sexual violence
Treasure Box
In Treasure Box, Jamilla VanDyke-Bailey reflects on an important conversation that came too late.
Secret CVs: The Slow Violence of Casual Sexism in Academia
An anonymous whistleblower describes the cumulative effect of sexual harassment in academia.
Black Candles for Bad Men
A supermarket worker turns to her ancestors for help stopping sexual harassment.
Flan Desparramado
A battered woman makes a crucial deal with Dominican Jesus: if she could escape her abuser in order to spend time with her dying mother, she would learn to make flan.
The Doctor’s Tongue
Myriam Gurba maps her sexual miseducation in California schools, homes, and medical offices.
In the Aftermath: Reflections by Survivors of Gender-Based Violence
An historian's witness statement poignantly chronicles the aftermath of sexual assault.
Nonprosecutable: A Review of Shiori Ito’s Black Box
Through personal narrative, journalist, survivor, and activist Shiori Ito examines rape culture in Japan.
I Know You Want It
I was embarrassed to admit I'd been sexually assaulted. It hadn’t really been anything, but it had been giving me nightmares, his lips forming the words, “Your mouth is saying no, but your body is saying yes.” I was someone who was very comfortable, very open, about her sexuality and having sex. Why would the way he acted make my skin crawl for so long after he did it?
Pocas Pero Locas, Episode 3: “Wassup, M’ija?”
After a gang unit stopped my 14 year old cousin for driving in a stolen hoopty, they took her to Eastlake Juvenile Hall and handed her over to a new abuser: a cop.
Pocas Pero Locas, Episode 2: Chicken Soup for the Homies’ Soul
An older homegirl, a hood mom whom Desiree considered her mentor, announced, "I'm jumping you in."
Pocas Pero Locas: An Interpersonal Chicana Essay Where Two Primas Make Sure Shit Gets Told Right
Myriam Gurba writes about her cousin Desiree, female gangsters, cholas, Mexican bad asses with big hair, and the criminalization of survivors.
My Life at the Dildo Factory
A story of workplace abuse: “Saftey words are for Pussies!” read the misspelled Roy-Lichtenstein-does-BDSM faux pop art painting displayed in the office of the Anonymous Sex Toy Company. "Safe, Sane, and Consensual" was the company motto. None of the men running the company understood those slogans were incompatible.
Matt Gaetz: an Extraordinarily Ordinary Creep
What makes the accusations against Matt Gaetz so plausible is the ubiquity of men like him. Many of them work for state, like my former coworker John William Gunde, a high school teacher arrested for sex with a minor, currently on paid administrative leave.
Pola Oloixarac’s Mona is a Devastating Satire That Got Blurbed by a Creep
Pola Oloixarac’s Mona (translated from Spanish by Adam Morris) is a devastating and harrowing satire of the literary world, an alternately hilarious and piercing examination of the culture surrounding books.
Writing Ourselves Into Bed
When battered women "move on," sometimes, we "start over" in a new home that's, in many ways, a reconstitution of our old home. We might not be sharing walls or a roof with the piece of shit who fucked us up but the weapons he used remain. Weapons like a bed. They don't look like weapons. They look like ordinary things. That's what's so frightening about them.