chills, bleeding and spotting for several weeks, cramping, headaches, and diarrhea. These are more likely the later you have an abortion, but they’re nothing to be concerned about.

The pill also comes with some risks, such as continuing pregnancy or retaining pregnancy tissue, both of which require follow-up procedures.

However, these situations are rare, affecting only a few out of every hundred. In exceedingly rare cases, patients may require hospitalization or die, but this is typically due to a preexisting condition or a complication left untreated, and, once again, is so totally not the norm. Still, to make sure that isn’t you, call the clinic’s aftercare line ASAP if you have a high fever, abdominal pain that doesn’t get better with pain meds, or bleed through two maxi pads per hour for at least two consecutive hours.

Vacuum Aspiration

Vacuum aspiration, also known as an in-clinic abortion, can be done anytime up to 16 weeks, but is typically carried out between 10 and 16 weeks.

This procedure is fairly quick and simple. First, you are sedated or given anesthetic. Then, the surgeon will inspect your uterus and cervix with a speculum before inserting a handheld device or small machine. This is then used to remove pregnancy tissue by suction. Healthcare professionals emphasize that this is a gentle process, and it should only take around 10 minutes. You will feel little to no pain during the procedure, and this method typically ensures that no pregnancy tissue remains in the uterus afterward. Once the surgeon completes the aspiration, you will have to remain in a monitored recovery room for up to an hour,

but after that, you are free to go home.

The risks for this procedure are minimal, and as such, it’s the early procedure that Planned Parenthood most encourages. As with medication abortion, you will need to watch for symptoms such as heavy bleeding or fever afterward, plus the you will be prescribed antibiotics to prevent infection, but otherwise, this method is safe. A bonus of this procedure (and dilation and evacuation) is that your surgeon may be able to implant an IUD during the same appointment if you have no alternate form of birth control. Having a contraception plan going forward is crucial after an abortion because none of these safe, regulated procedures cause infertility or affect your ability to have children in the future, and it’s fully possible to get pregnant again at your next menstrual cycle. (Which, BTW, you should get another period within 4-8 weeks of having an abortion. If not, call the aftercare line.)

Dilation and Evacuation

After the 16-week mark, the fetus is too large for an aspiration and needs to be removed another way. As the name suggests, this procedure, which can be done up to 24 weeks, has two parts, the first being cervical dilation. A nurse will examine your cervix and provide medication to dilate it, and thin rods called laminaria may be inserted into your cervix to push it open over the course of a couple days. Before 22 weeks, once your cervix is ready, you will be sedated or given general anesthetic, and then the surgeon will begin the procedure. From 22-24 weeks, like with medication abortion, the surgeon will need to perform feticide before administering anesthetic and beginning the procedure. Once you’ve been put under, the surgeon will insert narrow forceps through the cervix to extract pregnancy tissue. This should take 10-20 minutes and may require an aspiration to finish the job. Afterward, you will be monitored in a recovery room for 1-2 hours, and although you won’t be able to drive, you can go home that day. As with the aspiration, you will be prescribed antibiotics as part of your aftercare, but the risk of injury or other complications is pretty low.

But Is It Legal?

The fact that the procedures are safe and effective is great and all, but are they attainable? While the landmark Roe v. Wade still stands as the U.S. law, securing everyone’s right to abortion, states are allowed to pass their own restrictions on the service.

In fact, there are so many individual state restrictions that I can’t even fit a summary here. (Still, shoutout to Colorado, D.C., Oregon, and Vermont for having

the fewest restrictions overall!) Michigan has a few notable laws, most importantly the 24-Hour Informed Consent Law. In order to obtain an abortion, patients must receive an informational packet 24 hours prior to their appointment and sign it, and they must bring the entire packet to the clinic. This can be found online on the state government’s website or in person at a clinic like Planned Parenthood. Without the complete and signed packet, clinics must defer patients until the next day, no exceptions.

Some other Michigan stipulations are: You must be at least 18 and present a photo ID. If you are under 18, you need either parent/guardian consent with their photo ID and your birth certificate OR judicial bypass with the associated court documents and your photo ID. Neither private nor state insurance companies can cover abortions except in cases of life endangerment, and public funding is only available in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest.

Although some parts of your appointment have to be done alone, you may bring ONE support person with you into the operating and recovery rooms.

Abortion is illegal after viability, or when the fetus could survive outside of its mother, except in cases of life endangerment.

Conclusion

The reasons why people choose to have or not have kids are as varied and complex as the people themselves.

That’s why nobody but you can make the best choice for your life and body, and a reliable healthcare provider knows and upholds that. Your healthcare provider should serve to help you weigh the risks and benefits of your options, not to push you down a particular path.

Anyone who does use fear or coercion to sway you is highly suspect. Some anti-abortion interest groups will run “crisis pregnancy centers,” which appear trustworthy but actually aim to present misinformation and use scare tactics to turn people against having abortions. The best way to protect yourself (besides contraceptives, of course) is to stay informed. Only then do we gain the ability to make a choice.

*

Dear Mom,

by Lindsey Smiles

I’m sure you remember the first time I kissed someone was at a Model UN conference in Chicago. I was jittery with excitement the whole train ride back home because I couldn’t wait to tell you all about how he held me against the wall and how my lipstick smeared all over his face. It was nearly midnight by the time I got home; I couldn’t even get through the door without you realizing that I was excited about something. I blurted out “I kissed a boy!” as I pulled my boots off. You tried to pull the Disapproving Mom Act for a whole two seconds— “Please tell me you didn’t have sex with him!”—before you asked me to tell you all about it. We sat on the couch in the living room and whispered back and forth until we were so tired that neither of us could get through a sentence without yawning.

You’re always willing to help me out, even when I’m annoying you. The day before my twenty-five-page essay on E.E. Cummings was due, I drove my car too fast into a curb popped my front bumper off. I called you sobbing, and you drove fifteen minutes just to help me dig around in the leaves and dirt to find the bolts that had fallen off. That night, after you had spent hours in the garage trying to fix my car, I asked you to proofread my essay. You had long preferred math over English, and I had been driving you crazy for the whole afternoon. Part of me expected you to say no. Instead, you only sighed and nodded, paused your Netflix show, and spent the next forty-five minutes correcting my grammar and telling me what did and didn’t make sense.

You’re far stronger than you realize. After Dad died, there hasn’t been a moment when I’ve needed you that you weren’t there. I remember a particularly rough Sunday when we were all missing him more than usual. You had gone to church by yourself and of course it was a mass celebrating married couples. I was in the kitchen when you got home, and you stood over the sink and sobbed. I always cry when you do, and in less than a minute I, too, had tears on my cheeks. Then you grabbed my hand and whispered, “We can’t both be crying.” I have never seen anyone compose themselves as quickly as you did then; your wish to help me feel better somehow outweighed the overwhelming need to cry. I am forever grateful for your never-ending love.

You’re the person I look up to most in this world. In elementary school, we were always asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. I had always said, “A teacher.”

Now, however, I’d say you (maybe without the job as an accountant). There’s so much I admire about you, from your kindness to your ability to look good in a baseball cap and a sweatshirt, and there’s so much I have to learn from you. I hope one day I’m half the woman that you are.

Sincerely, Your favorite (and only) daughter.

P.S. I love you!

(Sharpening Her Tongue) On July 11, 2019, a day forever ingrained in the memories of its citizens, Puerto Rico’s history took a turn. That day, the island’s media dropped a bomb; nearly 900 pages of a telegram group chat transcript were released, in which the now ex-governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, and the members of his cabinet made a series of sexist, homophobic, and classist comments while also making fun of those who lost their lives to Hurricane María and heavily alluding to corrupt actions. As one could imagine, this sparked anger throughout the entire island, which led to hundreds of massive protests over the month of July, culminating in the governor’s resignation.

Afilando LenSgu ua

by Rocio Cuesta

However, the masses of citizens were not the only ones enraged by the governor’s words.

Multiple popular Puerto Rican figures, mostly famous singers, expressed their discontent with the political state of the island and took to the streets to join the protesters. One of the most notable displays of solidarity produced by celebrities was the song “Afilando los Cuchillos” (Sharpening the Knives) by artists Residente, Bad Bunny, and iLe. This five-minute tune became an unofficial anthem for the protests—a scathing commentary on the government’s repulsive words. The song states that the vandalism in the protests was a way to “release tension,” echoing the governor’s insincere apology where he said those very words as a justification for his inappropriate messages.

“Afilando los Cuchillos” also raises the point that the protests were often misinterpreted as the people “upset at the vulgar language.” Bad Bunny counters this by stating, “Maybe you talk in your group chats, as I do in mine, but I don’t hide public funds, I do not laugh at the deaths of Puerto Ricans” later adding that “It’s not about your language in the conversations, I use the same language in my house and all my songs; It’s that you lied to the people, that you hid the deaths and the supplies and that you laughed about our suffering.”

For iLe, a Puerto Rican born-and-raised singer whose career began as a vocalist in the band Calle 13 with her brothers Residente and Visitante, this was not her first time using music as a mode of protest against the corruption of the Puerto Rican government. Through her two albums as a soloist, the Grammy-winning singer released songs that address the debt crisis on the island and colonialism while also tackling feminist issues such as sexual liberation and

Puerto Rico’s dark history with gender violence.

As a direct descendant of Gilberto Concepción de Gracia, the founder of the Puerto Rican independence party, iLe has strong anti-US colonialism views and is highly critical of the Puerto Rican government, which is comprised mostly of pro-statehood officials and the Partido Popular Democrático, the party that wants the island to remain in its current ambiguous political state. This leaks through in her music, with notable examples being as follows: In “Ñe ñe ñé,” iLe spouts sharp words against those in charge for letting the debt crisis reach a critical point. In the song, she comes for all politicians, saying that if they give a tyrant the space to rule, none of them are to be trusted, as they all share in the culpability. She ends the song with a call to her listeners, saying that this humiliation and manipulation at the hands of the government and the mainland has gone on for too long. The last line tells the Puerto Rican masses to wake up and take action.

