Are You A Proud Plant Parent? Show Off Your Babies!

I came late to the houseplant game. I live in the Bay Area, so I’ve been subletting for years – meaning I never wanted to start a new relationship with a plant only to have to say goodbye when I couldn’t take it with me!

But now I’m a bit more settled, and taking care of houseplants is so lovely and therapeutic. I’m so proud of the little brood of babies I’ve been raising over the last year or so, and I want to show them off! Maybe you do too?

I surveyed some of the plant parents here at Autostraddle, and we’re all so excited to show off our little ones. If you’re a plant parent, show off your babies in the comments, too!

Abeni Jones, Contributing Writer

Nearly all of my plants were adopted! The spider plants were clippings from my mom, and the red leaf one was a cast-off I rescued from my old coworking space. The yellow-green hanging vine one (a pothos?) and the monstera were a dollar each from a moving neighbor, and the palm tree and cactus were rescued from a different moving neighbor! The only one I bought was the pilea from Trader Joe’s (underrated houseplant purchase location)!

Kamala Puligandla, Deputy Editor

Presented without comment! [Author’s note: they’re a Calathea Rattlesnake and Calathea Medallion, we think!]

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Contributing Writer

The massive bird of paradise was quite tricky to get home from the plant nursery we went to in Vegas when we first moved here! We got the sago palm for a lil’ taste of Florida in Vegas. There’s my rosemary plant featuring bonus dog! And three more babies!

Himani, Contributing Writer

This is Kermit, the bog. He is just a few days old and home to several carnivorous plants, including 13 Venus fly traps and a sundew native to NJ!

Sarah Sarwar, Director of Marketing & Design

This is LaShonda, aptly named by Shelli who works at this website. She’s a Bird of Paradise that I got after a therapy session, as a treat. I also installed a flowering grow light over her because I really, really want her to bloom one of those intense orange flowers. Currently LaShonda has THREE new leaf curls, and she gets kisses once a week.

Shelli Nicole, Writer

Khadijah, Synclaire, and Maxine! We are all just Living Single and wishing it was a 90s kinda world. Even though it’s not I’m still glad I got my baby girls. I also stay with fresh flowers in my spot, it’s been harder since the lockdown but I get what I can from Whole Foods when I got to my weekly shopping trip since all the local spots closed. Oh and I get all my plants from Black Rabbit in Chicago in the Pilsen neighborhood :)

Carmen Phillips, Senior Editor

I didn’t grow them, but I got these at the grocery store and cut their stems and put them in the sun to bloom and look what awaited me when I woke up this morning!

Nicole Hall, A+ and Fundraising Director

I don’t have houseplants but here are my radish sprouts instead!

Casey Stepaniuk, Contributing Writer

I am so-so at keeping house plants healthy but so far my first foray into outdoor gardening is going great! Strawberries, blueberries, rosemary, and lavender, and peas! I’m happy that I have both plants referenced by Fiona Apple: “I spread like strawberries/ I climb like peas.”

Riese, Editor-In-Chief / CEO / CFO

This is Margot [Author: another pothos?], I am in consistent fear for her life.

Vanessa, Community Editor

These are my scallion babies.

How To Post A Photo In The Comments:

Upload your photo on the web, right click (or control+click) it, hit “Copy Image URL” (or “Copy Image Address”) and then code it in to your comment like so:

<img src=”http://imagelink.jpg”>

If you need a place to upload the photo, try using imgur! To learn more about posting photos, check out Ali’s step-by-step guide.

What Was Your AIM Screen Name and Do You Wanna Log Back On?

For those of us over a certain age, 90s nostalgia is hitting right now. Remember when it cost a few cents to send a text? When the Internet seemed so full of potential to positively transform society? When we were gracefully shielded from the truth because presidents didn’t have a tool to constantly let us all know their terrible inner thoughts, and we didn’t have a literally unlimited number of perfect-looking “regular” people with amazing lives to compare ourselves against?

Shelli started it, by posting a picture in our Slack of a laptop logged into 1997chat – a simple web service that allows you to relive the 90s by utilizing a clunky, basic instant messenger client that looks a lot like AIM, which everyone born between 1980 and 1995 (and surely lots of other folks as well) was using every single night. I asked out my first girlfriend over AIM! A lot of breakups also happened over AIM. Likely a lot of “cyber” sex, too. But mostly just good old wholesome chatting with friends!

Curious what your friendly Autostraddle writers and editors’ screen names were? Let’s surf the Information Superhighway back down memory lane!

Shelli Nicole:
I downloaded this and It feels right

Drew Gregory:
Oo I am definitely going to join you
I just need to think of a screen name
I could keep SprtsFreek1224 from my elementary school days but I’m not trying to prove as much now

Shelli Nicole:
Wow I literally have aim up while writing an article as an out queer girl in my own apartment. My 14 year old self is so happy
Oh my original was seashellz59 :)

Vanessa:
mine was VeeGirlie12 and princezzvee

Archie:
Going back to my Age/sex/location roots

Christina Tucker:
Mine was… SwexyLlama77 for a while

valerie:
I had some… really embarrassing ones. My very first one, my mom made up for me, because I was in like 5th grade… it was AceReader. Though to be honest once I started choosing them on my own they weren’t much better. We had the very original ButterflyGirl713 and BroadwayGirl713 (worth noting here that my birthday is not, as these would suggest, July 13th), SportyAlien3 (Sporty Aliens 1 and 2 were my friends Lisa and Kasey. We were very into Sporty Spice and, well, aliens.)

Abeni:
mine was DratiniJ for a while, which is a pokemon
and then i had a lot with underscores and x’s in it. like xx_somber_mood_xx kinda stuff lol. i’m glad i don’t remember those ones verbatim

Malic White:
My screen name was horses4eva90, so I am required by law to be gay now.

Heather:
My AOL screenname was GeorgiaMntnBiker, which sums up several things about my personality that are still true to this day: I am very Southern, riding a bike is my favorite activity, and I have never been capable or interested in being coy. Whatcha see is whatcha get! 🚲

Kayla Kumari:
My AIM screenname was lovexpeacexunity and I have NO COMMENT

riese:
my first AIM Screen name was PopTartGod, because I loved pop tarts more than anything in the world

Rachel Lewis:
I do not remember my screen name but in case it’s helpful, I desperately wanted my screenname to involve “xxx” because I thought that’s what the cool girls had, and then my mom told me I couldn’t. I got pissed off at her, but then she finally explained that “xxx” referred to sex/porn/explicit content/etc and I was so embarrassed that that memory is stronger for me than my actual screenname itself.

sarah:
i was pinkskittle619 on AIM and then switched to mIzZgUrLiEgUrL when we got AOL

Bailey:
AOL was sybagirl. Big mistake. Big. HUGE.

Jehan:
I’m here to sheepishly report that my screen name was urbanbeauty13. I can’t even explain how much this choice makes me physically uncomfortable to this day 🤦🏾‍♀️

Kamala:
umm, mine was GRIF105 which was a baseball reference to Ken Griffey Jr. who I guess saw as like daddy inspiration, and this radio station in the bay area called Live105 which was where I listened to Nirvana, Bush, The Counting Crows, Weezer, Everclear and all my favorite bands. I was in a masc phase in 5th grade?

kaelyn:
I was Magenta512, for the character I most identified with from the Rocky Horror Picture Show (which yes, I’ve already unpacked exhaustively), Magenta. I also had a Sim named Magenta Curry around this time in my life.

Drew Gregory:
I just made my away message Fiona Apple lyrics and it was pure serotonin
I hope my sister doesn’t message Kori Denning on my account while I’m in the shower like she did when I was in 5th grade

rachel:
just thinking about hearing the door creaking sound effect has leveled me

What was your screen name? Your buddy icon? Did you use glitter girls or BRATZ in your “profile?” How do you feel about it now? Are you gonna exit out of those group chats, log off of Twitter, and jump on the 1997 train to go back to the simpler times of AIM like we are, apparently, doing right now?

Let’s F*ck Up Some Bagel Bites

If I had to pick a one true love when it comes to food, I would hands down, 100%, choose Bagel Bites. On the morning of my birthday every year, my girlfriend brings in my breakfast: a fresh tray of Bagel Bites (because what monster transfers them to a plate). She gifts them to me while I sit in bed and I eat them all while she watches, probably amazed by how stunning I look as I shove each and every one into my mouth before I’ve even gotten up to pee or put my eyebrows on.

