Amazons of Rock

Last year I was fortunate enough to guest post on Raised on the Radio. Here, now, is my Amazons of Rock mix tape.

I grew up on Rock. My parents had hundreds of records, and their own individual, rock n' roll passions. My mom's side of the collection had show tunes and novelty records, but also Black Sabbath. My father's collection encompassed the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, and of course the Beatles. I breathed eight bar blues and the discordant tearing of wailing- not singing- vocal cords behind a microphone.

When I turned twelve, I had a lot of guy friends. And we all loved rock music. But the music we listened to was male dominated. Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica...

And so my friends, mostly guys, told me girls can't rock. That rock is the domain of meaty, muscly, long haired men in plaid shirts or no shirts, headbanging or wailing and whining on the front of the stage. And girls... well... there was always Lilith Fair.

So I had to find a way to shut up those stupid friends of mine. I sat down and made them a mix tape. Because girls? They fucking rock.


I had to start with Janis Joplin. Because you always start with Janis Joplin. If you're going to make the argument that women can rock, there will be a token example. And the token example will always be Janis. Get it out of the way. Don't fight it. She rocked harder than anyone in the history of the earth. Listen to her wail, and tell me I'm wrong. This is the legacy of women in rock. We begin here, and then we can move on to the latter years of alternative.



The nineties were the heyday of alternative music. Our adolescent years were a series of albums where every single song could have been described as our personal anthems for a solid month. "Jagged Little Pill" was one of those CDs. Every song. From the first, to the hidden track she performed a capella at the MTV Video awards. If there was one woman current on the radio, current in pop culture, current in music who indisputably rocked... it was Alanis.



The years was 1996. And every teenage girl in America had the impulse to wallpaper her walls with these lyrics. Because we all had a feeling that it was going to be us. Not just a pretended adulthood and inevitable failure, but anger. Anger that we weren't allowed to express as girls. Anger that we didn't know how to put voice to in the image of Kurt Cobain. Girl rage.



Every corner of rock had women hiding in it. From the political to the insipid, women were everywhere. And even if it felt like you couldn't see them, they made up for it in haunting, vivid music. They were masters of imagery. Skunk Anansie never got too successful this side of the pond, but that just gave their fans more cred. We were the feminist rock underground.



Of course, "feminism" was almost a dirty word. It meant manufactured "girl power" and middle aged folk singers who didn't shave their armpits. It was hard to listen to the Shawn Colvins and Loreena McKennits and claim that they rocked. And that was where Ani came in, like a rock and roll fusion dreamscape. There was no question. Ani? Rocked.



This is where the boys would tell me that it's all well and good that those women can rock, and sure, they could. But they have no general appeal. No real commercial appeal. I mean, who listens to Euro-prog-rock and Ani Difranco? Where will you hear that but college radio? So I say, BAM- No Doubt. Am I making myself clear?



Oh- and what was that you were saying about Lilith Fair not being rock music? Because you would be wrong. Dead. fucking. wrong.



No matter how much fun the fans of rock made of the Lilith Fair women, no matter how often they got lumped into entirely separate genres of music, isolated from the general sphere of "pop rock," or "rock," or even "alternative," there could be no doubt. They wailed. They shredded. They rocked.



The fact is that the alternative music scene was full of women. Kick ass, take no prisoners women of rock and roll. The folk revolution might have been alive and well. Jewel might have been singing story songs about mentally disabled teenagers, Sarah McLachlan might have had love songs in every RomCom soundtrack for three summers running. The Spice Girls might have been bouncing around in their ultra-produced pop bubble. But women were tearing it up on the rock scene.



And for all of those naysayers who reluctantly agreed, "Okay, there are some women who rock now. And there was Janis, of course. But this is a new thing. There haven't been a lot of women in rock. It's a male genre. It's guys and testosterone and they do it because chicks love it." To that I said, "Yeah, chicks DO love it. And that's why they've been making spectacular rock since the beginning."

And a bonus track- because there should always be a bonus track...



There have been women in Rock n' Roll since before the Beatles, brother. And they've been killing it since your granddaddy's sock hops. Suck it up, little man, and make way for the queens.

Teaching Through Trauma: Sexual Violence and Sex Positive Parenting

You may recall that over the summer I caused a bit of a stir with my article, "Sex Positive Parenting, or, We Don't Touch Our Vulvas At The Table." In that post I talked about sex positivity and not shaming children for exploring their bodies, and how honesty empowers and protects children.

I've done a lot of talking about this in the months since. I've spoken at conferences, gone on the radio, interviewed on podcasts... it's been a wild ride.

But part of what I've been doing has been very quiet. And that's what I'd like to talk about now.

Since that article came out, people have been writing to me to ask advice on how to talk to their children about sex, with massive caveats.

Parents who were victims of childhood sexual assault.
Parents with children who were born from rape.
Parents with adopted children who came from a foster system that permitted gross sexual misconduct.

I had advocated honesty, total honesty, about sex and biology. I talked about explaining IVF and cesarean sections to children.

So what about these questions? What do you tell a child, honestly, when the honest truth is both horrible, and unacceptable?

I spent a lot of time thinking about this.

I always told those parents at least one thing, "Whenever you are ready to talk to your child about this, make sure you know that it is not their fault. Make sure you let them know that, no matter what happened to them, or to you, they are not to blame, and they are not diminished by having this as part of their personal history."

I recognized as I wrote these words, in endless variations, over and over again, how little they could do to heal the gaping wounds their parents have.

But as more and more parents wrote me, I felt more and more the need to discuss being sex positive with children in the context of a world filled with sexual violence.

You see, in addition to talking about sex positive parenting, I'm a member of the RAINN Speakers Bureau. I talk to groups of teenagers about rape culture and sexual violence. I talk a great deal about consent and power dynamics and the reality of rape versus the popular mythology.

And I always explain, when talking about sex positivity, that this is a way to protect children from rape culture. That when you empower children with the correct names for their organs, and an understanding of what is and is not appropriate, you can protect them from becoming victims. And more importantly, you can stop them from becoming predators.

This is little comfort to children who are already, in some way, victims.

So when speaking to a child about human biology, about how a sperm must meet an egg, and how that sperm usually comes out of a penis when it is inside of a vagina, is that the time to talk about rape?

As much as I, as a parent and a human being want to say no, it's not the time, I can't. I think that it is the time.

I think sooner is generally better, within reason. I wouldn't attempt to explain rape to two year old, but when a child is able to intellectualize human reproduction, I think it's not too soon to come clean with the facts.

