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Descartes, René, and Williams, Bernard. 1996. Descartes: Meditations On First Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grosz, Emily. 1994. Volatile Bodies. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Howson, Alexandra. 2013. The Body In Society. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity

Jackson, Stevi, and Scott, Sue. 2000. Introduction: the gendering of sociology in Jackson, S. and Scott, S. (eds), Gender: A Sociological Reader. London: Routledge

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie being named the face of No7 is not breaking news. The Nigerian-born author has been featured in the ads for the brand's No7 Match Made Skin Tone Analysis (the in-store service that helps you find your perfect foundation shade with the help of a device) since October 2016. But with the Women's March on Washington just days away, Adichie's powerful message of female empowerment has become even more pertinent. She promotes self-love and self-acceptance. She combats the commonly held gender norms. She's believes you can be a feminist and love makeup. But don't let me put words in her mouth. Let me hand over the mic to Adichie, who reminds us once again-and at such an important time in our history-why we should all be feminists. And then maybe throw on a red lipstick.
Tell me about your personal relationship with makeup.
"I've always liked makeup. Actually, I don't know if that's true. I liked makeup as a teenager, and then I went through a phase of not being interested in makeup, and then I came back to liking it. I'd already been published first in Nigeria, but when I came to the U.S., I wanted to be published, I wanted to be taken seriously as a writer, and I quickly realized that there's a certain image expected of a woman who is 'serious,' creatively or intellectually, and that image couldn't necessarily include makeup. So I stopped wearing it for quite a few years because I wanted to be taken seriously. Then at some point I just realized I like makeup, this is who I am, and I started wearing it again.

"I don't want this to seem like it was a very simple, straightforward journey. At some point I started to realize that there was something very wrong with the idea that if you're a woman and you're interested in things that are traditionally feminine, then somehow it means that you can't possibly be serious, or feminist, or intellectual. And I just thought that there's something deeply problematic about that, for a number of reasons but the most important being: Well, why not? I mean really, why not? And realizing that the basis of that idea comes from maleness as the norm [in our society], so then of course everything that's traditionally feminine becomes suspect."
That leads to my next question-something that we've talked about at Allure a lot lately-that there are two stories happening in makeup right now. We've got Alicia Keys who's promoting the no-makeup movement, and then there's a whole community on Instagram who celebrate it in all its glory. How do we get to a point where we're all just OK with how we want to do our makeup and totally accepting whatever that way is?
"That's a good question, and I wish I had the answer. I think having more conversations [about it] makes a difference. Here's an example: For the London launch of my No7 campaign, they set up this conversation with myself and a number of interesting, brilliant women who all do different things. There was a businesswoman, a journalist, a woman who does TV documentaries, and we sat there for an hour and talked about makeup. I remember afterward that almost all of us were saying that we had never had that happen. It was really, in a strange kind of way, affirming to see these women who are brilliant, interesting, and doing all kinds of thoughtful, wonderful things also talking about how they love makeup. I remember thinking that this seemed almost revolutionary, although it shouldn't be.