The case for Bagel Bites: they are affordable and lovely and delicious no matter what. Undercooked? Still good. Overcooked? Still good. Forgot about them in a depression haze and now you’re digging them out of the microwave an hour later? Still good. Bagel Bites are not a stride into the ~world of wellness~ or a food I would call healthy, but they are a good food. They have tomato sauce and cheese and protein. Sometimes they have pepperoni, but I’m a vegetarian, so that’s gross. I like my Bagel Bites without flesh, thank you!

And, they’re a good food in many different forms. Most major grocery stores offer their own versions of Bagel Bites, with Target, Walmart, Harris Teeter, and Trader Joe’s offering pizza bagels, though of course Trader Joe’s calls theirs “Spizzico di Pizza” because they’re Trader Joe’s, so they had to be extra and try to make a pizza bagel a fancy food. Ultimately, though, Bagel Bites are amazing because not only are they affordable, but you can get them in fucking huge packs: Bagel Bites come in 9, 18, 24, 40, and 72 count varieties. You can be like me and get a larger pack and then make a little charcuterie of Bagel Bites with a side of Bagel Bites. A damn delight.

You can also make them work for you. Here’s the scoop on that.

How to DIY Bagel Bites

Keep it simple. Get your favorite mini bagels (I’m not fancy about my bread so I typically just do whatever store brand is available), and get a marinara sauce, and then get some shredded cheese. If you wanna step up your game, get some fresh bagels and make your own marinara sauce and shred your own cheese. Alas, while I like cooking, when I am in anxious or stressed out times, all I want is to not cook and for my food to take one minute and thirty seconds in the microwave, so I rarely make them myself.

Alternative ways to step up your Bagel Bites prior to fucking them up: make them on an english muffin to make them crunchy, or make them on a regular-sized bagel so you can really hold it in both hands and shove it into your face. In terms of details, this recipe from The Comfort of Cooking recommends cooking them at 400 degrees for about twelve minutes. They also suggest adding pineapple, which is a yes from me.

How to DIY Vegan Bagel Bites

Swap cheese for Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds, which don’t taste exactly like cheese but are somehow better than your standard shredded mozzarella, in my humble opinion as a vegetarian and not a vegan. Grab some mini bagels, like Thomas Mini Bagels, which are vegan. This recipe from Strength and Sunshine is also gluten-free, which is nice, and this recipe from Lila Ruth is vegan and also teaches you how to DIY grain-free bagels from scratch. Fancy as hell.

How to Set the Scene

Bagel Bites are best observed in bed. They do especially well with a thick, gooey face mask (my votes: Cocokind’s Chlorophyll Mask, the Bliss Marshmallow Mask, or the Laneige Water Sleeping Mask, which is extra nice because you don’t have to wash it off) that starts to dribble down your chin because you can just pop a single bite right into your mouth without having to figure out how to take a bite without getting face mask all over it. For a solo date night, eat them in the bathtub while you have a book at your side that you’re for sure totally not going to end up ditching for your phone just to aimlessly scroll through gay TikTok. Find someone cute and share them, but only if you really want to or if you have enough that you actually have to share. It’s your right to never share a Bagel Bite ever, no matter how nicely they ask. You put in that minute and thirty seconds and they’re all yours yours yours.

Let’s fuck these up together, shall we?

Fetch Those Bolt Cutters, Emotionally Intense Weirdos: It’s Fiona Apple Album Day

Today is the day, folks — the day 90s sad girl icon and triple Virgo Fiona Apple is releasing her first album since 2012 with Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Originally slated for a later release date, Fiona actually moved the album’s release up to April 17 after she finished recording in March, giving us all something to look forward to (??). Here it is, for those of us who didn’t listen last night:

Where to begin, really, with this emotional juggernaut during one of the most emotionally intense periods of our collective lives? Although it feels like 10,000 years ago, this profile in The New Yorker actually came out mere weeks ago, and sets a bit of the tone for what surrounded this album. It is apt, as many have now noted, that this work comes out of a lifestyle on Apple’s part that is perhaps not unlike the one we have now all adopted: she lives in near total seclusion with her seeming platonic life partner, Zelda, and their Bernese Mountain Dog, whom Zelda cooks fresh tilapia for. She tries to deal with her complex trauma and has ongoing complicated emotional entanglements with her ex(es). There’s also this portion, which was in part the inspiration for this article:

More recently, Apple has become close with a few younger artists. The twenty-one-year-old singer Mikaela Straus, a.k.a. King Princess, who recently recorded a cover of Apple’s song “I Know,” called her “family” and “a fucking legend.” Straus said, “You never hear a Fiona Apple line and say, ‘That’s cheesy.’ ” The twenty-seven-year-old actress Cara Delevingne is another friend; she visited Apple’s home to record harmonies on the song “Fetch the Bolt Cutters.” (She’s the one making that kooky “meow.”)

But Apple has more complicated dynamics with a wider circle of friends, exes, and collaborators. Starting with her first heartbreak, at sixteen, she has repeatedly found herself in love triangles, sometimes as the secret partner, sometimes as the deceived one. As we talked, she stumbled on a precursor for this pattern: “Maybe it’s because my mother was the other woman?”

Does that read as, uh, a little gay of center to y’all? Not to toot my own horn but I’ve been doing this for a while now and I can spot a sudden departure from gendered pronouns a mile away!

How are you spending this day? How did you spend last night? Are you a newcomer to the Fiona party and would like a welcome? Fantastic news for you! This is a great time to join the club — she’s sad white girl music, yes, but also ecstatic, wry, optimistic, measured, angry, weird, generous. One way in is to consider this post I wrote when we were all in uh, a place, or to sit with this playlist Drew made that is all those songs in reverse to bring you from despair to peace, perhaps more appropriate and helpful now that we’re all also in a different, worse place! If you’re not really feeling Fiona but want to be able to participate in the Vibe (TM), this playlist from Laneia I used to listen to while I made breakfast every day after I got divorced is gonna be great for you.

What are you taking away from Fiona Day? What are your takes on each track? We’re not going anywhere! Share them here!

How to Make DIY Face Masks for Coronavirus

feature image contributed by Sam Manzella

We’re in the midst of a global pandemic. Words most of us never thought about before are suddenly crowding our brains: novel coronavirus, droplet, community spread, containment, drive-through testing, social distancing, curbside pickup, masks. Even at the best of times during a public health crisis, new information is immense and best practices can change quickly, leading to confusion and panic. In the United States, we are not exactly experiencing the best of times during a public health crisis, and finding clear, direct information about how we should be proceeding during this scary and destabilizing time has not been easy.

The latest confusing issue? Masks. For a deep dive reported piece on what’s been going on with masks, read Ed Young’s Everyone Thinks They’re Right About Masks for The Atlantic. Basically, the people of the United States were told not to wear face masks, with a clear campaign endorsed by The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that civilians should avoid buying masks and leave them for medical professionals. But with continued community spread and the acceptance that humans with zero symptoms can carry and pass on the virus for up to 14 days, the CDC has changed its recommendation and now says everyone should wear a mask when leaving home. One major important thing to note: a mask is simply an extra defense for when you have to go outside – it should not make you feel as though you are free to stop practicing social distancing. Also, when making masks at home, not all fabrics are created equally – here are some guidelines from scientists about which fabrics work best for DIY face masks.

Hoarding medical masks is still obviously a no (you as a civilian don’t need an N95 mask and you absolutely should donate any of those you may stored in your house to hospitals where the staff on the frontlines really need them!), and in many places it’s impossible to find any kind of mask to purchase at all. Lucky for us, queers have been crafty since the dawn of time, so this should not deter us. As soon as the mask conversation shifted, no fewer than ten queers on my Instagram feed started showing off their skills by creating their own DIY face masks. I have faith in us.

Here are some of my favorite tutorials for making DIY face masks. If you’ve found other ones you like please drop the link in the comment section, and if you or another queer you love are selling handmade face masks on Etsy (or elsewhere), let us know so those of us who would rather let someone else make a mask for us can support you!

How to Make DIY Face Masks for Coronavirus

1. No-Sew T-Shirt & Bandana Mask Tutorial from the CDC

2. More No-Sew Options compiled by HuffPost

3. Easy Sew T-Shirt Mask from MasksNow.org

4. Serious Sewing Option from CraftPassion

5. Another Serious Sewing Option from MakerMask

You Should Make A Blanket Fort This Weekend

A humble suggestion: you should make a blanket fort this weekend. Literally why not? Then you should take pictures of your fort, post them to Instagram, and tag us (@autostraddle) so we can share your forts on our feed and it can feel as though we’re all in a cozy blanket fort together.

Here are two forts I made this week, for inspiration!

