something secret

I don't usually write these kinds of posts, but after a fun conversation on twitter sometime last week, I just knew I had to sit and write about this properly.  Sex is... inevitable for most us. As human animals, it's one of the things that drives us innately. Sex is fun. It's messy, and exciting and exhilarating, and... sometimes it's unexpected. You know what I mean; that hot date turns out to be hotter than anticipated...? So what's a girl to do when she finds herself overnighting at her guy's place unexpectedly? Short answer: Be prepared. Long answer: Make sure you're prepared! Once you're settled on your expectations for the evening, it's relatively easy to avoid the walk of shame the next morning.  Firs things first: be realistic. Is it likely you'll end up at his place? Do you want  to end up at his place? If the answer to either or both those questions is "yes", here's what you'll need: Continue Reading My Brilliance! ...

via Natalie Dee Last night I quit Jezebel. It sounds like a dumb thing to be writing about, but for me, it's really, really significant. I'm 23. I'm black. I'm West Indian. I didn't have a lot of exposure to feminism growing up. I cringe when I recall the things that I said about other women when I was a freshman in college, and the attitudes that I had towards sexuality and womanhood. I went to a Catholic school in a country that is still largely misogynistic. It was pretty much a given that I'd grown up to be an anti-woman little shit. But then I found Jezebel. I found Jezebel and I started reading. I'm the kind of person who just likes to know  things, so perusing the site pre-Kinja was like a revelation to me. All of a sudden I had this entire vocabulary to explain the little microagressions that I'd faced all my life, and a community of women who were engaged in parsing those issues. I could finally vocalize why I felt an inconsolable rage when I w...

Anyone who knows me or has paid a lick of attention to this blog in the last month or so knows that I am no friend of Miley Cyrus . The woman is obliviously racist, willfully obtuse and completely ignorant. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that she spent yesterday shaming two women for their mental health issues. So no, Miley and I are not bosom buddies. But you see this shit ? I DO NOT NEED YOUR MALE OPINIONS SCORCH MAGAZINE, NOR DO I WANT THEM. And I'm no stranger to calling out misogynistic Trinidadian men on their shitty interpretations of gender relations. I've already cussed out a radio DJ  and a friend of a friend . There's nothing new about this asinine explanation of events. But it's still insidious, so I guess I'll go lace up my patriarchy smashing boots. This "article" is full of slut-shaming, body-shaming, concern trolling, gender essentialist, patriarchal bullshit. I do not need to read that. I have spend the last few ye...

About two days after the article went viral, I did a great interview with Sammy Lyon of Feminist Magazine about the original article. It finally went live last Tuesday (yeah, I know, I'm slacking...) and you can  listen to it here , and follow along with the transcript after the jump (provided by an awesome member of GT) because the audio is a little spotty. Or you could just read it I guess... Whatever works for you. I almost didn't do the interview because the trolling got be a little overwhelming, and as someone who detests being the centre of attention, I really really  wanted to pretend that it never happened, and just go hide under the covers for a bit. But my mum convinced me that I if I believed what I had written, (I did) I had a duty to defend it. After all, I had to take my own advice : if your argument can't withstand a few dings, it wasn't a very strong argument to begin with was it? So check it out after the jump! Continue Reading My Brilliance! >>...

It's been two weeks now since I wrote that article , and I couldn't be more glad that it's over. Going viral isn't fun. Even when you have the most innocuous  content people will find a reason to be negative and hateful online. But throw race into it? Nope. Do. Not. Want. So I tried to keep this blog largely quiet in that time. But in the last two weeks I've done a lot of reading. I've done a lot of listening and a lot of paying attention, and I think that this experience was for the better. I definitely learned a lot about my own personal resilience, and about how little the world cares about you when they don't like what you have to say. But that's okay. Because in the last two weeks I've learned more about feminism and intersectionality that I ever thought I could know, and I'm grateful. So many discussions were borne out of this article (that I never thought would be seen outside the virtual gates of GT) and many of them taught me  things. Mo...

On Monday 26th August, 2013, I published an article entitled Solidarity Is For Miley Cyrus: The Racial Implications Of Her VMA Performance.  The article quickly went viral, accumulating over one million views, 700 comments, and 100K facebook shares in a little over 24 hours. That does not include the traffic that this blog received from cross-posting the article. Response was divided, but largely positive, with many people emailing me personally to thank me for the piece, and a number of influential people reposting and discussing the article. This is a summary of the events that led up to my writing the article. Continue Reading My Brilliance! >>>

The response to the Miley article has been way, WAY disproportionate to what I was expecting. While I've gotten some really sincere positive feedback, I've also had to deal with some devious trolling and personal attacks, and I'm not really able to deal with all of it on my own. So the comments on this blog (and on the original article over at groupthink) are now closed indefinitely. I will likely never turn the GT comments back on, but the comments here will be back as soon as I think the trolls that have been circling find something else to do with their time. I'm just one person, and I can't deal with all of the moderation on my own, and frankly this whole thing is stressing me out. So I'm taking a mental health sabbatical, and simply making this space a rhetorical one until further notice.  To my new readers, I hope you will stay, and that you find other content here that you find engaging. I haven't forgotten you, and I've very grateful for your eye...

