O' that I were a plate of ribs
Also: RIP Jezebel, abortion wins, destigmatizing miscarriage on reality TV, and more in the weekend roundup.
Oh hey. Happy Sunday.
I’m currently in a cabin on a misty stretch of coast, celebrating my 10-year wedding anniversary. There’s a wood stove and a clawfoot tub. Romantic! My kid and dog are also here. Less romantic! But cozy.
To the links…
I’m thinking about…
Jeremy Allen White eating BBQ ribs. Jeremy Allen White in a crop top. Jeremy Allen White in the men’s locker room.
I’m saving…
Everything I ever wrote for Jezebel, now that the site is being shuttered by the private-equity dipshits who mismanaged the hell out of it. As Megan Greenwell, former editor-in-chief of Deadspin put it, this is a classic private equity move: “Buy a thing, realize you have no idea how to grow it or even not ruin it, shut it down.” They caused so many brilliant writers and editors to suffer along the way.
Jez gave me the best job, co-workers, and editors I’ve ever had. I was allowed to write about feminist porn’s #MeToo moment, romantic thirst traps on TikTok, Instagram’s mistreatment of sex workers, how the manosphere is building the future of the alt-right, the secrets behind performing ‘squirting’ in porn, and so much more. I also got to do extremely dumb things like “investigate” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s “dick towel” and interview David Burns from The Real World: Seattle (my adolescent crush).
I’m unspeakably sad about what they did to the site and worried about the implications of the near-total collapse of feminist media. Substack feels like the best avenue for doing that kind of work—and paid subscribers allow me to do more of it.
I’m feeling like…
“Fuck you, we win” after reading
on a win for abortion in Virginia and Ohio. As Rebecca Traister put it, “Abortion wins elections.”I’m binging…
Selling Sunset and drowning in self-hatred, quite frankly. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this season destigmatizes miscarriage. After a cast member has a miscarriage, she’s shown openly talking about having a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure, which is used for both early miscarriage and abortion. Her cast mates also explicitly challenge the silence, shame, and blame that often haunt miscarriage. That is far more than I ever would have expected from this stupid show.
I’m buying…
These Etsy clogs, which are cute, have rave reviews, and are one-third the cost of the fancy No. 6 clogs that I got as a Christmas gift six years ago (and which I’ve worn approximately 50 percent of the time ever since).
I’m returning to…
This Esquire piece later on. It asks whether it’s harder than ever to make a living as an author and I got too depressed a quarter of the way through and had to stop. A choice excerpt: