Also.Also.Also: Happy “Age of Pleasure”-Eve, Janelle Monáe Said Titties Out All Summer

Feature images of Janelle Monaé at their Age of Pleasure album listening party by Johnny Nunez/WireImage

I’m bringing you this link round up from a road trip back home after spending the last few days with a lot of people that I love, and who love me. It’s been written on a computer and two different cell phones, depending on what’s been available to me. I’ve been singing Broadway albums for the last five hours and just switched to 90s R&B. My belly is full and satiated with a variety of delicious fried food and sweets. It’s chaos, but also somehow peace? Wishing you the same.

Queer as in F*ck You

Happy Age of Pleasure-Eve to you!! And to me!! Janelle Monáe hosted a variety of pre-album drop listening parties this week and none of them were near me 😭. But they released a track list that includes the likes of Grace Jones (omg) and a track named “Water Slide” — in case you wondered if their vibe is still to just go 100 at all times, the answer to that is yes.

Speaking of which, Janelle also released their infamous Pleasure t-shirt for purchase on their website, you know the one:

Janelle Monae stepping out of the pool in a wet t shirt that says “pleasure

So don’t forget to buy that. And DO NOT FORGET your Janelle Monaé concert tickets for the Age of Pleasure tour, which are on sale now. Special thanks to my bestie, who got ours on pre-sale last week before I even had a chance to ask. And that’s on being chosen family.

OK, my fandroid tendencies out of the way (less than TWELVE HOURS TO GO EEEK). Let’s see what else.

Never has there ever been a better use of this section’s titular F*CK YOU: Pat Robertson, Televangelist Who Blamed Gay People for 9/11 and Hurricanes, Dies. “The conspiratorial hatemonger who founded the Christian Broadcasting Network helped usher Christian-conservatism into the mainstream”

Pride Organizers Scramble to Keep Up With Drag Laws in Florida, Montana and Tennessee. “Some Pride groups are moving drag shows indoors, enforcing new dress codes or scrapping celebrations altogether.”

Outrage as Anti-LGBTQ Protest at California School Board Turns Violent. “Footage from a local television station showed crowds of people shoving, kicking and throwing punches outside a school district building in Glendale, California.” The school was voting to recognize Pride month.

Pride Flag Burned Outside a City Hall in Arizona

(I’m not saying it’s related, buuuuuuuut maybe did you happen to notice that Autostraddle’s Pride theme this year is “Rage Party”?)

There are a lot more serious things to talk about as it relates to Elliot Page’s new memoir Pageboy, and we’ll have a full review from Stef Rubino next week. But until then, let me quickly put on my vapid fluff gossip hat and rundown:

Chase Strangio Is Defending Us on All Fronts. From the author, Katelyn Burns: “What I wanted to know the most is how does he endure this awful political moment as a prominent trans person doing critical work for our community.” I immediately clicked.

Griner Feels Love From Texas, Baylor in Trip Back. “Brittney Griner said it felt great being back in her home state Wednesday night and noted how she was “really, really, really, really, really happy” to see the Baylor women’s team, for whom she starred from 2009 to 2013, in attendance” To quote Natalie: 🥺🥺🥺

Saw This, Thought of You

An Angel in Hell. This reflection on Charisma Carpenter’s Cordelia from Buffy and Angel by Mo Ryan for Roxane Gay’s Audacity newsletter was the finest piece of pop culture criticism I read this week. Give yourself the same treat.

Where and How the Zoot Suit Riots Swept Across L.A.

My Latine Culture Taught Me to Be Selfless. Polyamory Ensures I’m Self-Full

Political Snacks

Here’s How to Prepare to Start Paying Back Your Student Loans When the Pandemic Payment Freeze Ends

Bail Fund alert! Police violence against Cop City protestors in Atlanta continue, and you can help make sure the movement keeps movementing: Atlanta Solidarity Fund

And One More Thing

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

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Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And there were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

10 Comments

  1. This is the nerdiest thing, but I wrote my college thesis on mainstream black newspaper responses to the zoot suit riots and zoot suiting (originally I wanted to write it about either pachuca and/or black and Filipino involvement in them, but I was far away from LA and there wasn’t a lot of published discourse on it at the time). My heart still gets all warm thinking about cross cultural youth of color identity and community creation and resistance. The ways these young folk resisted I still find awe-inspiring.

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  2. the zoot suit riots are a totally fascinating piece of history to me because on the one hand, they’re the confluence of a whole bunch of different threads at once (anti-latino/chicano sentiment! anti-immigrant sentiment! anti-black sentiment! backlash to the new negro movement and the perceptions of people of color as getting “above their stations”! pro-military nationalism during world war two! gentrification and redlining! the growing divide between the working class and emerging middle class!) and the specifics of the clash need all those threads to make sense. on the other hand, it’s just one example of racist violence in america and any one aspect is represented by (at minimum) another handful of things just as well-documented and just as overlooked in the history classroom

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  4. Honestly Elliot has racked up quite the ex list. Such a low key legend. Let’s review: Olivia trilby, Kate Mara, Shailene Woodley, Samantha Thomas, Emma portner, clea duvall and hey I like to think drew Barrymore

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  6. It’s probably too dangerous in the US to do this right now, but i was thinking, if this were the 80s, everybody would go to pride in drag, like literally 10s of thousands. And then let’s see how they arrest them all. Well, let me dream..

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