"So what if we had many more of these conversions? What if we had women who are doing wonderful, great things in the world also acknowledging that femininity is important to them? It's important to make space for the people who are like Alicia Keys, for whom makeup has meant something negative, because I think there can be pressure on women to wear makeup in the way that it hides who they are. I mean, as somebody who likes makeup and is the face of No. 7, I actually don't wear a ton of makeup, and I quite like my face without it. But I'm also really happy when I get my cat eye or when I do my eyebrows and they look great-it just makes my day feel better and brighter."
Do you think this social media makeup trend is moving us backward? Is it a negative thing?
"Sometimes I worry because it seems to me that everyone looks the same-like the stenciled-in eyebrow that everybody does that looks really silly and it's boring. I quite like the idea of originality, and I think makeup really should be about making what we already have look a bit better or, to use magazine-speak, 'make things pop.' But maybe the thing is not to worry too much about it, because I get a sense that YouTube and Instagram are very youthful. I don't see many women my age, and I'm 39, really liking that kind of look. When you're young you're allowed to do things. If you're expected to be properly sensible when you're 20, that's a bit worrying, because then what's going to happen when you're 50? That's when you're supposed to be sensible."
Why do you like makeup so much?
"Why do I like it? I like it because I like it. There's a part of me that is a bit resistant to over-intellectualizing makeup. For example, I have friends with whom I've had these conversations, and they'll say things about fashion and makeup like, 'It's really about the consciousness of the self.' And I'm like, No. It's just makeup. It's fashion. It's not about the fucking consciousness of the self. I sometimes think that intelligent women feel we need to create this intellectual mask about everything we like, and we hide behind it. I like makeup because I like makeup. And I think it's also just being human. I know that when I'm in a good mood and I like the way I look in the mirror, it makes my day better; it makes me happy. On the other hand, when I'm not having a good day I don't really want to put on makeup. When I'm not in a good place makeup is not necessarily my friend."
You've been in this role for a couple months now as the face of No7. What have you learned since taking on this opportunity?
"That No7 has really good eyeliner, and that I quite like their green eyeliner on my upper lid. So that's a major thing I have learned. But also how widespread the idea is that serious women shouldn't be interested in makeup. I know that there are people who have said, 'Oh, how surprising. She's supposed to be feminist and she's the face of a makeup brand.' And I find that very interesting. In some ways I think it may subconsciously be part of the reason I said yes to doing this, because it's part of this journey toward authenticity. If being public about who I am is good and useful for even just one woman out there, then I think it's worthwhile for me."
In your opinion, how does the beauty culture differ between Nigeria and the United States?
"In Nigeria people use 275 products, and in the U.S. they use 200 [ laughs]. I have a little anecdote to tell you what the difference is: I have a friend who's an amateur makeup artist. She has a really good job in the corporate world in Nigeria but she just likes to do makeup on the side. She was showing me pictures of her work, and I said, 'I think it's a bit too much makeup.' She said to me, 'Well, if I did their makeup like your makeup, I'd never make any money because nobody will hire me.' The point being that Nigerians don't like my kind of makeup. It's too subtle for them. It's not their thing.

"The good thing about Nigeria is there isn't as much judgment on women who wear makeup as I think there is in the West, or it's not as pronounced. I think a woman in Nigeria who is highly placed, like a CEO of a bank or highly placed in politics, and who wears makeup, there isn't much judgment. There isn't that assumption of she must frivolous because she's wearing red lipstick."
So as a big fan of your book Americanah, I have to ask: The story focuses a lot on your main character's hair as part of her experience of moving to the U.S. from Nigeria. Would Ifemelu's experience with makeup be similar?
"That's a very good question. Maybe not, because my conception of Ifemelu is that she wasn't particularly keen on makeup anyway. Her hair was sort of a political journey. For me personally, it was more of the makeup issue because I just didn't wear makeup in the U.S."
Speaking of hair, there's been a lot of talk about the cultural appropriation of hairstyles in the beauty and fashion world, especially from African cultures. What are your thoughts on the conversations that are currently happening?
"In general, my feeling is that people should wear whatever they want to wear. What I have concerns about is the word 'tribal' used in fashion; I find it a quite lazy word because I think anything remotely African is immediately labeled tribal. Anything that even resembles anything African, it's labeled tribal. And I think the word 'tribal' is loaded and problematic and it's just a very lazy, go-to word for things that I think could be better done.

"I'm quite happy to see white women with dreadlocks if that's what they want. But I think the problem is when a black woman for whom dreadlocks are her life-not just a cool thing-and she doesn't get the same kind of recognition or praise. Then I think it becomes a bit worrying. For example, looking recently at magazines there are a lot of stories about 'how to do the braid.' And they're all white women and the braids are very limp and there's a part of me that wants to bring my African braider to do it properly for them.

"Granted, it's not something I've really thought about, and it's not really my battle. Of the things that I get very passionate about, this is not one of them. But thinking about it, it seems to me that people feel that the 'owners' of things like braids or other styles that are not from mainstream culture, don't get the recognition for them. In some ways it's similar to when black women sometimes get offended because a white woman who has a big behind can be praised, but then big behinds have sort of belonged to black women, and they're hardly praised for them. I think in the end, it's really about being inclusive. And I think that's one thing the beauty industry still needs to do more of, which is have a wider range of what we should aspire to. Have women of different shades, have women of different sizes, and have them equally as aspirational. And I really think that's what the problem is, fundamentally. That's actually another reason why working with No7 was an easy decision to make-other than the fact it's my absolutely favorite shop in London and the products are good products. It's that the brand has a democratic method that I really like. It's not beauty as a hallowed space. It's beauty that's accessible to everyone, which can be seen from this campaign."