And the facts are this- reproduction is beautiful. It is intimate and loving, it is a way to show that you care, and that you don't want to hurt somebody. Just like a hug, or a pat on the head. But sometimes, people do violent things that look like nice things. You can hug somebody too tight and hurt them. You can hit, instead of patting. These are things nobody should do, and that all of us must learn not to do. But sometimes, people do these things. And sex and rape are like that. Rape is not sex, it is turning sex into a violent act. The way a slap and a pat on the cheek are not the same, however closely they may seem to resemble each other in their mechanics.

These are comparisons a child can understand. And so long as the explanation of what rape is, and how it is related to the reproductive process, blame and shame for the child can be minimized or eliminated.

The problem is, rape is shameful. Not for the victim, but for the rapist. It is a shameful, awful thing to do to another human being, and yet people do. And because of the profound shame and discomfort regarding sex we share in our culture, the shame and blame is often misplaced onto the victim. This happens not because it is shameful to have been raped, but because as a culture we are all so afraid of sex that we cannot distinguish between an act of affection and an act of violence.

Telling a child that they are the product of a rape is never going to be easy. It should never be easy, because talking about sexual violence shouldn't be easy. But we still need to do it.

We desperately need to do it. Especially with children.

I've heard the advice, especially among adoptive parents, to associate the rape with the birth mom. To make it about her, not about the child. I understand this impulse, but to me it reeks of victim blaming. We should never associate a crime with the victim, always the perpetrator.

I have a confession. Until I began working on writing this post, months ago, I had not talked to my five year old daughters about rape. Not explicitly. I had done it obliquely, in terms I thought they would understand. I explained rape culture in terms of "hurting" rather than "sexual violence," because explaining to my children what rape is was something that I thought could wait.

I don't think it can anymore. Not as I've forced myself to sit down and read letter after letter from parents who can't wait. Who don't have the luxuries that I do.

And so, I told my daughters about rape. The five year olds, not the two year old. We read "Where Did I Come From?" and I paused after we finished the page that describes sex.

"You know," I said, "Sometimes people do that to hurt each other."

SI looked at me like I was insane. "They do. Sometimes, one person will want to do that, and the other doesn't, and it hurts them. The book says it feels good, and it does, when both people want to. The way hugging feels good. But it doesn't feel good if your sister chases you and pinches you, right?"

"I don't like that when RH does that," DD agreed.

"Yeah. So sometimes, people try to do that to other people who don't want to. And that's not okay. That's not the same thing as sex, it's something else entirely."

And we moved on.

I didn't use the word "rape." As I've discussed before, it's a hard word to use. I've gotten better at writing it down, the more and more and more I practice at it, but it's so much easier to write "rape culture" than it is to write "rape." And it is infinitely more simple to write than to say.

I did not use the word "rape," and I did not say that it had happened to me. Although I know if I'd let the conversation linger, the question would have come up, and I honestly don't know if I could have answered it.

I really, truly, genuinely don't know.

But this is important. It is vital that our children know what rape is, and that it is fundamentally different from consensual sex acts.

I can't recommend my script, because it is still full of holes. I still have no idea how I will one day tell my children that I was raped, twice no less. But it's something I've known since before I became a parent that I must do.

I, and all parents who have survived sexual violence, need to be the face of survival for our children. Not because we choose this, but because we are and always will be their role models. Because what we say and do is what they believe is the right way to say and do anything. And if we maintain a silence about being assaulted, we teach them that what is right and proper is to be silent. But it is not easy. It is never easy.

And if I cannot tell them this without the constant weight of my own misplaced shame, what would I tell them if they were born because of rape?

I know I would tell them that it wasn't their fault. I know I would tell them that I love them, and that nothing that anybody did to me before they were born has anything to do with who they are now.

And I know I would try to have those conversations now, while they would simply inform the facts of their existence, rather than complicate their already difficult adolescence when they must somehow correlate the facts of their burgeoning sexual identities with an understanding of the nature of the act that created them.

This is not easy. This is not simple. This is not fun. There is no solution to how to teach your children something traumatic. Ever.

There is no easy way to explain death. To explain that yes, someday mommy and daddy will die. Yes, someday they will die.

There is also no easy way to explain that human beings are capable of profound suffering, and worse, inflicting it upon each other.

The one question a parent asked me that truly haunts me is this, "There was a line in your blog about how only your daughters have the decision to have sex, but obviously that is not true in the case of rape. I know someday I will have to explain that women are supposed to have the right, but they don’t always. Any thoughts from you in this case?"

My thoughts are these- rape is not sex. The act may look similar, but it is not the same.

There are many ways for a baby to come into the world. They all begin the same way- sperm meets egg. But that can happen in so many ways.

Sex. IVF. Intrauterine insemination. Rape.

None of these are the same.

It is not your doing if your were born thanks to IVF. It is not your doing if you were born as the result of rape. You do not carry the weight of that act. You are loved. You are so loved. And when you are old enough, you will know the difference between what is affection and what is abuse, and in that way you are more than anything that came before you. You are empowered and precious.

This is what I would say, my thoughts.

To those parents whose children came from sexual assault, I would say I have no idea how difficult this conversation will be. I cannot begin to imagine how painful it will be. But remember, the fault always lies with the person committing the crime. Not you. Never you. And not your child.

We can be honest, even if it hurts. We must be honest when it hurts.

Especially when it hurts.

Because children are not obtuse. They see us struggling with our honesty, and it teaches them something important. It teaches then that no matter how hard honesty is, it is essential.

When we are uncomfortable, or in pain, and continue on- it teaches them about bravery.

They are watching us all the time, and they are always learning.

Let them learn the unspoken. Let them learn how utterly horrifying rape is by watching us struggle to even say the word. Let them learn how important it is not to use reproduction as a weapon by seeing how repulsed we are by it. Let them learn how much we love them by holding them and loving them through our own pain and trauma.

Let them learn bravery by watching ours.

I will keep trying. I will keep trying to do better.

And keep sending me letters. I will read them. I always read them. And if I think I can help, if I think there is anything I can do to lesson your burden, I will.

I hope someday, that is a lesson I can pass along, too.

#WhyIStayed, How the Vanity Fair #LiftTOUR is Helping, And How You Can Too

I had this one really bad date, once. Back before M and I got involved.

I'd been out with him once before, and we got into a petty argument about nothing after dinner... which he'd paid for.

I was, as I now understand, a pretty sheltered girl. I'd grown up in a liberal, progressive environment. While I knew sexism and misogyny existed, I'd never really been the subject of either.

He said something about me shutting up, because he'd paid for dinner. And I said something back. Something probably loaded with snark and that may or may not have implied that there was no way in Hell I was having sex with him that night, if ever. Even if I had invited him over to my place for a cup of tea.

And then he grabbed my hair and yanked me halfway across the room.

