On the night that I escaped from my abuser, a five-letter word broke his spell, helping to set me free. My abuser had stalked me to the safehouse where a
the Rumpus l September 1, 2023
Writing
Tasteful Rude l June 30, 2022
The Doctor’s Tongue
My sexual miseducation took place in California. It often happened at school. I was twelve years old and gluing paper to paper. Collaging. A classmate said that she’d met her
Tasteful Rude l February 11, 2021
FRAMING BRITNEY SPEARS DEEPENED MY DESIRE FOR JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE TO EAT A BAG OF DICKS
Watching Britney Spears shave her head in 2007 made me want to do it too. The bitch looked good bald, better than Demi because she wasn’t doing it for a film role, she was doing it because life, and I recall feeling liberated by proxy as I watched Spears snatch hairdresser Esther Tognozzi’s razor and drag it along her scalp, using it to carve her femininity away, the precise curve of her cranium set free by her own hand. This incident and others appear in Framing Britney Spears, a new documentary by the New York Times. The film casts strong doubt over the legitimacy of the patriarchal legal arrangement under which the megastar has been stuck for the last twelve years. Framing Britney Spears also deepened my desire for Justin Timberlake to eat a bag of dicks.
Luz Media l December 9, 2020
From Persephone To Tara Reade, Rape Victims Are Relegated To Everyday Hells
As Wagatwe Wanjuki lip syncs, “Actual goals, AF!” her TikTok performance unfolds to the tune and lyrics of Eva Gutowski’s Literally My Life. Clad in athleisure, Wanjuki flashes a grin and a thumb’s up sign. Glitter splashes across the screen and she imitates a victory dance while this message hovers overhead: “Me finding out my rapist graduated law school and became a lawyer.”
Those of us who are the victims of rapists experience the ramifications of sexual assault across our lifespans. One of the ugliest and most painful dimensions of rape’s aftermath is exactly what Wanjuki so brilliantly communicated through TikTok. Rape culture requires the majority of sexual assault victims to co-exist in a society where our rapists do more than move freely. In a rape culture, our attackers thrive.
March 13, 2020
Coercive Control
Content Warning: Sociology. Language. Misogyny. I miss teaching so I’m going to use this thread as my classroom. I want to discuss a term I dislike versus a term I
LA Review of Books l January 23, 2020
My Taco Laughs at You
I called the police after my batterer told me he was thinking about driving me to a desolate California location, fucking me, and then soaking the countryside in my blood.
December 7, 2019
On Katie Hill and American Girls
I’m reading former Congressional representative Katie Hill’s account of wanting to kill herself after her abusive ex-husband and the Republican party attacked her by using a method of sexual assault