Melissa Petro

Melissa Petro

Bio

Melissa Petro is a former sex worker and "hooker teacher" who has written about the industry for HuffingtonPost, Salon, and others. She is also the founder of Becoming Writers, which provides free and low cost memoir-writing workshops and mentoring to writers of all backgrounds and experiences. More info at http://becomingwriters.wordpress.com. 

Melissa Petro Articles

If you have your wedding at a restaurant, the food is the star. Image: Thinkstock.

Becoming Bride: 5 Ways To Simplify The Wedding Planning Process

Engagements being the universally stressful occasions that they are, what this has meant is that I’m constantly pushing my fiancé to make wedding-related decisions, and he is constantly having to ask me (nicely and less-nicely) to give it a rest. It all came to a head this past weekend.

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Sexual bartering is a close cousin to offering sex as a reward. (Image: Unsplash/ Felix Russell-Saw)

Sexual Bartering: Healthy Bargain Or Potential Disaster?

Is there anything problematic about trading foot rubs for blow jobs? Or is it a healthy way to add a little spice to a long term relationship?

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C-PTSD: PTSD's lesser-known cousin.

Years Of Abuse Have Left Me With C-PTSD: Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

C-PTSD stands for Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) or complex trauma. It’s a diagnostic term for a set of symptoms resulting from prolonged social or interpersonal stress, especially in the context of interpersonal dependence. It’s a tricky diagnosis to land on, given the way trauma is dealt with in the mind and by society. Like Kristof, I wouldn’t have told you there was anything wrong with my childhood. It took years of therapy to catalog early life experiences that were profoundly affecting, if not necessarily severe.

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You know you're a newlywed if... (Image credit: Thinkstock)

6 Ways You Know You're A Newlywed

If you missed my weekly column this summer all about getting engaged and planning a wedding, here’s the highlight reel: after doing

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5 Things To Eat Now That We Know Instant Noodles Are Toxic

Guys, stop eating instant noodles. Seriously, they found lead in them. LEAD. Besides this, our stomachs can not digest them.

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newborn baby (image credit: thinkstock)

I'm Scared To Have A Baby

After gaining as much as forty pounds and pushing a cantaloupe out my vagina, I wondered: will my body ever be the same?

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I’m glad I didn’t get married when I was younger. But delaying marriage has certain disadvantages, too. Image: Brandon Morgan/Unsplash.

Becoming Bride: On Being An Older Bride

The other day on Facebook, one of my friends remarked that I was a “later-in-life” bride.

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Image: CC Patrick Tomasso

Bibliotherapy For The Wedding-Obsessed Bride 

No exaggeration, when I close my eyes— even for a second— I see white dresses.

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Not pictured: a filling breakfast.

Celebrity Diet Nonsense

In an interview last week for The Cut, Bernadette Peters made some absurd statements about how she eats to stay in shape. “It turns out there's no shortcut,” The Cut notes, “just a lifetime of exercise and extremely healthy eating” — except if you keep reading, you’ll see this relationship with food doesn’t sound healthy at all.

“Lately, I’ve gone back to coffee,” the two-time Tony-winning actress begins the interview, as if she’s admitting to a heroin relapse. She goes on to share that her typical breakfast consists of “three little smiles” of grapefruit and a spoonful of hemp powder.

This — which is all of about 50 calories — is fuel for a morning trip to the gym.

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“It’s your day!” —  Britni De La Cretaz, on her day. Image: Justine Johnson Photography

Becoming Bride: The Best Advice From Real-Life Brides

Everyone I talk to agrees: Apparently, wedding planning is the most awful thing ever! Seriously, I did not know that when I first got engaged. This got me thinking... What else don’t I know?

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