Like I said, I was sort of a sheltered girl. I was in shock. I was in total disbelief. Who did he think he was? A lifetime of wrestling with my sisters (who fought DIRTY) kicked in on instinct. I elbowed him in the stomach, punched him in the face, turned and kneed him in the crotch, kicked him in the knees and took off running. I locked myself in the bathroom and didn't leave until I was sure he was out of the apartment.

It wasn't until later that night that a song I'd learned back in middle school started running through my head ad nauseum. It was a self defense mantra somebody had put to music- in a cheery rhythm, the vocalist croons, "Eyes, knees, groin, throat!" to remind you where to hit your attacker to cause the most pain in the shortest period of time, so you can get away. Yes, it was a real song.

I was, in retrospect, ridiculously lucky. It was a second date. I wasn't involved with him. I could walk away.

Most women who discover they're dating abusers aren't so lucky.

Reading the #WhyIStayed feed on Twitter has been harrowing, but in many ways more uplifting than I could have imagined.

Here are women, spurred into a kind of action by the Ray Rice video, coming forward and talking honestly about domestic violence.

There are a few things you need to take away from #WhyIStayed.

The first is that women in abusive relationships aren't just victims of physical violence. They're victims of emotional manipulation as well. Most abusers threaten self harm, either explicitly or otherwise. Their victims feel guilty for not helping them.

The second is that leaving is often the most dangerous thing a woman in that situation can do. A woman is most likely to be murdered by a boyfriend or husband, and then most likely to be murdered if she's in the process of leaving.

We've normalized it. "If I can't have you, no one will!" We've practically romanticized it. And it's terrifying.

Many women, when they fight through the guilt and fear, face other challenges to leaving. They don't have control of their finances, which means they will run away from shelter and food into homelessness. Many have children, who they risk losing to the custody of their abuser.

These are real concerns.

When Janay Palmer says she doesn't want to press charges against her husband, this isn't just Stockholm Syndrome. This is self preservation.

She now has an abusive husband at home, without a job. Things are no doubt about to be much more dangerous for her. And while she may stay with a man who hits her, who abuses her in inexcusable and unforgivable ways, we cannot judge her. This is a man who has the money to post bail if she did press charges, who could kill her or take her kids. Those are real concerns she must negotiate as she decides how to extricate herself from a situation that she knows better than anyone else.

Leaving is hard, and yet, it is achievable. But only with help. With tremendous, collective help. It takes the help not just of a good friend and supportive neighbors, it takes a massive community to help women get on their feet and start a new life.

This week, I was fortunate to get an opportunity to attend a Vanity Fair event, to benefit Dress for Success. I was planning on going anyway- I was going to write all about breasts and taking care of them- after all my sex positive posts, it was a no-brainer for me to talk about body positivity and bra fittings. The fact that Vanity Fair was donating bras to Dress for Success was icing on the cake.

But then the Ray Rice video broke. I didn't watch it. I'm not going to watch it. And although it was on my mind, I didn't dwell on that one horrible turn a long-ago second date took. Instead, I started thinking about the day, six years ago, I spent volunteering at a Dress for Success showroom. I helped sort clothes. Anything too old, anything stained, anything that didn't look brand new and fashionable and professional went on to be donated elsewhere. The showroom gleamed. And everything inside was free.

I talked to one of the women helping us volunteers keep things organized. She told me she'd been in an abusive marriage for eight years, and it was seeing her children get hurt that made her leave. She told me about the homeless women who come in, the women fresh out of jail and living in shelters, who are treated with respect and dignity, as customers and not as charity cases.

That woman's voice was in my ear all week.

Dress for Success is part of the massive network out there to help women get out of abusive relationships. It's a non-profit that provides women with professional clothing to wear, not just on a job interview, but to work. To get them on their feet. More than clothes, Dress for Success provides career development tools as well.

And Vanity Fair is partnering with Dress for Success to donate brand new bras.

As often as people donate new and gently used clothing to organizations like Dress for Success, underwear is rarely part of the gift. And a properly fitting bra can do wonders not just to make you feel comfortable and supported, but to help you feel in control of your body, and your life.

I say this as somebody who has a nearly impossible time finding bras that fit. (Seriously, YOU try finding yourself a comfortable 34 or 36 J. Yeah, I said J. On top of being freakishly huge, they also grow out of my neck. That is not a joke. My chiropractor should be paying for my bra purchases, these boobs probably pay her mortgage.) Truly, a good bra is like magical armor.

The Vanity Fair LiftTOUR is going across the country through the end of October, fitting women for bras (for free), and giving them the opportunity to donate a brand new bra to a woman in need. When you donate a bra, you have a chance to write a note of encouragement, tie it to the bra with a ribbon, and be certain that whatever woman becomes its owner feels empowered and encouraged.

I'm honored to have had the chance to help Vanity Fair and Dress for Success reach out to women in need.

Join up with Vanity Fair and Dress for Success when the LiftTOUR comes near you. Help women in need become empowered and independent.

There's more you can do that reading an endless stream of #WhyIStayed tweets, feeling overwhelmed and helpless. You can partner with organizations working with women to put an end to their domestic violence.

Those two things I wanted you to take away from the stories of survivors- remember them. Remember that victims must choose the time to leave carefully, and that when the time comes they need mountains of help. They need villages upon villages.

You can be part of that.

Thank you.

My Body, My Choices- Thoughts on the Chicago SlutWalk

Over breakfast on Saturday morning, I reminded the children that we were going to a rally. To protest, as I simplified for the children, when people are mean and hurt other people, then say it's the other person's fault because of what they were wearing. I told them, as I often told them, "You're in charge of your body, and nobody is allowed to touch your body without your permission."

"There will be lots of people with signs there. I think most people will have signs. Would you like to carry signs, too?"

"Yes!"

"What would you like them to say?"

DD answered in typical DD fashion: "You should wear whatever you want to wear because you get to wear what you want and people shouldn't be mean to you because of what you wear and you get to wear what you want and if people are mean that's not okay because they don't get to choose what you wear and you do get to choose what you wear and they don't get to be mean to you."

"That's an awful lot to put on a sign. How about, Wear What You Want To Wear?"

"Yes! Can it be pink?"

"Yup! SI, what do you want your sign to say?"

"How about, I'm in charge of my body?"

And so I made the kids signs, and RH freaked out. "I want a sign! I want a sign!"

As we were on our way out the door, I grabbed a sharpie and whipped up a quick little sign for her, without asking first. Considering that RH is the most stubborn kid I've ever known, I thought a message she's approve of was that she makes the decisions regarding her body. This is already as true as it can be for a two year old. "What's it say, mommy?"

"My body, my choices."

"MY BODY! MY CHOYZIZ!"

"Good enough."

Forty minutes later, we were at the fourth annual Chicago SlutWalk.

