relationships

Welcome to the latest installment of Ms. Opinionated, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't.

 

Dear Ms. Opinionated,

The kind of break-up described in your last column is thankfully in my rearview mirror, but now I face a whole other problem: everyone keeps telling me to "get back out there" but I'm not sure I even remember, let alone ever knew, how! My ex and I were together practically since college, he asked me out and things just went from there. But now it's like... I'm not 22 anymore, I'm almost 30, I'm not as cute as I used to be and I feel like any guy I would want to go out with could totally do better. 

 

Welcome to the latest installment of Ms. Opinionated, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't.

Dear Ms Opinionated,

I feel that sex is only valuable to me when I'm sharing it with someone I love and trust completely and I can't enjoy it when I don't feel that my heart is safe. It's something I only share with the person I'm with, and it distinguishes the difference between friendship and love for me. My boyfriend, however, has been with tons of women, and a couple of them were and are his best friends. 

Growing up in 4-H, I heard the joke often: girls would rather give up boys than our ponies. When women talk about horses, they often speak of freedom and power, of connectivity and understanding, of trust—often using the same language we use when we discuss intimate relationships with humans.

Welcome to the latest installment of Ms. Opinionated, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't.

Dear Ms. Opinionated, I'm a college student of 21, and engaged to a 30 year old man with whom I've been for two years. He's very respectful and loving and I plan to marry him after I graduate (in a little more than an year), but chances are we might move in together before that. Right now, he lives in another city almost two hours away, so seeing each other ends up tiring and consuming—time and money-wise. The thing is, our parents will probably oppose. My mother has had terrible experiences with being a single mother, and then moving to an unknown country to end up in a psychologically abusive relationship, plus has very traditional views (i.e. sex after marriage). His parents are traditional Christians. None of them know my fiancé and I have already had sex. How can I bring up the possibility of moving in together without gaining opposition from the people we expect the most support?

Welcome to the latest installment of Ms. Opinionated, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't. This time, what to do when a friend asks you to look into her boyfriend's past and then won't listen to what you find.

Welcome to the latest installment of Ms. Opinionated, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't. This week: what to do when your head likes the idea of non-monogamy but your heart screams, "No!"

Welcome to the latest installment of Ms. Opinionated, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't. This week: how to tell the friend you have feelings for that you'd like to go out with her, and that your partner doesn't mind.

Welcome to the fourth installment of "Ms. Opinionated," Bitch's new advice column, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't. This week, it's time to talk about those women who disappear into their relationships.

My name is Spectra, and I'll be your resident Cupid for the summer. Kinda. I'm a Nigerian writer, women's rights and media activist, and editor at the afrofeminist blog Spectra Speaks, which publishes news, opinions, and personal stories that highlight issues pertaining to gender, media, diversity, Africa, and the Diaspora. For the past ten years, my work has focused on using media to facilitate conversations around important feminist issues: gender, sexism, racism, media, etc. So when the editors at Bitch invited me to guest blog this summer, I surprised even myself when I told them I wasn't interested in writing about any of those things; instead, I wanted to write about Love.

Well, he tells non-autistic people to make lemonade, specifically. Guess who the "lemons" are in this metaphor.

Popular fiction both shapes and reflects cultural attitudes. In a previous post, I picked apart the film Adam and expressed concern over the film's troubling conclusion that people with Asperger syndrome—and by extension all autists, since Asperger's is thought of as a "mild form of autism"—are simultaneously too childlike and too threatening to maintain healthy romantic relationships.

This is a reflection of the attitude that pervades Tony Attwood's A Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome, a popular nonfiction book that often serves as an introductory text to Asperger syndrome for lay readers.