Yesterday's post on Miley's VMA performance and the racism she put on display has gotten way bigger than I ever expected. I originally wrote it for Jezebel's Groupthink forum , then cross posted it here. Between the two, the article has racked up close to 12K shares on facebook, nearly 100K views, and enough tweets that I've been getting follow requests to my private twitter account all day; and the numbers will likely only have grown by the time I hit publish.  But while on a superficial level I'm glad that so many people have read and shared my work, the bigger emotion that overtakes me is relief . Relief that so many people get  it. Relief that so many people understand that there was something very, very wrong with what Miley did onstage that night, and it had nothing to do with her costume. Relief that this many people understood that Miley's performance was not a stand-alone occurrence, but a symptom of a much, much  bigger problem with the way that black...

Editor's Note: The response to this piece has become a little overwhelming and I'm having some trouble trying to reign it all in, but do know that while I may have to deal with derailers and trolls over on Groupthink, I will not tolerate them here. This blog is my safe space and I will not let anonymous commenters change that. I will be heavily moderating the comments of this article, so think before you post. If your comment accuses me of "reverse racism" or includes derogatory remarks. It will be deleted. If you slut shame Miley Cyrus, your comment will be deleted. If you derail the conversation in any way, your comment will be deleted. Be forewarned. As a black woman, I feel like I owe a debt of gratitude to  Mikki Kendall , of  #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen  fame for managing to so perfectly encapsulate years of subjugation of black women by white women. With those five words, she was able to instantly zero in on why  Intersectional  Feminism is so necessary if the ...

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on this blog on January 3rd, 2011.  I am republishing it because I think it's a message that bears repeating.  I t has been lightly edited for style and grammar.  Read some of the subsequent writing I've done on body image in the following posts: Changing the Conversation: The Dove "Real Beauty" Campaign and the Debate on "Real" Women Changing the Conversation Pt. 2: The Dove "Real Beauty" Sketches via  inside thought Makes you cringe a little doesn't it? When I first saw this photo in  December,  it honestly just made me sad. Sad for this woman, sad for myself, and sad for the industry that makes this kind of thinking so ubiquitous.  The sad fact is that millions of women feel this way about themselves because of the severely restricted standard of beauty that is perpetuated within the fashion industry.  I spent the last two weeks of the semester writing two different papers on digital manipulat...

Some food for thought : I call it cunt. I've reclaimed it, “cunt”. I really like it. “Cunt.” Listen to it. “Cunt.” C C. Ca Ca. Cavern, cackle, clit, cute, come-closed c-closed inside, inside ca-then u-then cu-then curvy, inviting sharkskin u- uniform, under, up, urge, ugh, ugh, u – then n then cun – snug letters fitting perfectly together – n – nest, now, nexus, nice, nice, always depth, always round in upper case, cun, cun-n a jagged wicked electrical pulse-n (high pitched noise) then soft n- warm n – cun, cun, then t – then sharp certain tangy t – texture, take, tent, tight, tantalizing, tensing, taste, tendrils, time, tactile, tell me, tell me “Cunt cunt,” say it, tell me “Cunt.” “Cunt.” -Reclaiming Cunt (The Vagina Monologues)

It's been a week, and the season finale of GIRLS was still a little more than I can handle. After  On All Fours,  and all of the spectacular shame spiraling that occurred, I was weirdly looking forward to some season-ending closure for these girls: some indication that they had learned something from this season of hardship and emotional struggle. But, nope. All we got was more of the same. Hannah's self indulgence, Marnie's near deliberate obtuseness, Shoshanna's innocence (more on this in a bit), and Jessa's flightiness. The finale made sense in the context of this season's larger story arcs, but it leaves the audience, (okay, me) with a sense of dissatisfaction. With the exception of Shoshanna, each of the players is essentially right back where they started in the pilot, and it feels like regression much more than progress. Continue Reading My Brilliance! >>>

I'm beginning to think that Lena Dunham is a brilliant political mind. You may have noticed that I've all but abandoned my GIRLS reviews . I love the show, and I still watch religiously every week, but I simply don't have the time to dissect the various shenanigans of Hannah Horvath and company. But I really want to talk about this week's episode, and the  subsequent  reaction to it. One Man's Trash  was baffling and nonsensical where the plot was concerned. At least to me. Let's just say there was misplaced garbage, and affairs with older men, and naked ping pong, and fainting in the shower, and immature breakthroughs, and a whole host of other things that simply didn't make sense in the larger context of the previous four episodes of this season. It is very possibly the most navel-gazing episode of GIRLS ever to be broadcast. But that's irrelevant, because this piece is about Hannah Horvath's "blobby" body .  You see, I don't think it...