Fort 1

Statement of design:

Built in 20 minutes, this fort’s purpose was to create a sunny reading area rather than be a fun build. I intentionally built it around a window to allow maximum light into my new lounge spot.

Fort 2

Statement of design:

A nighttime fort! The design was accidentally a teenage spaceship headed towards ice cream. That is all.

See you in your blanket fort! Virtually, while we all stay home.

Duolingo is Gay! And It Could Be Gayer!

Duolingo exists to teach me French – supposedly.

The year after I studied abroad I used it every day like a meditative practice. It didn’t improve my fluency but it helped me maintain where I was at as I hoped to someday get back to France. Then I missed a day and – after weighing the likelihood of upcoming international travel – I didn’t open the app for five years.

When I decided to start using Duolingo again last month it wasn’t because I thought I’d be going to a French-speaking country anytime soon. It was literally just to displace my impulse to check Twitter during a stressful election. I was trading the blue bird app for the green bird app.

The most delightful change to the language learning tool in my absence was the addition of a section called Duolingo Stories. These simple narratives that gradually introduce new vocab remind me of the Bob Books I read in pre-school. This way of learning a language makes way more sense to me than the sometimes very random sentences in the main part of the app.

ALSO they’re funny, surprisingly progressive, and even gay???

That’s right. Story #6 titled “Honeymoon” is very gay. Not with a Disney-style exclusively gay moment, but with some actual textual Le mot L dyke drama. (According to IMDb it was just called L Word in France but let me have this.)

The story begins with Sophie dans un taxi and the cab driver is like bonjour or whatever and she’s like take me to the airport, s’il vous plait. Not reading her vibe the driver is all chatty and asks if she’s traveling for work. Now if you’re a new French speaker this might be difficult because travail means work, not travel, but I am not a new French speaker so I was just like cab driver her tone did not imply the desire for conversation please stop talking.

ANYWAY. Sophie is in a state and so she’s like, fine you want to talk let’s talk. I have a ticket to Toulouse – I have DEUX billets pour Toulouse. The cab driver still not reading her tone is like I love Toulouse and Sophie doesn’t skip a beat to say that actually she’s on her honeymoon!

The cab driver is nosy AND heteronormative so he asks where her husband is. Sophie is like actually MA FEMME and also that’s not even the issue here because my gay wife isn’t coming with me! Finally, Sophie admits this has not been a good day!!

The cab driver apologizes and it’s like yeah dude this is why you need to learn to read tone!

They arrive at the airport and at this point I’m on the edge of my seat. What happened with Sophie’s wife?? Why is Sophie still going on her honeymoon??

We do not learn the answers to these questions BUT Sophie’s wife Marie is at the airport. She says she’s désolée. She’s says je t’aime. Sophie says je t’aime aussi. And then they’re off to Toulouse!

I’m so glad these two worked things out. I’m sure they’re going to have a great marriage.

I’ve finished the first three sets of ten stories and so far this is the only one that’s explicitly gay. But there are SEVENTEEN sets and I see no reason why there can’t be more of this much needed representation. Here are some of the titles I’ve yet to unlock and what I’m hoping they’re about.

“It’s My Ex!” – The options with this one are endless. My guess is une jeune femme and another jeune femme have just started dating and things are going great. But then they start talking about their most recent exes and UH OH it’s the same person!

“The New Teacher” – This one must be a coming-of-age story about a little baby lesbienne who falls hard for her professeure. She’s so distracted by her teacher crush she doesn’t realize her best friend is in love with her!

“A Very Bad Movie” – I’m imagining a couple of dykes go see the latest buzzed about gay movie only to be disappointed that it’s just two femme femmes having male gaze make outs and then one of them dies.

“Long-Distance Relationship” – I’m thinking a classic love story between a queer in the US and a queer in France who meet on Instagram and it ends with them deciding to move in even though they’ve only been together in person once. It was a magical week! Ne juge pas !

“Camping” – No description nécessaire.

If I needed an excuse not to check Twitter during the election, I certainly need it during a global pandemic. Maybe you do too. And if along the way we improve our language skills? Well, that’s great! And if the stories are gay?? Encore mieux !

The Baby-Sitter’s Club Is Coming To Netflix And We Are Very Excited

The Baby-Sitter’s Club is gay! Sorry I don’t make the rules, when a fictional tomboy named Kristy wears a baseball hat and has a great idea and that idea is to start a club so that she and her best friends can hang out all the time in Claudia’s bedroom eating snacks and caring for their community while they grow up together, that is a gay story! Especially when it is written by a queer woman, Ann M. Martin! Very gay, tale as old as time.

I’m pretty sure the poster for The Baby-Sitter’s Club movie, released in 1995, is one of my personal gay roots, and Autostraddle’s very own Senior Editor and Baby-Sitter’s Club Enthusiast Carmen Phillips has formally made the bold statement – which I agree with entirely – that the entire club is gay.

https://twitter.com/carmencitaloves/status/1238143256283709442

With that said, I assume you will understand our pure gay joy over Netflix producing a new series about our favorite sitters, and also our extreme dismay that the show isn’t available to watch RIGHT NOW. Yesterday Netflix released a new poster for the series along with its casting decisions, but so far, there’s no premiere date. We will wait (not very patiently) with bated breath to see if perhaps they will make one (or all?) of the sitter’s canonically gay.

All this talk of the Baby-Sitter’s Club reminded me of my absolute favorite blog from 2010 – perhaps you read it too. Laneia did! Remember What Claudia Wore? God I loved this blog. Kim, the genius behind that endeavor, now has a baby (!) and an Instagram called Baby-Sitters’ Cover Critiques. I love growing up together on the internet. What were you up to in 2010?

Anyway! Can you believe how many people ghost-wrote those books? My favorite was the super special edition – I think it had a shiny silver cover with holographic stars??? – where they went on a road trip and they each got to pick one destination, do you know the book I’m talking about? Maybe I should reread every copy of The Baby-Sitter’s Club.

In conclusion, we love The Baby-Sitter’s Club, The Baby-Sitter’s Club is gay, and it would be great if Netflix could start airing episodes today, thank you very much in advance!

The Moon Is A Lesbian and So Am I

Ask The Plant Doctor: You Have Questions About Your Houseplants, Cee Has Answers

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In Honor of Rude Women

feature image via YouTube/Disney

This winter, I was watching The Grinch when I realized the reason that Martha May (played by Christine Baranski) made me Feel Things as a child: she’s glamorous, sure, and she really does make an adorable Who, but, most importantly, she’s just a little bit rude. Even as she clearly flirts with the Grinch with her eyes, she sides with her asshole husband and has, for her entire life, aligned herself with bad people, preferring unnecessary wealth to goodness. She uses her beauty to get what she wants. And yet, I found her so deeply appealing, not knowing as a child if I wanted to be like her, or if I wanted something else.

There’s a lot of overlap between queer culture and rude women because so many villains onscreen are queer-coded. On all of the various lists on the internet about “if you liked these characters, you’re gay now,” are the villains who grabbed our attention in our youth, or in our current lives: Take Shego of Kim Possible, who wasn’t at all a nice woman, and instead was a snarky character and a literal villain; yet I always found myself drawn to her and her neon green outfit. Halle Berry as Catwoman, and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin piqued my interest in similar ways, as I liked the ways they flitted around onscreen, moving slowly and increasingly sensually, making men feel bad and yet keeping them interested. Their niceness was always a farce, a trick meant to make the guys, good or bad, do their bidding. Raven of Teen Titans, though not a villain, is definitely not a typical nice girl, as she’s decked out in all black and wears her hair short and purple, a look of disinterest on her face for the most part, unless she’s looking on at her friends with disdain or frustration (throwing out the only occasional smile). Many of these characters gain their queer-coding as villains, or as women who challenge the norms of what a feminine woman not only should look like, but be like.

Another example that comes to mind is in the hypersexual, why-do-I-find-this-queer Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Angelina Jolie’s character Jane is clearly an outcast in her friend group of sweater-wearing, book-club-loving women. She sits on a floral couch wearing a pink cardigan and pink dress, attempting to play the role expected of her as a wife and a woman, but clearly fails, her dress sliding away to reveal thigh-high black boots and fishnets. She is doing womanhood in the stereotypical, man-approved way, quite wrong. While you can argue that the scene is more male gaze-y than anything else, done to light up the eyeballs of male viewers hoping for a peep of Jolie’s famous legs, it feels more like it serves the character herself and illustrates her inability to, ultimately, fit in. She’s not supposed to be there.