In “Desde aquí” (From Here), iLe talks about the resiliency of the Puerto Rican people’s spirits. The song is a commentary on the strength of the people and how they will not bend a knee to the corrupt regime. She goes on to say that her people are here, ready to lay claim to their land, and how no one will remove them from it. They were born there, and “even though their blood may be spilt, they will survive and keep fighting.”

“Sin masticar” (Without Chewing) is a critique of the lack of will to fight for what you believe in. In this song, iLe says that the masses are “paralyzed and hypnotized, blindfolded and with their fingers to their ears, not knowing or caring where they’re being led to,” which is a criticism of those who are willfully blind to the sins of their leadership. Because it does not particularly affect them, they look away rather than risk hurting themselves by getting involved.

She says that these people “want to eat without chewing, see without observing, [and that they] are the thirst that does not want to drink”; they want an improvement of their conditions, but are not willing to carry out the work to achieve that. Finally, she says that “you can see the masks of these people who portray themselves as brave and strong but hide when they should be fighting for their rights, and [that] in the end, they will kneel to the status quo.”

iLe’s “Contra Todo” (Against Everything) addresses the history of corruption in Puerto Rico and how the people have been passively observing this for years. In this song, she alludes to the darker vestiges of Puerto Rican history.

Phrases like “stolen nature” and “invaded earth” could refer to the Spaniards who conquered the land, the United States government who took it as a prize in a war, or the Puerto Rican government itself, which consistently sells its beaches and public land to corporations that destroy and pollute the area. She also speaks about a “grito de voz silenciada,” or, a shout of silenced voices, referring to the only moment in history in which Puerto Rico was ever independent, upon a rebellion in the city of Lares where they managed to overturn the Spanish rule for a few hours and become the Republic of Puerto Rico. She also refers to herself as the “forgotten memory,” which could allude to any of the gender-based atrocities that have happened on the island, such as the US’s illegal experimentation and sterilization of low-income women when developing birth control pills or other dark historical moments on the island that are never spoken of in schools or the media.

Contrary to its title, the song “Odio” (Hate), is against hateful rhetoric in public and in social media. iLe sings that she wishes that “hatred would die of hunger because no one would feed it,” and she calls for listeners to come together to “break walls, barriers, and barbed wires,” or in essence, to transcend the borders that divide us. The music video presents a Puerto Rico of the 1970s and follows the Cerro Maravilla murders, in which a pair of pro-independence revolutionaries were murdered in a premeditated police ambush. iLe’s music also takes on a tone of women’s empowerment, simultaneously providing platforms for other women to tell their stories. For example, she performed a song that her grandmother composed in 1959, titled “Dolor” (Pain), which focuses on her painful divorce and being left alone to raise her 1-year-old child. Some of iLe’s music is derived from poems written by her older sister, the most notable of which is titled “Que Mal Que Estoy” (How Wrong That I Am), in which she speaks of issues of mental health or heartache. Of her discography, most of her songs speak out about feminist issues, a lot of which are specific to Puerto Rican women, but can be applied to women everywhere.

“Te quiero con bugalú” (I Want You With Boogaloo) is a prime example of one of her songs about

female sexual liberation. iLe sings about a one-night stand, saying that she likes the possibility of sleeping with a man.

While she cannot envision a life with him, they can still enjoy their time together, for desire is not something to be ashamed of.

Temes (You Fear) is a powerful song that references the

sexism and gender violence that women face in Puerto Rico.

She invokes powerful images by saying that “if I am the fruit of something that has no name and the mistake that the man

never makes, then why do you fear me?” After every line in which she highlights an area where men on the island have an advantage over women, whether abstract or concrete, she asks the same question: Why do you fear me? Other phrases, such as “If it is my fault for being alone” and “If your ire shoots me in the head” reference the gender violence crisis on the island. Studies revealed that Puerto Rico has the highest per capita rate of women over 14 who are murdered by their romantic partners in the world. Still, the government refuses to instill a state of emergency, which prevents funds from being allotted to deal with the crisis. One of the final messages of the song is, “If you truly believe that without you i will not survive, if you think you are superior, why do you fear me?”

This is because she reasons that the only explanation to the violence and treatment that women receive at the hands of men, even if they believe themselves to be superior, is that they innately fear women.

“Extraña de Querer” (Stranger to Love) is a song

based on another poem that iLe’s sister wrote in which she grapples with losing a love so strong that she has to reinvent herself. It’s about adjustment and resilience. The song also references The Yellow Wallpaper, an iconic short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a writer whose texts are frequently taught in women’s studies courses as progressive views on the role of women and mental illness in the late 19th century.

Before the protests, iLe’s thought-provoking music went unnoticed by the masses. To a large extent, it still is, but her first concert following the protests, about a month after the governor’s resignation, was a very powerful moment. As a member of the crowd of that concert, to be in the presence of someone who was vocal in the conflict, who stood sideby-side with the people in the crowded streets in front of the governor’s mansion without hesitation despite tear gas, rubber bullets being fired at close range, and the general disregard of the constitution, was a magical experience.

Throughout the concert, there was a sense of community amongst strangers, and we could tell iLe felt it, too, often stopping in between songs to address what they meant to her and what they meant in the historical context of the island. iLe’s music continues to break barriers—her empowering lyrics subvert the sexism and superficiality of Puerto Rico’s mainstream music. As she gains popularity, she is setting a higher standard of music, empowerment, and activism.

Waves in a Teacup

By Danielle Falling

We are like glasses in that we start empty & in time fill up with the resilient substance of life.

People teach you how to pour into others by pouring a little of themselves into you. I wish to move like waves do: through the background noise of other waves, dancing without speaking, living without thinking.

Maybe this can be found in searching in the lines of a someone as they relax into their personal silence, or in other people’s hands, curving, tangled & smooth over table tops at a moment of unbridled potent intensity, or in how everyone makes their coffee different, how some people don’t drink coffee.

I learn from the underside of my lover’s soles: rough on the heel & smooth through the arch.

I learn from prophetic street signs & the grubby fingerprint of a lazing sunset on a glass building through the train window: blue sky, orange windows, round moon.

My face melts away in the reflection, till only absorption is left.

Can porn stars be Role Models?

By Julia Haberfield I took my first sex-ed class when I was 17. That’s right. I was not offered this bonified ‘health class’ until this point (the name “SEX-ed” was too risque for my school). As you can imagine, I had already developed a lot of thoughts and feelings about sex. For many like myself, this pattern of late high school sexual education comes after a first sexual experience. Furthermore, when these classes are taken, they often don’t even go into depth about sex itself. Coming from a liberal area, I learned more than most schools teach, like how to use contraceptives and the details of birth. But even in this “more progressive” setting, nothing was said about the inbetween. The uniqueness of our bodies, the methods of safe pleasure and masturbation, the logistics of sex, and anything regarding LGBTQ+ sexual and emotional relationships were just some of the important things ignored by our sex-ed classes.

Because most schools barely skim the surface of sex-ed, many young people seek guidance from the very resource that adults try to shield them from: porn. While porn can be both a learning tool and a tool for pleasure, its often sexist and heternormative nature. is problematic. It is difficult to trace the origins of porn, as it encapsulates a broad category of media and images that could be seen as religious to

some and sensual to others. From carved images of sexual acts on Hindu temples to its online cinematic presence today, erotic media has developed into an institution of male power1.

A quick click on Pornhub, one of the more mainstream porn sites, reveals content meant to stimulate men, often at the expense of women, in seconds. It’s everywhere, from blatantly misogynistic role play to subtleties like the camera only focusing on women for men to enjoy. Pornhub’s popular page, the page seen upon first arrival to the site, displays videos titled: “Her [male] best friend needed some anal so she helped out”; “Busty bored mom horny for cock fucks her son’s friend”; and “Slut Latina wife gets fucked.” If the vulgarity, objectification, and oddity of these titles come as a shock to you, you’re not alone.

This website, among others, also contains categories of videos labeled things like “Bondage,” “Gangbang” and “Rough Sex.” While sexual preferences often sway people towards this type of roleplaying or subjugation, these categories exemplify the fine line that exists between satisfying a particular sexual desire and sexual violence.

This unproductive side of porn creates a toxic space for both men and women. Men, particularly impressionable young boys, are taught that their needs–no matter how violent, degrading, etc.–take precedence above all else in the bedroom. Women, in additon to similarly impressionable young girls, are taught that their pleasure is unimportant; in the realm of sex, they are merely objects.

But, why? Both men and women watch porn. Shouldn’t today’s content be geared toward bridging this sexist gap?

To backtrack for a second, let’s talk about porn stars. Women who star in pornographic videos are perceived as sexual beings by nature of their work. They are the actors in these videos, the 1. JSTOR. “Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: ‘Pleasure Under Patriarchy.” Catherine A. MacKinnon.

ones so frequently appearing as the submissive or the pleasure provider. They are also the ones so often put on a pedestal in the realm of porn for their beauty and desirability.

Some might see these women and decide that they can’t be role models because they work in the sex industry. However, these women are empowered.

For one thing, they’re confident in their naked bodies, which is not an easy feat for many.

Some are self-employed, another admirable trait that requires lots of hard work and dedication. Most importantly, involvement in an industry with such large societal stigmas requires substantial openness, vulnerability, and the ability to brush off judgement from the outside world.

Being a porn star is actually a lucrative career for many.

And for some, it may even be their only realistic route for work. The latter opens up a different can of worms regarding sex trafficking and exploitation in which women are either obligated or pressured to perform.

The women that work in the industry for their career do so as professionals–they’ve mastered the right angles, the correct positions, the sound effects to make, you get the gist. Like any other employee, they have to understand the details of their industry.

