Catherine Gigante-Brown

BCBs are loud and proud and refuse to go down easy. And quietly. We have things to say. We have things to teach. We still have life to live. And damn it, we are and we will. With one breast. With no breasts. With reconstruction surgery.

" Sure enough, the doorbell rang one early June day and there she was: curvy, seductive body, smooth black skin, bright blue eyes."

In the photograph, my great-grandmother, Margarita Cirigliano, is sitting at a small table on the front porch of the family home in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

erotic. intimate. unapologetic.

Being a little bit chubby is better than being a lot dead.

The Ultimate Counter Culture Diva

Why do we venerate individuality in adults but condemn it in children?

Candida Royalle pretty much invented couples erotica. She made it socially-acceptable. Respectable. The women in her films looked like real women and had real, comfortable female bodies. And her movies actually had stories. Good stories. She hired her friends—adult legends like Annie Sprinkle, Veronicas Hart and Vera, and Gloria Leonard — to create Femme films too.

From New York to LA, this lady knows a good story.

The office cubicle is indeed a strange bird. Here's how to survive life in a box without driving you—or your office mates—crazy.