HEROICA MAG | CONFESSIONS ISSUE

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CONFESSIONS ISSUE

Letter from the Editor Confessions Issue

I

have always been someone who has kept my cards close to my chest.

While I love connecting with people and being amongst friends, family and even strangers, when it comes to subjects I may be judged or alienated for, I often struggle to share them openly. They have, at times, felt like they were destined to live solely within a diary or confessional of sorts. Therefore, it is no wonder that I, a recovering secret keeper, am elated to be welcoming you into our ‘Confessions’ issue. I am in awe of writers and artists that chose to share their beautifully vulnerable work with us. Stories like these are rarely discussed so openly.

When our team sat down and finalised this year’s theme, I was excited to see what stories the chosen theme would trigger.

It is safe to say I wasn’t disappointed.

Each article has been either a confession, question or curiosity I have myself. From unpacking cryptocurrency jargon (what is that all about?), breaking down the economy and the cost of living crisis to understanding pleasure, painful sex, periods, returning to abusive relationships and so much more. This issue did not shy away from bearing it all.

In particular, I am thrilled to have interviewed Nadya, someone who I have admired for so long, about August, the revolutionary period brand she founded.

I am equally thrilled to showcase a piece by the incredible Tilly Roberts interviewing Erika Lust, a multi-award-winning filmmaker and prominent leader of the feminist pornography movement. Peppered throughout the magazine, you will find uncensored confessions that we have gathered from our community over the past year… Oh, and they are everything you want from a juicy confession.

Confession. A word with some scandalous and even shameful connotations, it is a great symbol of our rebellion. Our stories don’t belong in a confessional; they belong front and centre.

Alongside insightful prose, you will find stunning photography and gorgeous poetry.

I remain endlessly grateful to the talent that chose to share themselves with us.

Now, without further ado…

Contributors Cover

Poetry

Photographer: Esme Buxton

Artist Named Nobody

MUA: Sian Anne Leadbeater

Georgina Jeronymides-Norie

Model: Tajana

Salomée Lou

Prose

Tania Banerjee

Alicia Exworthy

Photography

Elizabeth Rich

Charlotte Cullen

Erika Lust - XConfessions

Emma Boittiaux

Fariah Naaz - Girls That Crypto

Esme Buxton

Faye Alexandra Rose

Karyna Aslanova

Georgia - O Blooms

Katie Aird

Georgie Oulton

Maddie Moore

Hannah Dakin

Mathushaa Sagthidas

Kate Nelson

Terry Paul

Lauren Jones

True Rose

Lilian Oke

Valeria Ulloa

Lucy Hager

Wendy Sama

Milcah Fajardo Nadya Okamoto - It’s August Tilly Roberts Zethembe Maseko

The Team

Want to write for us?

Kyra Meier-Klodt Founder & Editor Megan Willis Submissions Manager & Editor Camila Macca Editorial Designer

Share your ideas to: www.heroica.co/contribute heroicasubmissions@gmail.com For circulation inquiries please email: kyra@heroica.co

Social Media FACEBOOK-SQUARE LINKEDIN INSTAGRAM www.heroica.co

Copyright © by Heroica Online Limited.

All rights reserved. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by UK copyright law.

Note from Submissions Manager

W

hen the time came to decide the theme of Heroica’s second print issue (how has it been a year since Embolden?!), the team couldn’t wait to get our thinking caps on. Kyra, our amazing interns at the time (shoutout to Bethany, Drashti and Ana) and I all came back from our drawing boards and put forward a string of suggestions. Confessions was one of mine – my favourite, might I add. After the concept made it into the final round of selections, along with Acceptance, Reflection, and Redemption, I kept my fingers crossed.

The choice of theme was not effortless or taken lightly; it would decide a whole creative direction of a magazine. Once all of you had given your input on social media and after more deliberation amongst ourselves, Confessions was finally crowned, much to my delight.

What intrigued me about Confessions?

The answer can be found with a quick google and a read of its various definitions.

Among them is: ‘the act of admitting that you have done something wrong or illegal’, ‘a statement admitting something that you are ashamed or embarrassed about’, and ‘to disclose one’s faults.’ These are of course only some of the meanings assigned to the word, but they are the ones that make me sit up straight and pay attention.

Many of you, I’m sure, read fiction.

We all know that characters without any flaws feel flat, boring and sometimes downright unlikeable. That’s because our flaws are what make us relatable and real; they are what make us human. It is worth noting too that what we perceive as flaws within ourselves are not always perceived as such by others: by confessing to our self-labelled sins, we may find relief and release when no one bats an eyelid.

Other times, there may be more judgement from certain groups – but then someone else steps forward to assure you that you are not alone, that they too have had these thoughts or committed certain actions, and there is relief and release again, if in a slightly different guise.

Confessions can also be empowering, opening up much-needed conversations around taboo topics. And sometimes, they’re just damn fun.

However interpreted, Confessions seemed to touch a nerve with you because the submission forms were flying in.

My workspace the booth, the divide between us my screen and hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles, I settled in for your words. You, dear contributors, did not disappoint. In these pages you will find articles on everything from the revealing truth about being a creative freelancer and explanations of how the economy works, to reflections on approaching porn through a feminist lens and the doubt and uncertainty around the decision of whether or not to have children. These are just some of the pieces that spoke to me and my own experiences and anxieties.

For you, there will be a unique collection that will hit home, but I hope that all of them are at the very least insightful.

All that’s left to say, then, is happy reading.

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Identity

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Beauty & Lifestyle

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I Don't Want Children But I'm Afraid I'll Change My Mind

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The Black Hair Debate

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Hair Confessions

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Losing My Hearing Meant Losing Self-Love Until Covid Made Me Question Everything

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Rooted

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Strict Parents Make Good Liars

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Career & Money

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Happy Tamil Women’s Day

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A Cure To Your Confession That You’re Clueless About The Economy

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Sex & Relationships

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The Confused Newbies Essential Guide To Crypto

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Rejection was my First Lesson: How My Father Leaving Shaped My Dating Life

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No Week Is The Same: A Freelance Life In London

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Problematic Pussy: Overcoming Painful Sex

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Defining Your Own Idea of Success: An Interview with Indeed’s Black Inclusion Group Co-chair

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More Female Pleasure, Please: Why I Pay for My Porn

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There Will Be Blood (And August Has The Ethical Products To Deal)

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Filmmaker Erika Lust: I Want to Bring Equality to the Porn Industry

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New Ukrainian Values

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Space Bunnies

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Poetry

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Wellness

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Bride-Seeing

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Being Mad at My Doctor Compelled Me to Start a Vibrator Company

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To Be a Woman and Black

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I Write

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Passionfruit

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Guadeloupe

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I Went Back to My Abuser...

More Than Once

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The NHS Crumbling is a Feminist Issue

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En son sein

I can’t tell if I’m genuinely attracted to women or if I just really do not want to be with a man because women are told so often growing up that men are dangerous – by society, relatives, schools, the news, by other people’s experiences and our own.

Anonymous confession made through Heroica's Instagram account

identity

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I Don’t Want Children, but I’m Afraid I Might Change my Mind

BY A L I C I A E X W O RT H Y P H OTO G R A P H Y BY K AT I E A I R D

identity

S

omewhere, there exists a box that is filled with memories.

Old birthday cards, torn ticket stubs. A flimsy piece of paper, written on by a child – me – who declared: ‘I, Alicia Exworthy, will never have children’. I can’t have known what such a statement truly meant at that young age, but even then I protested the plan rolled out before me by society’s assumptions of womanhood. Why would anyone assume motherhood for me before I had a chance to know for myself if children were what I desired?

Unaware, unwittingly, assumptions and expectations (both unspoken and overt) wore me down.

‘By the time I’m thirty, I want to be married with two children. I don’t want to be an old mum’, teenage me would say.

Thirty seemed about the right age. Two kids was a good number; one of each seemed to be a common hope. Many of my friends agreed. How did we all reach the same consensus?

It was just what people did. It was what we, too, would do.

Reaching twenty, I was half-seriously and half-jokily relieved to pass teenagehood without pregnancy. That is until a hard truth dawned on me: I would always be relieved to know I wasn’t pregnant. I didn’t want to be a teen mum; I didn’t want to be an ‘old’ mum. I didn’t want to be a mum at all.

My reasons started off ‘selfish’ (although I’m yet to understand the logic behind the argument that childless women are selfish). I liked having no responsibility and my time to myself. My early childhood intuition was spot on, and I’ve come to realise that freedom is the value that drives me.

Freedom of time, movement, finances, space, expression, belief and identity. All of it.

I celebrate my freedom to choose whether or not to have a child. In recent times, we’ve seen how this choice cannot be taken for granted. I also savour the relief of being certain in my decision. In avoiding the pressure to meet someone or settle down or beat the biological clock, it’s as though I’ve cheated the system. It shouldn’t be this easy. And it’s not.

My choice not to have children isn’t taken seriously. The most common thing that people tell me is that I’ll change my mind. I’ve got the ‘wrong impression’ about children; the maternal instinct will come. Upon hearing this, I’m frustrated and indignant. It’s why I’m so forceful in my beliefs and why I prepare my arguments and reasoning in my head – ready for when I’m questioned – and why I snap when the questions inevitably come.

Part of the reason I react this way, though, is a traitorous thought that sneaks into my head when my guard is down. What if? What if I do change my mind? Having once accepted marriage and children as part of my future, it was a conscious decision for me to move away from it. Yet, the potential of changing my mind again feels unnervingly out of my control. If it’s not what I want for my life, how could it possibly change?!

Seeing other women re-evaluate their decision to have children unnerves me. I feel exposed to the possibility that I could change my mind too. Eva Mendes once said, ‘I never wanted babies until I fell in love with Ryan (Gosling). Then it made sense for me to have… not kids, but his kids.’ I’m now in the same position that she once was. I’m single and don’t know who I’ll meet and how that might shape my life and my decisions.

While the social tide is changing, it’s still ingrained in culture and gender roles that having children is a woman’s inevitable duty. That motherhood is the sacred fulfilment of our natural instincts. Consciously childfree women are my role models that help reinforce the rightness of my own decision. The women who are sure of their childfree decision reassure me; the women who question it unsettle me. If others are questioning, how can I know that I’ll stay resolute?

When anxious or doubtful, I remind myself that we ask ourselves questions to make sense of the world, to make sense of other people and what happens around us. Questioning ourselves and our beliefs is good. It means we’re thinking and evaluating and not blindly doing what we’re expected to. I ask: is this my opinion because I need to ensure my own sense of freedom above all else in an uncertain and patriarchal world or is it my opinion simply because I don’t want a child?

At the age of twenty-nine, I don’t have the answer yet. I’ve worked hard to get to the point I’ve reached in my journey.

In many ways, it feels as though my life is only just getting started. I’m protective of what I’ve achieved and what I want for my life ahead of me. Right now, the only maternal role I’m committing to is nurturing and caring for myself and the community I’m growing around me.

For now, I’m very clear on my stance and how I see my life unfolding. I am learning to finally trust my intuition. That said, I will make use of the freedom I value so highly and be free to review my decision on motherhood later in life, should I need to. ✦

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Losing my h aring meant losing self-love until c vid made me question everything

BY K AT E N E L S O N

identity

When you lose your hearing, it will define your life. For the sake of others, you will learn to pretend that it does not.

For me, it was indeed a loss; I wasn’t born deaf. When I was five, I got meningitis. No one was expecting me to survive.

When I did, along with the infection, half my hearing was gone. The thing that nearly killed me, bacterial meningitis, is known to cause sensorineural deafness, which happens when there is a fault in the inner ear or the auditory nerve that carries sound signals to the brain. Sensorineural deafness is permanent. The other main type of deafness is conductive deafness, which occurs when sound can’t pass efficiently through the outer and middle ear into the inner ear, usually because there is some sort of blockage. This doesn’t tend to be permanent but can be in some cases.

Even as a child, I tried to hide the struggles that my deafness caused, as I became aware that it was perceived as more of a burden to others. For years, I did not really comprehend what losing my hearing meant to me, as it felt like it was more of an issue for those around me. I think it carries almost a type of shame, the inability to understand someone. To avoid that shame for both myself and others, I neglected to voice my needs.

Quickly, you learn that the reactions of others will rarely be kind – or even considerate. When I first left the hospital, a substitute teacher screamed at me, ‘Are you deaf?’

I naively replied, ‘Yes.’ I did not know that it was meant to be rhetorical. I did not know that it was meant to be some kind of twisted insult. I did not know why the teacher, after she heard my response, told me to leave her classroom for being cheeky. That was the day I began to hide my hearing loss, refusing hearing aids and rejecting the idea of learning BSL. In my brain, my deafness was the thing that made me different, the flaw that people would pick at and poke at to get a reaction from me. And I know that this is true, as friends I had known for years avoided me due to fear of catching some disease and becoming deaf themselves.

Deep down, I understand the teacher’s comment came from a place of frustration, and my friends were kids themselves. They simply did not understand what I needed from them or how hurtful their actions were.

To summarise, by the time I was five years old, I had: almost died, lost most of my hearing, and no one had ever explained to me that ‘Are you deaf?’ was not always an actual question that required a response. It took me over

a decade to learn how to best conceal my deafness, what I perceived to be a monstrous flaw – only because it was something society would shun. Then Covid came along.

Wearing a mask made lip reading almost impossible, and this ultimately forced me to embrace my deafness.

Finally, I was able to refuse phone calls that I could barely hear and the embarrassment of asking people to repeat sentences slipped away. Despite how terrible the pandemic was, I can at least say there was a silver lining.

I am not going to sugar-coat it. Some sectors still really need to improve education surrounding what it means to be hard of hearing. As I write this article, the British Sign Language Act is going through its third reading in the United Kingdom’s parliament, and apps are being developed to allow users of BSL to communicate more effectively with emergency services. After so many years of struggling, this is a massive step in the right direction.