But still, when I first asked myself if porn stars could be positive female role models, my answer was not an easy yes. As a believer in sex positivity and the empowerment of women, I didn’t want to say no.

However, my hesitation stemmed from the feeling that I do not aspire to be a porn star myself. Does that make me anti-women? Or anti-feminist?

After giving this question more consider ation, I realized that you can view someone as a role-model without aspiring to fill their shoes. For instance, I admire Marie Curie for her innovation and intelligence, but that doesn’t mean I want to be a physicist. I applaud the women in porn for their work, for existing and persisting in a sexist industry, and for helping with the creation of video content that serves to benefit people’s sex lives. When porn displays

healthy and consensual sexual activity that serves to benefit both partners, it sets a precedent for that to be paralleled in real-world sexual activity.

My original thoughts wrongly assumed that pornstars’ lives revolve entirely around sex. In dismantaling this presumption, I thought about sex positivity and how sex is an area that should be stimulated and fulfilled for all who desire it. It is wonderful that there is accessible media for people to relish in this and for its creators to aid in its delivery. This first judgement was also inaccurate in assuming that pornstars’ lives are dominated by sex. Pornstars may have sex in their work, but that does not mean that they don’t live balanced lives outside their career, like people of any other job. It is also a curiosity if it’s possible for pornstars to enjoy a sex life outside of their work.

Tanya Tate, a pornstar interviewed by Cosmopolitan, shared her feelings on the matter, saying that “If you work in a restaurant you still enjoy good food… For me, I still enjoy normal, regular sex when I am off camera. It’s more intimate, and there’s something about not having a room full of crew watching you that makes it more special”.2 Moreover, having a sexfilled life is not a bad thing, nor is it the only thing that defines a person.

My main hesitation to seeing pornstars as role models was the thought of being surrounded by an industry that perpetuates sexism. In porn, women are props for intolerance, acting in scenes and playing submissive characters.

However, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Women who take part in this industry don’t have to fall prey to its bigotry. Porn stars, like celebrities, have platforms from which they should be able to make a difference.

However, while it would be ideal for pornstars to be beacons of change, this may not be the easiest goal to facilitate. Women in the porn industry may not be in a position with great say on the ladder of professional hierarchy. Especially due to the industry’s sexist nature, it is plausible to suppose that womens’ ideas 2. Cosmopolitan. “Porn star interviews with adult actors answering some very nosy questions.” Catriona Harvey-Jenner.

aren’t always heard or proposed in the first place. Many women are simply trying to make a living and don’t wish to make waves in a place where they have little agency. It’s also likely that the voices of the industry could make loud and powerful outcries, but without the support and advocation of its audience, prospects of growth are dim.

Pointing to the common outcry about the shortcomings of the porn industry, many have noticed this disparity and have begun a process of reclamation. Part of this process is a relatively new market: porn created for women and, often, by women.

This idea is wonderful in theory; a candyland for sex positivity.

However, like with many new markets, it has its flaws.

First, many of the video links on “feminist porn” websites take you back to mainstream porn sites and videos. This defeats the purpose of this idealized sexual asylum.

Second, feminist porn inspires sex positivity for women, which is a great first step, but it doesn’t entirely solve the problem of, well, problematic porn. Feminist porn intuitively attracts female viewership. Men are then left in the dust with mainstream, mostly sexist content at their disposal. It is not just that women need to feel safe–it is men who need to learn to foster that safety. Third, knowledge and exposure of this new realm is vastly underdeveloped.

The overarching solution to these issues is time and market growth. Each project, particularly those of higher content quality, surely is not made overnight. Correspondingly, progress needs to be made on the front of mainstream porn in terms of less sexist material. In order for porn to be an educational tool of pleasure, it must guide everyone toward appropriate and satisfying videos.

This should take the form of growth on both sides of the gender spectrum, and everything between.

For all of this productive content to be widely known to the public, it’s good to actually know what’s out there.

Literotica is one example. It contains everything from nonfiction and fiction stories to erotic cartoons and videos. It isn’t the most beautiful in terms of visual set up; the website has a simplistic theme. Yet, it has a tremendous library and breath of content that is very high quality. The stories are free, but the videos cost money. XConfessions is another great website that unfortunately requires a paid membership program.

However, this one posts truly high quality videos twice a month that are produced by women and based on real and interesting fantasies, such as pregnancy sex, or having sex in IKEA. A great free option is Bellesa, which is likely the first link that comes up on a search for “porn for women.” It checks all the boxes: free and made by women. There’s also a lot of miscellaneous erotica out there that’s worth exploring.

One interesting example is Hysterical Literature, an art project by Clayton Cubitt in which women are seen reading passages of their choosing while being stimulated by a vibrator, unseen and beneath the table.

Another critical element of inclusivity and openness regarding sexuality regards the world of LGBTQ+ individuals.

All of the arguments that were made for porn’s detrimental and sometimes injurious structure to heteronormative relationships can be made all the more problematic for members of the non-binary community. The previously discussed absence of the “inbetweens” of sexual encounters (that is, between contraceptives and birth) in SEX-ed classes is even more prominent for LGBTQ+ sexual activity and safety, for which there is virtually zero mention. Not only is there a parallelled lack of content online for them to turn to, but what is available lacks the “queer gaze’” and diversity of sexual relationships. Big name sites often have lesbian, gay, and transgender videos. However, they are often meant for straight exploration, therefore including straight biases. They typically aren’t filmed with queer

directors or actors, so their authenticity is strained.1 On top of that, these categories don’t usually extend to the individuals who don’t identify as lesbian, gay, or transgender. Members of the LGBTQ+ community are particularly vulnerable to discrimination, and seeing a lack of representation online, which is the only place for many to learn about their desired sexual relations, pours salt into a preexisting wound.

Similarly to the world of by-women-for-women porn, porn for the LGBTQ+ community is slowly but surely expanding. Unfortunately, much of it requires monetary memberships. Some great options include Indie Porn Revolution, Queer Porn TV, and Make Love Not Porn, all LGBTQ+ porn sites made for inclusive and varying preferences. Make Love Not Porn has a free membership option, and specifically aims to make truly realistic, also known as “amateur” content. Pink and White Productions (home of the LGBTQ+ porn cult classic “CrashPad,”) also offers a lot of free videos.

Shine Louis Houston, acting director and producer of Pink and White, is an exemplar of safe LGBTQ+ porn production. She runs a sober and consent-based set in which pronouns are made evident and respect is a prerequisite to participation.2 With all of these options, and more, how do we reconcile the aforementioned issue of making these industries known? The best way to build traction is to tell your friends. Spread the word.

If you feel comfortable, make a social media post about your favorite progressive porn! Perhaps petition or write to your local schools to create more informative SEX-ed classes that include all of the things that are currently left out, including knowledge of female and LGBTQ+ positive porn. It may also be beneficial to promote this content in women’s or LGBTQ+ support groups or forums on and offline.

With these platforms for positive sexual experiences, we can all come to see pornstars as the inspiring role models that they are. So, let’s make female and LGBTQ+ porn known, and non-violent, nonsexist porn more relevant! More prevalent! Those not directly involved in the production of porn can aid directly in its growth.

Push the idea of sex positivity as much as possible. Tell people about porn made by and for women and the LGBTQ+ community. Discuss porn stars as individuals to be respected and grateful for. And, on the off chance that those involved in porn production are reading this, use your place in the industry to facilitate whatever 1. Refinery29. “Why You Have to Pay for Real LGBTQ and Ethical Gay Porn.” Kasandra Brabaw.

2. Brabaw.

change is possible. But those on the inside can’t do it without the rest of us. Together we can make this industry blow up!

The Public Shaming of Ilhan Omar, Or, What Happens When Disingenuous Diversity Backfires On You.

By Hiba Dagher This past November, voters in the U.S. made history by electing not one, but two incredible Muslim women into our 116th House of Representatives.

They are Ilhan Omar, a black, Somali Immigrant from Minnesota’s 5th Congressional district who frequently and unabashedly calls out deeply problematic white men in power, and Rashida Tlaib, an incredible Palestinian-American woman who coined the phrase “Impeach the Motherf*cker” on her first day in office.

I’m not going to get into the nuances of the history of Israel and Palestine and the conflict today, mostly because it’s far too much to compress into a few inches of paper, and I would absolutely oversimplify. Instead, I suggest that you do your own research, especially into Arab, and most especially into Palestinian voices. What I will say is this: criticism of the Israeli government shouldn’t be confused with anti-Semitism. Criticism of the Israeli government, for the most part, is a matter Rep. Tlaib and Rep. Omar were praised nationally of calling out the institution’s numerous human for their progressivism and their commitment rights violations against an occupied people who to civil rights. They posed on magazine covers, have little to no right to self-determination. standing alongside new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. They were even affectionately Rep. Omar ended up apologizing for her made a part of the “squad” of freshmen WoC statements, yet she continued to be silenced Representatives, along with Rep. Alexandria not only by the usual suspects (Trump and Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rep. Ayanna Republicans,) but also by her own party. House Pressley of Massachusetts.

Democrats were quick to vote on a resolution that condemned hate speech—a move that was That is until they decided to speak out on an issue widely seen as a callout of Omar. What I find that is seen as largely untouchable in US politics: funny, though, is that the same institutions and defending the human rights of Palestinians. organizations that initially praised the election of the two first Muslim congresswomen were also so Many who follow politics know about Rep. Omar’s quick to attack them the moment that they said infamous response to a tweet from a journalist something out-of-line with mainstream ideas of who spoke about how the House GOP Leader what “progressivism” looks like.

Kevin McCarthy was threatening to punish Omar and Tlaib for their criticism of Israel. Omar wrote But these attacks weren’t really that surprising. back “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” and later As a Muslim and Arab-American woman who has clarified that she was talking about AIPAC, the been in activist and feminist spaces for most of my American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC teen years, it honestly proved everything that I had spends about 3.5 million dollars in lobbying cash ever suspected about those spaces: that a lot of calls to support pro-Israeli interests in the United for inclusion are, frankly, pretty disingenuous.

