The Cut

“I think the fact that this feels like a visceral horror to some women — though not all — and then is used as an excuse to write disgusting legislation is awful. But I don’t know that the solution is to not talk about it.”

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.

An excerpt from Sloane Crosley’s new essay collection, Look Alive Out There. Crosley reflects on the experience of freezing her eggs, despite her ambivalence about having children — and as a way of putting off the pressing matter of facing that ambivalence as a woman in her late 30s.

“Now, unwillingly pregnant at age 37, I had no idea if I was capable of either option: another baby, or ridding myself of a pregnancy. Each option felt equally terrifying.”

“The experience of making the spreadsheet has shown me that it is still explosive, radical, and productively dangerous for women to say what we mean. But this doesn’t mean that I’ve lowered my hopes.”