However, the clear lack of awareness and representation of the hard-of-hearing community in the media, workplace and beyond must be addressed.

Even over a decade after losing my hearing, I have had people request that I put myself in uncomfortable situations claiming, ‘It will only be for a second.’ Sometimes I wish I could scream back, ‘Yes, it’s fine. I will just fix my hearing for a second for your convenience.’ I know it’s difficult; however, my lack of hearing does not exist to be an inconvenience to you.

I spent years making sure that my deafness did not affect anyone else. Every day is a battle of learning to unlearn what I was taught by society when it came to my disability, of learning to set boundaries on what I physically can and cannot do. People will grumble; they will make you feel tiny, like every issue in their day is because you cannot hear.

I used to think of and worry about the second it takes for other people to clarify what they have said, hoping it wasn’t too much of a burden. Now, I remind myself that all it takes for them if they feel inconvenienced is a second to consider the issues the deaf and hard of hearing community face.

The need to hide is always lingering. Hopefully with new legislation, we will see a world where the hard-of-hearing community and BSL will be embraced and understood by everyone. But it must be remembered: a fight must happen, a little bit every day, for us to get to that world.

Part of that fight is showing your struggles, voicing your needs and not letting anyone make you feel less than for it. After all, losing your hearing should never mean losing self-love. ✦

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STRICT PARENTS MAKE GOOD LIARS

BY M I LC A H FA JA R D O P H OTO G R A P H Y BY M A D D I E M O O R E

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: strict parents make good liars.

We all either know someone that hides almost everything about their lives from their parents, or we are that person.

As someone who has personally spent the majority of their life avoiding confessing entirely, I am starting to understand why certain religions make a healthy habit of it.

Sometimes, I scare myself with how easy lying comes to me because I’ve grown up doing it. I feel like it comes so naturally. There’s no hesitation about coming up with excuses, no thought; it just happens. It’s so dangerous when you think about it.

Here’s the thing. My generation is now well past that age of sneaking out to parties and lying about where we’re going and who we’re with. We’re all moving out of our homes or in with partners, talking about children and marriage, and choosing our own paths in life. And yet, our parents still only know the tip of the iceberg.

Phoebe painted herself in the image that her parents wanted to see. From their perspective, they saw what she described as a smart, sensible and level-headed girl. Not too boisterous, not too meek. But they don’t get to see the whole version of her:

This generation of secretive kids has now grown up to be secretive adults. After many ‘we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it’ moments, the time has finally come to ask ourselves, how long is long enough to keep our parents in the dark?

It’s important to underline that we’re not simply pathological liars. At the centre of most strict parent-child relationships is a parent that wants better for their kid and a child who would never want to disappoint them. So, in order to live the life that all the other kids with lenient parents were able to and to experience the things we were sheltered from, lying and secrecy seemed like the only solution to gain independence and freedom.

Twenty-two-year-old Phoebe Edwards spoke to Heroica about her experience with strict parents and how it has taught her a thing or two about lying:

With my friends, I feel like I’m a completely different person – my parents see the diluted version of that, the kind of version that could do no wrong.

I was very much a goody-goody in secondary school, but by the time I got to college, I grew so fed up with having to maintain that image.

I skipped school all the time. I would argue back with teachers and lie about what I was doing, where I was going and who with, and it definitely showed me that you get to a point where you just break.

Having to maintain a perfect image for her parents became a burden Phoebe was stuck with for a long time.

Despite the burden, she knew that some things you’re better off lying about to avoid facing the conflict that would follow if you told the truth.

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Generational patterns are something that we are becoming more aware of, and we know certain ones need breaking so that our future children do not have to lie to us as much as we had to lie to our parents, who bore the strictness of their own parents and so on. One of the generational patterns I know that I want to break for my future children is assuming they’re never going to encounter things like sex, drugs, alcohol, relationships and so on at a young age and therefore never having an open dialogue about it with them.

My parents moved to the UK from the Philippines when I was three. Like most immigrant parents, they both had strong views and values on how they wanted me to grow up. But the older I got, the more I realised how ill-equipped I was to face certain realities because they raised me to avoid them entirely. For instance, I used to be clueless about sexual health.

One of my earliest memories of how my parents viewed taking care of your sexual health was back in secondary school. I went to an all-girls school, and it was that time of the year when all the year eights were offered the HPV vaccine. I brought home my consent form to my parents.

They said I didn’t need it. Thirteen-year-old me didn’t think much of it; as far as I was concerned, it was just another thing my parents said no to.

Sometimes I regret it, but sometimes I feel like lying is a necessity. There’s just no point in arguing about stuff, so you may as well just lie and avoid the conversation entirely.

I know it would upset them, and that’s why I can’t tell them certain things. It’s obviously going to upset me in the long run too, because I do feel like I’m disappointing them when in actuality, it shouldn’t be like that.

For secretive children with strict parents, lying can become more and more of a necessity than a sin over time. Looking back at her upbringing has certainly made Phoebe realise what kind of relationship she would like to have with her future children:

Because I don’t tell my parents certain things, it’s made me realise I don’t want my kids growing up feeling the same. As long as they’re safe, as long as they check in, I don’t think I should stand in the way of how my future children would want to live their lives. I want them to feel like they can tell me things, like funny stories from their nights out, without having to glaze over certain parts just to appease me because they don’t want to let me down.

Vaccination day comes, and everyone is nervous about getting their jabs. The sports hall was full of teenage girls waiting for their vaccines. Everyone I knew was being inoculated for cervical cancer. Friends asked me why I was not getting my jab. I just stood there, shrugged my shoulders, and told them, unconvincingly, that my parents said I don’t need it. At the time, I was thinking, surely if the entire year group has been vaccinated, why would they not want me to be vaccinated too? This wasn’t some random girl’s sleepover I was missing out on; this was my health we’re talking about.

That day, my older sister and I were walking home, and I asked her why Mum and Dad said I couldn’t get the vaccine. She told me that HPV was only something you’d be exposed to if you had sex. And just like that, I had so many other questions. Why couldn’t I have gotten the vaccine just in case? Even if I do wait to have sex after marriage, am I still not at risk of being exposed to HPV? What if, God forbid, I was raped and exposed to it then?

These questions remain unanswered to this day.

Since then, I have taken it upon myself to navigate my sexual health without telling them, despite both my parents being NHS nurses. And that isn’t even the half of it. We live in a scary world, and parents often make the same mistake of trying to shield us from it rather than preparing us for it.

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Twenty-year-old Lillie Dean shared with Heroica how her sheltered upbringing failed to educate her on the reality of the world, particularly in relationships:

I was so naive to the world around me. The problem with how strict my parents were when I was younger meant that I packed everything I couldn’t do into a short space of time, and I was really irresponsible for a couple of years.

While Lillie was navigating relationships as well as her young adult life, her mother had a massive influence on who she dated. With past boyfriends, Lillie’s mum would plant so much doubt to the point that it would cause cracks in the relationship:

She always gave me her negative opinions.

No guy was ever good enough for me. When I was in a relationship, she was constantly sowing these seeds of doubt. A lot of the things we would argue about stemmed down to the things my mum would say to me. She would tell me he was just using me, even though I knew he wasn’t. Her negativity really impacted the way I viewed the relationship; I had to detach myself from my mum’s views so that I could be more emotionally open.

As much as parents think they know what’s best for us, a lot of the time they project their lives onto ours. Lillie struggled in particular with trying to live up to her mum’s expectations for her dating life, which wound up giving her the opposite of what she was looking for:

The one guy my mum finally approved of turned out to be abusive. He was overall really unstable, and we were on and off for ages until it broke me down to the point that I just allowed all these horrible things in our relationship to carry on. When I finally broke it off for the last time, I realised I had wasted all this time in my life on this person who my mum thought was right for me, just because he seemed like my dad.

She adds: When my mum finally learnt about all that had happened, she came round eventually and said I need to stay away from him. But one of the main reasons why I stayed was because he was the only guy that she has ever been supportive of.

As much as we’d like to see the good in all people and pray that they want nothing but the best for us, unfortunately not everyone out there feels the same. This was a lesson that Lillie had to learn the hard way:

They wanted to shelter me from the world so much that they never actually told me about what I was about to experience. When my future kids start seeking independence, I will give it to them in some way, and I will in no way give it to them as late as my parents did.

Those of us who grew up like this share the feeling of being misunderstood and the belief that our secrecy and rebellious actions only seemed rebellious because our caregivers opposed our lifestyle choices and identity.

As much as it’s all fine and well saying how we want to raise our kids differently from how our parents raised us, it’s easier said than done. But whether you’ve experienced the worst or the best that the world has to offer, the reality is that we cannot dictate the kind of person our children will be. All we can do is heal ourselves, and hope that we’ll have the wisdom to equip them for reality. And whenever you decide that your parents have been in the dark long enough, just remember that you don’t need to justify the things you lied about because you’ve already spent your whole life doing that to yourself.

One day you’ll be able to be unapologetically you around your parents, but for now take comfort in the people whom you can be yourself with. God knows they’re hard to find.

Strict parents may make good liars, but remember that you are also far more than that. ✦

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Self Portrait

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தமி ழ்மகளி ர் தி ன வா ழ்த்துக்கள்

Happy Tamil Women’s Day P H OTO G R A P H Y BY M AT H U S H A A SAGT H I DA S

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வயதுவரும் _Coming of Age

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வயதுவரும் _Coming of Age

வயதுவரும் _Coming of Age

I lost my virginity by doing anal at sixteen without lube.

Don’t recommend.

Anonymous confession made through Heroica's Instagram account

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Rejection was my first lesson B Y F AY E A

LEXANDR

A ROSE

How my father’s d abandonment shapliefe my dating * T/ W : SA *

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rieving a parent who is still alive is and will always be a part of who I am, but when I think back to my younger self, I am overcome with a particular sadness for her.

From four years old onwards, it became apparent what I was missing out on as I watched as friends at school were picked up by their fathers.

‘What did you do at the weekend?’ always filled my little body with dread. It was obvious to my classmates that I was fatherless, and I was consequently bullied for it. ‘Not even your dad loves you!’ are words that I would hear constantly, a remark that has stuck with me to this day.

My mother was and is my entire family. Having lost my grandparents and my father, she became the centre of my world. Raising three children whilst grief-ridden from her failed marriage and the loss of her parents is no small task, and I have the utmost respect for her. But selfishly, nothing truly masked the ache my father left behind. The lingering question that I’ll never have answered: why did you walk away from me?

He left for another family. After my father received a phone call in the middle of the night informing him that his daughter was being born, my mother watched him walk out of their bedroom door; her marriage fell apart in a split second. I was nine months old. My brothers were five and eleven. That moment carved a turbulent narrative of men that I carried with me throughout my youth. Many conversations ended with my mother berating men: ‘I’d stay away from them.

Pain and misery is all that they bring.’ I understood her pain, having witnessed first-hand the devastation of cheating and a marriage breakdown.

This knowledge led to me rejecting the idea of relationships for the longest time; only at twenty years old did I enter my first serious relationship. I vividly remember meeting his father for the first time, not fully knowing how to act or who to be around him. My partner would always reassure me, ‘He’s human, just talk to him like you do to me,’ but as my first experience of a dynamic in a household so unlike mine, it took some getting used to. His father and I got on well, but this experience highlighted how my own father leaving at such an early age was starting to shape how I viewed adulthood – and the relationships I was forming.

When I became newly single during my early twenties, how my father’s abandonment had influenced my expectations of men was highlighted further. Tinder had gained popularity. For the most part it was fun – a new way of meeting people at my fingertips – but then it started to go sour. When everything is so easily presented to you, reality and expectations begin to blur. The ‘perfect match’ started to feel like an unobtainable goal within a more fluid and seemingly less committed generation, and I found myself in the thick of ‘disposable dating.’

Dating became a minefield of rejection. Now that everyone had hundreds of matches at their disposal, love turned into a game. Connections became a string of ghosting. Feelings were forgotten. The ‘this grass is greener’ ideology began to translate to how we treat people, allowing the value of a true

connection to dwindle into one-night stands and nothingness.

I would leave dates thinking that we made a bond, only to find that they never texted again.

It would hit hard, but not as hard as when I entered relationships that would then fizzle away. The person I was dating and I would have the dreaded talk about where we were heading and agree to be exclusive, only for them to disappear after a week or two, saying that they needed to focus on themselves.

That old chestnut. Such a constant conveyor belt of rejection further solidified what my younger self always felt – you’re not good enough for love. I figured, if my own father could walk away, how could I possibly think a stranger would stay?

Once this thought had infected my mind, something switched. I was stuck in a paradox: I didn’t want to form relationships and struggled to do so; when I eventually did, my fear manifested itself through people-pleasing that in turn developed into accepting emotional abuse from partners.

The truth of the matter is I’d have rather accepted less than be left again. My feelings and needs were pushed to the sidelines, so much so that I forgot who I was. In one relationship, it was like he could smell my fear and desperation. My partner became my bully, nit-picking at my career, my friends, my mother, my body, my mind – anything he could tarnish with an insult. One evening, the emotional abuse turned physical.

He sexually assaulted me in my own bed, in my family home.

No meant nothing to him; I meant nothing to him. It was from that point that I realised what my life had become.

Shortly after that relationship ended, I deleted dating apps and went to therapy. I had been broken down to such a point that I had no idea who I was, what I liked or where I wanted to be. This rebuilding was truly one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. My therapist told me that in order to rebuild my foundations, I first had to rewire how I felt about my father – to face my loss head-on – so that I could accept the idea of a healthy relationship.

Learning to stop making myself small and that I’m allowed to take up space in the world was the first step. Mistakes in life, in relationships, are inevitable and not a representation of my childhood or who I am as a person. Admittedly it’s still a work in progress, but I have come to terms with the fact that I was never the one with the problem – my father was. A daughter without a father is just as deserving of love as anyone. ✦

Some resources if you’re dealing with anything mentioned in the article:

Rapecrisis.org.uk

Mind.org.uk

Family-action.org.uk

ers.co.uk Daddylessdaught

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Problematic Pussy: Overcoming Painful Sex

BY E L I Z A B E T H R I C H

My vagina doesn’t work, and it hasn’t from a young age.