States. Omar was immediately attacked by both So-called feminist organizations call for us to join Democrats and Republicans—one of the few their ranks, to be a part of their crusade against bipartisan partnerships of this past year. the patriarchy, and then ignore our perspectives.

They call for women to be allowed to wear whatever they want without facing harassment, but a Muslim woman wearing a hijab, niqab, or burqa is viewed as “oppressed,” rather than making a deeply personal and spiritual choice. A Muslim woman might feel uncomfortable about how so much attention in feminist spaces is focused on sex-positivity over issues like inaccessibility to education and employment for women, maternal and gender-based health, gender-based violence, FGM, etc. However, she might not feel comfortable expressing her opinions for fear of being ignored as “prudish” and potentially ostracized by the very women who claim to fight for “all women’s rights.”

What all of these people seem to realize though, is that just because you elect a Muslim representative, it doesn’t mean that they’re going fade into the woodwork once the excitement has

lulled. Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib were not elected in their districts in order to give the Democratic Party good PR, or glossy magazine spreads with their arms crossed, dressed in muted tones of red, white, and blue. They were elected to change the world for the better, and sometimes that requires speaking when no one else will.

Reader, I challenge you. It doesn’t suffice to apologize and offer platitudes, promising that you’ll do better, that you’ll listen, that you’ll learn.

Compassion without action is just observation. Put in the work to learn about Muslim women—our issues, our feelings, our perspectives. Approach us, talk to us. Most of us have been waiting for a while.

Growing up with many female role models in my family, I was struck by how compliments were almost always met with deflections in the form of self-deprecating insults about weight.

Weight was a constant subject. Not only personal weight, but other people’s as well. Often when a person came up in a conversation, one of the first things mentioned was if they had gained or lost weight recently. The constant validation that my family gave me for being so small resulted in part of my identity being tied to how I physically look. For much of my life this was not an issue as my weight was always on the lower side, but it led to an internal struggle for me once my body began to mature.

The first time that my Yiayia told my mom I was “looking a little chubby,” I was 11 years old and weighed about 95 pounds.

I definitely wasn’t chubby, but the mindset was planted: Am I overweight? Middle school and even the first few years of high school passed with me worrying minimally about my weight, as it stayed pretty constant. However, toward the end of high school I began experiencing more changes in how my body looked, and it was sometimes hard for me to reconcile the fact that as my body was maturing, I was gaining weight. This all came to a head my freshman year of college. I don’t know exactly how much weight I gained, however, at the time it felt drastic and scary. The realization in January that I had gone up a pant size made me feel anxious, and I began constantly worrying about my weight. I was conscious of this but was unsure of what to do, scared to limit my diet as I did not want to develop an eating disorder. This led to me continuing the same eating habits that I had been practicing since getting to school—snacking constantly because there was a dining hall one floor below me, all the while feeling self-conscious about it.

Eventually I realized that body image worries aside, I probably needed to cut back simply because I was eating excessively.

After this, I tried to stick to three meals a day without depriving myself of things when I really wanted them. The effects of this were gradual, but over the spring and summer I could feel myself becoming healthier. Today I still weigh more than I used to—my stomach is not as flat as it once was and my hips will always be wider than before, but I see these as physical reminders of the woman I have grown into.. These body changes are natural and necessary.

One thing that helped me to move past my perception of weight being connected to my inherent worth or beauty was studying art. For most of history, a fuller figure was considered desirable, and looking at thousand-year-old marble statues and paintings of goddesses—who, yes, have rolls—really brought things into perspective for me. It was not these goddesses’ weights that made them beautiful, rather, it was their inherent womanhood. It took time, but I have come to fully appreciate my body—not for how it looks, but for what it is—and to recognize that same womanhood within myself. Sometimes I look in the mirror and catalogue the changes in my body. The geography of it is different now, but is no less beautiful to me than before. Beauty can come in so many shapes and sizes.

It seems so arbitrary to try to tie mine or anyone else’s to a uniform standard.

Today, I can say I am overall confident in my body, but it’s not always easy. It’s hard to ignore relatives who consistently make comments about my weight. At times when I feel myself beginning to worry about it, I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that what I am feeling will pass. Instead, I continue to strive to eat everything in moderation, and I don’t beat myself up if I eat too much on a certain day. I now also recognize that being weight-conscious has a negative impact on my mental state, and I have stopped weighing myself. It’s also important to keep in mind that comments from others about weight are normally rooted in insecurity, and you do not need to give their insecurities that validation.

Giving weight so much power in our perceptions of ourselves and others feeds body shaming culture and teaches younger generations that it is something they should be obsessively monitoring. How do we change the culture? By changing the conversation. Comments from family about weight have been linked to the development of eating disorders1; they create a toxic mindset in which an individual attributes losing weight to being a positive action, even in cases where their methods for doing so are dangerous. Even comments about one’s own body image can be harmful to others. It sends the message that a body is something to be scrutinized for what it looks like, rather than accepted and loved for what it can do. It is time to realize that weight is just a number. Beauty is not something that can be quantified on a scale.

So in changing the conversation, what CAN we talk about?

That’s easy—literally anything else. Talk about the weather, your innermost thoughts that you have when you’re alone in the shower at 2am, your dreams, your fears, why you can’t seem to commit to a relationship… The more you say something the more relevance you give it, so why not take the opportunity to put emphasis on sharing the parts of ourselves that matter?

1. Cerniglia, Luca, et al. “Family Profiles in Eating Disorders: Family Functioning and Psychopathology.” Psychology Research and Behavior Management, Volume 10, 2017, pp. 305–312., doi:10.2147/prbm.s145463.

Lens

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Growing up, I was always very thin. To me this wasn’t a good or bad thing, it’s just how I was. I didn’t think about my body in a self-conscious way, but my family was and is very weightcentric. When I was young, my Yiayia would introduce me to her friends, saying, “This is my granddaughter. Isn’t she so skinny?”

With P

Body Language

By Maria Wuerker

k l b a y my Blu W , e c e a P nd a e s rpo

Look up Body rush oh it’s her is it her yes it’s Kristin

By Mina Kambakhsh

My legs brace and I push on the pads of my feet to propel me out of my chair But fall back down on my butt because she is almost out of the window frame I am sitting in front of Panic in my chest and She’s gone damnit I could have said hello But what would that have looked like A Hey! Hey! How are you! Good! And so on Not what either of us necessarily needs But I do find myself wanting to be in her presence Her passing by releases a spring in my chest The coil extending Yearning for the presence of a particular woman

Through knowing Kristin I came to the conclusion that I too can Live out of my car and coast through country Teach alternative education under tree canopy Make music and climb mountains forever and Be the black sheep—and a bold big big big sheep take up the space that was not made for you and more Bluets I’m reading Bluets she would know it The man three feet in front of me behind the glass window Has dark dark brown hair with strands and tips dyed blue Curls How my hair looked when I climbed Mount Washington The mountain that Kristin let me take the hard way up I think I will dye it again And the woman sitting two chairs to my right her water bottle in blue font reads books not bombs And the nurse who just passed with banana in hand on break from the hospital room And I almost did not even notice her walk by

H

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r My F o f s s utu re t t a re M

“My name is Jeffrey,” he says and shakes my hand firmly. I grip back. “She’s got quite an arm,” he quips to my mother. I laugh politely. “I’m sure she scares all of the boys.” He winks to me and leads us to the first row of beds.

Bu

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by Hannah Brauer The Art Van Furniture Store in Canton, MI smells like a middle-aged mother’s dream. The automatic sliding doors open to reveal a large showroom, where customers meander through the fake living rooms while employees watch from the walls. The shoppers, who are almost all women, move with a sense of urgency. It’s as if each curated model will bring them closer to finding The Perfect Home and therefore The Perfect Life.

“A mattress,” my mother responds before I can start.

She gestures to me with her best smile. “My daughter is moving into her first college house and needs a new bed. She’s had the same one since she was four years old.” The employee continues to ask about me, but in third-person so I know I’m not welcome to chime in.

I feel as if I’m at one of my parents’ parties—knowing I should contribute to the small talk, but not caring enough to do so.

As I walk in with my mother, I feel her lean into the room to take in the alluring scent of Future Home Potential. I lead us through the perfectly-decorated rooms as we walk to the escalators, and I watch her eyes linger over the pieces that would match our house.

There’s a living room with navy leather chairs and a rustic coffee table, ready to hold a conversation that never develops past small talk. We pass a burgundy loveseat where a couple may share a glass of wine after work. A kitchen table for a family of four. Customers filter in between rooms, slowing their steps to check the price tags, while men with Art Van badges appear at their sides and guide them to the cash registers.

I’m not dressed for the occasion. I just woke up an hour ago and haven’t cared to put on makeup, exposing the acne scars etched into my cheeks like prison branding.

My hair is so knotted that I decided to condense it into two buns on either side of my head.

My mother and I finally reach the bottom of the escalator and are greeted by one of the employees.

He’s dressed in a full suit, about the age of my parents.

“What are you looking for today?” he asks.

The man finally acknowledges me. “I like your hair,” he says as he leads us up the escalator. “Like Princess Leia, yeah?” I nod and hunch my shoulders over to become smaller. I hate that I do that.

We rise to the top of the escalator and are met with The Mattress Section of the store. It looks like some sort of upscale prison camp, with long rows of stripped beds and designated strips of plastic to place your feet.

An older white man approaches us with sweat already dripping into the pocket of his Art Van button-down.

He extends his hand.

“Here we have a few of our foam and spring-coil mattresses,” Jeffrey begins. “My wife and I have a foam mattress and we’ve loved it for the past 10 years.