There’s power to be found in women behaving badly—and in women behaving rudely. In 2014, HuffPost reported that a study found that men are most interested in “nice” women, with niceness associated not just with sexual attractiveness, but with femininity. There’s an entire discourse about niceness, and about the ways that women do or don’t, or should or shouldn’t communicate. Every three months a new article comes out about if we should use exclamation points, telling us at first that it makes us look desperate and over-eager, making it easier for our coworkers not to take us seriously and for our emotions to boil over, and then telling us that we’re being rude by not catering to the needs of the people we communicate with, arguing that women’s words come across too cruelly when not punctuate with a rollout of emojis and exclamation points. Memes float through Twitter and Instagram about how many exclamation points we should use; at this point, we have no choice but to laugh about it. Then, of course, there’s, “You should smile,” the IRL version of the exclamation point, the request that demands that women physically illustrate their happiness at all times lest we cause stress to our viewers, strangers or otherwise. In 2012, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh created an art series titled “Stop Telling Women to Smile,” and yet, nearly a decade later, the issue persists, ultimately for a frustratingly simple reason: our cultural expectation that women be nice, and that they be nice in the way that most pleases our individual expectations.

The swirling bullshit surrounding perceived niceness and perceived womanhood feeds my admiration for women who don’t bow to it. Now, at 27, I still struggle with it, maybe even more than I did as a teenager arguing with fifty-year-old men in Target who told me I was pretty and should smile more. It feels easier, sometimes, especially being a queer Black person who is afraid of everything, to just smile and throw in exclamation points and answer the strangers in my DMs who demand my time and energy and expect it.

On my cat’s forth birthday, I described her as terrible lovely, and a friend commented, “I aspire to be described as terrible and lovely.” I also aspire to be terrible and lovely, or maybe to just be terrible, or maybe just to surround myself in love and friendship with terribly rude women who don’t smile unless they feel like it and accept the title of villain if it means they get to experience life and emotion on their own terms.

So, please, in honor of rude women: who are the rude women you know (or don’t know) and love? Can we flirt with/admire/aspire to be ruder, together?

What Are Your Earliest Internet Memories?

I’m not 100% sure if humanity was ready for the Internet. Here in 2020, we’re really approaching the nadir of Internet culture, in my opinion. So let’s go back to the “good old days!” What are your earliest Internet memories?

I remember surfing the Information Superhighway when I was about 12, which… holy shit, that was literally 20 years ago! Am I old? Well, probably not. Either way, being old is great! I love getting older. I’m so happy I’m in my 30s, they’re amazing. But I grew up with dial-up, and AOL, and buying an external CD burner so I could make mix CDs of all the great songs I downloaded off of Napster.

Some of y’all came of age when the Internet was already a THING, like you had social media in middle school, which sounds absolutely terrifying and I can’t thank Goddess enough that I am too old to have experienced what must be a hellscape for today’s youth. I am blessed there are almost no records of the things I did and said as a pre-teen, because I would be mortified (oops! Actually, the Wayback Machine remembers some stuff). Then again, youth today also have autostraddle dot com and literally limitless resources online to learn about, figure out, and be affirmed in regards to gender and sexuality, so…

And some of y’all were already adults by the time you got Internet access! You were in college going to the library to find information that was in a book and only in that book, and typing your essays on typewriters or maybe getting access to the PC. And now you’re watching the young people ruin their lives — and/or get fabulously wealthy and have incredible success and fulfillment — on the Internet!

I asked some of the team what they remembered.

Abeni: Y’all what are your earliest internet memories

Drew Gregory: SmarterChild!!!
An entire generation’s first experience flirting was talking dirty to AIM bots with a group of giggling friends

Shelli Nicole: Mine is blackplanet for sure
I made a page on their and migente.com for some reason

Abeni: i asked out my first gf on AIM

Drew Gregory: My first serious crush and I went back and forth on AIM with a lot of like “Does your crush have brown hair?” “Is your crush in our class?” until finally we established that we had crushes on each other. Her screen name was Shamrocker17 but I also think I did a lot of this crush talk via her best friend who was GoodCharlotte42.

Abeni: OMG ok i just remembered downloading and printing out nudes of LARA CROFT when i was like 11

Drew Gregory: !!!

Abeni: i PRINTED IT OUT
and got caught lol

Drew Gregory: That’s so bold I’m so impressed

Shelli Nicole: Nooooooo!!
Also learned about clearing browser history due to porn very fast

Abeni: not the last time i’d print out porn lol. those pictures took like 10 minutes EACH to download you bet i was saving them under my bed for safe keeping

Drew Gregory: I just YouTube searched Girls Kissing a lot…

Christina Tucker: ME TOOO

vanessa: My earliest internet memory is crafting the perfect AIM profile and away message and talking to Jason O about how he wanted to date Jenna S
Also loved LitErotica.com, TeenOpenDiary, the weird celeb role playing community on TeenOpenDiary (I was Leslie Bibb and I “dated” David Boreanaz?), and this website called EmoBoysKissing

Drew Gregory: EmoBoysKissing!!

Abeni: emo boys kissing!!!

valerie: i loved away messages. and chat rooms. i may have mentioned this before but i used to be in Buffy role play chat rooms a lot.
we RP’d some gay shit
but i was like “this is fine and normal straight behavior”

riese: leaving song-lyrics as AIM away messages to communicate passive-aggressive points to my ex-boyfriend

Heather: i built a geocities website in 1997 called Heather Anne Land

riese: oh yeah Marie’s Awesome Website exists

Heather: and then i moved on to volunteer moderating the chamber of secrets forums on mugglenet

riese: Marie’s Awesome Webpage contained: quotes from my so-called life, an entire transcription of a monologue from ellen degeneres’s book “My point and i do have one,” and a ray bradbury short story

kaelyn: Before AIM chat existed, in like the mid-90’s, my one friend who also had a computer would get online (dial-up) at the same time and send each other silly email subject lines from our respective SHARED family email accounts.
A little later, like college age and in the height of AIM, I have salient memories of playing Neopets games late into the night instead of writing papers.

Archie: Yahoo chats for RPGs that somehow always became sexual
I also printed out a lot of porn (on a school’s printer/computer !?!) to take home in my backpack.

Malic White: I would pretend to be a pregnant teen in Yahoo chat rooms when I was 9. I also Cats fanfiction on the Broadway World message boards between the ages of 11 and 13.

Christina Tucker: Meeting sarah on a Chicago the movie fansite is truly one of my earliest memories of the internet

sarah: it was a catherine zeta jones website lmao

Christina Tucker: Okay but it STARTED in the Chicago forum then you created the SPLINTER cell

sarah: earliest memory: writing an erotic fan fic about catherine zeta jones and then realizing i was gay. some details: it was a section of a larger “interactive fan fic” which was constructed of many authors, and i just was the one who made it explicitly gay. i wrote it by drip feeding paragraphs through AIM messages to my online friend (kristintexas76)
oh. in 8th grade my friend brittany and i looking up “how to give a handjob” on askjeeves

Dani Janae: Alsooo sharing my angsty horny poems on allpoetry

sarah: omg all poetryyyyyy

What are your earliest Internet memories, y’all?

This Just In: Going On Vacation Is Relaxing and Fun!

I’m on vacation in New Orleans and y’all, it’s so nice! The weather is warm and humid, the people are friendly and generous, the food is next level delicious, and I’ve been getting more sleep than I do at home. It’s wild! I’m here with Rachel, one of my closest friends, and we were both reflecting to one another last night how fun and luxurious it feels to take a vacation with a pal, and how taking a break from your day to day life is such a gift to give yourself.

Something my therapist has been really advocating for recently is that I make space in my life for time when I am not actively or passively working. As a freelancer and a writer, I set my own schedule but it’s also incredibly difficult to feel as though I’m off the clock; I technically could be working at all hours of the day, so I end up doing a bad job of defining my work time and my play time. It results in bad work habits, exhaustion, and a total lack of pure play time…I’m always “sort of” working which everyone knows is not a great way to live. By making space specifically for play time, my brain understands that when we’re “at work” we are working hard and staying focused, and when we’re not “at work” we can relax. I’ve been follow Anne Helen Petersen’s research and writing on generational burnout since she wrote about it in January of last year and this all feels very related to that – everyone I know seems to be burnt out. We have to find ways to care for ourselves and grant ourselves a bit of grace, a bit of fun.

It’s not always realistic to take a full on vacation, but I’m going to try to keep this vacation energy present in my life this year and beyond. What are ways you take a breather from your regular life? What’s your favorite vacation you’ve ever taken? What are some affordable options you have to take a rest even when you can’t go on a full weekend getaway? Have you ever asked your best friend to take photos of you naked in a bubble bath drinking wine and eating donuts as a fun vacation activity? Just wondering.

