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February 10, 2023
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Sunlight through colorblocked linen curtains
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If you ever find yourself questioning whether reproductive justice and trans liberation are one in the same struggle, or if you ever need to conjure a white-hot combination of rage and fear, I suggest bookmarking the coverage of Florida debating whether to require high-school athletes to report their menstrual cycles.
Here's your semi-regular reminder to check on the status of anti-trans legislation in your state and weigh in with a letter or a public comment. Pay attention to the tenuous availability of abortion pills. Support your local abortion fund. Scream when you need to.
-AF
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Eve Fairbanks describes the stubborn persistence of internalized racism and old dynamics in post-apartheid South Africa. This piece, based on reporting she did for her book, is worth sending to anyone who was surprised to learn that the first five officers charged in Tyre Nichols' murder are Black.
I loved this essay about what most narratives of class animosity fail to capture: the official, but spurious, separation between family and work. "The nuclear family," Sam Adler-Bell writes, "was porous from the start, libidinal and economic exchange entwined, upstairs and downstairs together, family and labor relations under one roof."
Zoe Hu on the "tradlife" fantasy, and the peddling of conservative values as an escape hatch from the punishing reality of life under capitalism.
The number of times I've caught myself repeating a "fact" I learned on TikTok and then quickly adding the caveat, "But I didn't look it up any further, so who knows?" Embarrassing! Chris Stokel-Walker urges skepticism of anything captured on a front-facing camera.
What if doctors could prescribe housing? Greg Rosalsky reports on framing the housing crisis as a health crisis for the Planet Money newsletter, which I recommend.
"The faux expertise of a generation of men who have had the world tilt their way" could be an entire series. For now, it's one article by Adriane Quinlan about boomer dads making real estate agents' jobs difficult.
Danielle Thom on the allure of candles that are too fancy to burn.
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The Acorns Pie
with a nod to the over-prepared woodpecker
If you were a paying member, you'd be enjoying this pie chart right now! Membership starts at just $15/year and supports my weekly labor, underwrites the fellowship program for emerging writers, and covers my tech costs.
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Designer Jun Takahashi 's commute playlists are all 75 minutes long, the length of time it takes him to drive to his atelier. (Naturally I learned about these on TikTok.)
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With apologies to every single one of my vertebrae.
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A new thing this week! As I interview experts for my book about modern adulthood, I’m going to occasionally share some excerpts. Today I’ve got a real treat: I asked Myisha Battle, a certified sexologist and the author of This Is Supposed to Be Fun, five questions about sex and dating throughout our adult lives.
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Do many of your clients still want to do things in the perceived traditional order—to date so that they can find a person to partner with, and then have kids? That seems like so much pressure to put on a date.
Biological clocks are real. But then families are created in so many different ways and have been since the dawn in time. And I've really gained more insight into what that looks like by working with single parents by choice: It does take the pressure off of the experience of dating. So part of it is expanding your view of what family looks like. A lot of people just have the pressure of following along on the relationship escalator.
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What is the relationship escalator?
It’s the expected trajectory: You date someone for a period of time, you start a sexual relationship with them, you start spending more and more time together. The intensity is increasing as the commitment is deepening. So then next would be engagement or cohabitation, and then marriage, and then children and then, you know, love each other until you die. That's not how relationships work for most of us. There can be many people that you share your time with, and it's up to the people who are involved to determine what that looks like.
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We are in an era of unprecedented options when it comes to labels for sexuality, gender identity, and relationships. What’s the impact of that expanded vocabulary?
Labels really help people identify with groups that align with their lived experience. I can say “I am pansexual,” and now I have the language to connect with other pansexual people to talk about it and have that reflected back to me. Breaking things down into labels also has its disadvantages, because sexuality is fluid and can change over time as different layers of yourself get revealed. And so there may be a time when that pansexual decides, “Actually, I'm just straight up gay,” or “I am something else.” That can be a real identity crisis. But the labels permit us to move and change as well. And they are far preferable to heteronormativity.
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Even though people pursue new relationships in every decade of life, dating remains stereotyped as a young person's game. Do your clients ever express that they feel weird about dating beyond their 20s and 30s?
Yeah, absolutely. I'm working with a lot of people going through separations, so they weren't anticipating having to date ever again. There might be some excitement, but a lot of it is dread. That’s partly because the main mode of dating now is through apps. So for people who have been in relationships for 10, 15, 20 years, this wasn't available the last time they were dating. There's just a lot of layers for folks who have done the traditional relationship escalator, and who are now coming back into dating with that sense of, “Should I even be here?” We work on trying to find places and spaces where they can find a community to embed themselves in and hopefully make connections that feel really genuine.
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We hear a lot about sexual ebbs and flows within long-term relationships, but how does our sexuality shift on an individual level as we age?
As someone who believes that we are our first and longest-lasting sexual partner, it would make sense that there would be ebb and flow with the relationship to oneself. I love the idea of having sexual seasons. Spring is a time of exploring, figuring out, maybe identifying with a certain sexual orientation. Summer is some heat and intensity, when you're like, “I want more of the good stuff and I don't want to repeat some of the bad stuff.” Fall is slowing down. People are surprised when the other priorities in their life take center stage and sexual energy does not show up in the ways that they're used to. I think that's okay, just different, but it freaks people out. And then of course, our winter season might be when we really slow down. This is an opportunity to explore and get curious, but because we fear aging and marginalize it in our society, we don't think of it as this time of creativity. But when it comes to sex, it very much is.
Were five questions not enough? Get Myisha's e-zine and book!
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"Beaming watching your words continue to flow and fire after all these awful years." -Kate
"I *still* remember the deviled eggs she brought to my mom's funeral luncheon five years ago!" -Megan. Ok, this one is actually a testimonial for my mother, who taught me everything I know about deviled eggs as kinkeeping praxis.
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