A burning sensation, itching, stabbing pain and general discomfort would keep me up at night, but I didn’t know how to tell my parents because we’re often told that talking about our genitals is dirty and embarrassing. These symptoms (which I still get) make standing up tough and walking around even tougher.

Sometimes it’s like having constant thrush or a UTI. But I didn’t realise just how bad my condition was until I got older and started having sex.

Sex happened for the first time when I was seventeen. It was NOT like the movies (I’m looking at you, Fifty Shades of Grey). Although somewhat painful and uncomfortable, losing my virginity would not be the most painful sex I’d have. As my (ex) boyfriend and I began doing it regularly, it became clear that something was wrong. Penetration was extremely painful; my vagina wasn’t producing any moisture. For days after the deed it would sting and ache. I’d hear friends’ conversations about sex and how enjoyable it was and would join in with fake scenarios as I was embarrassed that my vagina didn’t work like theirs. I felt broken.

By this point I was old enough to articulate my struggles to a doctor and was introduced to the systemic issues within women’s healthcare. Despite constant reminders that I had only had one sexual partner, I was sent for multiple STD screenings. When these came back clear (obviously), I would be forgotten about and had to push for more exploration. I switched doctors and was subject to this cycle again before finally being heard and referred to a gynaecologist. Whilst undertaking this medical process, I still had a relationship to upkeep. I placed suffocating expectations on myself, fixating on the false belief that good girlfriends should sexually satisfy their boyfriends.

In September 2019 I began attending university, and my relationship became long-distance. Sex was an expectation whenever my boyfriend came to see me, and I began to dread his visits. I feared sex and the pain I would be in during and after. I couldn’t even kiss him without the muscles in my vagina contracting as subconsciously I thought that kissing would lead to sex. Sex became about him pleasuring himself and me just lying and waiting for it to be over. Don’t get me wrong, it was consensual – just not pleasurable.

sex & relationships

Then the pandemic hit, and I couldn’t see him. I took that time to begin to heal myself mentally. At the start of the lockdown, I wasn’t the person I wanted to be. I wished to be in control of my own sexuality and no longer be passive in my sexual experiences. When my boyfriend and I finally saw each other again it was good, at least for a while. Although sex still hurt, I could better articulate when I didn’t want sex and was working on dealing with the guilt that came with such refusal.

In October 2020 I had an appointment with a gynaecologist.

My whole life I had been researching my symptoms and had concluded that I had vulvodynia. The gynaecologist agreed.

Described by the NHS as persistent, unexplained pain in the vulva, vulvodynia is an umbrella term for something that no one knows much about. It was deflating to realise that I would never get an answer to why I was in pain. Best believe if there were a chronic condition that inhibited men from having sex, there would be more research. I was told it was incurable; I just had to live with it. A few close friends were made aware of my diagnosis. None had heard of vulvodynia, which goes to show how little women are educated on gynaecological issues.

What the gynaecologist didn’t tell me was how to better my sex life. I was so overwhelmed with a diagnosis that I accepted it, no questions asked. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks after that I realised I was left with no real answer or solution to my problem with sex, which began to take its toll.

I grew to despise sex. It became unbearable; I didn’t even like foreplay anymore. A voice in the back of my head urged me to continue having sex for my boyfriend’s sake, and this made me start to resent him. He knew about my diagnosis, and I’d urged him to read up about it so we could take measures to make sex more comfortable for me. He didn’t. I was in a constant battle with myself as I wanted to be a ‘good’ girlfriend, but I also wanted to respect myself and couldn’t do this whilst knowingly putting my body through trauma, so we broke up at the end of January 2021. Thus began my journey to rediscover myself sexually.

After my breakup, I feared sex and didn’t think about it for a long time. I enjoyed my freedom and spending time with friends. Looking back, I’m so grateful for this time. I didn’t actively do a lot to heal myself, so I can’t provide many tips, but what I did do was start living my life without sex looming over me. A therapist I saw discussed these issues with me, and she was a huge help in realising that sex is a two-person thing. With time, I admitted that I had always felt that I wasn’t present in my sexual experiences, and this was a very mentally damaging thing. I didn’t have sex for over a year.

When I returned to university after the summer of 2021, my mindset shifted. I felt ready to begin experimenting with sex, so a guy I had been speaking to for a couple of months came over, and we slept together. Once again, it hurt like a bitch. The saving grace of this sexual experience was that after a few minutes of discomfort, I actually listened to my body and articulated my pain. We stopped; the guy was super understanding. It was a small step, but by creating those boundaries and listening to my needs, I felt in control. And this felt good. Despite this pride, I was disheartened. I began to question whether I was destined to have painful sex for the rest of my life.

I decided to take some agency. I researched different lubes – lube would become my best friend. The guy came round again; this time, I was ready. It was like I was going into battle, with

lube as my warpaint. Victory was mine! Well, it was more of a victory than I was used to. It actually felt somewhat pleasurable. We did have to stop after a little while, and it stung for a few days after, but in the moment it felt okay. Although it doesn’t sound it, this was a HUGE step forward. Confidence was something I had really struggled with in the past. I had felt SO unsexy, both in my relationship and after it. My body didn’t work as I wanted it to and although you couldn’t see this, I felt it was reflected in my appearance. This experience really helped change that.

The next guy I slept with helped me find which condoms worked for me, and the sex was significantly better. Perhaps I was actually starting to enjoy myself! With every sexual experience, my confidence kept growing, and so did my sexual appetite. For so long sex was something I dreaded, something I attached fear and self-loathing to. Now it was something I was celebrating.

Sex really has been a journey for me. And I’m still on the road. I have good days and bad days. I still have flare-ups of my vulvodynia that leave me questioning why this is happening to me, that leave me wondering what it’s like to have a ‘normal’ vagina. The only difference between now and then is that I don’t have a boyfriend to expect sex from me. During these flare-ups I can just focus on myself rather than feel guilty for refusing sex or being in pain from giving it up.

Writing this article brought back a lot of painful memories, but it also showed me how far I’ve come. There are still things I need to work on to become truly comfortable with my body and sex, and there are still things that scare me. My mind goes to dark places whenever I get a twinge of pain in my vagina, terrified of another flare-up. People’s perception of me if I have to stop sex because of the pain is something I still worry over. Many anxieties cloud me, but I am slowly making my way through the fog.

I still struggle to tell sexual partners about my vulvodynia, and by struggling, I mean that I don’t. I’m guilty of making up all sorts of excuses to get out of sex. My most recent was that I was at the end of having a UTI and it was too painful for sex, which I guess isn’t far from the truth and was probably one of my better excuses. My advice for telling sexual partners about a gynaecological condition is to write an article about it.

I’m anxious about new relationships. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not on the cards just yet, but I am known for falling hard and fast. When that happens, I’m not sure how my vagina will take it (she’s got a mind of her own). There are so many things I will do differently. I will no longer be passive during sex, I will articulate my desires, and I will verbalise when I don’t want sex.

But I’m still scared. I’m scared that I will fall back into a trap of my own expectations. I’m scared that I will put my partner’s needs over my own. And I’m scared because a tiny voice in the back of my head is telling me that I won’t be enough.

These fears, although real, are premature. I now have the confidence and maturity to put how I’m feeling into words.

This is my saving grace. My hope is that whoever and whenever my next relationship is, I will feel comfortable sharing these words with them, too. I’ve learned so many things about myself in the past year. That lube really is a lifesaver. That Durex thin condoms are fantastic. That certain angles hurt; I have new favourite positions. That I’m sexy as fuck, and my mind and body can’t make me feel otherwise. ✦

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More Female Pleasure, Please: Why I Pay for My Porn

BY T I L LY R O B E RTS P H OTO G R A P H Y BY E R I K A LU ST P R E S S O F F I C E

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confess that I love adult films, but it hasn’t always been that way. A few months ago, I discovered the work of Erika Lust, an erotic filmmaker, via an ad on Instagram (I had recently decided to remove the content restrictions). I began watching the trailers for Lust’s films; I could tell this was something extraordinary. So, I decided to pay for a year’s subscription to XConfessions and began watching the films in the evenings with my partner. My excitement and relief were overwhelming.

For the first time, I felt included in the discourse, and I enjoyed (I mean, truly enjoyed) porn. However, the joy of finding XConfessions was overshadowed by a strong sense of sadness for my younger self. I keenly felt the resentment at the ease with which something so unnatural – the depiction of female pleasure and form in mainstream porn – had become idealised and untouched for so long.

Porn has always been a part of our culture. Porn can and should be a medium of expression that is healthy and normal. But it wasn’t just porn I grew up with. It was highspeed internet porn with more videos than you could watch in your lifetime. Compared to the playboy magazines, erotica, sketches and sculptures of days gone by, highspeed internet porn carved out a whole new addiction that soon swept the world. Porn’s level of saturation into society’s unconscious was at an all-time high when I became aware of it as an impressionable teenager.

At age sixteen, I started my first relationship. Not long after, I found out that my partner and lots of my male friends had been watching porn and masturbating. So, I watched a few videos online to try it out. I hated it; I didn’t understand why you would want to watch the type of videos I found.

Needless to say, I didn’t ‘finish’. After, I argued with my boyfriend about the whole thing. I felt jealous – not because my partner was getting off to other people, but because they had a comfortable and loyal connection to something I was both curious about and repulsed by.

From my limited point of view, those boys had more sexual knowledge and experience than I did because of the porn they watched. As I didn’t enjoy this porn and wasn’t climaxing, I felt like I wasn’t masturbating ‘properly’. Of course, in truth, I wasn’t. I didn’t know what to do; I hadn’t been taught about my anatomy or how to enjoy my own body. With no way to pick up what was missing from my own understanding, I thought that porn was the answer.

Looking back at when I was a child exploring my body, porn played a huge role in the ideas I formulated.

In an ideal sex-positive world, there would be many different conversations, sources of information and positive representations in the media for me to learn from. But because of the lack of an alternative discourse and the history of silence and shame surrounding female sexuality and anatomy, porn was in a privileged position to affect me.

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Unsolicited comparisons to porn from sexual partners have affected me deeply. And it wasn’t until I saw the range of sexualities and bodies represented in XConfessions that I started realising how mainstream porn’s aesthetics had curated my body image. Of course, I knew that I compared myself to unrealistic representations of beauty in the media. Still, I had no idea that something I wasn’t consciously consuming was profoundly altering my self-image.

‘You fuck like a pornstar’ was one of the more memorable comments from an ex. Apparently, it was meant as a compliment on how I sounded, looked and my overall enthusiasm for sex. I was in my late teens, and my reaction was to think that porn actresses must enjoy sex as I do.

But then I became self-conscious and ashamed about my enjoyment of sex because porn was fake in my eyes and derogatory towards women. It was a compliment I was reluctant to take.

I started to wonder: was porn copying my desire? Or was I copying porn? My joy and pleasure had been labelled as not necessarily my own. It made me feel like I was playing a part in a movie that I had just wandered into; I couldn’t be sure that I wasn’t subconsciously following a script in my head. However, a positive came out of these comparisons: I began to criticise my own behaviour and thoughts around sex.

At college, I started watching feature films recommended by my male friends, classics mostly, but one of them was A Serbian Film. It is a snuff film about a struggling porn star who gets roped into doing a project that turns out to be a violent porn film displaying necrophilia and paedophilia.

I was horrified, but not in the way I am now because ignorance is bliss until it moulds your understanding of sexual relationships. When I accosted my male friends, they laughed and told me it was a joke they played on each other. I was not laughing – but I wasn’t crying either.

The Sadean representation of violence in that film probably would have made many people switch it off. So why didn’t I? I was used to watching recommended films like American History X, Seven, American Psycho, and Django Unchained.

These classics were the topic of our discussions at college, and I enjoyed praising and dissecting them with friends.

The interconnection of violence and sex within the media had completed its hazing rites on me; I was primed to accept my own sexual repression without question or fear.

I felt like my sexuality was a spectacle. I became more aware of other differences by critically analysing my interactions with partners. Slowly, I discovered the parts of my sexuality that directly conflicted with porn’s and society’s representation of gendered binaries, mainly that male sexuality is active and female sexuality passive. My own female sexuality was definitely active: I would take the initiative and have one-night stands, confident in my desire for sex. It was surprising and novel to most partners, not unattractive, but definitely different. ‘You’re not like other girls,’ was their response, and ‘You make everything so easy.’

My confidence suffered. I didn’t change, but I questioned why this was unusual. Although I didn’t care what other people said, acting outside of typical behaviour made me feel vulnerable. I needed a sex-positive community. In the library at my university, I found that community in books

by Angela Carter, Anne Rice, Chris Kraus, Margaret Attwood, Virginia Woolf, Julia Kristeva, and Clarrisa Pinkola Estés.

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When I encountered Erika Lust’s platform, I was well on the way to understanding what sexual representations and a sex-positive society could be. I was privileged to be sure because I was prepared to have my vision confirmed.

I can see now that without my background in critical gender theory and my own varied experiences, I might not have chosen to click on Erika’s advert. Potentially, my Instagram feed might not have included it at all because the algorithm would have been very different.

We Are the Fucking World was the first film I watched on XConfessions, directed by Olympe de G in 2017, and it was beyond what I could have imagined. It revolutionised my previous conceptions of what porn could be. The actors start by discussing what they are comfortable with within a group, what kind of sex they enjoy, and how they feel that day. Then, they connected with pleasure and consent on all sides. It was sexy, respectful, educational, inclusive, and representative. I could see women taking the initiative, asking for what they wanted, and receiving and giving pleasure. It felt alien to begin with: I had never seen it before. It brought me to tears.