Did You Know You Can Test The pH Balance Of Your Vagina In Your Very Own Home?

I’m going to be honest with you: this post is happening because no one responded to my query on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/vanessapamela/status/1214393664308428801

As an extremely anxious person who constantly thinks I might have a yeast infection or bacterial vaginosis (spoiler: I almost never actually have a yeast infection or bacterial vaginosis, my gynecologist is usually highly confused why I’ve brought my healthy vagina in to see her) imagine my joy, surprise, alarm, and dismay when I learned that there are strips that you can use to test your vaginal pH in your very own home?!?! Joy, that such a product exists, surprise, that no one ever told my anxious ass about them, alarm, that I have wasted so much money on co-pays at the gynecologist when I could have been dealing with my mostly-hypochondriac issues at home, dismay, that the online reviews for this product are so mixed. It was a roller coaster of emotion, I’ll tell you what.

Incase you’re not quite as intimately familiar as I am with the literature surrounding yeast and BV on the internet, one of the ways you can tell if you have BV (rather than a yeast infection) is if the pH in your vagina is off. This isn’t fool proof, obviously, and everything you read will tell you if you’re not certain what’s going on you should go to your doctor, but, who has the time or money to go visit the doctor every time you’re just a tiny bit anxious that something might be off with your vagina?!?!?! Wouldn’t it be cool if you could, at the very least, check your pH so you could then make an informed decision about what to probably panic about? (Is this not in fact how everyone lives?)

You might be expecting me to review different brands of vaginal pH strips now, or to share with you my findings about which one is best, but nope, I won’t be doing any of that because I personally have never tried these babies. I want to hear from people who have! Were they accurate? Did you like them? Did knowing the pH of your vagina help calm your anxieties and moisturize your skin and condition your hair and revive your crops and save your whole goddamn life? Just wondering.

PS: Also open to discussing home cures for yeast infections and BV! We’ve discussed that quite a bit over the years here at Autostraddle, but it’s 2020 – I’m down for some updated info.

If You Delete Your Texts, How Do You Save Your Receipts?

It’s the last Friday of 2019 and we, here at Autostraddle, have a very important question for you: Do you save all your text messages?

A follow-up: If you don’t save all your text messages, how do you save your receipts?

Also: If you don’t care about saving texts and/or receipts, how on earth do you settle any dyke drama that may enter your life?

And: Are you a minimalist or a maximalist when it comes to your contacts?

Okay listen I have more questions but I’m gonna let this conversation speak for itself. We got into all this and more in Slack recently – please enjoy this absolutely ridiculous group check-in about our phone-related behavior and then hop into the comments and tell us who you relate to most in this exchange.

XOXO, GOSSIP GIRL

Shelli Nicole: Y’all — did you know you can finally search through text messages in iMessages

Jehan: WAIT. Like in a thread?

Shelli Nicole: YES!
Just swipe down in the messages and type a word and any convo it’s come up in appears!
TIME TO UNLOCK NEW LEVELS OF PETTY AND HAVE COPIOUS RECEIPTS! No more screenshotting!

Dani Janae: Oooooo

Drew Gregory: I AM THRILLED
I wonder how far back it goes…

valerie: welcome to my world of PULLING RECEIPTS. signed, an android user.
i’m happy for y’all

Shelli Nicole: If only this were around during mybig break-up

Christina Tucker: Wait…hasn’t this always been a thing??

Shelli Nicole: I don’t think so? I’ve tried in the past but I could also be terribly mistaken

Drew Gregory: There’s always been a search function but it barely worked and now it seems to actually work

Christina Tucker: okay yes
that tracks
it SOMETIMES worked

Shelli Nicole: Well now that it does I’m ready to win all future arguments

Drew Gregory: The biggest change is it shows you multiple searches for the same person! It used to only show the most recent one and would drive me crazy

Shelli Nicole: “— and right here is when you said you would in fact, not, be on that bullshit — but here we are”

Christina Tucker: YES that was THE WORST
As a person who used to send MANUAL read receipts when I had an android, I live for this kind of pettiness at my fingertips

Drew Gregory: I’m terrified of someone looking through my photos not because I care about nudes but because of all the convos I’ve screenshotted

Christina Tucker: SAME

Jehan: easily a top 5 fear

valerie: do iphones not automatically put screenshots in a separate folder??

Shelli Nicole: Yes titled “when I was right”

valerie: lolol

Christina Tucker: “I win again”

vanessa: Valerie they do now but they still get mixed in sometimes
This is hilarious and Drew I agree
I will say it kills me every time there’s an iPhone update and I can TELL the update was created to help us be more petty
Like user feedback was clearly “HELP ME BE A PETTY BITCH”
I’m user
Anyhow when they came up with the ability to screenshot and send it and then delete it immediately without even saving to your film roll I was like “oh I am Seen”

carolyn: *whispers* does anyone else just… delete their texts

Shelli Nicole: Every day for some reason! I only keep the text of my group chat of besties, my mama, myself and of whomever I’ve been hanging out with/sleeping with that I talk to lots
I also only have 15 contacts saved in my phone by first initial only!
Idk I’m a double Taurus who loves a good minimal moment

[redacted: actual screenshot of Shelli’s contact list, which looks exactly like how she just described!]

vanessa: Shelli how are you keeping all these receipts with only 15 contacts?!?!?!?
I want Shelli and Carolyn to write how-to’s on having minimalist phones

Drew Gregory: This is blowing my mind. As someone who has never deleted a text thread. And has photos on my phone going back to my first iPhone aka 2015.
And I have so many contacts who I have no idea who they are.

Shelli Nicole: I save them in an album on my phone and title them of the person lol

carolyn: I had text threads back to 2015 and then I turned someone them into zines, and THEN I got divorced, and now I delete every conversation that isn’t in progress or has remaining action items. If someone says something especially fucked up and I want to remember, I screenshot it and then back that up to not-my-phone and still delete it from my phone. Same with someone who says something sweet/great/important to remember but that I keep on the device for longer

Christina Tucker: I have NEVER IN MY LIFE DELETED A TEXT THREAD
I need the archives!!!!

Abeni: i recently got a new phone and felt like organizing my contacts. i had hundreds and hundreds in there, every single contact going back like 10 years! i had dozens in there that just said “first name OKC” or “first name Tinder.” dozens that i had no idea who they were. students i hadn’t taught in 10 years.
anyway i cleaned it out! but i couldn’t never go as far as y’all damn. i’ve never deleted a text! and i have never found a need to keep receipts. I don’t think I’ve ever screenshotted a text convo except with that person’s permission bc what we said to each other was funny?

Drew Gregory: I NEED to start adding Tinder after the names of people from Tinder
I’m so naive and am always like well it’s just a matter of time until I learn their last name and then shocker we stop texting and now my contacts are filled with random first names I don’t know

rachel: I still have the contact saved for Roman, the truly awful Ukrainian real estate agent who found my friends and I an apartment with a slumlord in 2010
I almost call him by accident maybe once a month

Drew Gregory: I accidentally called this random person I worked on set with four years prior and then panicked and blocked her number. And then ran into her at a party literally that night and she was like “…hi? Nice to see you again. Did you call me this morning??”

Abeni: I have a thing where I have to put in a last name for every contact. I do the awkward thing of asking for someone’s last name when I meet them just to have it in there, and I often get a like, “why do you need to know this? so you can stalk me on facebook?” but I’m not even on facebook! I just like my contacts to be neat

carolyn: I for sure also want last names. Or if it’s a tinder thing it’ll be [first name] [time we’re meeting] [place we’re meeting] [fact about them i need to remember if any]

Abeni: carolyn! that’s brilliant

carolyn: thank you! i’m bad at remembering when someone is new but good at setting things up so i don’t have to

valerie: Yeah I usually put some kind of clue as their last name in my phone. I don’t usually delete anything (emails get archived, files get put into an “archive” folder) because I’m a digital hoarder but I recently was so frustrated with People as a concept I ended up deleting 90% of my text threads. BUT I still have my screenshot folder of both receipts that need keeping and extra sweet things people say.