Now, I’m almost 300 pounds, so that really shows how well those mattresses hold up!” He laughs. His face lights up as if he sincerely enjoys spending every day in The Mattress Section of Art Van. “The difference between the foam mattress and the spring mattress is that the foam actually melds with your body, so it’s good if you have a bad back. Surprisingly, it’ll also last longer than a spring coil mattress because it holds its shape without sagging.” He continues to explain the intricacies of each type of mattress as my mom politely nods along. I look out a large window facing Ford Road, the most spectacular road in Michigan if you enjoy ten miles of department stores.

“Let’s try out this foam mattress first,” Jeffrey says.

I sit on it and my weight barely makes a dent. “Lie down. On your side.” I comply and make the mistake of facing him and my mother. “Look at how her body is curved on the foam,” Jeffrey says to my mom, pointing to me with intense eye contact. “That’s the beauty of it, there’s no hard coils beating into her. She becomes one with the mattress.” He’s talking in third-person so I don’t say anything. Jeffrey’s eyes have now drifted down to my torso, so I prop my head up on my arm to see if the pose would be less provocative. It isn’t. I might as well be wearing Leia’s gold bikini.

I quickly sit up and adjust my shorts. Jeffrey is still sweating, maybe more so now, and the drops create a single-file line that reaches the bottom of his shirt. He tells me to lie down the same way on another mattress.

I oblige, more cautiously now, this time facing away from him to avoid eye contact. I quickly regret that he can stare at my back side. I sit up again.

“Did you like either of those more than the other?” he asks. The congealed sweat on his face makes him shine like a slug. I shrug. I’m also sweating now.

Jeffrey gestures for me to sit next to him on another mattress. I make a point to sit on the far corner, but I sink into the foam and am reeled in closer to him.

“You know, your body type is very similar to my wife’s,” he says while leaning in. I stare at my feet and

hunch my spine to make myself smaller again, though I’m already one-third the size of him.

When Jeffrey realizes I won’t respond, he continues.

“My wife was a cheerleader in high school. 5’2”, 100 pounds. I’m guessing about the same as you. People would pick her up and throw her, twirl her in the air.

She was so light.” He pauses. I don’t acknowledge him, but he continues anyways.

“I’d always dated very large women in the past. I was the biggest guy in school, so no one thought to set me up with the cheerleader. But it turns out, smaller women are definitely my type.” I picture Jeffrey lifting a small woman into the air, her body helpless against the wind, and congratulating himself for his catch when he had been the one to throw her.

My mother chimes in, herself sitting on the mattress across from us. I forgot she’s still here. “Both my husband and I come from tall families,” she says. “But we’re both pretty short. And Hannah’s younger brother is over a foot taller than her, so people always confuse him for the older one. Funny how that happened.” She and Jeffrey share a quick laugh. The buns I’ve twisted into my ponytail holders are quickly falling out in the heat.

There’s a moment of silence before I feel Jeffrey’s hot breath next to me again. “Can I ask you a personal question?” he asks, now so close I can smell him. He’s definitely staring at me but I don’t lift my gaze. I make myself smaller.

It seems to be a rhetorical question, because he asks the question anyway: “What type of men are you interested in?”

I’m now sweating through my shirt, making circles around my neck like a chain. I look him in the eye and ask, “Why?” then turn to my mother to see if she’ll divert the subject.

Jeffrey immediately continues, “Well, I know this might be hard to think about now, but you’ll probably have this mattress for another twenty years. Foam mattresses are built to live that long.” He flashes an I-studied-sales-atbusiness-school smile and starts talking directly to my mother. “If she doesn’t have a preference, you might want to decide which mattress will work for her future partner’s body type, if she knows what that’ll be. I know it’s hard to think about now, but she’ll probably have a husband by the time she needs a new one.”

As he continues to talk about his own bed, how he can get up in the morning without disturbing his wife despite their Massive Weight Difference, how great The Fabulous Foam Mattress really is, I think about my exboyfriend.

He was the only boy I’ve ever shared a bed with. We dated for three years, nearly half of high school and half of college, which might automatically define him as “my type” of man. He’s six feet tall and only weighs a couple dozen more pounds than I do, so we fit into a twin-sized bed as comfortably as one person would.

My ex-boyfriend hated change. He hinted that he wanted

me to go to the same college as him throughout our senior year of high school, and when I decided to go to a rival school, he insisted on seeing each other every weekend. I would take the hour-long bus ride to see him and he would drive to visit me. We figured it was a short-term sacrifice for a long-term investment.

someone in the next 60 days...” He stops to wink at me and my skin feels like it’s separating from my muscles, “I could interest you in our Pure Sleep Bedding Comfort Protection Policy? You can give us a deposit and we’ll upgrade your bed after sleeping on it for a few months.”

One night during his weekly visits, we were lying in my dorm room twin bed. He whispered, “I can’t wait until we’re married.” His arms were squeezed around me, hands clasped over my wrists in loving shackles.

I shake my head once again. He admits defeat and prints out the receipt. “Full Blue 100xt Mattress Set/ Full,” it says. “Customer understands bedding cannot be returned, exchanged or refunded for Comfort reasons. See reverse side for details.” After signing the receipt, he shakes my hand again and I grip even harder.

I whispered, “Why?” He whispered back, “Because then we’ll have a bed all to ourselves.”

I thought about it. He had a twin bed an hour away, and I had a twin bed here. Our lives would be one bed instead of two. I’d always gone along with the idea, until the space between us grew larger than the distance between our mattresses.

We broke up last winter. I had taken the bus to see him over a long weekend and sat under his loft bed while I explained, “I don’t know if I want to have my future planned for me.”

“But I thought you said you wanted to marry me?” he responded. He didn’t cry. Maybe he felt like he shouldn’t.

“I don’t know if I want to marry anyone anymore,” I said. He looked confused.

“Why not?”

“Because maybe I like sleeping alone.”

Jeffrey waits for my response. I feel the glare of his sweat on my face. “I don’t know,” I reply and make a point to sit on another mattress.

“Can I at least interest you in a queen-sized bed, then?” Jeffrey asks. “Just so there’ll be enough room for another person, eventually.”

I shake my head, freeing my hair from their ponytail holders. “No, thanks.” I pat the full-size mattress beside me and declare it mine. “I like this one.”

Jeffrey hesitates, then nods and takes us to the register. “Well, if you change your mind or meet

My mother and I take the escalator back down to the showroom. I lead us through the Future Home Potential once more, eyes fixed on the sliding doors, and walk out onto spectacular Ford Road.

The Art Van truck has a hard time pulling into my new Ann Arbor driveway. The tiny one-way street doesn’t allow for much room to gain speed before turning, so it gets stuck on a tree root that’s freed itself from the pavement. I watch from my window as the delivery men work to haul their truck over it, the giant tires struggling to conquer the tiniest root, then give up and park on the street. I hide a smirk as they block traffic pulling it closer to the curb.

I open the door to let the two men in, then watch as one measures the bed frame to size. Another delivery man brings in the mattress and fits it in, finding the first delivery man had accidentally set up the frame to be a queen size.

“This is a double bed, yes?” he asks me. I point at the receipt to confirm. He fixes the bed frame and gives me the delivery receipt and a pen.

“Do you want to test it out?” he asks me after I’ve signed my name. “Nope, all set.” I lead both men out the door and watch them carefully navigate their truck back onto the main road.

I walk back inside my empty house and step over my boxes of cheap furniture. Hand-me-down decorations and old pillows are piled on the floor. It looks like the furthest thing from an Art Van living room.

I finally throw myself onto my new mattress, sinking into it. I stretch out my body so my fingertips touch the edges and my toes reach towards the corners. I lie flat on my back and close my eyes. This is my double for a single.

This is all mine.

: n o i t a v r e s b O An AirPods De-Romanticize Music

by Aditi Kannan

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of my father and his large cassette collection. He had all different kinds: Sean Paul, Chopin, and several old Indian classics like Mohammed Rafi and MSV. In the car, my dad would put on NPR’s All Things Considered which gave me nausea– sorry Ari Shapiro–so I would convince him to pull out a tape. We would listen to O.G. A.R. Rahman from old Indian film soundtracks and my dad would sometimes chime in with a whistle. As we rode in his sandy gold Toyota Camry (cloth interiors for life!!) breathing the appalachian air, my dad’s tape collection slowly engrained melodies I will never forget. Sometimes, the cassettes would get scratched and my baby hands would mischievously pull them apart and wind them back up again. Taking apart those tapes felt like one of the weird ASMR videos people watch to go to sleep.

The way the thin brown plastic stretched and ripped apart—I fuckin’ loved it.

he’s gone through like...fifteen. Do not waste your money folks!

See, you AirPods people can’t fucking ever have that cute experience! AirPods are robbing you of the sentimental value of sharing music. You cannot have this wholesome experience by yourself because it will not be as ethereal. You cannot throw a party with just two measly AirPods! You miss the entire ritual if you have two white little sperm thingies that clog your ears and blast at a mediocre sound quality!

And now, a note for the stoners: Listening to music the old people way is akin to packing your bowl or rolling your blunt. You have to put on your record, you have to grind your grass. Same, same! You have to clean your CDs, you have to clean your bowl. The whole process– even the weed one—is kind of wholesome. You have to work for anything you want to enjoy. Do not tell me that charging your airpods is a chore. You charge every other device you own every night. There has to be at least some inconvenience on your journey in order for it to be worthwhile.

On a financial tangent, ever since AirPods came out, they have become a status symbol. Even though people make fun of those who have AirPods, it seems as though EVERYBODY has them. We have hyped up these things for so long that their cool factor has actually taken effect, making us WANT to buy them. But they are just another device used to separate their owners from the people who cannot afford to buy poorly-designed little shits only to lose them the next month. Heck, Shawn Mendes has a pretty lavish income and

AirPods make this whole long-winded process so easy. The ability to instantaneously listen to music—and to be able to listen to it without anyone else listening—is revolutionary.