Female pleasure matters. When I discovered my clitoris for the first time, I thought it was a small penis. Only recently have I understood the tragic irony of this situation. As a child, I had so little knowledge of my own anatomy that I assumed I had a penis because that’s all that I was aware of. At twenty-three years old, I now know that the clitoris is made of the same erectile tissue as the penis. They are the same but different. The biggest difference, though, is visibility.

The clitoris has been invisible, some would even say mythical, for many, many years. Its purpose has been guessed at and has changed throughout history. Recently, I went on holiday with my partner. We were digging a large hole in the sand – the usual holiday activity. I decided to turn it into a giant anatomically correct vulva. It took us a while, but we got there. Soon, people were watching us and smiling. It felt good and oddly daring, as if sculpting a vulva in public was a form of protest. It was art. The really cool part of that was that I saw children turn to their parents and ask them what we were making.

When I say women’s pleasure matters, I am not saying men’s pleasure does not. I say it because women’s pleasure has not mattered for so long. More recently, it has been seen as an extra to the heteronormative main course of the ‘penis in vagina’ sex.

No matter what, you deserve pleasure on your terms!

Whether that’s sexual pleasure or not. You deserve it. It is your human right. As a writer, feminist, responsible porn consumer, and human being, I am working to support the new wave of adult films so that the value of porn is recognised. So that these platforms can continue to grow and produce responsible, representative, and educational porn inspired by real-life fantasies from real people. That is why I decided to pay for adult films – and why I will continue to do so. ✦

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Filmmaker Erika Lust: I Want to Bring Equality to the Porn Industry I N T E RV I E W E D BY T I L LY R O B E RTS

Erika Lust is a multi-award-winning filmmaker and a prominent leader of the feminist pornography movement. Erika runs three online cinema sites: XConfessions, Lust Cinema and Else Cinema. Each film is produced ethically with high levels of respect for everyone involved in the process, with a team of creatives and actors who share her values and criticisms of mainstream pornography. By capturing the female gaze, she aims to create porn films that centre female desire in order to bring equality to the porn industry.

How are you transforming the stereotypes within porn?

I started my business twenty years ago because I was tired of porn focused on athletic performance, stereotypical beauty standards and emotionless storylines. Likewise, I wanted to prove that we can represent sex in which people of any gender are treated as equal sexual collaborators.

Sex performers are usually categorised on the free tube sites by their racial identity, age, body type, ability or demographic and are generally reduced to stereotypes. I want viewers to appreciate the film for the performance as opposed to the physical attributions of the performer. Similarly, I want performers to be able to exist outside the physical boundaries of their appearance, gender or skin colour.

We have a big crew with all the departments needed to create a cinematic quality film, and all sex scenes in our films are shot in freestyle mode – that’s what makes them more natural and relatable. I don’t want me or the guest directors to provide performers with a list of actions they have to perform (as per the usual procedure in many productions in the industry).

Whether we are working with experienced performers or newcomers, ​​we get to know them well in advance through Zoom calls, or we meet them in person if we can. We always make sure they are 18+, have had their own sexual experiences already, are sex-positive and aligned with our values, and are 100% enthusiastic about being part of the project.

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When you pay for your porn, what does it mean for the actors, the directors and the crew? How exactly does it work to change the possibilities of the medium?

When you pay for your porn, you are giving it value. You are supporting the people who do it, and you are sending the message that you want to watch porn that is made safely, with quality and diversity. As in many other fields, consumers are ultimately a part of the industry.

More money, more evenly distributed within the industry, will provide space for innovative new directors and allow production companies to focus on quality rather than simply having an economy of scale.

There are new varied companies producing responsibly, but they’re not as visible as the likes of Pornhub. How has social media affected the industry?

Social media has simultaneously opened new doors and created new barriers to change.

On the one hand, the stigma attached to people working in the industry is real. The porn industry is still heavily misunderstood and mistreated by society and media outlets. It’s a never-ending battle just to exist online and promote our businesses. Social media censorship is a huge problem. Other women+ in the industry and I continuously have non-explicit photos and hashtags removed, and accounts deleted or shadow banned.

On the other hand, the new wave of content subscription services such as OnlyFans allows adult performers to be more empowered than ever before. They can create content in the safety of their homes, with the people they want to work with, setting their own rules. Thanks to these platforms, many performers (especially women+) are less dependent on porn studios and feel more empowered to call out predatory behaviour from companies, directors or agents.

How have you tried to transform the stigma attached to the sex industry?

I follow an ethical production process, both in terms of what we produce and how we produce it. In simple terms, this means we care about the performers’ welfare. It is adult cinema where consent has been given for every part of the film from all parties involved. This means consent regarding the sexual acts being performed, but also the rate of pay they are receiving. Personal limits and boundaries are respected, and the performer can stop shooting at any moment if they feel uncomfortable.

Today, I am happy to see new ethically oriented, female-led adult productions rising within the industry and showing a whole new spectrum of sexualities while going beyond old-fashioned gender stereotypes, racism, and fetishisation perpetrated by a massive amount of ‘free’ porn.

There are more women and LGBTQ+ people in the industry now than ever before, showing their perspectives on sex and sexuality and standing proud next to their brilliant work.

However, this is still an androcentric industry; we have a long way to go yet.

Yes, we do have a long way to go. Especially when it comes to sex education in schools and parents having conversations about porn at home. That’s where we all start looking for more information about sex.

Yes, young people are curious! And when they don’t have access to the age-appropriate sex education that they deserve, they are left to learn about sex through what they find online. That’s why, when it comes to the influence of ‘free’ online porn on young people’s perceptions and expectations of sex and relationships, I prefer to embrace the neutral perspective of porn literacy. Rather than promoting a ‘proporn’ or ‘anti-porn’ attitude, I feel it’s more urgent for adults to give the younger generation the tools to be critical and aware of what they’re watching.

Porn can confuse teens about how sex connects with sensuality and relationships. It can be damaging because it often displays sex completely separate from emotion. Most porn on the free tube sites doesn’t teach women how to communicate their needs and desires, and it doesn’t teach men to ask for consent. Plus, everyone tends to look very similar – slim women with big boobs, muscly men with big penises, and trans and nonbinary people being fetishised for their attributes.

This is what led me to create my non-profit project The Porn Conversation and the age-appropriate conversation guides featured in it, which aim to help families and educators to lead comprehensive sex ed conversations and curricula.

Porn and shame often go hand-in-hand, even as adults. What has the taboo nature of porn meant for the producers and consumers?

Porn often sidesteps scrutiny in public debate because we’re unwilling to talk about it in public, which reinforces the heavy stigma attached to it. Mainstream media and institutions are almost never willing to talk about porn or confront it in its real inner complexities, controversies and innovations. And when they do, they tend to talk about it as if it’s just one big, seedy thing. But just like any other big industry, there are different businesses doing different things within the porn industry.

Alternatives do exist!

Porn mirrors society and our perception of sex, gender, women+ and non-conforming identities, so we should be conscious about the type of pornography we consume. If a person doesn’t label themselves sexist or homophobic, why should they consume sexist and homophobic, fetishising porn?

We seek out good food and good TV shows – why should porn be any different?

We have accepted a cheap, narrow-minded, quick gratification version of porn for too long, and it’s time for it to change.

We can take adult cinema back to the ‘70s when it was political, highly narrative, artistic – or all of those things together!

Porn can open your mind about sexuality and help you to discover new desires and fantasies. It can help you discover your body and how to give pleasure to it and to others. It can also be useful for young people growing up with kinks and desires not shared by the people around them; it can show them that they are not alone and that their desires aren’t abnormal.

I watched The Principles of Pleasure recently.

I could see this series revolutionising sex ed in schools. Do you think something like that could happen?

Pleasure and sex are still mainly seen in our society as something that we must protect our children from. Maybe that’s why proper sex education is still lacking pretty much everywhere.

We need instead to open the conversation about sex in the public debate. Being sex-positive is about cultivating an open, accepting and progressive attitude towards sex and sexuality while feeling good about your erotic self and proudly inhabiting your body. All of this can only have positive effects on people!

We, as parents and trusted adults for our children, have a responsibility to provide a space where they can feel that we can – and we will – talk about sex. Yes, there are parents who are having ‘The Talk’ at home and some schools and educators who are doing their best in providing sex ed (when it is even allowed). However, it’s usually focused on the dangers of sex and reproduction – remember the old story of the ‘birds and the bees’? – and it usually leaves out the topic of porn.

Our children deserve to be heard in their natural curiosity about sex. We need to open up the conversation with them about what equal and consenting sex is, just as much as to give them the tools to differentiate between the types of porn they can stumble upon online. ✦

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Space Bunnies C LOT H I N G D E S I G N E R , ST Y L I N G A N D C R E AT I V E C O L L A B O R AT I O N BY H A N N A H M AY @ LO C A L _ _ P E RV E RT H A I R A N D C R E AT I V E C O L L A B O R AT I O N

BY K AT I E C A R L S O N @ H E Y Y K AT E _ M UA BY C A S SY C O N L E Y @ C A S S . M UA P H OTO G R A P H Y A N D C R E AT I V E C O L L A B O R AT I O N

BY T R U E R O S I E B R I X @T R U Z YS P H OTO S TA K E N AT ST U D I O E N T E R R A I N VA N C O U V E R , B C M O D E L L I N G BY J E N N I F E R A N D S O P H I A

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Sometimes, I wish something really bad would happen to me, like I get really sick or something, just to have a ‘valid’ reason to feel the way I do.

Anonymous confession made through Heroica's Instagram account

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Being Mad at My Doctor Compelled Me to Start a Vibrator Company

www.meetrosie.com Instagram @meetrosieofficial

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’m Georgia, founder of O Blooms, and I talk about sex… a lot.

Ever since I hit puberty, I’ve had painful periods. I always thought that the amount of pain I experienced during my time of the month was normal. Everyone hates their period, right? The thing is, that wasn’t the only pain I experienced.

Growing up, I understood sex to be a positive, enjoyable thing, but for me it was always eye-wateringly unpleasant. I spent hours googling what on earth was wrong with me. Was my vagina broken? It seemed like I was the only one in my group of friends who was experiencing issues.

When I went to my family doctor about the discomfort that I was experiencing, they told me that I could ‘cure’ my painful sex by simply ‘relaxing’. I was mad. Like, REAL MAD. Then one day I was rushed to the ER with extreme pain in my abdomen. Diagnosis? Appendicitis. Twenty-four hours later, I came out of the hospital – one appendix lighter – but with something much heavier weighing on me: a second diagnosis.

This diagnosis, I soon learnt, was going to be a lot trickier to handle than a measly ruptured appendix. During the operation, the doctor discovered that I had endometriosis.

That’s how I came to learn the cause of my excruciating, can’t-get-out-of-bed periods and the painful sex I was experiencing. Oh, and that the doctor who told me to just ‘relax’ was full of shit.

Everyone knows someone with endometriosis these days.

Like, where was this illness ten years ago? It was there, alright, but doctors simply brushed it off as ‘period pain’.

So, what sparked change? What made doctors wake up to endo as a real thing? It was women and those that menstruate. They used their voices to break the stigma and bring to light the #endostruggles. I realised I wanted to use my own voice, too, to truly break the sex stigma that comes with the condition.

That leads me to Rosie. For so many of us with vulvas, penetrative sex is not an option. All of these people deserve to have that mind-blowing orgasm; I wanted to give it to them. The Original Rosie is a clitoral suction vibrator that hits your clit in all the right places. You’ll feel INCREDIBLE. But it’s more than that. Rosie is a community full of self-love and sex-positivity.

All those who have historically been denied it should be able to explore their sexuality in a way that feels right to them, to have more options when it comes to self-pleasure. And that’s why this company is so important to me.

The stigma around women ‘getting off’ is very much still a thing. I was met with very judgmental looks when I announced the O Blooms venture to some. Although I’m surrounded by a lot of really supportive people, there’s definitely been times when I’ve doubted the whole thing. Is that because it’s ingrained in me that sex is meant to be shameful for women?

That if you like it, you’re a ‘slut’? I don’t know.

What I do know is that I am so over the narrative that women can’t talk about sex. And not just talk about sex in a hot, steamy way that satisfies the male gaze. Let’s talk about everything that sex is. Sex can be awkward; it can be painful.

It is different for everyone. I want every single person that has struggled with this to know that they’re not alone. They’re not weird. There is not something wrong with them. Rosie is all about breaking the stigma surrounding sex and redefining what ‘normal’ sex is. It’s about including all women in the sexual pleasure movement.

I hope that Rosie can become a platform for other people experiencing issues like painful sex, endometriosis, and PCOS to share their stories. To feel liberated. I want these people to feel in control of their sex lives. And I’ve got some big plans for the future. Not to spill all my secrets, but you can expect to see new lines of toys, a revolutionary platform for all things sex positivity and some raunchy bedroom goodies.

I launched O Blooms in February 2022 and have been juggling full-time work with starting a business for the past few months (no big deal, right?). A typical day in my life right now is waking up at 5 am and packing orders. It makes me so happy to see Rosies going out to incredible people all over the world.

I’m then at work for the next eight hours.

As soon as I get home, I’m on the gram, chatting with women and people from all over the world who are experiencing painful sex. I feel so privileged to have connected with others just like me, to get to hear the stories that they choose to share. Knowing you’re not alone in all this is freaking awesome.

I am truly so excited to share O Blooms with the world. It’s something that is super important to me, and I feel like I’m living my dreams (well, minus the 5 am wake-up call).

And my confession?

I love using my Rosie.

Every.

Single.

Day. ✦

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I Went Back to My Abuser...

BY H A N N A H DA K I N

More Than Once

ENT BACK TO MY ABUSER, MORE THAN ONCE → I WENT BACK TO MY ABUSER, MORE THAN ONCE → I W ABUSER, MORE THAN ONCE → I WENT BACK TO MY ABUSER, MORE THAN ONCE → I WENT BACK TO MY AN ONCE → I WENT BACK TO MY ABUSER, MORE THAN ONCE → I WENT BACK TO MY ABUSER, MORE TH

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When I read that 97% of women have been sexually assaulted it made me feel sick because it wasn’t a statistic that left me questioning whether it was true or not, it was a statement that I knew was true – a statistic that I belonged to.

