It feels strange to admit this, but when I first read that bisexual women are more vulnerable to sexual and intimate partner violence than people of other orientations, I felt relieved. It wasn’t the butterfly-winged relief of good news. It was the lightness of finally being able to breathe. Or perhaps, of feeling that I still couldn’tContinue reading “Why Bisexual Women Are at a Higher Risk for Violence”
Author Archives: reinagattuso
Copenhagen Wants You to Forage on Its City Streets
COPENHAGEN IS ABOUT TO BECOME the embodiment of grab-and-go snacking. In a recent vote, the City Council resolved to introduce free, portable, city-wide munchies: public fruit trees. They’ll opt to plant edibles, from blackberry bushes to apple trees, wherever city planning calls for greenery. For Astrid Aller, a Copenhagen City Councilor from the Socialist People’s Party whoContinue reading “Copenhagen Wants You to Forage on Its City Streets”
A Complete Guide to Post-Sex Cleanup
Marie Kondo taught America how to clean out objects that don’t spark joy. But who can you turn to when you need to clean semen and menstrual blood off your couch after a hot romp and you only have an hour before your family arrives for dinner? Never fear: I’m here to help you tidyContinue reading “A Complete Guide to Post-Sex Cleanup”
How to Feed a Megacity Like the Aztecs
WHEN CONQUISTADOR HERNÁN CORTÉS REACHED Tenochtitlan in 1519, he beheld a floating city. The temples and palaces of the Aztec capital gleamed white from an island in the middle of a vast lake, all spread under a searing blue sky. With an estimated population of 200,000, roughly the size of contemporary Paris, the city overflowed with people. AroundContinue reading “How to Feed a Megacity Like the Aztecs”
Tour Honolulu’s Japanese Food Scene With This 1906 Map
WE DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT Takei Nekketsu. The proprietor of a dry-goods store, he was one of the many small business owners who made up the thriving Japanese community of early 20th-century Honolulu. But Nekketsu had a number of special talents. He wrote some of the earliest Japanese-language histories of Hawai’i, and he made maps. OneContinue reading “Tour Honolulu’s Japanese Food Scene With This 1906 Map”
A Pirate Botanist Helped Bring Hot Chocolate to England
IF YOU HAD MET HIM the year his famous book was published, you might have mistaken William Hughes for a mild-mannered gardener. By that time, he had settled into his role at the country estate of the Viscountess Conway, a noblewoman and philosopher, and had published a book on grapevines. But the old man was moreContinue reading “A Pirate Botanist Helped Bring Hot Chocolate to England”
Why an 1875 Map Imagined The U.S. As a Giant Hog
THIS STORY ENDS WITH AN eccentric entrepreneur distributing 2,500 maps of the United States in the shape of a pig to a gala of Civil War veterans. It begins with sewing machines. Grover and Baker sewing machines, to be precise. Read more at Atlas Obscura. Cover image: Porcineograph, Library of Congress, Public Domain.
Can Abusers Change?
The year was 1980, and feminist activist Ellen Pence had just moved to Duluth, Minnesota. Since 1975, with the tide of the feminist movement rising across the United States , Pence had been involved with organizing against domestic violence — work she furthered with friends when they founded the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP) in Duluth.Continue reading “Can Abusers Change?”
How to Tell if Polyamory is Really for You
No matter what love style you choose, all relationships have one common denominator: They’re super-complicated. First, society imposes rigid definitions of gender, sexuality, and love. Add that to the personal baggage we pick up along the way, and you’ve got one explosive cocktail. Polyamory is no exception. Based on the belief that we can be sexually andContinue reading “How to Tell if Polyamory is Really for You”
Canadians Were Better at Clamming 3,500 Years Ago
TWELVE-THOUSAND YEARS AGO, THE GLACIERS receded from modern-day British Columbia, leaving the land to bleed silt into the sea. In the salty shallows hugging the coast, bivalves struggled to survive, growing slow and dying small in the fluctuating temperatures of the newly thawed ocean. Their shells fell to the floor and built up on beaches, formingContinue reading “Canadians Were Better at Clamming 3,500 Years Ago”
