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an x-ray of lungs
First Person

Am I Disabled Enough?

Even after we come to terms with our impairments, we’re still dogged by self-doubt. 

Summer Tao February 25, 2025 6 Comments
water colored stones
First Person

What Watercoloring Has Taught Me

I’ve been fixated on rocks lately, among the landscapes.

Christina Tucker February 17, 2025 6 Comments
Em Win in their twenties
First Person

20 Thoughts From My Twenties on My 30th Birthday

I’m 30 today! AH! I write that statement with an equal amount of dread and excitement bubbling in my chest.

Em Win February 16, 2025 2 Comments
Jennifer Lopez in The Boy Next Door
First Person Valentine's Day

10 Years Ago, I Had the Most Chaotic Valentine’s Day Plans Possible

Chicago, Winter 2015. I’m doing a cringe-worthy, cliche version of Living In Chicago In Your Early Twenties.

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya February 12, 2025 3 Comments
bee's back
First Person

My First Queer Love Became My Personal Brand

I was fronting Pride campaigns and being put on a pedestal as some sort of representative of the queer community when all I’d done was fit into mainstream beauty standards and fall in love with my best friend.

Bee Beardsworth February 11, 2025 6 Comments
Lunar New Year celebrations
First Person

How I’m Honoring Lunar New Year in a Very Gay Way

As a queer Asian person, the year of the snake really excites me.

Em Win February 8, 2025 1 Comment
characters on The L Word Generation Q making out
First Person Issues

A Queer Coming of Age in Five Makeouts

Partying as a teenager is hard in New York City, where very few people have houses and almost everyone has nosy neighbors.

Pallas Gutierrez January 30, 2025
Nicole Kidman drinking milk in Babygirl
First Person Movie Features

Becoming Babygirl: How Erotica and Kink Saved My Life

As a mother and a career-driven individual who holds power in various aspects of my own life, I immediately related to Babygirl’s Romy.

Crystal Reyes January 29, 2025
Cruel Intentions kiss between Cecile and Kathryn
First Person Issues

My First Makeout Was Reenacting the Kissing Scene From ‘Cruel Intentions’

At 17, my lack of kissing was a sensitive subject for me. It wasn’t for lack of trying.

Sa'iyda Shabazz January 16, 2025 5 Comments
wildfires in california
First Person

Just Checking In

I went through my mental catalogue of friends back in LA and sent my check-in texts. Almost all of them did the exact same for me this past fall during one of the longest and worst hurricane seasons to hit the southeast in recent years.

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya January 14, 2025 5 Comments
First Person Issues

The Music I’ve Made Out To: An Ode to Queer Kissing in Public

I believe in making out at the club, at the dance party, in the backseat of your car, in the corridor to the stairwell of your building, in the movie theater, at concerts, on the beach, at sports events, and at the brewery where making out isn’t really the vibe but you’re so hot for it you do it anyways.

Stef Rubino January 8, 2025 6 Comments
kayla kumari upadhyaya wearing gray sweatpants and a tie-dye t-shirt
First Person

The Gray Sweatpants That Changed Everything

I can be femme and strong and gay and comfortable and hot and relaxed, all embodied in one outfit.

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya January 3, 2025 7 Comments
a performer in a mask
First Person

The Erotics of Masks

Wearing a mask felt similar to how I usually identified as a stone top.

MK January 2, 2025 8 Comments
two giels on the floor with the words "make out month" in the lower left
First Person Issues

What If The Girl You Made Out With On New Year’s Eve Becomes Your Wife?

“You tell everyone you see that night, including but not limited to all the friends you came with, another friend you run into, a stranger on the street, your dog and your Uber driver, that you are not going to have sex because you don’t want to ruin the friendship.”

Riese January 1, 2025 29 Comments
snowy street
First Person

If I Don’t See Snow Soon I’m Going To Scream

I have nothing to prove 2023 was the first year of my life when I didn’t see snow on the ground other than my memories.

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya December 31, 2024 8 Comments
Jackie and Lou in Love Lies Bleeding
First Person

How ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ Healed My Broken Heart

I never thought a horror movie would be the key to healing from my first lesbian breakup, but Love Lies Bleeding got your girl together.

Eva Reign December 2, 2024 2 Comments
First Person

I Believe We Shouldn’t Own Guns. I’m Learning How To Shoot One Anyway

Everyone needs to stop being so flippant about telling queer and trans people to buy guns.

Stef Rubino November 21, 2024 8 Comments
Kristen Arnett and Dorothy Allison
First Person

Dorothy Allison, Your Florida Is My Florida

Bastard Out of Carolina was the book that made me want to become a writer.

Kristen Arnett November 11, 2024 5 Comments
a moon between tree branches with spanish moss
First Person

I Got My Driver’s License Last Week, Just Like We Always Talked About

Or: A Love Letter to You and to the Moon (Who Does Not Wish To Be Photographed at This Time)

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya October 30, 2024 3 Comments
the writer Summer Tao
First Person

Cheers to the Birthday I Didn’t Think I’d Reach

I turned 30 last month. It was my first birthday in recent memory I actually planned for.

Summer Tao October 30, 2024 8 Comments
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