A friend of a friend wrote an  infuriating article essentially detailing  the non-existence of rape culture and the "problem with feminists". Essentially,  mansplaining for days.  Naturally, as the " left-wing  lib-rull  feminazi " that I am, I was not pleased. But since my last interaction with that person on the topic ended in a particularly spectacular  flounce , (on his part) I resolved to rebut, but remain civil. It will be difficult, but I will soldier on. My main issue with his piece is that his information is inaccurate. Many of the "facts" he states have long been disproved  He is clearly unaware of what feminism actually constitutes  and the fact that it is not a monolithic group. And his blasé attitude toward the existence of rape culture is not just ignorant, but dangerous. It indicates his inability to recognize or reconcile  male privilege , which becomes a problem when you make long proclamations about how to deal with rape; a problem that...

It's been a while. In the last few weeks, I've been thinking about what resolutions I want to make for 2013. I've sat and thought about the new stage I'm at in my life, where I'd like my life to go from here, and all the things that would be required of me to get there. Heavy stuff. Just thinking it through started to overwhelm me. There are so many things I'd like to accomplish in the next few years, that it all seems so daunting. How am I supposed to organize my life into some semblance of cohesion? How am I supposed to do it now? How long will it take me to get all the different tangents of my life in order? You can see how easily this turned into a worry spiral... However, in a rare moment of lucidity, I remembered a  blog post  I read back in October that really resonated with me. The post was about taking the time to recognize and congratulate yourself for your achievements, and appreciating how far you've come in achieving your goals, even the l...

I am PISSED. Last night I spent about an hour in my car, hate listening to the radio. I was heading home around 7:30pm and listening to "Raw Nitro" on Boom Champions 94.1 FM with Mr. Smooth and DJ Karey. It was their "Make Up or Break Up" segment, and the topic of conversation was essentially a very crass version of  What's your number ? Intrigued as I am by discussions of sexuality, I listened, curious to see where it would go. I'm not sure why I thought the session would be in any way enlightened, but I had faith in Trinidad. That faith was shattered last night. Because THIS: I am so fucking sick of the blatant misogyny coming from the djs on #94.1fm. The double standards are rampant and it needs to stop. — Cate Young (@battymamzelle) October 18, 2012 Listeners were encouraged to call in and disclose their numbers. Fair enough. What was NOT okay was the way in which the female callers were treated after having done so. There was a CLEAR and BIASED dichoto...

via Natalie Dee ! This is by no means a political blog, but I have a lot of political opinions. Anyone who know me, knows this, and every now and then something comes up that I feel like I can't let pass me by unnoticed.The recent trend in American politics has been to attack reproductive rights with a vengeance. All the cool kids are doing it. (Read: HORRIBLE FUCKING ASSHOLES ) But, as any rational thinking person can tell you, that's not okay.  The idea that legislators think it's 1. Okay to restrict a woman's reproductive rights because JESUS  or 2. ANY OF THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS WHAT I DO WITH MY VAGINA/UTERUS/FALLOPIAN TUBES is ludicrous. And more women need to stand up and say so now, with their voices, and in November with their votes. And the thing is, I don't even get a vote. I'm not an American. But there's a high likelihood that I'll end up there eventually, and I don't want to live in a place that holds the rhetoric of what amounts to a th...

So... The Fifty Shades Trilogy. Let's discuss. Apparently we're calling it " Mommy Porn "? Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard of the Fifty Shades Trilogy, and you know that it has exploded in popularity basically overnight. Last count puts it as the fastest selling paperback of all time, edging out J.K. Rowling's (far superior) Harry Potter series. A lot has been said about the books. Some people love it , and profess that it's forever changed their sex lives. Some think it's simply a poorly written story . Some can't seem to get over the fact that Ana is the world's first 21-year-old luddite , and others  refuse to read it entirely. But the narrative that seems to keep getting lost, and the one that I think is most important, is the fact that the Fifty Shades trilogy glorifies abuse .  Yes, ABUSE . And it's not okay that you're okay with that. The Fifty Shades Trilogy via Dorkadore Before I continue, let me be ...