I’ve blamed myself and made excuses for the men that have hurt me. I was drunk; he was drunk. I wasn’t wearing a lot of clothes. I was being flirty with him, begging for attention. Not once did I recognise the abuse when I shared details of what had happened to me with friends because I never saw any fault. Instead, I’ve held myself accountable far too many times for the actions of someone else. I have felt ashamed of myself for letting things happen because I was intoxicated with no control, ashamed that I was unable to fight back, and most ashamed that I was the one putting myself in these positions.

There is something that always shocks people when I confess it to them. It is this: I decided to go on a date with the boy who sexually assaulted me. It happened at a party.

While I was passed out drunk on a friend’s sofa, he put his hands inside my pants and tongue down my throat. He was the older brother of someone there. Later, he would say that the assault was a drunken mistake and apologise.

Even so, many would question why I would go on a date with this boy. The answer is that mutual friends called him a nice guy, and I wanted to disassociate his actions from that night and get to know him, for him. I wanted to give someone like him a second chance. I thought he deserved a second chance.

On the date, I was uncomfortable and anxious. I couldn’t allow myself to drink or have a good time just in case something was to happen again. The thought of him touching me made my whole body shiver with nausea.

After the date, I continued to talk to him. I was in denial and, in all honesty, felt bad for him. I felt bad for him because a part of me really hoped he was a good person, but the other part knew that I would never see past what had happened. I am grateful that I let that part win.

Turns out that something like this would happen again with another boy. Well, more of a man this time. Friends of mine would all joke about the time I got woken up on the floor of one of their rooms with all my clothes off. I would laugh along and make jokes myself. However, the sad reality is that all I can remember from that night was trying to be sick, laying down and then him being on top of me. I yelled a string of words as I tried weakly to push him off.

No. I can’t. I feel sick. I don’t want to.

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When I was woken up, naked and alone on the floor, there was no sign of him. Sometimes I try to recall what happened, but I can’t. Maybe my brain has blocked it from my memory to protect me, but it frustrates me. I have so many unanswered questions. He told me that we tried, but I asked him to stop and so we did. But I think back to my friend hearing noises from the other room and the image of me opening my eyes to see him on top of me, and I question my reality.

After the assault, I went back to him. It was around a month later. At the time, I didn’t feel worthy enough to be respected. I felt that I wasn’t important enough to have my own feelings considered and get what I wanted. So, I went back, despite how he left me feeling. I thought that feeling was all I deserved; I was punishing myself.

It turns out that victims going back to their abusers is more common than people might think. In a documentary based on survivors of sexual assault, I listened to one woman explain that she went back to her abuser to take back control. Her story made me begin to reflect on mine.

I never thought about it in that way, although I do feel, in retrospect, that a part of me went back to these men and searched for other men under my own terms because I wanted to feel that I still had control and power over what was happening to me.

Sometimes when I share my story, I feel stupid. I question whether the fact that I went back to my abuser makes the abuse less believable. You experienced something so awful, but you still went back. It can’t have been that bad if you went back to them for more. They must have been doing something right if you stayed. I know in my heart that

I shouldn’t feel stupid and that the abuse I suffered was very real. It can be hard for others to understand why we do certain things; it can be hard for ourselves to understand why we do the things we do. But it isn’t about questioning the whys or the whats. It is about hearing a person tell their story and listening without judgement.

This isn’t the easiest topic to write about. Sometimes there aren’t any words to explain how it makes you feel, how it affects you or how one day you could be going about your day and have a flashback out of nowhere. There aren’t any words to describe the nights you can’t sleep, the neverending dreams, the fear of losing control, the mention of their name, the interior of a place you wish you could forget. There aren’t words for the questions you are faced with, the thoughts you have, the what ifs – wondering what it was you did, if you could have avoided it had you done something differently. The frustration, anger, embarrassment, and guilt. The shame.

I thought that I could run away from my trauma. Joking about it was easier than confronting it. But it is never that simple. There were many things I tried to help myself move on. One such attempt was writing a letter to the second person who assaulted me in the hope that it would bring peace. In it, I explained the night and what I recalled, how it made me feel at the time and how it still makes me feel.

I wrote ten pages altogether, crying throughout and taking plenty of breaks. I did feel lighter once it was all written down on paper, but it was still extremely heavy. I set the letter on fire and watched it burn. This was my way of letting go of my trauma – or so I thought.

I thought that I could run away from my trauma.

Joking about it was easier than confronting it.

But it is never that simple.

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This essay is dedicated (with a big fat massive Fuck You) to those who used me for their own benefit when I was at my most vulnerable.

The truth is that I’ve been running away from my trauma, and it’s catching up with me. It’s not something that just disappears. My past continues to affect my present regardless of how much time passes. It affects my anxiety, my trust in others, and my sex life. I struggle to sleep in a room with someone, and I can’t sleep naked alone because of how vulnerable it makes me feel. I struggle with closing my eyes and not knowing what is going on in my surroundings. There are numerous things that trigger me.

I refuse to let my assault define the woman that I am and that I am becoming. This is just the beginning of my healing process. I may be perceived as strong for writing this. I know a lot of women that are not ready to share their stories, but please do not see me as an example of a way to be strong because I can tell you from the bottom of my heart, that is not the case.

For those who have gone through this, I want you to know that how you want to feel and how you deal with your trauma is for you and you only. Nobody can tell you how you should be coping or what you should be doing. There is no right or wrong way of dealing with it and when the time is right for you, I do hope that you are able to seek the help that you deserve. I also want to say that talking about it can be extremely difficult and can bring up so many emotions that you never even knew you felt, but when you feel like you can, please do talk about it and allow yourself to process and heal. I do not recommend the ways I dealt with my trauma, nor do I encourage it, but it was my way, and I can’t go back and change everything I did. What I can do is look forward and learn that there are healthier coping mechanisms.

This essay is dedicated (with a big fat massive Fuck You) to those who used me for their own benefit when I was at my most vulnerable.

To the boy who locked me in a room when I was fifteen.

To the boy who followed me home in broad daylight on a Sunday morning.

To the boy who took pictures of me on the train.

To the boy who put his hands on me whilst I was passed out on a friend’s sofa.

To the boy who grabbed my arm when I tried to leave to find my friends in a club.

To the man who ignored my cries and left me passed out on a floor, naked, not remembering a thing.

To the man who heard my safe word and chose to ignore it.

To the man who heard I was on my period and didn’t feel comfortable having sex, who forced me to do it anyway.

To the one who reassured me that sex wasn’t what they were looking for but slowly started taking advantage.

To the one who watched me cry until I couldn’t breathe but still tried to have sex with me to ‘make me feel better’.

To the one who tried to guilt trip me into sending explicit photos when I was suicidal.

To the ones who have made me doubt myself.

To the ones who have questioned my story.

FUCK. YOU. ✦

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The NHS Crumbling is a Feminist Issue

BY L AU R E N J O N E S

The NHS is a source of national pride for Britain. But after years of government neglect, pay freezes and a serious lack of respect for NHS workers – not to mention a global pandemic – the NHS is crumbling. While this is indeed a crisis, what most don’t realise is that it’s also an important feminist issue.

Healthcare workers fall under the umbrella term ‘pink-collar workers’, which refers to those working in care-oriented fields or other roles that have historically been considered women’s work. Pink-collar workers are not afforded adequate respect for their roles because of the traditional perception of these roles as easy work or unskilled vocations. According to NHS Digital, professionally qualified clinical staff make up 52.8% of full-time equivalent NHS Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) staff, meaning that over half of full-time NHS workers have a degree and/or other specialised training – so they should be considered working professionals as opposed to unskilled workers.

Many of us have a very basic understanding of how our healthcare system actually works. There is widespread awareness of different roles within healthcare, such as nurses, midwives, doctors, and health care assistants (HCAs), but what these roles actually entail and the differences between them are shrouded in a degree of mystery. Nurses, for example, are responsible for administering medications, monitoring patients and informing doctors of any change in patient status – not just paperwork and helping patients shower. Doctors and nurses work in partnership and depend on each other’s skills and specialist knowledge to provide high-quality patient care: it is not the case that doctors are solely responsible for the most serious decisions.

Healthcare professionals are not fairly paid for their work, which is at least partially due to the ignorance surrounding what exactly a job in healthcare entails. As well as literally being the difference between a patient living or dying in some cases, hours are long and shift patterns are gruelling. Nurses, HCAs, midwives, doctors and paramedics are all required to provide aroundthe-clock care, working undesirable hours such as night shifts and public holidays like Christmas.

Some HCAs, according to NHS employers, earn as little as £10.95 per hour. New nurses and midwives earn, not including tax or pensions, £27,055 (nurses.co.uk), which works out as approximately £1,650-£1,850 per month. When broken down into an hourly wage, an HCA or nurse earns little more than a supermarket worker.

In fact, some healthcare professionals are walking away from the healthcare sector entirely to work a job that is less stressful and less responsibility for comparable pay.

Other workers choose to leave NHS hospitals and trusts but do not quit the profession entirely. Nursing in the private sector offers more flexibility, a less stressful working environment and sometimes other benefits such as private healthcare. Agency nursing is another alternative, which again offers increased flexibility, among other advantages such as shorter shifts and better pay. Working for a private institution or as an agency nurse allows healthcare workers (a large

wellness

proportion of whom identify as female) to maintain a work-life balance and to spend valuable time with their families, contributing toward better overall well-being.

Challenges that healthcare professionals face are widespread throughout the NHS, and they need addressing urgently. Part of resolving these issues is identifying them, their effects and the people who are being impacted. According to NHS employers, 77% of NHS staff in 2018 were female, but only 37% of senior roles were held by women; women are not proportionally represented. This begs the question: who is representing and protecting feminist interests in the NHS? The short answer is… not the government. At least, not as well as they could be. Since 2012, the Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care (previously Secretary of State for Health) have included Jeremy Hunt, Matt Hancock, Sajid Javid and Steve Barclay – none of whom have worked in the healthcare sector. These male politicians are, firstly, not representative of the NHS’s largely female workforce and, secondly, are not personally familiar with the challenges that NHS staff face on a day-to-day basis; they are not qualified to act in the best interests of NHS staff.

It’s no secret that during the Covid-19 pandemic, NHS staff faced awful working conditions and extreme stress. From dodgy PPE deals, extensive hours and harrowing shifts to some staff moving into hotels to protect their loved ones, it’s safe to say that healthcare workers went above and beyond. The government encouraged us to ‘Clap for Our Carers’, but did not back this sentiment up with action. While it is undeniable that healthcare workers deserve applause, these ‘angels’ and ‘heroes’ deserve justice – not gesture politics and empty words.

They deserve action to improve their working conditions; they deserve respect as working professionals. What they do not deserve is being taken for granted as kind people who are doing their jobs out of the goodness of their hearts.

Even once the Covid-19 pandemic is a thing of the distant past, staff on NHS wards will still face issues like abuse from patients, lack of respect and massive understaffing. Student nurses and midwives – who pay university tuition fees and are no longer offered a government bursary – are supposedly supernumerary. In practice, they are just another pair of hands on a busy ward. The pay rise for NHS workers in July 2022, after years of pay freezes, is not in line with inflation and is of little comfort in the face of the cost-of-living crisis. Some nurses are already being forced to use food banks to get by.

It shouldn’t matter that nursing, midwifery and HCAs are traditionally female roles. We still need to ensure that all healthcare workers and future healthcare professionals are respected, paid fairly and recognised for their hard work. Until the ingrained misogynistic perception of these roles is tackled, and it is acknowledged that healthcare roles like nurses, midwives and HCAs are not easy or women’s work, then this is unlikely to happen. The staffing crisis will likely continue, and the NHS will continue to crumble, taking the women that make up the majority of it along with it. ✦

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En son sein P H OTO G R A P H Y BY E M M A B O I T T I AU X

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Being pregnant was the most confident and beautiful I’ve ever felt in my body.

Anonymous confession made through Heroica's Instagram account

beauty & lifestyle

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THE BLACK HAIR DEBATE

BY Z E T H E M B E M A S E KO P H OTO G R A P H Y BY C H A R LOT T E C U L L E N

beauty & lifestyle

All over social media, the black community has been partaking in an ever-growing debate on how we should wear our hair: afro or relaxed. The truth is that both hair types have pros and cons – it all depends on how you manage your hair.

A Brief History of African Hair The history of African hair can be traced back to the Motherland. Before colonisation, African hair was a symbol of identity, social status, marital status, spirituality and even fertility. Hair was so important that tribes had their own specific hairstyle.

Hair styling was communication, an opportunity to socialise. Hair styling was done by close relatives only as people believed that if a strand of hair fell into the hands of an enemy, the enemy would be able to bring harm to the hair’s owner.

There was hair for everything. If a woman’s hair was thick and long, it symbolised that they were able to bear children. Soldiers going off to war, a mother about to give birth, the royal family – all had unique stylings.

These traditions were eradicated when slavery began: the first thing that slave traders did to the people that they captured was shave their heads. African hair was dehumanised and seen as animalistic; it did not fit European beauty standards.

Texturism is the belief that certain hair types are better than others. During slavery, the texture of a person’s hair determined their value and working conditions. White people described African hair as ‘wool’.

Lighter skinned, straighter haired slaves were favoured and selected for more desirable positions in the house.

Today, African hair is a symbol of resistance and survival against oppression.

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Hair Relaxers and Hot Combs Before hot combs and relaxers were invented, black women used axle, grease, heated butter knives and homemade lye to straighten their textured hair.

Then French hair stylist Francois Marcel Grateau invented the first hot comb in 1872.

This beauty practice comes at a price: in 1968, Dr Christopher Papa released a study stating that hot combs had caused inflammation and scarring to the scalps of most black women.