Heather: oh wow. i have my iphone set up to delete any text message over 30 days old. aren’t y’all afraid you’ll accidentally use up all your storage on text messages and miss a chance to capture important photos of life milestones like when your cat gets a new heated bed, then sleeps in it for the first time, then sleeps in it for the second time, then sleeps on it for a third time, etc.

vanessa: this has been the funniest truest thread we’ve ever had, i think?

riese: i also never delete texts!
also this conversation made me laugh out loud 45 times

vanessa: it truly is a capsule of each of us
FWIW i have accidentally flashed strangers and MY MOTHER nudes in the past week because i can’t be bothered to hide anything properly or delete anything ever
my nudes, to be clear
not sure if that is more or less horrifying
i’m careful with other peoples nudes!!! YOU CAN TRUST ME WITH YOUR NUDES. just not my own i suppose.

Sally: Heather, I hate to break your logic, but it would take several hundred pages of pure text to take up as much space as one cat picture

Shelli Nicole: I store my nudes in a separate calculator app for future use

vanessa: shelli you are a goddamn genius and i want ALL your iphone storage tips
“a separate calculator app” WHAT??
i store all my nudes of myself in…my camera roll
where my mother can accidentally swipe on them while looking at bridesmaid dress options
i store everyone ELSE’S nudes in a secret hidden folder or i just don’t download them and leave them in our text chats
which is part of why i would never delete a text thread!

Shelli Nicole: I’m ready and waiting for someone to leak some nudes I sent because the only thing my iOS press release will say is “you’re welcome”

Abeni: heather, i was gonna say what sally’s saying. texts take up no space. i also pay however many $ a month for icloud photo storage. i have never had to worry about space on my phone and can always get the cheapest model with no storage space bc i’ve never once used up storage on my phone
i don’t take or receive enough nudes to have a protocol BUT i found out recently in ios you can long press on a photo in your camera roll and it allows you to put them in a “hidden” folder!!! i don’t remember how to go back and find them later lol but it’s great for when you’re showing someone a pic and they’re a nosy-ass swiper.
speaking of, we all agree that the correct way to act is when someone shows you a pic on their phone you don’t swipe around AT ALL right??? though i’ve also heard if you know someone’s a swiper you can zoom in a tiny bit before showing them because then they can’t swipe around

valerie: i barely want to hold someones phone when they’re showing me photos. even when they tell me i can swipe around for more i look to them with nervous eyes for further confirmation before each swipe.

AMEN. Happy Friday, cuties. Tell us about your phone habits and organization in the comments, and have a lovely last few days of the year!

What’s On Your Nightstand?

Wow, look at us! Somehow we all made it through this historical week and at Autostraddle, we’re here disassociating from it all with another fun topic. This week we’re getting intimate and talking about the items that live on and/or in our nightstands. Turns out you can learn a lot about a person based on what we hold near and dear to our sleeping spaces!

Valerie: SO MANY CUPS
is what’s on mine
i have a lot of empty water cups on my nightstand because i’m a monster, apparently
Laneia: a fuckin hydrated monster
Shelli Nicole: Right now I’ve got a book and a space heater! And a charger of course – nothing exciting because I just moved in but once I’m settled probably cups and candy wrappers will be added to the list
Meg: sleep gear: a silk eye mask, lavender body lotion, calming pillow mist, and a lip sleep mask. and some books!
Abeni: i have so much shit on mine bc i just moved but also there are always tons of cups
Jehan: currently on my nightstand: my retainer, anniversary and bday cards from my partner, three books I’ve been “meaning to read” for about 2 years, and always a minimum of three water glasses
Christina Tucker: Currently on the floor next to my bed because I don’t have a nightstand: three books I’m pretty sure I have read, a vibrator that does not hold a charge and is cruel to look at, one billion zzzquill wrappers because I can’t sleep anymore, and when I am actually sleeping, my water bottle and glasses.
Dani Janae: Oooo well:
Drawer 1: my poetry notebook, gratitude journal, pens, meds, at least one book of poetry
Drawer 2: is my sex drawer so vibrators, flogger, leather wear, other toys
Drawer 3: my smell goods drawer with candles, incense, and a lighter
Malic White: On my nightstand:
-one absurdly large glass jug of water
-a very classy ceramic pump bottle where I keep my lube
-ugh ok one of those Himalayan salt lamps because I like a gentle glow
Himani: On my nightstand: Nothing! because my cats knock over and/or vomit on and/or try to eat everything…
Natalie: On my nightstand: 3 books, a kindle (because, I guess three books is insufficient reading), a box of kleenex, my echo dot/alarm clock
Valerie: while the top of my nightstand is mostly empty water cups, currently a bottle of dayquil and nyquil, and inexplicably a salt shaker, it also has four drawers full of junk loosely organized by type. the top drawer is the one i use the most, and it’s where i keep my most-used things, like my deodorant, hairbrush, vibrator, chap stick, nail file, hair ties, etc.
Kayla Kumari: on my nightstand: decorative seashells, books, seltzer, an enamel pin that says St. Augustine on it, and a pearl I found in an oyster in New Orleans lol
Reneice: On my nightstand:
on top there’s a wooden oil diffuser, 32 oz mason jar, two books, a journal, lavender & orange body oil, and a teal lamp.
The top drawer has three lip balms, calming pillow spray, a small bottle of Advil, pens (of the ink and vape varieties), my favorite love letters, and tiger balm.
Drawer 2 has a tarot deck, a notebook for dreams and another for ideas, and my favorite vibrator and an external battery.
Drawer 3 has a few more vibes, a face down frame with a picture I cherish but don’t like looking at, and chargers of all kinds.

So please tell us, what treasures does your nightstand hold, and are you as concerned with hydration in the bedroom as we seem to be?

Tell Us About Your Impulse Buys, This Is A Safe Space

Another week, another peek behind the scenes at Autostraddle dot com. It’s actually pretty easy to get the the AS Slack lighting up with notifications — I’m sure you’ll recall our hours long pizza conversation, or the time we all realized that yes, we might actually add our hand sizes to our Tinder bios, just in case!

Well, this week we got to gabbing about our tendency to impulse buy and…let’s just say none of us should be allowed to enter a CVS without an adult chaperone.

Christina Tucker: I like impulse buyzzzzz
Natalie: same, Christina.
Dani Janae: Impulse buys is good because I have a million
Natalie: what was your worst?
Christina: Oh gosh. I buy a lot of makeup/skincare stuff
Like looking at my Sephora history would probably give me hives
Dani: Probably a purple faux fur cropped jacket that didn’t fit my massive arms
Valerie: I keep impulse buying fanart even though i’m out of wall space. and i’m addicted to three-wick candles.
Christina: I went through a phase where I bought a bunch of prints and then was like WAIT now I have to frame these?? JK under my bed they go
Did I bring them with me when I moved? Who can say
Valerie: i framed a ton of mine and hung them all up and half of them have fallen
Dani: Omg the money I’ve spent on candles
Christina: candles will NOT fundamentally change the person I am? and yet every time I buy one I am SURE it it will
Valerie: and then i have a whole pile of prints from this one artist and i keep auto-purchasing her new stuff because i love it so much but i haven’t hung ANY of it up yet! just a huge pile of prints by one artist.
yeah candles have yet to fill the emptiness inside but i’m not a quitter
Dani: I’ll never quit
I want my home and my general aura to smell like amber at all times
Christina: Oh perfume is another one for me, gimme alll the smellz
Valerie: i don’t usually do perfume but i did impulse buy a “roll-on scent” because it was called Willow Rosenberg
Natalie: wow. forever committed to the brand, valerie. well done.
Valerie: :curtsy:
Dani: I get so many perfume ads, one called dirty fig which is my brand
Christina: lmao I absolutely have a sample of that somewhere
Jehan: anytime I take a turn in CVS down the “as seen on TV” aisle it’s a wrap
Probably the worst impulse buy was a package of “miracle” bras SPECIFICALLY for big boobs and that thing could hold exactly one breast
Vanessa: I impulse buy sheet masks every time I go to CVS :( As long as they say “ultra hydrating”
Christina: Okay but whomst among us doesn’t
Vanessa: Boom, into my basket they go
Thank you!!! It’s like MAYBE THIS ONE $5 ONE TIME USE PRODUCT WILL FIX MY FACE AND ALSO MY WHOLE LIFE!
Jehan: i absolutely get sheet masks every trip
Christina: are you telling me people just…go to CVS and leave with exactly what they said they were gonna get? because that seems fake as hell
Vanessa: Mmmm seems fake!!!
Jehan: i just made a pact with myself to actually use them
because purchasing and using are two separate hobbies
Vanessa: Omg Jehan every time! I’m like “Bitch you have 4 unused ones at home!”
It’s like an activity that is supposed to be relaxing and nice and I somehow end up bullying myself about skincare
Dani: Oooo add nail polish to my list because the cvs cashier always flirts with me
Jehan: NAIL POLISH
Christina: Oh let’s not bring NAIL polish into it, that seems UNFAIR to me
Shelli Nicole: bringing in nail polish and skincare seems completely unfair — not that i keep purchasing the same shade of red from different brands for no reason
Meg: me and my 9 different black eyeliners are feeling very attacked by this thread
i can’t even look at my sheet mask collection

Well, what about y’all? Please fill this comment thread with all the stuff you buy when you cannot resist the urge to shop. If you link them… well, clearly none of us are strong enough to resist.

