A Farewell to Fuckboys in the Age of Consent Culture

In the second installment of her series on dating while woke, Minda Honey explores the long unraveling of a #MeToo moment in the wake of cultural upheaval.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 13, 2018
Length: 19 minutes (4,980 words)

This Is What It Was Like Learning To Report Before Fake News Was The Biggest Problem In The World

BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith recalls what it was like working as a young reporter in Belarus in 2001. One of his first major stories resulted in his source being beaten and thrown in jail — or so he thought, until he discovered the truth more than 15 years later.

Author: Ben Smith
Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Apr 8, 2018
Length: 17 minutes (4,300 words)

Blighted by Foxconn

Belt Magazine continues its great reporting on Wisconsin’s deal with the devil: The new Foxconn facility that promised jobs and but is instead bringing nothing but pain. Now the company is using eminent domain to remove families from their homes, designating newly-built properties as “blighted” to achieve their goals.

Source: Belt Magazine
Published: Apr 11, 2018
Length: 6 minutes (1,700 words)

What We Lost in Austin Bombing Victim Draylen Mason

Draylen Mason was more than good at everything he did, he was brilliant. He was a musical prodigy who wanted to be a neurosurgeon, and just days after he died, he was accepted to Oberlin Conservatory of Music. At Texas Monthly, Michael Hall tries to make sense of a senseless death.

Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Apr 12, 2018
Length: 15 minutes (3,800 words)

A Clarifying Dose of Reality (TV)

In this personal essay, Valentina Valentini tries out for American Idol and it puts her permanently off fame-seeking.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 6, 2018
Length: 9 minutes (2,320 words)

Rules For Departure

An excerpt from Rachel Z. Arndt’s new essay collection, Beyond Measure. While hitching a ride to a week-long bike tour, Arndt considers the rituals of leaving — and making a clean break.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 10, 2018
Length: 8 minutes (2,245 words)

Sober Gay Man Seeks…What, Exactly, He’s No Longer Sure

A personal essay in which Breaking the Ruhls author, Larry Ruhl, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse now in recovery, finds himself adrift in the age of hookup apps.

Author: Larry Ruhl
Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 12, 2018
Length: 8 minutes (2,005 words)

Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis

Reporter Linda Villarosa reports on the racial disparities in health care that contribute to black women being three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as their white counterparts, and black infants being more than twice as likely to die as white infants. Threaded through the piece is the story of Simone Landrum, who lost a baby girl after doctors dismissed her pain and symptoms of pre-eclampsia, but delivered a healthy son after receiving the help of a doula through that subsequent pregnancy.

Published: Apr 11, 2018
Length: 42 minutes (10,612 words)

7 Sex Workers on What It Means to Lose Backpage

In the wake of the U.S. Department of Justice’s shutting down Backpage.com for violating the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (which has not yet been signed into law), one time sex worker and Playing the Whore author Melissa Gira Grant talks with seven sex workers about the ways in which the absence of that bulletin board will have an impact on their livelihoods and their safety.

Source: The Cut
Published: Apr 10, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,807 words)

Compulsion: Where Object Meets Anxiety

In this poignant personal essay, Chappell Ellison recalls her brother’s crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and how their family coped with his rituals as his disease worsened.

Source: Design Observer
Published: Aug 18, 2009
Length: 12 minutes (3,158 words)