Relaxers are chemical creams used to permanently straighten afro hair; they have been a thing since the 1900s, the first invented by accident by Garrett Augustus Morgan in 1909. Morgan was experimenting with chemical solutions to help ease the friction caused by the needle of his new sewing machine against the fabric. One of his alkaline solutions caused the fibres of the fabric to straighten.

After testing the alkaline solution on animal fur and on himself, he noticed the same outcome. Morgan established the G.A Morgan Hair Refining Company and sold his hair cream to black women, marketing them toward afro-textured hair. Black women went from using metal tools heated in ovens to using hair relaxers.

Hair relaxers have changed from their original incarnations. In 1981, the Johnson Products Company introduced Gentle Treatment, the first no-lye hair relaxer, so that hair was not damaged or burned as easily.

Black women are not permanently straightening their hair because they are ashamed of their culture or trying to ‘act white’. More and more, women are relaxing their hair because maintaining an afro is very hard – and costly.

My Hair Experience I am a black woman who has worn her hair both ways, and I can confirm that it is very hard to manage afro-textured hair, especially if you don’t have good quality products.

Growing up, my father refused to let me relax my hair. My afro was long and extremely coily, which meant that my mother spent more time detangling it. No one was allowed to touch my hair except my mother. She spent a lot of money on hair care products to up the moisture as my hair was very dry.

Maintaining an afro requires a lot of patience; that’s something that my mother didn’t have.

So, when I turned thirteen, my father finally allowed me to relax my hair. Getting my hair relaxed has felt natural to me for years. My hair continued to grow longer and was much healthier than when it was afro-textured.

Personally, taking care of my relaxed hair is easier and requires less effort.

Pros and Cons of an Afro ❤ PRO: endless styling possibilities. The texture of an afro can hold styles and braiding patterns that other textures cannot.

☒ CON: maintenance! From the detangling to the steaming to the shampooing to the conditioning, all the way to the styling. An afro may also get easily tangled due to its natural thickness. ❤ PRO: stronger and grows faster than relaxed hair. Also has more volume than relaxed hair and is less prone to damage.

☒ CON: when your hair reaches a certain length, you want it to stay that length, right?

Unfortunately, as soon as your afro catches some rain or water, that length shrinks.

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Pros and Cons of Relaxed Hair ❤ PRO: convenience. Since your hair is straight, you don’t have to spend too much time styling it. Unlike afro-textured hair, relaxed hair does not get tangled while combing.

☒ CON: to achieve relaxed hair, you need chemical treatments – be prepared for damage. ❤ PRO: afro-textured hair has the tendency to shrink, which requires stretching in order to give your hair some length. There is no need to stretch relaxed hair as your hair is already straight.

☒ CON: using relaxers can increase scalp sensitivity, which may lead to severe irritation, scarring and chemical burns.

Afro Under Attack Afros have been labelled too political, unruly and unprofessional. Derogatory terms such as ‘transparent’ and ‘see-through’ have been created to refer to a thin afro (that could be thin due to breakage, or it could be naturally thin). Afros have also been compared to animal fur, which is not only discriminatory but very racist.

One example of textured hair under attack can be seen in an online advert for TRESemmé products featured by Clicks (a pharmacy chain in South Africa). African hair was labelled as ‘frizzy, dull, dry and damaged’. Meanwhile, white hair was labelled ‘normal, fine and flat’. Many South African stores have removed TRESemmé products from their shelves as a result.

Unilever, the parent company of TRESemmé, added in a statement on its website in response to the ad: ‘We are very sorry that images used in a TRESemmé South Africa marketing campaign on the Clicks website promote racist stereotypes about hair. The campaign set out to celebrate the beauty of all hair types and the range of solutions that TRESemmè offers, but we got it wrong.’

Another example can be seen in the case of Zulaikha Patel, a South African anti-racism activist, and her fight against Pretoria Girls High School’s policy regarding black girls’ hair in 2016. Pretoria Girls’ Code of Conduct did not specifically mention afros but had rules for general appearance; teachers had told students that afro hair is ‘exotic’ and needed to be tamed. Patel refused this policy, saying: ‘asking me to change my hair is like asking me to erase my blackness.’ She was just thirteen years old when she and her classmates held a demonstration that led to a change in the school policy and inspired girls at other schools to do the same.

Luckily, there are other people like Patel pushing back against hair-related racism.

International holidays such as World Afro Day have been created to celebrate the originality and beauty of afro-textured hair.

Established by Michelle De Leon on the 15th of September 2017, this day is a global day of change, education and celebration of afro hair and identity.

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No Chill About Relaxed

Don’t Care. It’s Your Hair

This debate has left many black folks feeling insecure. Although afro hair can be perceived in negative ways by some, there are those that think textured hair is natural and healthy and far superior to relaxed.

My advice to black women is, do you.

Do what makes you happy. Choosing to embrace your afro-textured hair does not mean that you have to shame women with relaxed hair and vice versa. Keep in mind, too, that how you choose to wear your hair is your personal choice.

Just because your hair does not fit into society’s standards does not mean that it is not beautiful. If we let social media dictate how we should look, we are always going to be unhappy.

The natural hair movement has been growing more and more in recent years, inspiring a strong sense of sisterhood, and is a celebration of black women’s beauty, hair textures and hairstyles. Wigs, weaves, extensions or using a flat iron do not constitute being natural.

There is a strong sense from some groups that relaxed hair is giving in to European beauty standards and that these should be ditched in favour of natural, textured hair. Consequently, women have started shunning other women who choose relaxers.

Black folks with relaxed hair can receive a lot of backlash, but no one should ever be bullied or feel bad about relaxing their hair.

There is already so much struggle that the black community faces; we don’t need this ‘hair war’ dividing us. Black hair is beautiful, whether it’s relaxed or afro-textured. It is time to make peace and celebrate diversity in the community.

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Black hair is beautiful, whether it’s relaxed or afro-textured. It is time to make peace and celebrate diversity in the community. ✦

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P H OTO G R A P H Y BY VA L E R I A U L LOA C R E AT I V E D I R EC T I O N BY A L E X A N D R A TO R R E S M O D E L L I N G BY O R E , TO M I, A L E X A N D R A , K E LV I N , X AV I E R , D U M E B I, S O L , R O N, T E M I, I G GY, S K Y, A L I C I A , N I C K E L L E , KO L A D E , A N D J O N

‘I regularly have NO idea what my hair looks like – proper dysphoria.’ @jenisscreeching

‘My hair was the only thing I liked about myself growing up – sometimes, it still is.’

‘I shaved off all my hair during my fight with depression. Now, as I heal, I’m letting it grow.’

@itscarsha

@my_story_fj

‘I change it constantly, dyeing it bright eyecatching colours so that people notice my hair and not me.’ @kirtonkate

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‘I have resented my curls for ages; I gave myself a buzz cut at the start of the pandemic. I loved the fact that I had no hair, but I have also begun to love the way my curls look regrowing.

Now I love my curls!

I wouldn’t change a thing.’ @alexagarzaa_

‘I’m a curly haired girl (4c). When I was younger, I didn’t appreciate my hair.

I thought it was less beautiful due to its lack of representation in the media or external validation from the world.

Now, many years later, I’ve finally grown to love my hair and relearn her on my own terms.’ @r0bynquincy

‘I didn’t like the attention my hair got from men, so I cut it all off.

I love it long, but I’ve had more sexual harassment since growing it. I daydream about cutting it off again so that I’ll be left alone.’ @chaniaclare

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Rooted

P H OTO G R A P H Y BY T E R RY PAU L @T E R RY T B H H A I R BY L AU R A I N E BA I L E Y @ L AU R A I N E BA I L E Y ST Y L I ST BY S E YO N A M O S U @T H EO F F I C I A L S E YO N N A I L S BY STAC E Y B U S H AY @ STAC E Y _ N A I L A RT I ST M UA BY C L A I R E D EG R A F T @ C L A I R E D EG R A F T M O D E L BY H A N I FA H @ N I FA H R M @ N EO M G M T DA Z E D X T H U R S DAYS C H I L D ' R O OT E D ’ C A M PA I G N

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I asked my sister to borrow some money (about $200), and she only agreed because I said it was for something important, but I couldn’t say what. Thing is, it was for gambling; I lost it all.

Now, I have no way of paying her back.

Anonymous confession made through Heroica's Instagram account

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A CURE TO YOUR CONFESSION THAT YOU’RE CLUELESS ABOUT THE

BY LU CY H AG E R

P

rices are heating up and cash is feeling tighter, which is definitely not ideal. For many of us, this is the first time that we’ve experienced something of this sort happening with the economy. Perhaps you’ve been finding yourself at the checkout, astonished at the numbers clicking up at the cashier, realising that your money isn’t going to go as far as it used to. Perhaps you want to learn more about why this is, but the idea of having to ask a finance bro for a mansplanation makes you want to rip your hair out. Well, have no fear. I’m here to jump in and demystify these topics and break things down so that you’re in the know without having to resort to said mansplainer.

INFLATION: AKA WHY YOU’LL BE $AYING ‘BACK IN MY DAY, A LOAF OF BREAD WA$ TWO POUND$’ TO KIDDIE$ Simply put, inflation is rising prices. This ranges from anything from supermarket prices to houses to wages to anything with a price tag. Prices rise when the economy gets overheated. When there’s a lot of spending going on and cash floating about, the excess cash generated leads to higher prices as items and services keep up with changing perceptions of what a pound is worth. This can happen for several reasons. For one, after periods of large government spending (think pandemic relief, or when governments print lots of cash and have a splurging party). Strong demand also means consumers (for example, exiting a pandemic) are fuelling a hot economy due to splashing cash themselves, which can lead to firms being able to increase charging prices and make a cheeky extra profit (yay capitalism). Lastly, inflation also occurs when prices for certain goods climb due to external pressures (like grid shortages, oil shortages and higher production costs for certain materials).

Many countries, including those here in the UK, are currently struggling with this phenomenon. A combination of volatile events has coincided, which is what has led to the cost-of-living crisis. Following government pandemic spending – which helped keep the UK economy relatively steady through a huge unanticipated shock – a lot of spending continued, which began to push up prices (see paragraph two again for inflation). The pandemic hit global supply chains particularly hard. Transportation and sourcing goods became ever more problematic and led to many firms charging elevated prices as lockdowns and staff absences generated shortages across multiple sectors (here’s an example of those external pressures I mentioned). This has resulted in boosted prices for incoming goods and scarce goods, which spills over into other costs.

An interesting example of this chain reaction of events is the semiconductor chip shortage (those little things that power our smartphones, TVs, laptops and cars). With so many people working from home, the production of home electronics was ramped up to enable the work-from-home shift. At the same time, demand for cars plunged, so chip manufacturers switched over their production to home electronics. When the market for home electronics was again saturated (this means customers are stocked up, not buying any more monitor screens), and the auto industry resumed, a massive chip shortage ensued. The rule of thumb in economics is that scarcity (chips here) makes things more expensive (not much supply, a lot of demand!). Electronic and auto production slowed to the extent that second-hand car prices went through the roof as new cars became difficult to produce. See where I’m going here? Small knock-on effects like this led to inflation across the greater economy.

NOMY career & money

So, we have a cash-splashing government pumping money into the economy and post-pandemic spending sprees, as well as supply issues pushing up shortages. And then add the unjustified invasion of Ukraine by neighbouring Russia to the mix. Sanctions on Russian energy generates scarcity (a favourite term in economics) as the supply of Russian oil and gas has been cut off by western sanctions, leading to higher energy prices. Many nations stopped importing Russian goods such as fertilisers and wheat, making food prices boom at the supermarket. And to make matters worse, Ukraine was doing a great job of generating half the world’s neon supply, which is a key ingredient in – you guessed it – semiconductor chips.

WHAT I$ THE BANK OF ENGLAND? AND WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF EGG$?

So, who’s going to get us out of this mess? Central Banks are responsible for keeping inflation in check. In most developed countries, you’ll hear about a 2% inflation target, which means it’s good if prices rise gently by 2% every year because it spurs the economy to keep spending now (because future prices will be a little higher) and thus the economy continues growing gently. The Bank of England is responsible for literally printing money and keeping prices in check. It does so by setting ‘monetary policy’ for which the key tool is setting the policy bank rate (bear with me). This is the cost of money that the Bank of England charges commercial banks (where you keep your cash). When inflation starts getting high, like in the current economic climate, the Bank of England gets together and decides to increase what is called the bank rate. This means it’s more expensive for your bank to borrow cash from the BOE, and it’s more expensive for you to borrow cash from your bank.

On the other hand, higher interest rates mean you earn more on your savings. So basically, you’re less likely to borrow and splurge and more likely to tuck away your savings in the bank, all of which reduces the amount of cash circling through the economy, which (scarcity rule!) means prices should come down again.

WHAT DOE$ THIS MEAN FOR YOU? $TICKY WAGE$ AND WHY A 5% RAI$E I$ CURRENTLY ACTUALLY A 4% CUT Some prices rise faster than others, which creates imbalances.

Coffee shops can up the price of your oat latte by 50p pretty easily, but wage renegotiations are slow, tedious processes that are in economic terms ‘sticky’: they can’t smoothly rise along every month that prices go up. This means that the cost of living is getting very pricey for the average person, and everything but their wage is going up. That’s why transport staff are striking, and it’s why you need a raise from your employer to keep your level of income in real terms stable (aka what it can actually buy you when prices go up).

Inflation is at 9% currently (things cost an average of 9% more right now than this time last year). So, if your boss offers you a 5% raise, you can tell them that raise means you’re still 4% poorer than you were this time last year. Any rise under 9% (matching inflation) is actually a cut. It’s businesses that are more capable of bearing the brunt of inflation than individual people, so it is completely valid to expect your raise to be above the inflation rate.

Well, there you have it. You now know the basics of the economy. If you want to gain a deeper understanding and keep avoiding the mansplainers, you can check out the YourJuno app, or the book Money: A User’s Guide by Laura Whateley is also a great place to start. ✦

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THE CONFUSED newbies ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO crypto

BY FA R I A H N A A Z

*DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE* I’m Fariah, the founder of Girls That Crypto. I educate women on the crypto space and how to invest the right way. If you’re struggling to understand precisely what crypto and NFTs are and how they work, this mini guide is for you!

Wherever you are in the world, you’ve likely been witnessing the crypto and NFT buzz. The world has gone crypto crazy!

From governments adopting Bitcoin as a national currency (El Salvador) to our favourite brands launching NFT collections, it is clear that these are here to stay.

If you’re new to crypto, all the different elements can be confusing. Don’t let that put you off! Everyone experienced in crypto today started out as a newbie who didn’t know what they were doing.

The crypto space offers a lot of opportunities, not just appreciating assets that you can invest in, but jobs, passive income opportunities, the ability to retain ownership of your creative work, and so much more. Sound interesting? Well, here are the key concepts of the crypto space that are the most important to get to grips with!

CRYPTOCURRENCY Cryptocurrencies are basically digital assets that run on a cool technology called blockchain technology. There are over 10,000 different cryptocurrencies. Many are pretty crap, but amongst them you have some that are important to the space, such as Bitcoin. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to get mainstream adoption, and it is used for transactions (sending someone money, purchasing stuff) and also as a store of value if you want to keep a hold on the asset in the hope of the price increasing.

Bitcoin has done extremely well since it came out in 2009, and a big part of this is because, unlike normal money, we know exactly how much Bitcoin there can ever be: 21 million.

After that, no more can be created! Whereas, as we all know with normal money, more and more is printed. That is why the value of it goes down, and inflation goes up.

Since Bitcoin, crypto has gotten even more advanced; there is a whole crypto ecosystem. Take Ethereum. Ethereum is the second biggest cryptocurrency next to Bitcoin, but it’s more than just a coin. It’s a blockchain that other cryptocurrency projects can build their projects on; the Ethereum token is the currency used for payments on the Ethereum ecosystem.

For someone new to crypto, I’d recommend sticking to the most popular cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, until you understand more about how cryptocurrency works and what crypto projects are worth investing in. A crypto investor can liken themselves to a venture capitalist and you’re basically investing in businesses that you think have potential, with the goal of making money in the long term!

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Blockchain

NFTS

Something key that you need to get your head around is that we have two technology revolutions happening at the same time: the currency revolution (cryptocurrency taking power away from banks) but also, and maybe even more impressively, a blockchain revolution, which is transforming how we store, send and verify data and more. Blockchain technology offers benefits that can be applied to pretty much every sector.

Let’s focus on the benefits for currency. Rather than one central authority having power and control over your transactions, it’s many, many individuals who are non-biased and use mathematical calculations and code to approve transactions.

Up until blockchain technology, banks have been the only way to send and receive currency. Think about it! You want to send money to a friend? It must go through a bank account. You want to get paid a salary? It goes through a bank account – which is accessible and can be frozen by banks themselves and the government.

Blockchain changes this. There are many different blockchains. When something is done on a blockchain, it cannot be altered, only viewed. If someone was to attempt to change something on a blockchain the code behind the technology would be altered, which would make it extremely obvious and is no easy task to pull off! All of this and more is why 80 of the top 100 companies in the world are now using or planning to implement blockchain technology.

NFTs are a beautiful combination of art, crypto and blockchain technology! Before I go any further (and with the hope that I don’t confuse you), NFTs aren’t just for art. Anything can be made into an NFT – even real houses are getting sold as NFTs these days. But for this article, we will focus on the art side.

An NFT is basically a stamp of approval that certifies that something is authentic. This stamp of approval is done on the blockchain that, as you now know, means it cannot be altered. Why is this important? Here’s an example based on artwork: in the pre-NFT world, an artist produces a beautiful piece of art. However, it can be counterfeited. Also, when the artist sells the art piece, they could be little known and only make a few pounds from their art. Ten years down the line, as their fame implodes, their artwork is now worth millions.

The traditional artist won’t be able to earn from their early work as they already sold it. However, with NFTs, they can code in a royalty amount so that every time the art is resold, the original artist gains a percentage of the revenue.

There are so many reasons why you need to take the crypto space more seriously – far more than can be squeezed into an article, but that’s where you’re in luck! There are hundreds of resources online to learn more about crypto.

If you thought cryptocurrency was just about investing, you were wrong! The space is whatever the participants want it to be, with the main consensus being to make the world a fairer place and give power and rewards back to the people. As in every space, there are deceitful people and businesses that won’t make it. There is fear, uncertainty and doubt. However, amongst all of this, there are a lot of opportunities to build wealth over time, contribute towards something bigger than yourself and do cool stuff!

That’s all from me for now, folks. If you want to keep tabs, follow me on Instagram @girlsthatcrypto, or you can also check out my website (www.girlsthatcrypto.com) to find out more about my crypto course and discord group! ✦

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he day our lives changed forever, I was taking a Saturday morning nursery class at a performing arts school in South-West London. My phone was plugged into the speakers to play music through.

Suddenly, mid-parachute game, my ringtone sounds loudly. My friend X was calling. I immediately put my phone on aeroplane mode until the end of the class, and once all the children were safely redeposited, took it off again. Countless emojis of champagne popping, balloons and clapping hands swept over my phone screen from our friend group’s WhatsApp chat. I call X back. He’d got the part.

Four years out of Drama School, I was working ten part-time jobs to pay for half our room in a London flat: nanny, private tutor, teacher’s assistant, waitress, caterer, food-sampler, drama teacher, receptionist, dog-walker and… coordinator for a social-impact

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BY GEORGIE OULTON

award at the Edinburgh Festival (there’s no real job title for that). This is how I funded my dreams of working as an actor, producer, director, theatre company co-founder and writer.

My best-paid job was my first job in London aged eighteen – a children’s entertainer. I met my boss on a train. She had just started a children’s birthday party business, and I made up some rubbish on the spot about having a close eye for detail and a passion for performance. She gave me her card. For the next three months, I became her personal assistant and did parties on the weekends, dressed as everything from Princess Elsa to Mickey Mouse. The necessity of the job blinded me from the absurdity of commuting an hour out of London to fire off emails in a shed-turned-office at the bottom of her garden. However, I will always be grateful to her; she gave me my first chance.

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I carried on doing the parties at weekends but got another weekday job as an office administrator at a film insurance company in Soho. I called my mum after my first day. They use a different language, Mum. Normal words mean different things. Like Premium. And Sum. I have literally no idea what they are talking about.

Eventually, I got the hang of it. The job saw me through ten drama school auditions, and I finally gained a place that August. I trained for three years, fell in love and left feeling like a star ready to be born.

The truth is, we freelancing artists are like the rats of London. We’re everywhere. We’re racing around, often malnourished and grey of face, foraging free food at every chance we get. Typically, we’re the ones arriving everywhere with massive rucksacks filled with god knows what (Tupperware and phone chargers).

For a while, I lived in a house of four freelancing actors. We all signed up to the same food-sampling company. Food sampler definition: the people in food stores who offer free samples of food brands on promotion. The shifts are generally three hours long and pay around £12.50 p/hr. Not bad – particularly if you stack your shifts up. A big bonus, of course, is that you often went home with stacks of free, fancy snacks. Win. You could tell who was an actor on the other stands a mile off. Something about the ‘sales’ element of the job seemed to scratch the dissatisfied itch to be seen and heard. The way their beautifully trained Shakespearean voices detailed exactly how kombucha was brewed gave them away instantly. I’d count down the minutes before another fellow food sampler would drop in that they’re actually an actor and just do this on the side. It’s a chronic problem amongst freelancing artists – the need to justify why we’re doing what we’re doing.

It became a sort of undercover secret union. We’d swap stories and seek advice on our varying career stages across stands on the Wholefoods shop floor.

There were us regulars, who would celebrate when an audition came through one week, only to be greeted the following week by no news yet. We would come up with all sorts of reasons as to why this time, it was okay that it might not go our way, convincing one another that the right job was just around the corner.

Every so often, the station would be reallocated to someone new. They did get the job; they were on tour or off filming. No time for goodbyes. Faith and elation would be restored momentarily before the cold, harsh truth sunk in that I was still there on the stand, left behind, and my self-doubt would rumble.

When X received the email inviting him to audition for the life-changing role, he was dishing out beef jerky samples to strangers outside a Clapham Sainsbury’s with our friend, Tom. He read the email and laughed: Mate, look at this. There’s no way in hell. Cut to nine months later. We are living on the beach on the other side of the world: he is filming a huge-scale television show; I am

writing plays, staging them and professionally acting.

Both of us are living a version of happily ever after.

Now, back in London, we live in a new area and it feels like a brand new city. These days, our life is a hilarious set of contradictions. Fear not, though, the freelancing life didn’t get away. I found a local family to nanny for and catered events in between acting jobs. Nevertheless, I have more oxygen in the tank. A fresh perspective. I even volunteered at a florist on Valentine’s Day – for my story bank.

Recently, I worked a one-off freelance job for a billionaire’s club. This entailed ferrying high-net-worth individuals across Mayfair between restaurants, jewellery stores and conferences about how to make more money. I borrowed an outfit from a friend to achieve the PR stunt of seeming ‘together’. I assumed that food would be provided during the day – it wasn’t.

By ten o’clock, I was starving. During the clients’ dessert course, I slipped away to Pret to pick up some soup and a bread roll. Card Declined. Red-cheeked, in my imposter outfit, I weighed up the necessity of the soup. The bread roll was only 75p, and the carbs would tide me over until I was home. I looked up at the sorry-looking server and then through the window to the restaurant where the billionaires were picking at their desserts. I couldn’t help but laugh.

Last week was the global premiere of X’s show in Leicester Square. In the weeks building up to it, he’s had interviews and photoshoots, stylists rolling into our modest flat with rows of designer clothes for him to try. On the red carpet, I stood next to him in an outfit entirely rented from Selfridges. Much like Cinderella, I returned everything the following morning, the illusion disappearing in a puff of smoke. Two days later I was back on reception, telling the girls all about it. Tomorrow I will be pushing someone else’s toddler on a swing, and Friday I film an episode in a long-running British television show.

Currently, I’m down to five jobs: running a small business from home offering support to other actors, nannying, temping, acting and writing. No week is the same. I still haven’t come up with an efficient way of invoicing, my website lies dormant waiting to be launched and doing my tax return continues to give me anxiety all year round. And yet, I feel genuine gratitude and enjoyment in my hodgepodge life.

I know that nothing is permanent; we cannot guarantee a thing, and with that comes a carpe diem attitude that gives meaning to my life. Every small win is celebrated. Being close to the glitz and glamour is fun to experience for an evening, and I am grateful for the grounding that helping a toddler walk gives me amidst all the madness. Above all, I adore our underground union of London freelancer rats that find treasure in the dustbins. We hold onto each other and, when the time comes, delight as each other moves on to new horizons. ✦

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DEFINING YOUR OWN IDEA OF SUCCESS: AN INTERVIEW WITH INDEED’S BLACK INCLUSION GROUP CO-CHAIR For the readers who don’t know you, can you introduce yourself?

My name is Lilian Oke, and I am a field marketer and the Black Inclusion Group Co-chair here at Indeed. I have been at Indeed for close to five years now. My role is to not only help all people get jobs but also shed light on important D&I topics through my Co-Chair role. I am originally Nigerian, but I was born in London and lived in Ireland for the better half of my childhood – twelve years, to be exact.

I have been in the tech space for close to nine years now (wow, it’s crazy reading nine years back! Time flies!); I have learned so much and enjoyed every second of it. I initially studied to be a doctor, starting out with Applied Bioscience but thought damn cultural expectations. So, I dropped out of university and became the black sheep in my household because I refused to follow the path expected of me. I went on to study what I was passionate about, which was Media Communications and Journalism at the University of Buckingham.

You run an uplifting social media page outside of your 9-5. What made you start, and what is the mission?

It started with me just wanting to show other people that you can actually live a good life and set your own ideas of success. So many people around me at the time that I started working had limited beliefs about finding jobs, a work/life balance and what that meant, the industries that would accept you, and so much more. I wanted better! I did not want to subscribe to the belief that I could only be in certain roles and that everyone that went into a 9-5 role had to live, work and then die or stay in roles for ten years plus.

I wanted to travel; I wanted to enjoy the work I did; I wanted to prove a point to my family. It’s hard for others to believe your vision when everyone around you is doing the same thing or there is a lack of representation where you are trying to go. I remember applying for 150 jobs a day before landing my first amazing role after ten months post-graduation – funny because I was using Indeed at the time, and now I work for them!

With this in mind, I wanted to document the journey on social media. It is still crazy to me just how many people found the content interesting enough to follow. A few years later, I can count 42,000 followers and two viral videos (11 million views on TikTok and 2.5 million views on Instagram) across two platforms. I am still going, still trying to inspire and motivate the masses while achieving my idea of success. I encourage people, especially women, to work on defining their own idea of success and figuring out what it truly means to live in an authentic way for themselves.

career & money

How do you manage your time?

Honestly, I can’t lie and say I always get it right. But with time I have learned how to prioritise certain things and strive for balance in my career as well as in my outside projects. I try to forward plan as much as possible and find time for things that matter most to me; I try to pour into as many buckets as possible now (health, family, friends, love life, self-love, finance and spirit, amongst other things), rather than pouring it all into my career bucket. Previously, I was too focused on the outcomes of professional matters, and it didn’t serve me the way I needed it to. Balance is everything!

Why are diversity and inclusion projects important to you?

Diversity and inclusion are so important to me because when I first started working about eight or nine years ago, I literally wanted to get into certain industries (media, marketing and tech) because it wasn’t the norm. I wanted to prove a point to everyone around me that I could be different, that I could go into a space where I didn’t see a lot of people that looked like me currently. The majority of the people around me had parents all in similar industries with similar belief systems and just overall disbelief that we could break past a certain ceiling that was keeping people that looked like me out.