Opening up magazines do you think we're getting better at becoming more inclusive?
"Yes, I do. I think there's still a long way to go but certainly there's an obvious difference from just ten years ago. I think that's also the case of beauty brands. I still think they have a long way to go, but at least now they have more than one dark shade. Maybe they have two, but it's still progress from one. Often in the past, the one dark shade would actually be a shade for a medium-skinned Indian woman. Forget it if you're really dark-skinned. But I think it's changing. Even looking at magazines now I think that there's a step toward being more inclusive, having different kinds of women. For me, I'm just really looking forward to a time when it's not just one black woman and one Asian woman. It would be nice for Asian to mean different things. It would be nice to have South Asian and a woman who looks like she's Korean for example. It'd be nice to have a woman who looks like she's Mongolian. And of course for black women it would be so lovely to have the different shades because you know, we're not all either Halle Berry or Lupita [Nyong'o]. There's a wide range in between. But I'm hopeful, there's far less to criticize now then ten years ago."
Watch Alicia Keys answer some of life's most pressing questions:

The Best Mascaras

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Why You Can Be a Feminist and Love Makeup

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie being named the face of No7 is not breaking news. The Nigerian-born author has been featured in the ads for the brand's No7 Match Made Skin Tone Analysis (the in-store service that helps you find your perfect foundation shade with the help of a device) since October 2016.

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A letter written by Alicia Keys which talks about her belief that wearing makeup is in direct opposition to being 'real' and 'raw'. This shows a contrasting sentiment to the article on the left, in that wearing makeup is a sort of conformity to the patriarchy and societal standards of beauty, and these two forces are in direct opposition of one another:

"'Cause I don't want to cover up anymore. Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing"

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We all get to a point in our lives (especially girls) where we try to be perfect.

Does it start somewhere in second grade after picture day when you wear your frizzy hair out 'cause your mama says it's beautiful but all your "friends" laugh at you?

You grab the brush and gel and pull your beautiful big hair back into the tightest ponytail you possibly can to contain your unique hair in a bun - hiding a piece of who you are in order to fit into a picture of what others seem to see as perfection.

Yeah, that's one moment.

Or how about in junior high school? Where all the "pretty" girls are wearing lipstick and eyeliner and mascara. Some of them are so skilled they even look like those models in every magazine you ever read - the ones who made you feel slightly uncomfortable with yourself or misrepresented or just unseen.

It's another moment where some piece of you realizes that to fit in or be thought of as beautiful, you have to cover up to be a bit closer to perfect.

Yeah, that's another one.

Trust me, it didn't just end in junior high. I remember when I first started to be in the public eye. Oh my gawd! Everyone had something to say. "She's so hard, she acts like a boy, she must be gay, she should be more feminine!" But the truth is, I was just from New York, and everyone I knew acted like that.

In the streets of New York you had to be tough, you HAD to be hard, people needed to know that you weren't scared to fight!

But this wasn't the streets of New York. This was the harsh, judgmental world of entertainment and my biggest test yet. I started, more than ever, to become a chameleon. Never fully being who I was, but constantly changing so all the "they's" would accept me.

I started, more than ever, to become a chameleon.

Before I started my new album, I wrote a list of all the things that I was sick of. And one was how much women are brainwashed into feeling like we have to be skinny, or sexy, or desirable, or perfect. One of the many things I was tired of was the constant judgment of women. The constant stereotyping through every medium that makes us feel like being a normal size is not normal, and heaven forbid if you're plus-size. Or the constant message that being sexy means being naked.

All of it is so frustrating and so freakin' impossible.

I realized that during this process, I wrote a lot of songs about masks filled with metaphors about hiding.

I needed these songs because I was really feeling those insecurities.

I was finally uncovering just how much I censored myself, and it scared me. Who was I anyway? Did I even know HOW to be brutally honest anymore? Who I wanted to be?

I didn't know the answers exactly, but I desperately wanted to.

In one song I wrote, called "When a Girl Can't Be Herself," it says,
In the morning from the minute that I wake up / What if I don't want to put on all that makeup / Who says I must conceal what I'm made of / Maybe all this Maybelline is covering my self-esteem
No disrespect to Maybelline, the word just worked after the maybe. But the truth is ... I was really starting to feel like that - that, as I am, I was not good enough for the world to see.

This started manifesting on many levels, and it was not healthy.

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We all get to a point in our lives (especially girls) where we try to be perfect. Does it start somewhere in second grade after picture day when you wear your frizzy hair out 'cause your mama says it's beautiful but all your "friends" laugh at you?

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The apparent dichotomy between wearing makeup and being a feminist is something that came to mind when brainstorming this theme. For many (like Alicia Keys in the connected article), makeup is seen as a mask for the body, and a political tool of oppression stemming from the patriarchy to enforce the beauty myth that I talk about on my other Padlet. This opinion piece confronts the dichotomous assumption that wearing makeup bars one from being a feminist. As the author outlines, the freedom to choose whether you wear makeup or not lies within a core assumption of (third wave) feminism - the need to 'honour bodily autonomy'. She also makes a very valid point that feminism isn't about demonising 'femininity'.

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I blinked twice at my brother and cocked my head to the right, brows furrowed in confusion as to why he was challenging such an innocuous request.

We were at our parents' house in southern Maine, wiling away our time before we had to leave for a family wedding that evening. Our mother was about to hop over to the drug store for some last-minute necessities, and she casually asked us if we needed anything while she was out.

"Can you pick me up some eyelashes?" I asked, referring to the glue-on kind that you use to enhance the length or thickness of your own goddess-given ones. And then everyone paused, looked at one another, and then looked at me.

"Really?" my mom asked in earnest, squinting as if I had suddenly blurred before her eyes into someone she couldn't recognize.

"How do you reconcile that with your feminism?" my brother asked. "How do you champion the idea of 'be yourself,' but also wear fake lashes?"

I tossed a quick retort over my shoulder as I got up to leave the room: "Maybe you should leave feminism to the feminist." But I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't a constant question on people's minds: How can you wear makeup and still be a feminist?

And I get where the confusion comes from.

After all, isn't makeup a tool of the patriarchy to keep us so obsessed with narrow beauty standards that we can't focus on revolution? And isn't it a little frivolous and ridiculous of a hobby to find enjoyment in something so decidedly feminine? And how can one proclaim themselves anti-capitalist if they throw money toward thirty-dollar tubes of lipstick (even if they do come in names like and )?

Indeed, the makeup-wearing feminist feels like an oxymoron.

But I think maybe that's only true for the folks who still hold onto the myth that bra-burning was a thing that ever happened.

Because makeup and feminism aren't on opposite ends of some spectrum of superficial-to-enlightened. And although there's a lot to question about the role that makeup plays in our lives, the "Isn't it inherently anti-feminist? " one isn't really worthwhile to ponder.

Because, in truth, it's the pressure for women (in particular) to wear makeup that's the problem - not the fact that it exists as an option.

So for those who are still confused about how we can reconcile our feminism with our love for winged eyeliner - or for the fellow woman who once said that she had a hard time taking my talk of liberation seriously because the mouth that formed those words was coated in a lavender-violet hue - here's your answer.

1. Feminism Is About Honoring Bodily Autonomy

If you ask me, there's nothing that goes against feminist values more than questioning whether or not what a person adorns their body with is "appropriate" - regardless of the scale being used to ascertain that value.

Because whether we're talking about , short skirts, , or lipstick, the idea is the same: We get to choose our own modes of self-expression. And neither patriarchy nor feminism gets to have a one-size-fits-all say in that.

And that isn't to say that by virtue of making a choice, that that choice is feminist. I'll be covering that more thoroughly in point #2. What I am saying is that before we jump to the question of whether or not a person is critically analyzing their choices (and how those choices affect us on a larger scale), we need to agree that whatever a person decides to do with their body is up to them (and keep your devil's advocate hypothetical arguments against that statement to yourself, please).

Various oppressive systems - from patriarchy to white supremacy to capitalism and beyond - have had a say in what it means to present ourselves "" for centuries. The last thing that we need is for our antidote movements to replicate those same hierarchies.