2018 Was 20gayteen, 2019 Was 20biteen, Now Let’s Name 2020

Feature image by Zackary Drucker as part of Broadly’s Gender Spectrum Collection.

As the 2019 calendar slowly runs out of days, we’ll soon be swimming in end-of-year (even end-of-decade) lists. While everyone else is in a haze of nostalgia for the recent past, I find myself preoccupied with a looming, critical decision for next year that will surely impact the lives of every queer person on the planet: what extremely gay title should be bestowed upon 2020?

Starting the queer naming trend a couple of years back, lesbian Jesus Hayley Kiyoko famously anointed 2018 as 20gayteen. Thanks to the proliferation of the bisexual bob, and Stephanie Beatriz’s global takeover, it was naturally succeeded this year by 20biteen. But what should 2020 be?!

The first thing that popped into my head was TwentyBenty, but that seemed both too obvious and too generic to have much bite. Surely it couldn’t be too hard to come up with something the internet would instantly agree was the perfect choice.

Within thirty seconds I was floundering. When I hit rock bottom somewhere between TwentyGhenty (the year you take a mini-break to a Belgian cathedral city) and TwentyFermenty (the year my wife’s kombucha, kefir and sourdough starters multiply exponentially and eject me from my own flat), I realised it was time to call for help.

Fortunately, I had a panel of experts at hand, so I took the only logical course of action, which was to dump them with the problem while I went for a nap. Here’s what they came up with!

Vanessa: I…truly have no idea. All I can think of is “20sexy” which is A not my mood and B doesn’t even rly rhyme

Jehan: 2020 Vision: Seeing Queerly.

Vanessa: I want one that is like 20tired. 2tired2wenty

Christina Tucker: LezDoIt2020?????

Drew Gregory: Two Zero Too Queero

Shelli Nicole: 20cunty?

Drew Gregory: Yesssssssss

Abeni: i’m not sure how i feel about cunty in general as a term. I get that drag queens and maybe others are “reclaiming” the term (can men reclaim a term never applied to them?) but it’s totes possible I’m missing something!

Carolyn: Two Zero Too Queero also benefits from probably not getting censored on social media

Drew Gregory: The fun part about 20biteen and 20gayteen is it’s still said how you’d say the year but my suggestion doesn’t work like that. Whether or not it’s internet safe 20cunty has my heart. If there was ever a reason to fully reclaim cunty I’d say a lack of off rhymes with twenty is good enough for me.

Molly: for me it’ll be 20blunty

Drew Gregory: 20LGBT is too much of a stretch right? It has the tee sound!

Riese: What if it wasn’t an English word. I feel like other languages have more words that rhyme with 20

Abeni: I wonder if we end up landing on the idea that it’s over and it had a good run. Like remember in the 2000s how every new year’s party had big glasses that you could look through the middle 00s, and then in 2010 they tried to make it work with the 1 being in the middle, and in 2011 they really tried it but failed and then it was just over… like, it had a good run. Is that too sad?

Vanessa: Abeni I don’t want us to be the ones to pronounce it dead that is too sad 4 me :(

Carolyn: we could always call it twenty-denti and make it all about the importance of dental dams in safer sex

Vanessa: I have a vision of you like campaigning very hard for twentydenti, handing out dental dams with the slogan on it in our office, if we had one.

Heather: twentyplenty and it’s the year all the problematic people start coming out

Laneia: HEATHER

Vanessa: omg. HEATHER. I do like twentyplenty. There’s like a nice lack-of-scarcity-mentality around it.

Abeni: lol i like twenty plenty

Vanessa: Twenty(Not)Gently and it’s me crusading against vanilla sex?
(I’m kidding everyone should follow their hearts if vanilla sex turns you on I love that for you!!!!!)

Abeni: there’s plenty of love to go around. plenty of space in the community for all of us

Vanessa: I’m feeling good about plenty

Carolyn: that seems like a natural continuation of the energy behind 20gayteen and 20biteen

Shelli Nicole: 20Smutty/20slutty? Wait – I think I’m just being like Molly and saying what it will be for me. Also would love to see a laminated handout on twenty-denti

Adrian: I love twentyplenty. Abundance and shit!!!

Molly: twennyjenny. that’s for laneia

Dani Janae: Twenty plenty is good but I LOVE 20smutty. It’s the year of good sex and buying smut

Vanessa: I’m in!!

Laneia: 2020 does feel like a good time for me to go full jenny, thank you molly

Vanessa: TWENNYSHENNY

Kayla: $20money$ let’s get paid this year lol

Drew Gregory: This might be, um, too simple, but could 2020 be 20twenT and it’s just the year trans people take over

Vanessa: drew, you genius

Drew Gregory: I mean if 8 was gay and 9 was bi, we’re just making our way through the acronym!
(also excited for ten years from now when we can all agree on 20thirsty)

Vanessa: extremely bold of you to assume we’ll still be alive and kicking it on planet earth in 20thirsty

Drew Gregory: We might be actually thirsty

So, what do you think? Will next year be the bountiful TwentyPlenty? Will it be 20twenT, the year of trans takeover? Will it be one of the many fiendishly witty suggestions I expect to roll in to the comment section any minute now? Are we missing the bigger picture and we should actually be naming the whole decade with a gayed-up version of the roaring twenties?

Speak now and make sure we’re set for the queerest possible 2020!

Some of Y’all Are Really Out Here Flexing on Tinder with Finger Measurements, Discuss

Some of y’all are really ahead of the game. I’ve been off Tinder for like two years because I’m happily, monogamously, coupled. But from what I remember of Tinder I’m not surprised.

I feel so conflicted about big hands/finger length discourse! Because… I have big hands! So, hooray for me! But also I’m trans, and “man hands” has been an insult forever. There was even a Seinfeld episode about it. To be honest, I feel like smaller hands would be a good thing – more versatile, if you know what I mean. And you can always like, use toys and tools to make your hands bigger, but not to make them smaller? Or maybe we all just want what we don’t/can’t have.

And THEN Malic reminded us all that having long fingers essentially means you’re gay, if you’re AFAB at least (the “science” is out on AMAB folks), and apparently testosterone in the womb is involved, and why do scientists want to find out if they can tell we’re queer in utero so bad? I have my conspiracy theories, but I won’t get into it here.

Have you measured your finger length and/or fist circumference? Do you mention it on dates or in dating apps? Have you dated a big hand person or a small hand person and have a story to share about why of course big/small hands are better?

Let us know in the comments. And, you know, if you want… you can drop your stats in there too

Abeni: Ok are y’all really out here wilding or is this fake

Dani: Omg let this be real
Valerie: !!
Dani: Let me be out here straight flexin with these arachnodactyl fingers
Christina: Oh my godddddddddd
I have never seen this but I would RESPECT it if I did
Shelli: If this isn’t real I’ll be highly upset
Jehan:
Carolyn: @ me when people start doing this with fists
Malic: I’m just over here shamefully remembering all the times I’ve mentioned that I have weirdly big hands on dates.
Vanessa: Honestly people who have big hands ALWAYS mention it
It’s not even your fault
I figured it was like a biological thing where if you have big hands and you’re queer you have to mention it, your brain like forces you to
Riese: i have big hands
just wanted to mention it
Bailey: Let’s be real; big is subjective! If we’re measuring length we should be measuring girth
KaeLyn: I have freakishly small hands, which have their own benefits, IMO
Sarah:
Carolyn: same and whenever someone on a date tells me they’ve never been fisted before I’m always like CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
the real challenge is finding small enough nitrile gloves
Shelli: This is the absolute best dialogue I have had this week
I have tiny hands but dates get weird/go wild about my acrylics
Abeni: ok i wasn’t going to chime in but i guess my hands are big bc i’ve never been able to get more than 3 fingers into a partner without pain? maybe I’m just doing it wrong though lol. also sorry if that’s TMI
Reneice: Omg same
Riese: i’ve had similar struggles!!
Christina: look I would be lying if I said I don’t want to measure my hands now
according to my mother when I born the doctor said I had long fingers so I feel like I was destined for a life of homosexuality
Valerie: my dad says my grandmother used to say i had “piano fingers” because they were long so same
Malic: That is exactly what my grandmother says about me!
Reneice: I have big hands and I posted a picture holding a little beer tasting mug and I’ve never blushed as much as I did reading my DMs that day.
Dani: #showmeyourhands
Riese: everybody used to tell me i had piano fingers too valerie! or they’d ask if i played basketball. and i’d be like “i’m actually really bad at both but i’d make a great lesbian” and now here i am… a lesbian
Christina: I was…so bad at basketball wow
my height is DECEPTIVE
Riese: how tall are you!!
Christina: I am 5’10, which I think is like NOT even that tall
but my hair does add…a significant amount of height to my whole deal
Riese: hahaha
i’m 5’10 also
Christina: Are you 5’10 with long fingers? You just might be a lesbian, and entitled to compensation.

