Denarii Monroe

In a culture focused on the importance and superiority of romantic attraction and relationships — a culture aromantics might call alloromantic-centric — platonic friendships (another form of relationship) are consistently undervalued.

And when you're multiply marginalized and know how much work there is to be done in the struggle for liberation, how few people are doing it, and that our lives literally depend on it, it can feel like you’re letting your people down.

Does becoming an adult mean you have to give up "childish" things like paralyzing crushes on celebrities? Denarii Monroe thinks not.

Honoring my feelings and being true to myself are just as important to me as being critical of the ways that a multiply-oppressive society manifests itself in the way I date, love, and desire.

I had to learn me because I was never given a chance to. People often act like this is easy or shouldn't be hard to grasp, but when you've literally spent your entire life not even knowing what your real hair feels like, it takes time to get used to that, especially when you have no one and nowhere to go to for solid advice.

Much has already been said about the way the Stanford swimmer's privilege has insulated him from consequence, about the ever-pervasive victim blaming in public discourse, and about the inadequacy of the criminal justice system. But in so many of these conversations, in our rage against the rape culture machine, we forget the survivors — the most important people in the fight against sexual violence.