Of course the kids were a hit. Everybody who stopped and asked what their signs said got an earful. SI especially loved telling people EXACTLY what her sign said, and what that meant. She got a lot of high five from essentially topless women.

I was so proud of them. I was so proud of them for asking intelligent questions all afternoon, and being patient through over a mile of marching. I was so proud of them for being polite and kind to the people there.

I took a picture of them with their signs, and when we got home, I put it on the Becoming SuperMommy facebook page and twitter.

Within hours, the backlash came.

Let me be clear- I have taken my children to SlutWalk twice before. I have published pictures of my children at SlutWalk twice before.

Never have I experienced anything like this.

@OMFG_Josh @bcmgsupermommy it is creepy giving signs 2children 2hold in that setting. Who else does that? Oh yea, #westborobaptistchurch O.O
— ....... (@onwrongplanet) August 24, 2014

“@bcmgsupermommy: Took the kids to @slutwalkchicago #slutwalk #rapeculture pic.twitter.com/3AbLZUUm58” Take this fucking whore's kids away!
— Mr. Mayhem (@OMFG_Josh) August 24, 2014

.@OMFG_Josh @bcmgsupermommy @slutwalkchicago this woman should be arrested and put under the jail for what she did to these kids #slutwalk
— Alexiis Starr (@AlexiisStarr) August 24, 2014

Maybe it's because all the responses I've had to previous year's SlutWalk posts have been so positive, I was blindsided. And more than that, I was hurt.

Because, knowing full well that one should NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER engage with a troll... I responded to them.

And what they said pained me in my soul. Not because of the personal nature of the attacks, that didn't bother me at all. It was their profound blindness to reality.

@bcmgsupermommy @slutwalkchicago who the hell says people are blamed for being attacked? I know nobody who says that.
— Rusty Shackleford (@mattohmyjones) August 24, 2014

@bcmgsupermommy @onwrongplanet And the fact of the matter is that chicks who dress like sluts are treated like sluts. As they should be.
— Mr. Mayhem (@OMFG_Josh) August 24, 2014

@bcmgsupermommy @mattohmyjones @slutwalkchicago Having sex w/ someone who doesn't want to have sex, is NOT rape.
— J M B (@JahMMARastafari) August 24, 2014

What got to me was knowing that in attempting to help my children escape and change a culture that devalues them for being female, that will condemn them for what they wear and blame them for their own victimhood, I have exposed them to a form of that violence.

I knew it was possible that as we marched people would shout unkind things. I was ready to talk to them about it. To teach them.

What I wasn't ready for was being personally attacked for teaching them. And I realize now how profoundly naive that was.

The fact is that we live in a culture where events like the SlutWalk are still necessary, because we live in a culture where college students are devoting their time to inventing nail polish that detects date rape drugs. We live in a culture where thousands of people think it's a good business idea to produce rape-proof jogging shorts.

And there IS a need, and a market for those things, because sexual violence is RAMPANT.

When they go to college, I don't want to have to take my daughters shopping for anti-rape pants and nail polish that changes colors when exposed to roofies. I don't want my children going to high school and being able to relate to a new generation of teen political anthems, like this punch-to-the-gut country song:




Yes. There's a country song about Steubenville-esque high school date rape. Because this story is so damn common that it's horrifically relatable.

THIS is the world we live in.

This is the place I have to teach my daughters to navigate. To survive and thrive in.

This is the world I have dedicated myself to changing so that the burden my daughters bear will be lighter.

I took my children to a place where women were dressed provocatively, some wearing only thongs and pasties. Because the point is that IT DOESN'T MATTER. It doesn't matter what a person wears- they are STILL a person. They are STILL in charge of what happens to their body.

It doesn't matter if they expose their body, that's not an invitation to ignore their autonomy. It's not an excuse to dismiss their ability to say 'no.' It's not public property, even when it's visible.

After the hate mail started coming, I asked M if he was glad we took the children.

"Of course I am," he said. "While I was walking, and reading all the signs and everything, it really hit home for me in a way it never had before. How one out of three women... and we have three daughters..."

I will not apologize for taking my daughters to SlutWalk.

If I had sons, I would be even more determined to take them. Because it is our sons more than our daughters who constantly hear messages that women exist for their pleasure. While I've had many fears about raising girls in my years of motherhood, until Saturday I hadn't really understood what it must be like to fear raising boys. To fear the mechanism of our society that wants to taint them, to train them, to pat them on the head and permit them to become abusers.

I would take my sons to the SlutWalk, and say to them- "These are people. All of these people are PEOPLE. And when you see somebody in next to nothing, or naked, they do not stop being people. They don't suddenly lose their right to control what happens to them. Remember that for the rest of your life."

I will not apologize for teaching my daughters that they control their bodies, and their fates.

But I will apologize for this world, because I am a part of it. And until I can be confident that I have more than done my part to make it safe for them to exist here, as girls and then women, the guilt that has plagued me most of my life will continue.

I am responsible for them. For now. For a short window in time, I am in charge of keeping them safe- and more importantly, teaching them to remain safe.

I'm going to keep doing it the best way I know.

At SlutWalk '14

At SlutWalk '12

At SlutWalk '11

Losing a Friend You Can Always Find

Ten years ago, I met this girl.

I have to admit, at first I had some reservations about her. I knew her through our mutual friend, her roommate, and she was a bit... odd.

At barely 18, she had left home and moved across the country to where her boyfriend lived. A boyfriend she'd never met in person, but had known online for several years. A boyfriend I only met twice in seven years.

She was a vegan self-made expert on feminism and human sexuality, and although her quiet snark could cut, she was sweet and conscientious to a fault.

We became friends. Close friends. I helped her get a job with me, working eldercare. She made herself incredibly unpopular with management of the senior center building when she brought to light the sexual abuses undocumented women were experiencing at the hands of the people they were caring for.

She was always looking out for other people.

I liked her a lot. Truth be told, I loved her. She was one of my closest friends. She stood up in my wedding. She helped me move furniture. She modeled for me when I painted.

She was a good friend.

I probably wasn't so good a friend. I went through a lot in those years. I needed a lot. And maybe, I didn't realize that she needed more from me. She was such a giver, she made it easy to ask favors, to ask for help.

She helped me when M and I moved in together. She helped me when he was going through chemo. She helped me get ready for the wedding. She helped me move again, when I was six months pregnant with twins.

And then one day, I called her. I'd seen on facebook that she and the long time boyfriend were engaged, and I wanted to offer my congratulations. She didn't want to talk to me. She was angry at me. I'm still not really sure about what, but she had a list.

The strange thing was, most of the things on her list? They weren't real. She told me I'd never liked her fiancé, who I'd only met twice (once at my wedding). She accused me of stealing a DVD, which I promptly bought and had shipped to her. She told me she hated the portrait I'd painted of her.