You do not have to be embarrassed or pressured to have exceptional music taste. You do not have to worry about bothering your roommate who is taking a nap right now. You have immediate privacy in any situation. You have control over what other people get to hear. The accessibility might be a little low, but to some people, it is worth it. It’s like taking a

hit from my dab pen. It is expensive, but instantaneous. I can hide it anywhere. And I do not have to worry about the smell, or the maintenance. I do not have to worry about setting off smoke alarms. That is pretty cool. Until I probably die from the deadly Vitamin E oil thing they have been talking about.

Vaping is bad, kids.

Now, I’m gonna be real. I own a FACSIMILE of AirPods because it’s annoying hurrying around campus with a walkman or a boombox or—I don’t know—a record player everywhere. I definitely know people who would carry a record player everywhere, but we do not have time to expand on testimonials today. I can listen to “Pussy Pussy Pussy Marijuana” by Andy Milonakis or RuPaul’s “Peanut Butter” without judgement from the passing individual. I can be angry and listen to all the Rico Nasty I want. Nobody has to deal with my bullshit because I have personal speakers inside my ears that are probably causing lifelong hearing damage.

I may own the little shits, but they are not my prized possession. And neither is the dab pen. I would rather sob over losing my thrifted sweater with cute little golfers on it, or my one trick pony (a.k.a. my best painting) than losing a pair of fucking AirPods. And I know some of you will, and have. Something manufactured that can be easily obtained is not something that I personally value.

Semi-tongue-in-cheek moment aside, I don’t want to sound like one of those Madonna reviews that shit talks the product for the entire interview and emphasizes a high note. As a trade off for their perks, AirPods ruin the quality of music. For the qualities of sound that I would like, the price tag is overshot. There are so many other options, but the symbolism of AirPods has catapulted them to exist as

one of the defining cultural elements of the era, completely overshadowing their actual functionality.

Although all forms of headphones—Beats By Dre, Sony, or even the regular Apple-wired earphones—cause the same problem, it is the value that is placed on these specific ones that bother me. The only reason people buy AirPods is to look cool or to display wealth. The classism and implicit bias that come along with these Bluetooth Q-Tips is just way too problematic.

I’d rather listen to a fucking broken record than listen to music with AirPods! I’d rather listen to Sanjaya from the X-Factor sing than listen to music with AirPods! I’d rather listen to IceJJFish for the rest of my life than listen to music with AirPods! Fuck AirPods. But they’re so convenient. Still fuck AirPods. Do not fuck them, they will get you pregnant.

Detest AirPods. They’re the vape pens of music deliverables and we gotta throw them all away.

Growing up, I was always very thin. To me this wasn’t a good or bad thing, it’s just how I was. I didn’t think about my body in a selfconscious way, but my family was and is very weight-centric. When I was young, my Yiayia would introduce me to her friends, saying, “This is my granddaughter. Isn’t she so skinny?”

“I Don’t Wanna Talk, Babygirl”:

Growing up with many female role models in my family, I was struck by how compliments were almost always met with deflections in the form of self-deprecating insults about weight. Weight was a constant subject. Not only personal weight, but other people’s as well. Often when a person came up in a conversation, one of the first things mentioned was if they had gained or lost weight recently. The constant validation that my family gave me for being so small resulted in part of my identity being tied to how I physically look. For much of my life this was not an issue as my weight was always on the lower side, but it led to an internal struggle for me once my body began to mature.

The first time that my Yiayia told my mom I was “looking a little chubby,” I was 11 years old and weighed about 95 pounds. I definitely wasn’t chubby, but the mindset was planted: Am I overweight? Middle school and even the first few years of high school passed with me worrying minimally about my weight, as it stayed pretty constant. However, toward the end of high school I began experiencing more changes in how my body looked, and it was sometimes hard for me to reconcile the fact that as my body was maturing, I was gaining weight. This all came to a head my freshman year of college. I don’t know exactly how much weight I gained, however, at the time it felt drastic and scary. The realization in January that I had gone up a pant size made me feel anxious, and I began constantly worrying about my weight. I was conscious of this but was unsure of what to do, scared to limit my diet as I did not want to develop an eating disorder.

This led to me continuing the same eating habits that I had been practicing since getting to school—snacking constantly because there was a dining hall one floor below me, all the while feeling self-conscious about it.

E-Boys, E-Girls, and the Gendered Narrative Silently Propagated on TikTok

Eventually I realized that body image worries aside, I probably needed to cut back simply because I was eating excessively. After this, I tried to stick to three meals a day without depriving myself of things when I really wanted them. The effects of this were gradual, but over the spring and summer I could feel myself becoming healthier. Today I still weigh more than I used to—my stomach is not as flat as Many of the visual markers of e-boys linkgrown theirinto.. emerging it once was and my hips will always be wider than before, but I see these as physical reminders of the woman I have These body changes are natural and necessary. style to both 1990s skater culture and K-Pop boy band

aesthetics, as Joseph Longo explores in his article, “The One thing that helped me to move past my perception of weight beingEboy connected to my inherent worth ortobeauty was studying art.The For Haircut is Gen Z’s Tribute the 1990s Butt Cut.” most of history, a fuller figure was considered desirable, and looking at thousand-year-old marble statues and paintings of goddesses— former indicates that e-boys lean toward the grungy, “bad who, yes, have rolls—really brought things into perspective for me. It was not these goddesses’ weights that made them beautiful, rather, boy” look, while the latter reflects a desire to be polished it was their inherent womanhood. It took time, but I have come to fully appreciate my body—not for how it looks, but for what it is—and In reality, e-boysin straddle this well. A to recognize that same womanhood within myself. Sometimes I look inand the put-together. mirror and catalogue the changes my body.

Theline geography subcategory of the internet “softboy,” their style combines It’s 2:38 in the morning, and I’ve just heard “Dissolve” by of it is different now, but is no less beautiful to me than before. Beauty can come in so many shapes and sizes. It seems so arbitrary to try the boy-next-door accessibility of the K-Pop idol with the Absofacto foranyone the fourteenth time. Not the whole song, just to tie mine or else’s to a uniform standard. chain-biting, undereye circle-wielding edge of the emo kid. that little snippet around forty seconds in: “I just wanted you Today, I can I am overall confident my body, but it’s not always easy.

It’s hard ignore relatives who consistently comments E-boys existtosomewhere between thrifted make sweaters and to watch mesay dissolve / slowly / in ainpool…”

Accompanying about my weight.

At times I feel beginning to worry it, I have to take a deep breath myself whatplace I am trenchcoats, with eachand oneremind finding his that unique the audio clip are shortwhen videos of myself boys, clear-skinned andaboutblack feeling will pass. Instead, I continue to squishing strive to eattheir everything in moderation, I don’t beat myself up if I eat too much on a certain day. on theand spectrum. pale, floppy-haired or curl-haloed, faces and I now also recognize that being weight-conscious has a negative impact on my mental state, and I have stopped weighing myself. It’s also raising their eyebrows. Their cheeks are soft, their sweaters important to keep in mind that comments from others about weight are normally rooted in insecurity, and you do not need to give their E-boys exist, at least online—that much is clear. But what are soft, their eyes soften as they look into their front-facing insecurities that validation. is their impact on the current social media landscape? cameras. But they want to show me that they’re not afraid What do body they shaming create? culture The #eboy thread younger reveals generations thousands to be edgy and mean, that they can listen to rap music with Giving weight so much power in our perceptions of ourselves and others feeds and teaches of results on Twitter and Instagram, but the e-boy’s native the bass boosted.

They want me to know that painting their that it is something they should be obsessively monitoring. How do we change the culture? By changing the conversation. Comments from land 1;isthey TikTok, hashtag garnering over attributes 1 billion family about weight been linked to thetheir development ofblack. eating disorders create awith toxicthe mindset in which an individual nails doesn’t makehave them girly because nails are losing weight to being a positive action, even in cases where their methods so are dangerous. own viewsfortodoing date.

There, you’ll Even find comments iteration about after one’s iteration body image can be harmful to others. It sends the message that a bodyofisseveral something to be some scrutinized for what it looks video like, rather than trends, of which Conner’s outlines: They’re pretty. accepted and loved for what it can do. It is time to realize that weight is“transformation” just a number. Beauty is not something that can be quantified on TikToks that involve creators jumping a scale. or drinking “e-boy juice” to change outfits, “scary edgy” They scare me.

TikToks that feature dark lighting and bass-heavy tracks, So in changing the conversation, what CAN we talk about? That’s easy—literally anything else. Talk about the weather, your innermost and “super closewhy up”you TikToks that spotlight extravagant Why am I‌ scared? thoughts that you have when you’re alone in the shower at 2am, your dreams, your fears, can’t seem to committheir to a relationship… ’fits.

Oh, and who could forget that iconic eye roll trend The more you say something the more relevance you give it, so why not take the opportunity to put emphasis on sharing the partsset of to MaxoTrill’s “Woah”?

E-boys take the hallmarks of an Iourselves discovered “e-boys” a little late, first learning about the that matter? effective TikTok—convincing lip-synching, smooth cuts trend in early May through Kurtis Conner’s commentary between shots, and effects like zoom, LED colored lighting, video, “The E-Boy Invasion.” In it, Conner identifies the and shaky cam—and use them to highlight their passion for common characteristics of the group of social media music, videography, and a good wallet chain (or ten). content creators, which include an interest in music, personal grooming, and “emo” or skater-inspired fashion The clearly performative aspect of these TikToks begs the trends. “They got their striped shirts, they got their big hair, question: Are e-boys even real? A common theory posits they got their [...] trapezoid jaws,” he lists between light that the e in e-boy stands for electronic, as in boys who only snickers. Other e-boy identifiers include chains, beanies, exist online. It asserts that content creators will put on these Thrasher tees, curtained hair, and black nail polish. A vast elaborate outfits for the camera, crank out a few TikToks, majority of these teens (the most popular among them are and then change into sweats to go about their everyday lives. no older than 19) are thin and white: you’d only need to look But, as one real-life e-boy I interviewed puts it, “I’ll wear as far as the veins on their hands see the pattern.