What is your advice to those looking to start or change their career? Anything you wish you would have known earlier?

The theme of our print issue is ‘Confessions’.

Any career confessions?

Don’t let anyone else’s idea of success make you question yours, and don’t let people that aren’t where you want to be tell you how to get places.

In my earlier career, I faked it till I made it, so to speak, and was thrown in at the deep end when it came to a lot of roles and projects. Such an approach taught me what it truly meant to sink or swim. Never be afraid to try and fail – but always be afraid to never even attempt something.

For more articles and event recordings on the topics discussed, visit the Indeed website.

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There Will Be Blood (AND AUGUST HAS THE ETHICAL PRODUCTS TO DEAL) INTERVIEW WITH NADYA OKAMOTO

career & money

What is the story behind August?

August is a business, not a non-profit. So we actually make period products, as well as distribute orders to customers and donations to those in need. We believe businesses have the responsibility to GIVE BACK and work to reimagine capitalism, so for every month you bleed with August, we donate period products to an underserved school.

Everything about August was really built and shaped by our community (called the Inner Cycle): a group of passionate young people who believe in the values that we stand by. Thus, their identity of being bold and curious and enthusiastic is reflected in August’s branding. Gender inclusivity is also a huge component of who we are.

Our community has really become a space where we can talk about anything, and so politics and how we can reimagine how we talk about periods are very common topics you see our members discussing.

Before August, you started one of the largest youth-run womens’ health non-profit organisations. How and when did that begin?

Hearing stories directly from homeless women about their experiences of not being able to afford period products was how I first learned about period poverty, back in 2014 when I was still a high-school student. I had never heard of period poverty before that, but learning about it and other inequalities related to periods (like the fact that the tampon tax existed in 40 states) at the time ignited a fire in me. I knew that I had to take action.

So that year, I started what is now known as PERIOD.org along with Vincent Forand, a non-profit that strives to eradicate period poverty and stigma through service, education and advocacy and that relies on a grassroot network of thousands of advocates.

PERIOD. distributes donated menstrual products to people in need around the world and works with chapters to eradicate period poverty in their own communities too.

I led it as executive director until January 2020 before I began my journey starting August.

Tell me about the process from switching from a non-profit movement to a consumer-facing business. Do you think it changes the ethics of the brand?

August was just another way of approaching my personal mission: to end period poverty and stigma. Now, I’m just doing it through the mode of a social enterprise, trying to figure out revenue streams that can serve both the needs of consumers and the needs of others who need period products but couldn’t otherwise afford them.

Impact is heavily embedded into every purchase with August. As I’ve said before, we like to give back, but that isn’t our only aim. Climate is also key! We are carbon neutral and our products are sustainable and biodegradable; expect a full impact and sustainability report from us at the end of each quarter. We also value transparency: all information on how our products are made from sourcing materials to packaging to distribution is available on our website.

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How can individuals start to address period stigma?

Breaking the stigma around periods starts with talking freely about periods as the natural and powerful thing that they are! Periods are powerful. Yet, society teaches us to feel ashamed and silences us when talking about menstruation. We should be conscious of this and stop this mentality! We fundamentally need to get all of society (menstruator or not) to acknowledge that menstrual products are NECESSITIES and to act on that fact accordingly – everyone should have equitable access to them.

heroica

Do you think it is difficult to break stigmas or talk about taboos while in a corporate/VC backed environment?

August is focused on women and menstruators, so it is vital to have women founded VCs on our capitalisation table – people who actually understand firsthand what it’s like to get a period and the importance of having better period care. Every VC or investor on our cap table is someone who understands our goal to change culture around periods. And if they didn’t get that, then we didn’t accept their funding!

Also, we wanted investors who supported our interest in doing things differently. Some investors are scared of that challenge because there’s more uncertainty, but I’m so thankful we’ve found investors who understand us wanting to take a risk, and will support us with exciting new ways of doing things.

career & money

What structures have you put in place that have facilitated your success?

Any recommendations for entrepreneurs and activists that are just starting out?

My advice to young people who want to make a difference is just go for it — take the risk! Find your people, find a mentor, and ask questions! Just make sure you keep finding time for yourself to check in about your boundaries and aspirations.

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How did it feel to realise that you had started this massive menstruation movement?

I definitely didn’t start this movement. Fighting against period poverty and stigma has been ongoing for decades (perhaps even centuries); through history people have been fighting the patriarchy and embracing a more positive period culture. All I can say is that I’m humbled to be a part of it. ✦

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photography

New Ukrainian Values P H OTO G R A P H Y BY K A RY N A A S L A N OVA

Karyna Aslanova is a Kyiv-born Ukrainian multimedia artist, director and photographer. Although photography is her principal medium, Aslanova uses video, painting, illustration and poetry to further her exploration of a multitude of subjects. Aslanova’s art photography projects often use other-worldly imagery to reflect modern social issues, with a vague but familiar base note perceptible through a haze of the strange and incongruous.

This photo series, ‘New Ukrainian Values’, is an ongoing project that has gained life due to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which opened many eyes to what is really important in our short and absolutely unpredictable lives.

Images included are true answers from real people from Ukraine to the question, ‘What is valuable now?’ The compositions of the photographs are built in such a way as to resemble shrines and religious ceremonies – something valuable and vital and held above all else.

Asked about the driving force behind the project, the artist stated: ‘Being a Ukrainian artist living abroad, I realised that most of all I want my art and creativity to be helpful, to start and continue a dialogue that leads to positive action.’

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Quiet

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Connection

Truth

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Identity

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Welcome

Home

I’ve been in love with someone else for years.

I foolishly married a man that I love and care for but wasn’t in love with just as the love of my life came into the picture. It is agonising for us both.

We have had periods of being very involved with each other and long periods of not seeing one another. Nothing changes it. We have decided to have no contact unless there is a big change, which would mean me devastating a good man and my young children. My heart is broken. No one knows.

Anonymous confession made through Heroica's Instagram account

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Bride-Seeing

BY TA N I A BA N E R J E E

My grandmother

likes to hear me sing.

In return,

she oils my hair,

untying the knots, one by one.

The last time

my grandmother had sung

was forty years ago – when the bridegroom and his parents

arrived. With jalebis, gold, resham sarees, and a warning.

‘My child, don’t go around singing

even after marriage,’ laughed my grandfather’s father.

Gentle but steady;

like his son grew up to be.

The only man who touched my grandmother.

My grandmother dips her fingertips deep

into the coconut oil bowl

and asks me why I want her to bring

the oil every evening.

‘My hair. Frizzy hair.’

‘Your wounds. Deep wounds.’

She digs deep

and I finally tell her the truth

one by one.

I can’t sleep; the oil helps.

My mother said she wished she had aborted me.

My father is sleeping with someone my age.

I don’t like the colour of the soap bar.

I hate the heat and global warming scares the shit out of me.

On my seventh birthday,

my cousin took me to the store room; no one knows.

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About my insomnia, my mother’s depression, my father’s affair, the trauma accumulating

in the lonely ozone layer –

its gaping hole, wide,

wider –

my seven-year-old thighs held far

apart.

‘Me too,’ says my grandmother.

‘You said no man touched you.’

‘Except your grandfather.’

I look at her.

She looks back at me.

Two nights after my grandfather died, my grandmother goes to the terrace.

They say she’s going to kill herself, stop her, hurry,

So we go,

run,

go.

but she has disappeared.

From the attic,

we hear her voice.

She sits in front of the old,

dusty harmonium

and begins to sing softly,

grows loud,

then louder still.

‘So much grief, she has gone mad.’

I watch

my grandmother’s homecoming,

a funeral jasmine garland

tied around her hair

like a gajra,

her songs flowing into the night.

‘Get her some water, let her mourn,’ one of them sighs.

Then they all sigh.

I step into the attic, sit behind her and slowly oil her hair.

I dab the oil

behind her ears,

on her thick hair and her soft neck, and my grandmother sings till the end of the night.

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To Be a Woman and Black

BY A RT I ST N A M E D N O B O DY

To be a woman and black Is to be not ‘woman’ enough for beauty And too black for feminism

To be a woman and black Is to walk with your head low Because no man Wants to see your face Unless it’s been caked with powder Burned with bleach And scarred with erased beauty To be a woman and black Is to be deemed a melanated queen online With pictures that make you gasp in awe Of the beauty that is black women Until you look in the comments section And see nothing but vile comparisons of such beauty To roaches.

She’s dirty.

Bet she’s bald under that weave.

Look at this bitch, this hoe, this groupie!

Would you say that to your mother?

To be a woman and black Is to be political From the moment you are expelled into the world Your beauty Your worth Your pride Is no longer yours Your afro is intimidating Your fashion is unwillingness to conform Your anger at injustice is offensive

To be a woman and black Is to feel shame Your hair is appreciated on no other day than October 31st Your skin is belittled as a marketing tool for makeup brands Your lips are sewn shut by those who turn to fatten theirs behind your back Your eyes are blinded by hues of green and blue That outshine your dull coloured Muddy Mocha Disgrace.

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To be a woman and black Is to compete To carry the weight of the world on your back To feel the same as one who carries a satchel To corrode your natural beauty With wigs With bleach With contacts With something To separate you from your blackness

To be a woman and black Is to be brave To be unashamedly existent in a world you’ve created for yourself To awaken after a nightmare of disasters and scream: My skin is BEAUTIFUL My body looks POWERFUL My features are MINE To all the little black girls who gaze at your heavenly afro from a distance

To be a woman and black Is to be beautiful Because black should mean nothing other than beautiful Your skin is your friend It glows hues of gold in the light of the sun That it was made to protect you from With it is history that can never be glossed over It is the tone of our unbroken ancestors Those who ruled, invented and created No tan on the planet can recreate such magic (Be glad you get yours for free!)

To be a woman and black Is to look good in yellow Pink, orange, red, brown, green, gold Every colour in the rainbow To be a woman and black Will forever be a powerful privilege For your very existence is a rebellion

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I Write

BY SA LO M É E LO U

Amanda was wearing the sun on her face today I wanted to ask her: how?

How do you do it?

I didn’t say anything.

I just walked back home.

I walked through the park There was a memorial for Sabina and Sarah and all the others.

Another woman was there, she was writing something down on a piece of paper something like ‘Educate your sons’ or ‘Say her name’ she looked up at me and smiled I smiled back.

Not a happy kinda smile a this-is-a-shitty-world-we-live-in kinda smile all I wanted to do was scream, loudly.

But I didn’t.

I just walked back home.

I turned on my laptop.

The deadline is in twenty-four hours.

I have twenty-four hours to write about my love for words and literature and women.

I have twenty-four hours to show you, I am worthy of being published, and that if I don’t I am still enough.

I am enough.

It was never about being published or stepping foot on stage It was never about wearing my skin inside out It’s always been about survival.

I write because I feel so fucking insecure and heavy all the time.

I write for Aileen and all the other women killed by the patriarchy.

How long would it take to name them all?

They deserve a fucking poem.

They deserve an entire anthology.

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How long will it take to erase the fear from our bodies?

How?

I don’t want to go to another rally another vigil I don’t want to light another candle she wasn’t a tiny flame she was a raging fire men were too afraid of her power.

I don’t want to share another Instagram story a picture of her graduating smiling in love dancing eating thriving.

raped. killed.

I don’t want to count them anymore.

So I write.

I write to come back home to myself.

I write because it’s my only way of being It’s my only way of existing in this world.

When things get overwhelming I write When I am scared I write When I am sad I write.

Writing is my oldest friend writing is like breathing, I know it will get me through anything.

The words are merging nothing makes sense anymore.

Tomorrow, I might ask Amanda: how?

Because I want to wear the sun on my face, too.

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Passionfruit

BY G EO R G I N A J E R O N Y M I D E S - N O R I E

She lifts the fleshy seeds from the passionfruit with her tongue looks up at me we go to bed.

We gorge on warm miso aubergine saltysweetsoft and oily I look at her we go to bed again.

I had never before and as I am it is the most comfortable thing my mouth tasting what it’s been missing I have dreamt of this so many times craved her denied myself it is the longest diet I have ever been on. thought it unreal this hunger just drunkenness and now I am here and we are sated and she has gone to buy doughnuts and there will be jam spilling because they’re bougie and expensive and I can already picture her taking a bite sugar speckling her lips I would love to say it all feels easy now feasting, giggling, exploring but it comes with so much weight:

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my first boyfriend at thirteen my last at twenty-eight the discomfort I always felt sharing a bed with hefty bones my head pushed down without caress spitting body a leather throw care instructions worn away by heavy hands

a woman nestled into my neck sober and aglow in the sun watching as it sinks into the river and I would love to say that it all feels easy now but there are glances that last a second too long before parents beckon their children away from the riverbank where we sit laughing kissing unholy

Then there is betrayal when she wraps her legs around my hips

I think back to the Snake that thoughtful creature offering the possibility of something so sweet so different so incredibly red Eve, accepting it instead of denying herself how sorely undermined she has been declared tricked rather than invited

What were the previous fifteen years loving such troubled men?

Why did I cry the first, second, third time I slept with a woman?

I remember one day tenderly bathing scooping the rose-scented water bringing it to my lips the feeling that yes, women the pure wavy joy the doubt that followed The first time I say it out loud – that women, perhaps only women – I am in a club dancing, celebrating and I don’t know don’t have to know if it is true for now or forever just that it feels like rose-scented bubbles swaying with my body and that being resolute about something for once even just for a moment, feels good It has taken so long to get here:

Imagine that first crisp bite the slap of sweetness upon her lips how delicious it must have been how worth it.

Now, I am thinking of passionfruit aubergine doughnuts apples it is not easy but it feels right fleshy saltysweetsoft and oily I look up at her spilling comfortably all over my bed It is worth it.

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Guadeloupe P H OTO G R A P H Y BY W E N DY SA M A @POISSON___ & @DANS_LEAU_

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