Catherine Gigante-Brown

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.

Wrinkles or lifelines? Chunky or curvaceous? The choice is yours.

I go for checkups when I’m supposed to: every three months to the oncologist and every six months to the breast surgeon. I go to SHARE support group meetings to bolster myself. I try to get enough sleep, despite the occasional night spent wide-eyed with dread.

A new U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation on mammograms ensures more women will die of breast cancer.

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

After I got over the initial devastation, I pulled myself up by my big-girl panties and got on with it. Chemo was no picnic—but it was do-able.

Why, when I'm cool with being a salt-and-pepper chick, does it so clearly unnerve others?

At the New York City release party for Dayna Kurtz’ latest, Rise and Fall, my friend Nadia leaned over to me and whispered, “Why the fuck

“It’s almost as though this niche was patiently waiting for us to find it.”

I realized my father was from a generation that never said those three little words. He was saying he loved me without them. But I didn't realize it then.