By Brooks Eisenbise

1

four chains and like five different rings just to go to a movie or some shit.” Liam, 18, argues that he was an e-boy before the term even existed: “I’ve just been like heavy into clothes for a few years now and I kinda just started wearing lots of chains and designer shit and like thrift store shit. Then out of nowhere a [ton of] boys on TikTok be having the same style as me.” He sees his online activity as an extension of his authentic self, rather than a costume he can change in and out of, stating, “I just don’t care enough to, like, make an online persona [...] I’m gonna just be me but maybe amplify it a little.” Liam doesn’t make TikToks, (he admits being an e-boy on TikTok is “too much anyway,”) but his Instagram presence is living proof that e-boys exist in real life. Social media users like him, coupled with TikToks featuring e-boys “in the wild” (mainly in the halls of American high schools), could completely debunk the theory that e-boys are a purely online construction. Still, it’s hard to believe that the high schoolers who make the majority of this content get decked out in layered shirts, makeup, and chains every day before heading to the bus stop at 6 AM.

They're so pretty.

They scare me.

Why am i scared?

So if e-boys are just boys who enjoy dressing up and goofing off for the camera, what’s the problem? There’s nothing inherently wrong with teenagers experimenting with their identity, both in person and online. Social media grants its users the fun and freedom of trying on different personas, forming a welcome creative outlet for adolescents, whose identities are already in flux during this confusing developmental stage. The potentially harmful element emerges in the form of what psychologist Mary Pipher calls the “false self,” a persona adolescents feel obligated to construct to assimilate with their peers and conform to societal gender expectations. In the realm of social media, where peer approval can be quantified through likes, views, and reposts, the creation of a false self seems easier and more urgent than ever for teens. While Pipher’s seminal text, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, focuses on the female teenage psyche, I believe her theory applies to male adolescents as well. Teenage boys are pressured to both attract female attention and perform hypermasculinity in a convincing manner around male peers, two patriarchal demands that often seem at odds.

This duality can be observed in the online content created by the average TikTok e-boy; his videos split between the “softboy” ogling the camera to mellow indie music and the “bad boy” showing only the whites of his eyes and smirking to songs like “Asshole” by Hooligan Chase. The audience of a successful TikTok e-boy is often majority female, to whom he can easily pander by simply appearing pretty and non-threatening. He may paint his nails, experiment with makeup, and otherwise groom himself carefully. This adds to his aesthetic attractiveness and bucks traditional gender stereotypes, however minimally. Still, such tendencies detract from an e-boy’s ability to appear masculine, something he’s willing to only partially compromise for the ladies. Fear of teasing from peers (especially about assumed sexual orientation), or general internalized misogyny and heterosexism could cause an e-boy to reflexively temper the softness with sharp edges. Dark clothes, dark lighting, and dark music transform him, sometimes literally: he will jump or move abruptly and suddenly he is holding a chain, wearing all black, and pulling at the skin under his eyes with his middle finger.

Often, this darker content engages with the female audience just as much, if not more, than the softer stuff. One common e-boy trope is “choking” the phone: moving a cupped hand below the video’s frame and shaking the phone softly to indicate that the (assumed female) viewer is being choked.

This occurs with startling plurality throughout the #eboy tag, regardless of whether the atmosphere of the video is otherwise threatening. TikTok user Anthony Reeves (@ luvanthony) often inserts this move into his videos during soft songs like “Sweater Weather” by the Neighbourhood by smiling sweetly, aligning the action with romance.

Some TikTok e-boys speak directly to female viewers through aggressive or sexually explicit lyrics. In one of his videos, Chase Hudson (@lilhuddy) employs a remixed version of Tenacious D’s “Double Team” to tell his 4.1 million followers, many of them girls, that he’d like to “place my hand upon / your fucking sexy ass and / squeeze that shit.” E-boys also seem fond of “Loser” by Lil Chawley, who eloquently confesses, “I don’t wanna talk babygirl / I wanna fuck” for most of the song.

Teenage boys creating content specifically for female consumers while simultaneously objectifying and physically belittling that same audience, even within the confines of a phone screen, speaks to just how quickly and deeply toxic masculinity can permeate the personhood of each one of us. After showing Conner’s “The E-Boy Invasion” to a friend, I was introduced to an adjacent trend, the TikTok “e-girl.” In these videos, the creator has no choice in the transformation, no “e-girl juice” to drink.

Instead, she is yanked, sometimes by the throat, into a dark room labeled “E-Girl Factory.” A bass-heavy song drones in the background as the girl in the frame is forcibly stripped of her identity: a disembodied hand applies makeup to her face, and she is made (sometimes despite head-shaking or silent pleading) to change into knee socks, pigtails, and a short skirt.

She sways to the music while staring blankly ahead—expressionless, mindless, numb. This small discrepancy, how e-boys and e-girls are “created,” speaks volumes about teenagers’ ideas of consent, and how harmful patriarchal gender roles rule their early reenactments of adult gender dynamics. Men get to choose what they want to become; women must lose themselves completely to fit a mold.

This is not to say that the e-boys (and e-girls) who make these TikToks do so with the intention of advocating for gender inequality or violence against women. Many of them simply see a pattern, find their audience, and continue to make what gets the most clicks. It’s what gets the most clicks, and why, that I find troubling. Conner’s video is lighthearted, poking fun at these teens and their wacky antics, so I was unsurprised when he all but glossed over a video by TikTok e-boy Noen Eubanks (@noeneubanks) implying that he is attracted to “girls without a pulse.” It only takes a quick scroll through the comments on Eubanks’ video to find worrying responses like “hold up, just gonna make myself not have a pulse,” “let me go end game myself real quick <3,” “alright I’ll just go over here and commit

Men get to choose what they want to become; women must lose themselves

self delete,” and “well I mean, it could be arranged…” Ten years ago, my middle school peers would have died for Justin Bieber unprompted. Today, Noen Eubanks invites his fans to die for him.

A glaring flaw in male commentary regarding the e-boy phenomenon lies in its total disregard for what makes e-boys attractive to girls in the first place. Brushed aside as simply “boy crazy,” female followers are sometimes shamed for enjoying the e-boy content so quickly labeled by male onlookers as “cringy.” But being obsessed with celebrities (an obsession that now manifests more and more with “real people” online) is a normal part of social development, a way for girls to troubleshoot the romantic relationships they have yet to experience. In her video essay, “The ‘Cute Boy’ Epidemic,” Donna of Psych IRL explores what draws teenage girls to the fandom of seemingly “talentless” social media stars. “For the female fan,” she explains, “it can be her first experience with exploring relationships, what she looks for in a significant other.” E-boys with a large following seem to sense this, with a fair amount of their content revolving around “POV” (“point of view”) or Viewer x Creator scenarios. “E-boys are playing into [the faux boyfriend character],” Donna states.

So what kind of relationship are these e-boys modeling with their TikToks? In what kind of faux boyfriend role are they

casting themselves? They’re playing the “softboy,” the “bad boy,” the broken boy who needs the right girl to fix him. He’s controlling, but only because he wants her all to himself. He’s physically intimidating, but only to show that he can protect her. He would never hurt her...right? These videos model an abusive relationship dynamic built on physical control, female emotional labor, and a fundamental imbalance of power. If this is the theoretical relationship teenage girls are learning from, what will they tolerate when they enter real relationships? What warning signs are they being slowly socialized to ignore, or, worse, romanticize?

Just listening to that little snippet of Absofacto’s “Dissolve,” it’s easy to assume that the song is about love: about sinking into the feeling of infatuation, the feeling of warmth and safety with someone you trust. But the song is really about control. The lyrics so many e-boys have used in their TikToks describe an unbalanced relationship in which one side holds all of the power and the other is powerless, dissolving slowly. Control and love are not synonymous, but that’s how relationships are being depicted, consciously or unconsciously, in the content these e-boys create.

It reflects the lasting power of patriarchal gender norms, which still infect our media, relationships, and identities from the very first moment we try adulthood on for size. It’s up to us to facilitate open and honest conversations about healthy relationships that promote gender equality. It’s up to us to help others recognize the warning signs of abusive relationships, which include controlling behavior, verbal abuse, and the use of physical force. And it’s up to the e-boys to fully embrace their softer side: less phone-choking, more pink nail polish.

You are beautiful and I am guilty because girls who like to be choked have daddy issues but my father calls me back within the hour and I still want to save you like you don't know what your vein-curled hand implies when it moves just off-camera curving downstage hungry seeking like your emery boards aren’t rough with tooth enamel grooves cut into silver chains like your nose pressed to her neck her legs scaling your starving frame is some happy accident I am guilty of falling in love with what I'm used to and I’m used to how the spaces between my sentences sound short and breathless used to that space and how my small body becomes smaller somehow limbs practiced in that folding over knees to elbows elbows to nose and in the refurling I am pulled throat-first into a dark room and prodded doll-like blank-faced you said you wanted me with my pulse removed and I just wanted you to watch me dissolve slowly behind a screen can’t be called cowardice can it?

Ode to an E-Boy

By Brooks Eisenbise

you can bite your bottom lip for the girls and keep your tongue loud wet and writhing behind sharpshined teeth you can choke me clean and call my hands bloodied it’s called mur-ter I’ve always known safety and freedom are antonyms and I’m searching for the romance I once found in the endless space between the two You are beautiful and I am sorry that boys cannot be beautiful without consequence that black-tipped fingers have to reach beyond that picture frame pedestal for something flushed and bloodfull and bruise-ready something with give what I wouldn’t give to explode your prefix and leave you unelectrified and shaking defenseless and verbal mouth gaping left mumbling fear of the curves you long to grip the softness you bite into so callously as if it’s expendable as if it’s not the last piece of me left but I know you don't wanna talk babygirl

Aparecium: What J.K. Rowling said by omitting race and sexuality from Harry Potter

By Elya Kaplan

Whenever certain questions are presented to me— often in an ice-breaker or a therapy session—I think of the people who have a direct impact on my life, like my mother, my father, or my aunt. What does it mean to us to have a role model? Who do we look up to? Aspire to be? What role do they play in our lives and our perceptions of ourselves? How do they affect our actions and the decisions we make? Although it’s easy to see how my relatives affect my life, I’ve recently recognized the significant influence of figures with whom I have never interacted (and most likely never will): the celebrities whose stories are a part of my daily life without my knowledge—both those I want to follow, and those I don’t—and who play a role in my perception of the world.

