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The Psychology of the Orgasm Gap
We know that women face a number of challenges to achieving equality. In the boardroom, we face the wage gap. And in the bedroom: The orgasm gap. Researchers (and everyday people!) have found that a gap exists between the frequency with which men and women experience orgasm, especially during heterosexual sex. Specifically, women consistently have fewer…
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Having Healthy Sex after Sexual Assault
The summer I was nineteen, I researched and wrote a travel guide to Italy, journeying from Venice to the Cinque Terre armed only with a sundress and my handy dandy Macbook. It sounds pretty ideal, and it was—except for the constant, terrifying, enraging sexual harassment. From being groped on the train to being kissed non-consensually…
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How Psychology Stigmatized Female Orgasm (and How We Got It Back)
Read the full article at Talkspace. For most of us, orgasms are, simply, awesome. Yet from the origins of modern psychology in the late nineteenth century, a combination of cultural stereotypes, pseudoscience, and plain old misogyny created an enduring notion that women’s orgasms were a problem to be solved, rather than a normal part of sexual…
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What Ethical Non-monogamy Can Teach us About Healthy Relationships
Find the original article at Talkspace. I’m not so hot on monogamy. It’s always been strange to me that society decides one way of doing romantic relationships: boy meets girl; boy and girl date; boy and girl marry; boy and girl never date or sleep with anyone else ever again. If we’re all unique, why…
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How Mental Health Activists Are Fighting Racism
Find the original article on Talkspace. During the Civil Rights Movement, white psychologists invented a so-called mental illness. Dubbing it “protest psychosis,” these psychologists used the racially-motivated “syndrome” to explain away the reasonable rage of black Americans demanding an end to segregation. Sixty years later, racial disparities in the mental health care system remain, including lack of…
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Sexual Harassment Starts in School, and Boy Do We Know it
You can read the original piece at Feministing I was horny in high school. Like many adolescent humans, sex ricocheted through my body like a summer storm. If you’ve read any of my writing, however, you will not be even remotely surprised to know that my outspoken feminism and ability to scan Shakespearean meter did…
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Love my work? Donate to Feministing!
The website that’s hosted my column for the past couple years, Feministing, is currently on the fundraising hustle! Passionate about great feminist writing? Become a member today. Original appeal at Feministing. You turn to Feministing for the hot, fresh, intersectional feminist analysis you can’t get anywhere else. And today, we’re turning to you: Become a Feministing member,…
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How Much Effort Do Women Put Into Coping With Sexual Harassment in a Day?
Find the original article at Talkspace. It’s that knot of anxiety in the pit of your stomach when you walk down the street. You step off the train, your bag in front of your breasts, flinching lest the next passerby brush you “accidentally-on-purpose.” It’s never knowing whether your boss is leaning just a little too close. It’s…
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Why Doesn’t My Friend Leave Their Abusive Partner – and How Can I Help?
Find the original piece at Talkspace. You may see your friend crying, hear your friend’s partner make demeaning comments towards them, or notice they seem anxious around or afraid of their partner. Or your friend may open up to you on their own. Knowing or suspecting that someone you care about is in an abusive…
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Street Harassment and its Effect on Women’s Mental Health in Teen Vogue
You can find this piece in Teen Vogue and the original at Talkspace. I remember what I was wearing: A blue tank top with a picture of a peacock, jean short-shorts, and flip-flops. I remember the weather: High summer, sweet grass scenting the air and the sun just beginning its slow descent to the horizon.…
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Reina Gattuso 