Candy Corn Is Objectively Good, Discuss

This is a call to arms!

For those of us who have gathered our winnings from last night and are preparing for the meaning of November — eating leftover Halloween candy — be warned that our snack of choice is under attack. Why, you may ask? I truly can’t tell you but if the Autostraddle team’s conversation from earlier this week is any indication, we may be in the minority here.

But fear not, dear friends, and keep fast on the path to righteousness! I, for one, shall not be swayed. My love for the sugary, marshmallow goodness of a candy corn nugget is forever. The way the tiny white tip contrasts against the stark orange center before a reverse ombre cascade into yellow…it’s perfection!

But behold the dissention below. Know thine enemy and gather ye little orange, yellow, and white striped soldiers lest they be tossed out with lesser candies! Colonels, grab your kernels and raise your voices high against the naysayers!

Jehan: [I have] so many thoughts about halloween candy!
specifically about the superiority of candy corn and fun size twix

Dani Janae: Yeah I’m here to defend candy corn with my life

natalie: superiority of candy corn?!

Abeni: candy corn is garbage
2nd worst halloween candy after circus peanuts

natalie: absolutely Abeni.

Jehan: where and why is this candy corn hatred?!

Abeni: because it’s gross and nearly flavorless, like eating a waxy booger

Dani Janae: It’s literally just sweet marshmallow goodness. Taste like heaven, also very cute

vanessa: i’m team candy corn is awful

Abeni: candy corn? marshmallow??? those are ENTIRELY different textures, flavors…
i do NOT see the comparison AT ALL

Christina Tucker: what is THE TEXTURE OF CANDY CORN EVEN

Jehan: Dani Janae and i are co-captains of the candy corn boat

natalie: i did not foresee a team candy corn defense emerging. this is more mind-blowing to me than shane and jenny shippers even.

Abeni: right? i thought we were all in agreement that candy corn is terrible

Dani Janae: Perhaps your taste buds aren’t mature enough to appreciate its unique flavor profile

Abeni: funny i thought it was something only children like!!! *shots fired*
because they like sugar. they’d probably eat straight sugar if it was easier

Jehan: like many adult flavors it’s an acquired taste

himani: Candy corn texture makes me think of eating plastic
It’s almost like stale candy…..

Christina Tucker: DO candy corn people like Peeps also

Jehan: ew no to peeps

Abeni: wait i hear talk of peeps and marshmallows. are y’all thinking of circus peanuts
we’re talking about candy corn right

Christina Tucker: Yes, I just wonder since candy corn has no taste apart from “sugar”
and peeps are also…mostly just sugar

Jehan: yes but peeps look and taste creepy

Christina Tucker: looks at candy corn image

Jehan: candy corn is fun with seasonally appropriate colors

himani: Does microwaving peeps make it any better? I know that’s a thing people do…?
The only thing worse than candy corn in my book is chocolate candy corn

Dani Janae: I hate peeps because they’re ugly

Christina Tucker: what is CHOCOLATE Candy corn

Jehan: thank you!

Christina Tucker: WHY is chocolate candy corn

Jehan: what sort of creature is a peep?
it’s for those without access to caramel candy corn

Dani Janae: I think they’re mostly ducklings or bunnies but they just end up looking like pastel blobs with eyes

Christina Tucker: I’m sorry
are you telling me right here in 2019
that candy corn’s flavor profile is….CARAMEL
I shan’t

himani: OMG there’s caramel??!!!!

Jehan: Dani Janae agreed, but sometimes the beaks/noses look weird and they’re like hybrid avian platypuses or something

himani: Like who even came up with this……

Jehan: THERE IS CARAMEL

himani: What does it even taste like??
Does it actually have the texture of caramel?

Jehan: no it’s still candy corn texture

himani: I can’t even….
This is the kind of thing I’ll get suckered into eating and then being sad about how gullible I am

Christina Tucker: this is so darksided

Dani Janae: ‘‘Tis the season

Jehan: :crystal_ball:

himani: So here’s my other question about candy corn like in what context does one eat it? Like I don’t know that I ever got it trick or treating because it’s sold in big bags? I think?
I’ve only ever had it in like, I dunno an office of some kind

Dani Janae: It’s very much a candy bowl at a party treat

Jehan: usually in a big bowl yeah

himani: Ok but then is the host leftover with a giant bowl of candy corn?

Jehan: at some autumnal gathering

himani: What do you do at that point?

Christina Tucker: Leave the state
change your name
start a new life

himani: Hahaha

Christina Tucker: away from the candy corn

Dani Janae: No take the candy corn with you

himani: Or maybe you just put it in a tupperware until next year?

Malic White: Candy Corn Pizza

Dani Janae: AHHHHH

natalie: thats the scariest thing i’ve ever seen

himani: OMG what???!!!

Malic White: Nothing is more American than taking a candy that looks like a GMO crop and putting it on more candy that looks like pizza.

Dani Janae: Is it supposed to look like bugs?

Christina Tucker: AND it has RAISINS my enemy??

himani: I mean raisins have their time and place
This seems like neither the time nor the place

Jehan: i will concede the pizza is several steps too far

Christina Tucker: nice to know reason remains

Jehan: sweet pizza is an oxymoron

Dani Janae: Candy corn is a delicacy to be enjoyed one by one

Jehan: TRUTH
or, like one handful by one handful

Christina Tucker: It’s so hard to be the voice of reason here

Abeni: candy corn wars 2019

vanessa: i’m so upset.
i step away from my computer for 10 minutes and i come back to that PIZZA?!?!
is nothing sacred??!?!?!?!?!?!

Abeni: hmm it is the pizza party friday thread

vanessa: hahahaa
okay well this convo has proven that candy corn may indeed be the thing we need to discuss on nov 1, much to my…abject horror

Dani Janae: Candy corn wars where 2 fought against many

himani: I’m not sure what “winning” would mean in this context?

Shelli Nicole: also, I’m down for candy corn cocktails around this time of year but that’s it – i mean honestly though – it’s not that bad
wait – maybe it is that bad and I don’t know if because its covered by booze?!

Jehan: Candy corn cocktails?? Please say more

vanessa: nooooooooooooooooo
(jk plz continue but also just like ahhhhhhhhhh)

Shelli Nicole: in my experience at bars its a cute little melted garnish or blended drink…but in my apartment it’s me chewing candy corn and taking shots. Tom cruise I am not

himani: So I read a lot more NPR than I listen to. Anyways I’m sharing this for the last paragraph: “Oh, there’s still a perennial Halloween debate that we’re not going to solve here. Even after years of controversy, the Code Switch team is split on this one: Is candy corn good or bad? We’d love to know what side you’re on.”

vanessa: lol NPR stealing our sweet sweet candy corn content!!!

natalie: The most popular Halloween candy in every U.S. state

himani: oh my goodness look at all that candy corn on that map…

natalie: the first time in my life that candy corn has been useful, tbh
here are the places that i definitely should not move

himani: i was trying to figure out what NJ is
but it’s too small to make out

natalie: New Jersey ― Tootsie Pops

laneia: just here to confirm TN
those mfers

Dani Janae: PA is a variety pack?

himani: tootsie pops??!! on the one hand I’m like :face_vomiting: must move, on the other hand I’m like “well they did have pretty good advertising, always loved those owl commercials”

Christina Tucker: Huge candy corn news

https://twitter.com/hellolanemoore/status/1189396604115210242?s=21

Dani Janae: Would love to take a bite out of that CORN COB jk would definitely die of a sugar overload

Okay, tell me how much you love candy corn in the comments, bye! Tell us your favorite candy corn stories, triumphs, and recipes! Or…I guess if you wanna talk about other candy that’s fine because #inclusion. Happy November.