Melissa A. Fabello

Dirty talk takes practice, but practice makes perfect. And watching your partner orgasm over video is almost as satisfying as it is in real life. I promise.

And so I slid the scale to the back of my closet, started freely eating doughnuts when I craved doughnuts, and simply donated the jeans that stopped fitting instead of holding out hope for them.

You. Are. Amazing. And I mean that. I want to commend you for all of the hard work that you’re doing to put yourself in a place that feels healthy and happy. And even if you feel like you’re not doing much, you’re clearly doing something by reading this in the first place.

As much as I can appreciate any excited person exclaiming that they love “FEMINISM,” that doesn’t really leave me with much to go off of when considering whether or not they’d be a good fit for a position.

I’m a big proponent of teaching our loved ones how, during the holidays, to be gentle with our eating disorders (both in recovery and out).

And it’s that last one that really irks me: that most people — and especially most women’s — new year’s resolutions center on dieting and weight loss as the key to happiness.

And as much as I’m a Swifty, I’m a feminist first (a white one, by the way, at that), and I’m not here for any kind of feminism that would excuse, for instance, Taylor’s misunderstanding that race is irrelevant in pop culture politics (a la the feud with Nicki Minaj that never was).

The list on the board filled up with words like “ambitious,” “curious,” “intelligent,” and “dedicated.” And as my professor was wrapping up the activity, I sighed and raised my hand.

Street harassment. Eating disorders. Rape — three times, including one storyline that involved Zoe being sexually violated at a party by two star athletes who filmed the assault and distributed the video online. Intimate partner violence. Sexist school dress codes. Police brutality and racial profiling. Islamophobia. Sexting and child pornography.