Anonymous

When I left the hospital the night that he was admitted, I sat in the parking lot gasping with big ugly sobs and looking for someone to blame — beginning with myself. I'm his mother, and I'm the only consistent parent he's ever had. As I finally made my way home, with tears streaming down my face and my mouth open in a silent scream of pain, all I could ask myself was "what have I done?" How could I have allowed my son to be hurt so deeply, and in so many ways?

... the last thing I want to do is open my legs for a man to penetrate me. Or to pleasure a man with any part of my body. Even if that man is my loving fiancé, who does listen, who does understand (as best he can), who does respect me through this ongoing turmoil. It is all too symbolic of the lifetime I have already experienced of being fucked and then told to smile and politely ask for more.

It’s real sticky-wicked to have your body become unpredictable and tortuously painful. So here I am. Homeless. Meditation is my medication.

In my checkered past, long before I was a member of the PTA, I sometimes worked behind the scenes in X-rated films

I often think about the people in my hometown whose lives were ruined because they live in the “wrong” state. That same stigma causes me to feel horrible after I smoke.

I thought I knew everything I needed to know about personal style and fashion until I started teaching elementary school. I had more fashion lessons this year than a makeover-show contestant, courtesy of 6-year-old girls.

I was married to my own child for 21 years. I thought I was marrying my high school sweetheart, but I was actually becoming my husband's mother.

The sad thing is, it took someone almost destroying me to make me open my eyes to the extent of what happens when we talk not about a culture of consent, but about temptation and defense instead.

Like too many others out there, we have a father who gave us some of his genes and not a whole lot more. Specifically, my father is an alcoholic — has been for the entirety of his adult life.

Sexuality is fluid. And mine has led me from girl-on-girl action to a man inside me.