Especially as a marginalized person, I don't always have a lot of power or control over my world or my life. But the one thing that I can feel empowered in is the idea that no one but me gets to decide what happens to my body.

And that very idea - that this is my body, and not yours, and not patriarchy's, and not feminism's - has to be a core value in our liberation work. Because as soon as you start believing that your dogma can dictate how a person lives in their body, you're actually doing the patriarchy's work for it.

We don't need more people telling marginalized bodies how they're allowed to be seen, regardless of what it's "in the name" of. We need more people to honor bodily autonomy - and that includes the right to rock a fierce manicure if we want to.

2. Feminism Is About Critically Analyzing Our Choices

The problem with being a feminist is that every single choice that you make is riddled with questions about whether or not that choice is helpful or harmful, overall, to liberation.

Like, I fucking love Taylor Swift , but when she sings about competitive or makes racist-as-hell music videos, am I still allowed to jam? Or by giving her money and fandom, am I upholding the very structures that I'm trying to crumble? How does my individual choice to dance around my house singing "We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together" play a role in the cultural subjugation of women?

And so, I need to take time to critically analyze why I like Taylor Swift and how I'll engage with her content. For me, that means that I invest in calling out what's problematic about her in a way that I can only do as a fan. I have an entire section of my presentation on how mainstream media glorifies dating violence dedicated just to the "Blank Space" music video, FFS.

Basically, being a feminist means that you never get to enjoy a damn thing unconditionally, because there. are. always. conditions. And makeup is no exception. Fun as it is, and innocent as it can seem, we definitely need to analyze that choice before we make it.

Because as easy as it is to say that any choice that we make as marginalized people is automatically feminist (because look! I'm making a decision for myself in a world that tries to make decisions for me!), the truth is that we don't make choices in a vacuum.

What that means for me is that while I authentically enjoy makeup, I also have to recognize that it's impossible to know if I would still like it if I hadn't been socialized to believe that I had to. It means understanding that the choices that I make are dependent on the choices that are offered to me.

So while I'm empowered to decide that I want to wear makeup, I'm equally disempowered by a system that sells that to me as the "right" choice to make. And the fact that I refuse to leave the house without makeup? That's definitely the result of internalized misogyny . And feminism taught me that.

But recognizing the ways in which things are problematic - and, um, just about everything is problematic in some sense - doesn't mean that we have to entirely distance ourselves from them.

It just means that we need to be cognizant of them, talk to other people about them, and constantly reevaluate what it means for us to partake in them - both for ourselves and for society-at-large.

3. Feminism Is About Not Demonizing Femininity

There's this (bullshit) idea out there that the only way to be a "good" feminist, as women, is to distance ourselves from all things associated with hegemonic femininity: No more bras, no more hair curlers, no more , no more , and no more nail polish.

Only when we wash our hands of all things pink and frilly and pretty can we really call ourselves feminists. Because in order to be feminists, we need to push ourselves away from what society considers "womanly" and position our existences as more androgynous than anything. But the problem with our social concept of androgyny is that it's-well- pretty masculine . And I don't see how considering masculinity more valuable than femininity is feminist at all.

Your (a)gender identity, gender presentation, and adherence (or not) to gender roles is entirely up to you. Freedom from patriarchy means not believing in the boxes that are so often used to suffocate us - and to move toward a self that is free of gender expectations. But that means that what we traditionally consider "feminine" is still up for grabs.

Being free of gender expectations doesn't mean that you're relegated only to expressions of gender that are outside of what you've been coerced under since birth. It means that you can actively choose to engage in that expression of gender, too.

It also means allowing the association of makeup with women to implode. To turn to dust. To be blown away into the cosmos, never to return. Because people of all (a)gender identities can (and do) use makeup.

Makeup doesn't have to be a gendered thing. And when you shame women, in particular, for using makeup, what you're suggesting is 1) that makeup, as a "feminine" pursuit, is inherently associated with women only and 2) that makeup, as a "feminine" pursuit, should be put down.

But your assertion that femininity itself is wrong simply echoes the patriarchy. Telling women that if they want to be "good" feminists, they need to dissociate from what is traditionally considered feminine only helps to solidify those things as territory solely for women - and to strengthen the idea that anything associated with femininity is less-than.