I sat on my bed and listened to her list my faults and my transgressions, and I apologized. I couldn't think what else to do. And when I asked what I could do, she told me I could never contact her again.

I agreed, and she glibly told me goodbye, and hung up.

It took me a few months to do everything she wanted me to do. To unfriend her on facebook, and take her off my google chat list.

It sucked. Every second of it sucked. Because she was my friend, and I loved her, and I was heartbroken that when it seemed she was so happy and life was going so well for her, what she wanted most from me was to leave her alone. Forever.

I've kept my word, for the most part. I haven't contacted her. But when her new husband sent me a friend request, I took it. And although it's been four years now, I can't help myself. I check in on her.

You see, people are easy to find now. Particularly when you have mutual friends. A quick googling, a run through photos on somebody else's wall, a few unflattering minutes searching...

You can kind of stalk anyone you want to. And you shouldn't.

But it's hard. It's hard when I see her name published somewhere, and know her career is going well, it's hard to know I can't send her a note telling her I'm happy for her, and I'm unaccountably proud, and I'm glad she's doing exactly what she knew she wanted to do when she was eighteen.

Social media is amazing. With social media we can keep up instantly with the news. with our celebrity icons, with television shows we like, with bands we follow, with the teams we root for. Thanks to social media, I can find out nearly instantly when my friends have babies, or get new jobs, break up, or have a really awesome meal at a restaurant I want to try.

But it also makes us, all of us, accessible in a way we never have been before. Anybody can probably find me, if they try hard enough. Just as I can always find somebody I knew once upon a time, but lost touch with, somehow.

I miss her, and being able to see her whenever I want, from a distance, makes it linger. Makes it impossible for me to just pull the plug and unfriend her husband (who I have never disliked), and tell myself to stop looking for her articles.

But I keep hoping one day she'll miss me, too. And one day she'll check and see how I'm doing, and maybe just click "like" on just one thing, just once.

Because she was a good friend, and I miss her.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately, as the release date of the new HerStories book about the end of female friendships approaches. I have a piece in the book, but it's not about this friend. This ex. Because whenever I think about the idea that our friendship is really over, that it's really done and everything that could be said has passed... it still hurts.

Four years later, it hurts. And I still wish I could call her up to let her know how glad I am that she's happy. How glad I am she was my friend. How no matter what has happened, I'll still always be there for her. If she ever wanted me to be.



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"My Other Ex: Women's True Stories of Leaving and Losing Friends" comes out next month. You can pre-order below



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My God is Better than Your God, or What the Hobby Lobby Ruling Could Mean For You

Today the Supreme Court decided that Hobby Lobby doesn't have to provide birth control to its employees, despite federal laws that dictate otherwise.

Hobby Lobby claimed that provided contraception violated their religious beliefs. Now, religious institutions... churches, non profits... they were already exempt from these federal laws. But Hobby Lobby is a for-profit corporation. Legally, as Mitt Romney reminded us, a person.

To give you an idea of why this is such a terrible precedent, I present myself. The married mother of three. The accomplished crafter. The SAIC educated artist. The DIYer. I am exactly who Hobby Lobby wants shopping at their store. And I am also who they want to work for them.

Most of the people behind the anti-abortion movement consider themselves religious. And the anti-abortion movement and the anti-contraception movement are closely linked. It seems like madness, but it's true. Because in both of these cases, the philosophical center of the debate is women, daring to have sex for pleasure. If they get pregnant and need an abortion, they're evil, selfish, sinning harlots. If they don't get pregnant because they successfully use contraception, they're evil, selfish, sinning harlots.

That's the common ground. That's where it starts.

Now Hobby Lobby, who claims deep religious beliefs, says it's an infringement on their freedom of religion to support those evil, selfish, sinning harlots if it provides them with a third party insurance plan that includes birth control*.

The fact is that about 99% of women in the US have used contraceptives. Married women are among the most reliable users of the pill*. Working women rely on contraceptives.

And NOT just to keep from getting pregnant.

Birth control regulates periods, letting you control what day it begins, how long it lasts, or even if you have one at all. And with all the side effects of menstruation (cramps, headaches, insomnia, etc.), being in control of when or if these symptoms occur INCREASES your productivity at work.

So if I worked at Hobby Lobby, they would have the right to ensure that I am minimally productive for at least one week out of each month.

Hobby Lobby, which says its deep religious beliefs are behind this legal action, wants to make sure women follow its Christian values. But I don't have Christian values. In fact, as a Jew, it is essentially to me that I take contraception.

The most important law in all of Judaism is to do what you must "in order to preserve life." You can eat any non-kosher food, break the Sabbath, anything- IF it preserves life.

If I get pregnant, I get melanoma. If I get pregnant, I get cancer and a uterus ready to explode. If I get pregnant, I run extremely high odds of death. For me, contraceptives preserve life.

Now that Hobby Lobby has the right to deny me my legal protections because of their religion, I might be fired for taking off my Jewish holidays. Or if I skipped shul and went to work on Yom Kippur, I could be fired for refusing to take my lunch break, what with my fasting and all.

Now Hobby Lobby has opened a door that MUST be closed, to the elevation of one religion over another.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Hobby Lobby has the right to ignore federal laws under the guise of religious persecution, it's open season on non-Christians in the workplace.

Because as much as these right-wing conservative blowhards claim there is a war against Christians in this country, it's a lie. What's happening is that our country, founded with the understanding that there must be no state instituted religion, founded by men of faith but not CHRISTIAN faith, by theists and deists and Quakers, has reached a point where the "other" religions are visible. Where once in a while, a Christian might assume that everyone around them is also Christian and be wrong.

Jews, Hindus, native peoples, Sikhs, and horror of horrors, Muslims are all around us. Living in peace, administering to their faith in peace, and generally going about their lives.

This so-called War on Christians, it's the realization that Christians don't have the absolute majority anymore. That there is enough of a voice of "others" out there that when a statue of Jesus or the Ten Commandments appears on a state house, somebody is going to complain. Not just to whine for the sake of whining, but because this great country was founded on something important.

"All men."

Not Christian men. Not white men. And not even all male "men." All people. They all have the right to their religious beliefs or to none at all. And no company is above that.

At least, not until today.

It's a dark day in American History. A day when all the non-Christians stood slack jawed and shocked, amazed that now their employer could dictate their lives beyond work, based on some idea that their moral authority is better, that their faith is more important, that their God is better than your God. Or even that their personal idea of God is somehow superior to another person's.

I'll leave you with this, rather than my own furious ramblings.

