In the spirit of giving, here’s a round-up of our favorite Slutever articles of 2018. Topics include: whether falling in love makes you basic, the realities of SESTA-FOSTA, being a fat sex worker, asexuality, long distance relationships, brothel feminism, and John Waters’s filthy heroines.
The year of our lord 2018 can be objectively declared a 365-day trash fire, and in a few days we will all be saying a collective good riddance while simultaneously regretting our NYE plans. But this doesn’t mean the year didn’t bring some good writing. Below is a list of our favorite Slutever articles of 2018. Read on, in case you missed something…
THIS account of being a fat woman in the sex industry.
“Fat women are told that men are doing you a favor by having sex with you anyway, because who else would? The sexuality of fat women is often portrayed as out of control, over the top and grotesque, as are their appetites in general. We are too much. So what does this mean for the fat sex worker – failing to control her body in the two most crucial ways?” (read more)
For her Vogue column, Karley reflects on falling in love, asking “I’m in Love: Is It Making Me Basic?”
“It turns out love really is a battlefield, and the first casualty is your entire personality.” (read more)
THIS discussion of what it means to be asexual.
“It has yet to be, unlike other marginalized identities, superficially invested with social and cultural capital, forced to tread the fine line between representation and fetishization, visibility and objectification. But this doesn’t mean that asexuality is somehow inherently transgressive, rather that asexual people are underrepresented in the extreme.” (read more)
THIS conversation between 4 sex workers about what the SESTA-FOSTA bills mean for their lives, written shortly after the bills were passed by the US Congress.
“Being a black sex worker already has its pitfalls and obvious discrimination, but this bill has taken the last bit of safety I thought I had. Watching the lights go out on all the sites and resources that I use is not only sad, it’s terrifying. If I don’t have message boards and forums for help or aid, what happens if I go missing? How do you find references on someone with no paper trail? How do I not become one less black body on the news, one more statistic?” (read more)
THIS rollicking breakdown of John Waters’s bad girl heroines.
“Being the Filthiest Woman Alive has a strangely glamorous ring to it […] It’s a hard-won badge of honor in a—ugh—Society that requires anyone who’s not a straight white man to be on their best behavior at all times. Though morally reprehensible, Waters’s muses are undeniably liberated; it’s cathartic to live vicariously through their deviancy.” (read more)
For her Vogue column, Karley reflects on whether long distance relationships actually work
Most people believe that attempting a long-distance relationship is crazy—delusional, even. And they have a point. Relationships are hard enough without dealing with expensive plane tickets, time differences, and non-ironic “text hugs.” And yet, so many of us end up doing the long-distance thing, for the simple reason that, well, love is not always rational. (read more)
THIS musing on the feminism and solidarity found in the brothel’s “living room.”
“The whore’s living room is a rare pearl in the world – there’s no another environment where sexual autonomy is empirically explored with such candor and celebration. […] the whore’s living room is a safe refuge.” (read more)
THIS analysis of Britney Spears’s status as a gay icon.
“I suppose the LGBTQ community sees itself reflected in these complex, glamorous, imperfect, and very public female experiences, and that we recognize the double-bind of being a woman in the public eye. Queer sexuality can make us conspicuous, trapped between satisfying people’s expectations of queerdom while avoiding limiting stereotypes, navigating our own desires around those of society at large. Being the gay kid at school can be a little like being a starlet, noticed and notorious. That’s why we are drawn to the most fabulous but also the most conflicted figures.” (read more)
THIS look at how trans and gender nonconforming representation in cinema has shifted over time.
“Rather than focusing on contemporary examples of trans cinema, which currently receive critical attention in the press, here I want to highlight the lesser-known, still incomplete history of gender non-conforming representation in moving image media.” (read more)
THIS conversation with Kristen Sollée (author of Witches, Sluts, Feminists) about the witchy side of feminist history.
“The fate of the witch – burned, drowned, ostracized – is a cautionary tale for women who refuse to submit to an impossible paradigm of normative embodiment, a way to discredit female autonomy and control “deviance” along gender lines.” (read more)
THIS guide to Wonder Woman’s kinky origin story.
“As readers vocalized their sexual fascination with the BDSM scenarios, and critics and censors decried their opposition to them, Gaines grew increasingly alarmed at Marston’s emphasis on kink. Yet the author refused to cut back on the bondage.” (read more)