Anonymous

It never felt like sexual assault, him taking the sex I didn’t offer. It felt more like a silent agreement. I surrendered to sex; he didn’t complain.

Being a human is hard. Being a human with an eating disorder is inexplicably hard. Every time I think I have control over the situation, my eating disorder pulls a fast one on me and reminds me what is really in charge — food and exercise.

A fresh perspective from a straight, cisgender man on what it's like dating a trans woman...

Our first IUI happened, and I can describe it as “OH ALL THE SWEARING THIS HURTS SO MUCH WHY IS THIS TERRIBLE THING HAPPENING.” It turns out that I have a scarred cervix, which requires that it be manually opened in order to put in the catheter.

I spent seventeen years in an abusive relationship. Not only do I the physical scars to prove it, I carefully tote a heavy heap of emotional scars. Humiliation, fear, and shame were poured into my heart for years, by a person that claimed to love me - my mother.

What's more dangerous — meeting people on the Internet or meeting people in real life?

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.

Over those five years, I volunteered on hot summer days and rainy mornings. I stood in snow, wearing warm layers and fleece mittens. I volunteered beside women and men, many of them young, like me, but some older and wiser and living out a lifetime of experience on those sidewalks.

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.

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.