“I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”
~Thomas Jefferson


“We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition… In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws...”
~George Washington




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*Yes, I know the ruling specifically covers a subset of contraceptive methods. And despite what you may have heard, these methods (IUD, morning after pill) are NOT abortifacients. This still sets a tremendously dangerous precedent. The precedent that YOUR BOSS gets to decide what medication is or is not covered by your plan, based only on your boss's own perceived religiously moral superiority. If YOUR BOSS says that blood transfusions are against his religion, or that mammograms are against his religion, should he have the power to remove those options from your third party insurance? I think not. And I am not alone.

Sex Positive Parenting, or We Don't Touch Our Vulvas At The Table

It happened yet again. As I was sitting at the table for dinner with my children, I noticed my daughter's hand fishing around under her skirt.

"We don't play with our vulvas at the table. Go wash your hands and finish your food," I scolded. She nodded, ran off to wash her hands, and resumed picking at her dinner instead.

Small children, they touch themselves. A lot. It's fascinating to them. And when you're a small child, you have no sense of shame or disgust or fear of your body. Your body is what it is. It does what it does. And everything that it does is kind of amazing, because you're not old enough for lower back pain. It's not sexual, it's just... fact.

The first time I caught one of my kids playing with their genitals, I said absolutely nothing. I was momentarily paralyzed with indecision. One thing I knew for a fact I did not want to do was to shout, "No!" or "Stop!" What good could that possibly do? Sure, I would be spared the awkwardness of catching my child playing with her genitals on the living room floor, but what kind of lesson is that? To fear or ignore your own vagina?

I thought about it almost constantly for two days, and of course she gave me a second chance to react.

"Sweetie, we don't play with our vulvas in the living room," I said. Which sounded ridiculous and strange, but nonetheless true. Why is everything with little kids "we" statements? "It's okay to touch your vulva, but people are private, and it's a private thing. The only places where you should touch your vulva are in the bathroom or in your bedroom. If you want to play with your vulva, please go to the bedroom."

And she smiled and did, without question, because compartmentalizing where you do certain activities makes sense to little kids.

"We don't eat in the bathroom, and we don't touch our vulvas in the living room," became the new mantra. And yes, eventually it became, "We don't touch our vulvas at the table."

I'm what some people call "sex positive." That doesn't mean I talk with my four year olds about how great sex is and how good it feels. It means I don't pretend it's something other than it is.

As parents, we lie all the time. About the Easter Bunny or Santa or the Tooth Fairy, about how long ten minutes is, about whether or not we remembered they wanted to have grilled cheese for dinner again, we lie a lot. But one thing I never lie about is sex.

I don't want them to grow up ashamed of their bodies or confused about what they do. I don't tell them about cabbage patches or storks, I make an effort, always, to be honest about human reproduction. Every aspect of it.

I've had talks with lots of other moms about having "the talk." I don't think my kids and I will ever have that particular talk, because they already know. And we talk about it often- kids are obsessive creatures. We read "Where Did I Come From?" and "What Makes A Baby" which together cover every aspect of the subject. We can talk about IVF and c-sections, because both of those are part of the story of their births, and we can talk about the fact that yes, mommy and daddy still have sex regardless. And when they're older, we'll start talking about contraception.

Because lying to your kids about sex helps nobody. Telling them that sex is "only between mommies and daddies" is a lie that leads to confused, hormone charged teenagers. Telling them that sex is "only something that happens when two people love each other very much" is a lie that causes hormone charged teenagers to confuse "love" with "lust," or "obsession." It leads to leaps of logic like, "If I have sex with them, we must be in love." Or worse- "If I love them, I have to have sex with them." And how many teenage tragedies are based on that misconception?

The truth is that human beings, almost universally, like sex. It feels good. And it's supposed to feel good. If it didn't, the human race would die out. The truth is that sex isn't special and magical just because it's sex. The truth is that you can have spectacular sex with strangers who's names you don't even know. The truth is that just because you can, that doesn't necessarily mean you should.

And that's what sex positive parenting really is. Not telling my kids lies about sex to keep them from behaviors I don't think are healthy. It's telling them the truth, the whole truth, and letting it sink in so they can make their own good choices.

It's telling them that sex is good, but that it's dangerous if you're not careful. It's teaching them to require their partners to use condoms, to buy their own condoms if they're planning on having sex. It's teaching them that while sex feels good, they can feel good on their own too. (Just not at the table.) That while sex combined with love is often the best sex- transcendent sex- that grows the bond of love and builds a closeness that is almost impossible to find otherwise, sex isn't always like that- even with people you love. That sex can lead to pregnancy, even with protection, so engaging in it is a commitment to deal with any consequences.

It's telling them they're not wrong, or sinful, or bad, if they have sexual feelings. Or even if they have sex. It's teaching them that sex happens, whether people always make good choices or not. And it's giving them the tools to ensure that when they're ready, they're smart and cautious and conscientious.

There's a lot of black and white comparisons when it comes to sex education. Some people think that once kids hit puberty, if they don't have a strong fear of sex they'll have as much as they can, as often as they can. There's a lot of abstinence-only sex education, based on telling kids, "SEX IS SCARY! DON'T DO IT!" and it's about the least successful program anyone has ever invented. In states with abstinence-only sex ed, teen pregnancy rates only go up and up and up.

Telling children the truth about sex isn't giving permission for them to have it- and this is the most important part- because nobody has the right to deny them permission for sex but themselves.

And that's the thing I try to keep in mind when I say things like, "We don't touch our vulvas at the table." Sex is something that ONLY happens when both people WANT it to happen. And that means that the only people in the entire world with any kind of say over whether or not my daughters have sex is them.

I don't get to tell my daughters they have to have sex, but I also don't get to tell them they can't. They're in charge. Your body, your decision.

I never want to be responsible for setting the precedent that another person gets to tell them what to do with their bodies, and especially with their sexuality. I don't want to be the gateway for a manipulative, potentially abusive boyfriend.

So I teach boundaries. Appropriate places. Hygiene. I teach my children that nobody is allowed to touch their bodies without permission. When we get in tickle fights and they say, "Stop!" I stop.

And when we talk about pregnant friends, we talk about uteruses and sperm and eggs.

And most of the time, it's not uncomfortable. Most of the time, I'm verifying information and the conversation lasts fifteen seconds.

And someday the conversation is going to be a lot uglier. Someday, we'll have to actually talk about rape, and explicit and enthusiastic consent, and contraception. Someday we'll have to talk about healthy masturbation and pornography and realistic expectations of sex and sex partners and body image and a lack of shame for their bodies. And those conversations are not going to be as brief or straightforward.

But I'm ready. Whenever that day comes, I'm prepared. Because the groundwork is there.

