Melissa Petro

"I let your “Je Suis Charlie” avatar slide, but trust me: I unfriend people who can’t tolerate a complicated view of women’s participation in the sex trades and who don’t let “victims” speak for themselves. So it’s like Zuckerberg is purposely trolling the way all those ads for Punjammies are constantly appearing in my Facebook timeline, claiming my purchase of their culturally appropriating pajama pants will help some sad, far-off Indian women forge a new life. Without evidence, let’s just assume your PUNJAMMIES™ purchase is an investment in some ugly pajamas."

Want to work responsibly on the issue of sex trafficking? Here’s some of what you should know.

Arran and I joke that no one wants to go to a wedding, not really— and maybe that’s true, but (perhaps naively) we had thought of the day as a gift to everyone involved, including ourselves.

It's pretty well understood in 12 step programs that "who you see here and what you say here, stays here."

So, I got an email from my brother yesterday telling me that he’s not coming to the wedding. “I want to be there,” he writes, “I really do, but the idea of being consigned to [our mother and her boyfriend’s] care for the duration of the trip is driving me mad. You know, the whole lack of autonomy and being on someone else's time and all that.”

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.

Stock photos seemed to get pregnancy and parenting all wrong. When a Facebook friend posted looking for a real life pregnant stock photo model, I offered.

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

How do you break up with a best friend?

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