Women, just like everyone else, are allowed to choose a gender expression that feels good to them - and so long as "feminine" is an option, we're allowed to choose that one.

So, I get it. There are a lot of (really great) arguments for why women using makeup doesn't jive with feminism and why feminists should throw out (or burn) every physical tool used to oppress us.

But I think that there are a lot of (really great) arguments for why telling women what to do with their bodies - yes, even in the name of feminism - is just as harmful. Because at the root, it's the exact same issue. So yes, brother, I can reconcile my feminism with my want for falsies just fine, thanks.

Because I think that the most feminist thing that we can do is to join forces to tear down the notion that marginalized people need to be told what to do with their bodies - and to accept that while some of us are going to show up to the revolution fresh-faced, others are going to need a really good setting spray for battle.
Melissa A. Fabello, Managing Editor of Everyday Feminism, is a body acceptance activist and sexuality scholar living in Philadelphia. She enjoys rainy days, tattoos, yin yoga, and Jurassic Park. She holds a B.S. in English Education from Boston University and an M.Ed. in Human Sexuality from Widener University. She is currently working on her PhD. She can be reached on Twitter @fyeahmfabello.

Filed Under: Tagged With: Articles, Health & Body Posts

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My Makeup Isn't Inherently Anti-Feminist - But Your Body Policing Is - Everyday Feminism

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I blinked twice at my brother and cocked my head to the right, brows furrowed in confusion as to why he was challenging such an innocuous request. We were at our parents' house in southern Maine, wiling away our time before we had to leave for a family wedding that evening.

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As Descartes, the father of the mind-body dualism, asserted: “the decay of the body does not imply the destruction of the mind" (1996, 10). This implies that the mind is an immaterial force that is untouched by the goings-on in one's body. However, this collection of news articles and videos has come from my own search for questions about my gut health. I suffer from various gut-related issues and therefore this topic has become of great interest to me in the past year. It has led me down many paths, from videos, blogs, Instagram accounts and books dedicated to the topic. And the dominant research in this field points to a strong connection between the health of one's gut the one's mental health. As this article and Emeran Mayer's interview and book suggest, one's microbiome and bodily experience can affect mood, anxiety and depression. Thus, the immaterial mind is seen as inextricably linked to the body, going against the mind-body dualism paradigm.

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Everybody's into guts these days. Well, not having a gut, but promoting intestinal health as a solution to a wide variety of health problems. On the other side of the coin, everybody's depressed! Depression and anxiety are on the rise, so doctors are beginning to look beyond the brain to learn what might be causing this wave of sadness.

For years, doctors found that patients with depression often suffered from constipation, diarrhea, and other poop-related problems. Now some scientists think that the bowel issues might not be an effect of depression-but the cause.

My gut's making me depressed?

At first, this sounds crazy: How can your stomach and intestines make you depressed? Is my stomach telling me that I'm a failure and I'll disappoint my family and friends? Are my intestines controlling my Facebook feed to show another governmental horror, making me wonder if there's any good left in the world? These might be, ahem, slightly personal examples, but they're still legit.

Although your thoughts and emotions are controlled in the brain, the brain and gut actually have a very powerful connection. "The gut and brain are intimately connected by a bi-directional pathway called the gut-brain axis," says Boston-based registered dietitian and gut health expert Kate Scarlata. This axis is connected through the vagus nerve. "The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the body-it is the key route for communication between the gut microbes and our brain."

All the millions of microbes in the intestines have a direct line to the brain-which is why people actually refer to the gut as the " second brain." You know how you might pee yourself if you get really scared? That's emotion having a direct effect on your digestive system. But the calls aren't always from the brain to the gut. In fact, the gut might hog the line more often than we thought.

"We've long known that the neurotransmitter serotonin plays a crucial role in the biology of anxiety and depression," says Donald N. Tsynman, M.D., a gastroenterologist at Manhattan Gastroentorology. "Furthermore, we know that the gut has a higher concentration of serotonin receptors than the brain does. That being said, we have hypothesized for years that the connection between the gut and depression is a real and strong one."

And this hypothesis is proving to be a sound one-studies about the gut/brain connection are being published regularly (and we'll get into some of these below).

What do I do to change my gut?

As with most gut problems, the answer doesn't lie in a pill or a shot, but in the scariest medicine of all-dietary changes!