"We don't touch our vulvas at the table." It's absurd, but it's got all the important pieces. It's a micro-lesson in safety and consent and social propriety. I don't think I'll be able to say, "We don't lose our virginity in the back seat of a car after a Prom party," with a straight face, but I will be able to say, "We don't have sex without thinking long and hard about it first, and we certainly don't do it without being careful, and being safe, and being totally confident in the maturity of our partner and our ability to handle the repercussions if we get a disease or get pregnant."

Because it's true. We don't.

But I like that when that time comes, I'm part of the "we." Because if I can tell my girls, "we" have to be careful, they'll know that no matter what happens, I'm still in their corner. I've still got their backs. Even if "we" make bad choices, I'll still be there to help make things right again.

All My Little Words

A glimpse of my own writing process

I know it's a day late, and I apologize... but this week's Twisted Mix Tape is a doozy.

Really, an enormous challenge.

You see, the prompt is lyrics.

I'm a writer (as you've probably noticed).  And, if you've been reading along and listening along for my own Twisted Mix Tape contributions for the last... months or so... you'll have noticed that lyrics are kind of a big deal to me. I pick them apart. I look at their poetry, at their meaning, their symbolism and their innuendo.

You might not know this, but before I ever started writing this blog, or short stories, or books, or anything else, I was a poet. I still am a poet. And I wrote songs. I appreciate how difficult it is to tread the line between insipid and pithy, and the challenges of putting those words to music.

So- lyrics. How to choose? How to narrow it down to something even borderline acceptable?

You take two whole days staring at your computer, humming in the car, singing to your children, and generally thinking about the songs that speak to you, and why.

A lot of these songs are self referential when it comes to writing, and the process of writing. Because lyrics are written. And a lot of them are melancholy or bleak, because I've always found that there is more that sticks with you when grief or anger or loneliness is exposed than when you find another way to express joy. But even so, it's all worth a listen.

It's all more than worth listening to.

It's all worth savoring and memorizing and scribbling in the margin of notebooks.





Let's start with the act of writing, as poetry itself. No, let's just start with one line. "I've got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains." Sometimes it's the lyrics that make the song. It doesn't matter what beautiful instrumentation or arrangements are behind them. Like so many on this list, picking just one song to represent the amazing oeuvre of songwriting was nearly impossible.



One of the greatest songwriters of all time. Picking just one Bob Dylan song feels like insanity. But I tried. Feel free to start a debate in about which song I ought to have chosen, and please include links. I'd love to have an extra mixtape made by all of you in the comments.



Ani is getting the second spot, because her words have always spoken to me so strongly. It's a strange thing, being a thirteen year old girl. I wasn't fortunate enough to have flawless skin. I was short and busty, big haired, heavy browed, somewhat broad shouldered. I didn't look like a willowly, blond haired, tan skinned Gwen Stefani clone. I didn't look like the girls in the magazines, or on TV. And while part of me understood all the while that it didn't make me ugly, it did make me... not pretty. This is the song that opened the doors to Ani for me. For a few years of my adolescence, "I am not a kitten stuck in a tree somewhere," was my mantra.



Any list of brilliant lyrical songs would be incomplete without Leonard Cohen. His earlier works weren't so much folk songs as they were beat poems to rival Kerouac or Ginsberg, set to music. He's not just a songwriter, he's a Canadian poet laureate.



The 20th century was filled with incredible song writers, who told stories and made jokes. I thought for a long time about putting a Cole Porter song in here, but in a lot of ways Cole Porter was limited. There's a great beauty in the longing in his lyrics to say something more- but he was constrained by the times he lived in. Stephen Trask wrote this number, and if you've never seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I can't recommend it highly enough. I don't know what the rest of Stephen Trask's work sounds like, but I'm happy to judge him by one score along. And that by this song.



Bjork is so much more than a writer. She's an inventor, and an artist, and an innovator. But yes, she's also a poet. I love the way she puts words together, and sets them to music without any kind of care about styles and norms. It's a beautiful thing to hear.



I wanted to put in a Beatles song here. I really did. But no matter what I started with, I always came back to this. I love Sir Paul, but John Lennon was the better writer. And this might be his lyrical masterpiece. (Okay, it's a six or seven way tie.)



You know somebody is a genius of a lyricist when you absolutely can't choose. I actually had to pass over "I Am A Rock." I finally settled on American Tune. "I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered, I don’t have a friend who feels at ease, I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered or driven to its knees"



Songs with lyrics that stay with me, that change me, war protest songs are at the top of the list. But no song has moved me personally so much as this one. It's painful. But it's honesty is moving and jarring and hard. And that's important. That's what good lyrics, great songs, should do.



Another one that stays with you. One of the greatest and saddest and most poignant songs of all time. I include this version, not because it's Billie Holiday singing and she wrote the thing and deserves your everlasting respect and admiration for doing so, but because of this performance. Pole dancing really is evolving into an art, and with a song that is so thoroughly art as "Strange Fruit" for her number... well... it haunted me all over again.



Now that we've covered pain and suffering, let's move to love. And the pain and suffering it entails. If you haven't listened to the Magnetic Fields triple album "69 Love Songs," you're only punishing yourself.



I leave you, at the end of this painfully incomplete and insubstantial list, with Etta James' magnum opus.

Bodily Autonomy- End of the Month Controversy

Having a uterus makes life complicated.

It shouldn't have to. After all, more than half the people on the planet have one. But along with the uterus comes, theoretically, the ability for it to become occupied.

And there is an intense debate raging in this country about who an occupied uterus belongs to.

As a person with a uterus, I think this is pretty clear. I think it's a black and white proposition- the uterus is mine, and I get to do what I want with it. I can donate it to science when I die, I can have it removed if it becomes diseased, I can take medications to regulate how and when it sheds its lining, I can have it surgically altered so that my eggs can't reach it.

This is called "bodily autonomy." It means I have the right to do what I want with my body, uterus included. And we, as a culture, care a lot about bodily autonomy. We care about it so much that we make sure it's protected even after death.

That's why you can't just harvest all the kidneys and livers people on those wait lists need from conveniently dead people. We respect the wishes of the dead, and if before they died a person said, "Please do not cut open my body and give my kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, valves, corneas, or any other parts to other people. I would like to be buried with them, according to my own traditions and customs," we say, "Okay, cool! Keep your organs!" And then we let them take their parts to the ground with them.

I know, this is very morbid. But follow me for a minute here.

There is a small but organized and vocal minority that says all of this bodily autonomy changes the moment a woman decides she wants to control how her uterus works.

See, birth control doesn't just prevent a woman from being pregnant. It's so much more. It allows women to count on a precise 28 day cycle, which begins and ends on the day of her choosing.

I can't tell you how many working women I know who coordinate their birth control with a weekend, so that if their period comes heavy or uncomfortable, or brings with it mood swings or migraines, they know they'll have those symptoms over a weekend- minimizing the impact on their jobs.

