‘At Least You’re Young Enough to Start Again’: What Not to Say to a Friend Getting Divorced at Thirty
‘Exoticised and Fetishised’: Navigating Dating Apps as a Black Woman
The dating world for black women is often bleak and unwelcoming. Behind the screen and in real life, we are navigating a dating world filled with microaggressions, colourism and outright racism. Oftentimes black women put themselves out there on apps that specifically want them to message first and receive nothing in return…
‘The Lines Between When You Do and Don’t Have Consent Have Blurred’: How Hookup Culture Has Normalised Sexual Assault
One night, I was speaking to a few friends who also lived on campus. Our discussion topic was our current sex lives. Each time one of us got into the nitty-gritty, I became increasingly aware of how many things our partners had done that just didn’t seem right yet were normal and common among us…
Ending A Tangled Friendship: Grieving a Friends With Benefits
Despite the fact that we hadn’t even been going out, despite the fact that he hadn’t been my official boyfriend, it felt a lot like heartbreak. I realised we’d still had a relationship. Not an official one, but a human one. We’d shared things with each other, shared a bed, cuddled, given each other massages, kissed, and had sex. We cared about each other…
‘Respectable Girls Don’t Use Dating Apps’: My Hinge Experience
You’re too nice to be on a dating app. How are you on a dating app? Look at you! You don’t need to be on a dating app. Surely, I’m not the only one who has received these comments. Each of these fuels the notion that girls who value and respect themselves should not be on a dating app, that signing yourself up for one is a last resort and an act of desperation…
How Learning to Speak My Mind in Bed Saved My Flailing Sex Life
We’ve soaked up every rom-com where some semi-domineering male swoops in and gives us the best sex ever, followed by a happily ever after. In these stories, the female protagonist is without fail charming and polite, yet also sexy and bold; fierce and fiery, yet meek and mild. I’m not sure who came up with this idea of how a ‘perfect’ woman behaves – probably a person in a basement who has never encountered a woman in real life – but for some reason, it was the kind of woman I always tried to emanate whilst in bed…