A role model can take many forms. In thinking about my own celebrity role models, I had to sort them into different categories, which I call “the beautiful and inaccessible crush”; “the person I’d want to look like if I could magically transform myself ”; and “the brilliant and active political figure whose policies align with mine.” Each of these categories impacts a different area of my life and the process of building my identity and perceptions of the world. Lately, in response to an accumulation of questionable events in the public sphere, I’ve started reconsidering what it means when a role model does something wrong.

When we ordinary people slip up and say something off-color, we can usually retract the statement, apologize, rephrase, and learn from our mistakes.

Then we move on. However, for someone whose whole life is publicly on display, this process gets a lot more complicated. The larger the following someone has, the more difficult it is for them to apologize effectively.

While the rest of us only have to apologize to a handful of people, celebrities have to remake their image in the eyes of thousands, or even millions. Recently “cancel culture” (the process by which celebrities are shunned by the public for their improper actions or statements) has become more prevalent with the rise of acknowledgement of political correctness. However, not everyone has gotten the memo: celebrities such as James Charles and Azealia Banks have been cancelled for their statements, which has required their followers to reconcile the good they’ve done with the bad and evaluate how their role in their respective communities

is affected. In any case, regardless of your stance on the matter, the public sphere has become increasingly aware of PC culture, and fans and celebrities alike have responded to it.

This year alone, several celebrities have made comments that infuriated the public. While many followed up with apology statements, there is no way of knowing whether they are authentic, or whether they simply know “the right words to say and when to say them1”. For example, some deemed Jonah Hill’s apology for using a homophobic slur to be heartfelt, while others thought Mel Gibson’s apology for using sexist and anti-Semitic remarks in response to the cops who arrested him for DUI, appeared less-thangenuine2. This practice has become such a common occurrence that a blog called Sorry Watch tweeted a template for any offending celebrity trying to make amends: “Use the word “sorry” or “apologize.” Name the offense... Take responsibility. Show you understand the impact. How will you insure this doesn’t recur?

Make amends.” As such, the art of putting together a public apology has been elevated to online platforms, with celebrities posting their lessons learned on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, hoping that in a week’s time, the news cycle will refresh, and people will find something else to occupy their bathroom social media fixes. However, these temporary and performative apologies may not be satisfactory for diehard fans. What happens to someone whose favorite actor, director, comedian, writer, or politician says something inappropriate? Do we forgive? Forgive and forget? Ignore? How do we maintain our respect for them (if we decide we want to) and for ourselves for holding them in such high regard?

Over this past year, I’ve witnessed countless friends wrestle with their allegiance to certain performers such as Sabrina Claudio, Gina Rodriguez, and Daniel Caesar, all of whom are respected for their work, and all of whom have been accused of sharing problematic statements with the public. How do we separate an artist from their work? Moreover, should we? What about people like R. Kelly, whose wrongdoings are so clearly and bluntly repulsive that there is no way to disentangle the two? Do we pick and choose who to forgive based on a preconception of them as a person?

I have made countless assumptions about celebrities’

1. HuffPost. “The Ever-Evolving Art of the Celebrity Apology.” Zeba Blay.

2. ENews. “The 17 Best (or Worst) Celebrity Apologies: Where Does Jonah Hill Rank?” Alyssa Toomey & Bruna Nessif

personalities and who they are as individuals, but those images could be completely based on my own perceptions and hopes rather than their reality.

In order to determine how I feel about this, I decided to focus on a figure who has made an impact on my life. Growing up, I ate, drank, and breathed Harry Potter. I could tell you every detail about the series, from the fact that J.K. Rowling dedicated the first five years of her work to determining rules about what her characters could and couldn’t do, to the Hogwarts motto—Draco Dormiens Numquam Titillandus— translating to “Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon.” My infatuation with the magical world made J.K. Rowling an ultimate role model for me; I upheld her as a funny, strong, brilliant woman who had overcome countless difficulties in her life, ranging from depression to poverty to her mother’s death, who then went on to create one of the most successful book and movie franchises in history. She’s also one of only five selfmade female billionaires, and the world’s first billiondollar author. I was certain such an outstanding woman could do no wrong.

When we ordinary people slip up and say something offcolor, we can usually retract the statement, apologize, rephrase, and learn from our mistakes.

However, after hearing certain critiques and reactions against her, I decided to dig deeper and find what she had done to deserve such a response. In the past few years with the increased awareness of both PC culture and the influence of books and movies on building people’s identities (especially children’s), authors and directors have been scrutinized, put in the spotlight, and pressed to answer criticisms and questions about their work. In response to the recent Fantastic Beasts movies, Rowling has faced criticism for keeping Johnny Depp in her cast after Amber Heard accused him of domestic abuse. Twitter user @fumegar was one of many who fumed about the issue, writing that “jk rowling legacy is literally about a boy who has been emotionally and physically abused and the danger in

looking the other way bc the truth is inconvenient,” and continuing on to say that Rowling’s disregard of Heard’s allegations was hypocritical3.

Others have commented on Rowling’slackluster attempts to dodge a PC bullet by claiming that Dumbledore was gay, that there were Jews at Hogwarts, and that she “never described Hermione as white.”

However, her failure to explicitly state any of that in all seven of her books or to represent it in the movies doesn’t exemplify the presence of those identities, “what does it mean that Dumbledore is allowed to be gay in our collective imagination but not in the books or on the big screen?...It means... queerness is relegated to the realm of the implicit4.” In response to twitterer @benroffman asking if there were actually Jews at Hogwarts, Rowling responded: “Anthony Goldstein, Ravenclaw, Jewish wizard,” and nothing more. I don’t think I’m alone in asking who the hell Anthony Goldstein is, as I’ve never heard the name, nor do I remember any of his lines. Furthermore, one sentence, whether written in the books or not, does not count as representation of an entire people; if there were Jews, why did Hogwarts celebrate Christmas and not Hannukah? Why were there hints of Christianity and none of Judaism? And this doesn’t even begin to touch on Islam or any non-Abrahamic religion.

Finally, in response to her statement that she never specified that Hermione was white, the question of “writing colorblind” has come up. The resulting discussion explains that just like “colorblindness” as a general phenomenon, it does not exempt you from being a racist; rather, it exacerbates the problem of ignoring privilege and erasing the significant experiences and histories that build and influence people’s identities. Fiction writer Mimi Mondal discussed her experience reading the Harry Potter books in Calcutta, India, and growing up identifying with Hermione. In her analysis of her experience, she discusses her realization that books’ refusal to see color, sex, gender, or religion make it impossible to read them again without recognizing the absence of these representations because “Harry Potter isn’t an offensive text, but it’s equally inoffensive to the homophobic, xenophobic5 readers.” Another person to speak on “writing colorblind” is author Kameron

3. alma. “Not Just Johnny Depp: A History of J.K. Rowling’s Problematic Statements.” Emily Burack.

4. HuffPost. “Harry Potter Fans Deserve an Openly Gay Dumbledore.” Aaron Rose.

5. The Book Smugglers. “Characters Are Not A Coloring Book Or, Why the Black Hermione is a Poor Apology for the Ingrained Racism of Harry Potter.” Mimi Mondal.

Hurley, who posits that even if authors remove all indication of color in their descriptions of the characters, the readers will still imagine them a certain way. This means that the author is avoiding any conflict that could arise in a situation in which several differing identities interact. Hurley sees it as an evasion of racism, or, Rowling’s way of saying that because she didn’t write it into existence, the racism is coming from the readers and their imaginations, not her. Through this type of writing, characters lose their three-dimensionality—their backgrounds, their cultures, their traditions, and their experiences—all of which would influence the ways they contribute to the story. While J.K. Rowling might be trying to include different identities retrospectively, she has really just removed any form of potential conflict and only included a handful of people of color, none of whom had any significant contribution to the story6.

still matter. With the awareness of the effects of lack of representation today and the importance of acknowledging wrongdoings, both past and present, I find myself craving an apology from her. Just one saying that she is aware of the absence of these representations in her work, and that she was writing at a time in which as a white woman, she was not exposed to the significance of her actions (although this is not in any way an excuse for ignorance).

Taking responsibility for the way her books have been received is still a necessary part of her job as the author, and without it, I will not be able to see her as the flawless role model I always thought her to be.

How do we separate an artist from their work? Moreover, should we?

All of this being said, it is difficult to say that J.K. Rowling attempted to exclude anyone from her stories. It could simply be that at the time she was writing, these subjects didn’t come to mind and that people reading the books now are viewing them with a different awareness of the omissions in her work.

Instead of asserting that it was subtly and implicitly in her books all along, a simple recognition of the absence and her ignorance on the matter at the time would clear up much of the discontent. However, with today’s rampant public sphere of blame and criticism, such a confession can be hard to admit for fear of the social and cultural repercussions.

So how do I feel about J.K. Rowling now? With all her faults and the public response to her, I still believe that she is an incredibly imaginative and masterful writer who introduced the world to an entirely new fantasy reading experience. I believe that she had no malintentions in writing these characters into existence, nor did she have an active awareness of the effects they would produce years after publication.

However, while intentions are tantamount to our perception of people, their actions and words do 6. Assumptions, The F Word. “Why Writing Colorblind is Writing White (a rant).” Kameron Hurley.

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