I can't tell you how many women I know who neglect the "off week," and simply eliminate their periods from their lives for months and months on end.

Having a period is a tremendous inconvenience, but it is much less so when you know precisely when it's going to happen, or that its associated complaints will be minimized medicinally. I would think, for this reason, that any employer who wanted to get involved in the process or whether or not their female employees had access to birth control would opt for yes.

Who doesn't want to ensure that their employees won't get nauseated or headachey or depressed on a monthly basis?

And considering the notorious "mommy tracking" women experience, being passed over for promotions and opportunities because their employers fear becoming less of a priority to them than their children, the additional protection of ensuring a lack of pregnancy is kind of icing on the cake.

So why on earth would an employer want to deny their employees access to birth control?

It's because of this idea that a woman's bodily autonomy ends where her uterus begins. This small, vocal, organized minority believes that a uterus really only serves one function- to produce more humans.

So if a woman takes a step that might prevent her uterus from producing more humans... they can't have that.

We have a problem in this country, in that this small, vocal, organized minority has a lot of money, and with that a lot of power. And they're using it to promote an agenda that people with uteruses aren't really people, and shouldn't enjoy the same right to bodily autonomy as people without a uterus.

It's because of that vocal minority that women who experience the tragedy of still birth are being charged as murderers.

But it's not just the uterus that's up for legislation and prosecution. More and more, it's any distinguishably female characteristics. A woman in in Arkansas was arrested for drinking a beer while breastfeeding, and charged with child endangerment.

Yes, drinking and breastfeeding is generally bad. But breastfeeding is hard, and many doctors and midwives have advised women for centuries to drink a little beer or wine to ease painful or stressful letdowns. This woman drank two beers over an hour and a half, and as a human being and legal adult, that is her right. But is it child endangerment?

Would somebody have called the police if it was champagne, and she was at a wedding?

More and more, I fear the answer would be yes. Because that small and vocal and organized minority is organized. They are waging a campaign to shame and humiliate women who dare use their uterus, breasts, or ovaries as they please.

Because when you have bodily autonomy, it means you're a person. Like any other person.

And that means you have the right to equal pay. To fair treatment. To privacy between you and your doctor.

Each step this small, vocal, and organized minority takes to remove another organ from a woman's bodily autonomy is another step towards their proof that women aren't human anyway. And once a woman has no right to control her uterus, her breasts, or her ovaries, what's next?

Vaginae? Feet? Brain?

We're not collections of disparate parts, to regulate and control. We're people. With the same rights to control what we do with our parts that corpses enjoy.

And whether or not you agree with abortion, I think we should all be able to agree on that.

Becoming A Hero

I don't like the phrase, "Things happen for a reason." Enough terrible things have happened to me and my family in my short time on Earth to resent the idea.

I much prefer, "Things happen." Because they do. Things happen constantly, and yes, some people experience worse than others. And you can't exactly choose how you respond to these things. You can't control experiencing fear, or sorrow, or anger, but you can conquer it once it's already there.

And once you've done that, you can decide what you want to do with the experiences you've had.

That's why I joined the RAINN Speaker's Bureau.

I've talked about it before on this blog, a couple of times. But let me tell you, that is a far cry from what it's actually like to stand in front of a room full of people and actually tell your story. Not just any story, the events leading up to and including the worst you've ever known.

But it's not just sharing the story. It's giving it a broader context. Using it as a tool to teach.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak at a high school, for 120 high school juniors and seniors. Their teacher is a remarkable educator. He invented an advanced health class that teaches students about health and sexuality, with all the uncomfortable conversations that entails. Students are only allowed in by teacher referral, and only upperclassmen in good standing.

Each year for the last eleven, the students in this class do a mock date rape trial. Students are given roles, from medical examiner to judge to defendant. This class is one of those formative experiences. One of his former students went on to go into law, crediting this experience solely as her motivation.

For the first time in the eleven years this class has existed, all four sections' mock trial juries came back with a "not guilty" verdict.

And for the first time, the teacher reached out to the RAINN Speaker's Bureau to have a survivor, of events nearly exactly like the story he constructed for his students, come to speak to his class. For forty five minutes. For four separate groups of students.

And that person was me.

There's something you experience every time you talk about sexual assault. It's a certainty that somebody is going to call you a liar. To deny your story, to tell you that if events happened as you described, you are still to blame.

Walking into a room of teenagers who found a date-rapist not guilty is that experience under a magnifying glass. Already, this group of teenagers- a notoriously judgmental and self assured group- has decided that the assailant, in a case nearly identical to yours, was not at fault.

What can you possibly say to explain the truth?

The day before the presentation, I lost my voice. Completely lost it. I spent a whole day chugging hot tea, avoiding raising my voice, and swallowing spoonfuls of honey. But when I showed up I was still hoarse and quiet.

As I stood and started to speak, the students stilled themselves to perfect silence. It might have been the only way to hear me. And while I spoke, my hands shook.

But with every word, as they stared and listened, my voice got a little stronger. After twenty minutes, my hands had stopped shaking.

I didn't just tell my story. I told the kids they had been right to choose a not guilty verdict. That rapists nearly always get off scot free, that victims are usually blamed and hushed and ignored or made to disappear. And I told them about the notorious Reddit thread where rapists confessed, and provided us with a rare glimpse into what really goes on in the mind of someone who commits sexual assault.

And I talked about rape culture- I explained that the ideas they had about a girl "asking for it" because she was drinking were wrong. I explained that everything about the way our culture addresses sex and sexual assault comes from the fundamental idea that it's a woman's job to avoid being raped, as though rapists are phantoms, or weather patterns.

I talked about consent, what it is and what it isn't.

The kids asked questions, and I was shocked and impressed by the depth and candor of their questions. I was amazed by their insight. And I answered them as honestly and candidly as I could, no matter how painful.

I spoke for three hours, and it got a little easier as it went on. After each class a few students came by to ask more questions, privately, to say thank you, or to engage in a quick conversation about rape culture.

And I was floored.

By the time I got home my voice was worse than gone, and I felt exhausted in a bone deep, emotional way.

But I felt like maybe, just maybe, I had really done something that made a difference.

I told those kids that what had been missing from their trial, and from all rape trials like it, was somebody who could stand up in court and say, "He knew, without a doubt, the victim didn't consent." I told them that now everyone in that class had the ability to be that person, because everyone in that class could explain to their friends, their siblings, their parents what is and what isn't consent. So everyone in that class had the power within themselves to prevent sexual assaults from happening, by preventing rapists from becoming rapists.

I think it hit home for many of them. I hope it did.

And as for me? I feel empowered. And perversely enough, I feel fortunate. This is something I could do for the rest of my life. With my life.

Things happen. And I'm glad I've found a way to give them meaning.