Sadly, a steady dose of Taco Bell and raw cookie dough is not the diet of choice to heal intestinal issues-so while they might make you feel better in the moment, these foods won't do much to help with gut-related depression. But you don't necessarily have to do a total dietary 180 and do the Whole30 to feel a difference-and there's growing evidence that even moderate dietary changes do relieve depression.

"From my clinical experience working with IBS patients, diet changes that result in a calmer gut appear to impact overall quality of life," Scarlata says. A study from the University of Michigan found this exact idea to be true. As patients ate a low FODMAP diet, their self-reported anxiety and depression went down, while quality of life went up.

The SMILES trial, published in BMC Medicine, found that a healthy diet (lots of fruits and vegetables, increased intake of fish and whole grains) had a significant impact on depression. For the study, patients were treated with either social support or a healthy diet. In the healthy diet group, more people stayed to finish the study, and in a number of patients, depression went into remission-a marked difference from the results of the control group.

It's important to note that these were both very small studies and the results don't prove a direct connection between gut health and depression. Eating healthy food does generally make you feel better, but that doesn't necessarily mean that your gut was causing the problem in the first place. And maybe people who don't have to run to the bathroom all the time are generally happier and less anxious.

I'm not trying to rain on the gut parade. Between these studies-and the fact that the intestines are a primary producer of serotonin -make a real case for a gut-depression connection. We'll just have to wait for more studies (and BMC alone has quite a few more in the works) before there's a solid scientific foundation.

In the meantime, it might be worth trying a modified diet if you're looking to decrease depression and anxiety.

OK-so what delicious foods do I have to give up?

With no definitive proof of gut-induced depression, there's no definitive answer for which diet works best. But there is something that all the experts said to avoid.

You've probably heard it a million times by now: Avoid processed food. Yes, Pop-Tarts are extremely tasty. And yes, it's so much easier to heat up a Stouffer's Mac and Cheese than to make an actual meal. But the high salt, fat, and sugar content in most processed foods is really just the worst for you.

"Several studies have shown that eating foods high in sugar and fat can change the chemical activity of the brain, making it more dependent on such foods," says colorectal surgeon Lynn O'Connor, M.D. "When those foods are withheld, people can suffer from withdrawal symptoms, have difficulty dealing with stress, and feel depressed."

O'Connor isn't saying that junk food causes depression, but it does cause something close to addiction, which makes depressive and anxious symptoms even worse.

In addition to cutting out junk food, Tsynman recommends lowering alcohol intake (since alcohol is a depressive, it's only going to make you more depressed in the long run) and moderating caffeine (and possibly eliminating it, for people with heightened anxiety).

O'Connor says you should eat sources of selenium, which has been demonstrated to reduce depression and improve mood. Selenium can be found in whole grains, fish, and Brazil nuts-fish pull double duty because they're also sources of omega-3 fatty acids, a nutrient that helps protect the coverings of the brain's nerve cells, which can improve cognition and reduce depression, according to O'Connor.

Of course, depression isn't all in the gut-getting enough exercise is also a critical part of mental health. But if you want to boost your gut health, a study from the University of Wales Swansea suggests that probiotics might improve your mood too: Participants drank a probiotic-filled drink, and by the end of three weeks, people who rated themselves towards the depressive end of the scale jumped up towards the "elated" end of the scale. That's not to say they were filled with constant glee, but the drink did seem to improve their moods, especially among people who were initially depressed.

Thankfully, these dietary recommendations aren't crazily strict-mostly, you should eat vegetables, whole grains, omega-3s, kefir or other probiotics... and maybe throw in some Brazil nuts for good measure.

Though you should avoid eating a bunch of processed food, not drink a ton of alcohol, and watch your caffeine, the experts mostly recommend moderation. According to Tsynman, "Moderation is the goal when it comes to healthy food choices to ensure that people can continue to have well-balanced meals."

Any other weird gut stuff I should know?

Yep! Depressed people could one day eat poop to feel better.

I realize that's a wild sentence. But fecal transplants (i.e., eating a capsule of a healthy person's poop) has been shown to relieve intestinal problems. And if relieving intestinal problems reduces depression, using a fecal transplant instead of Prozac isn't such a crazy idea.

There haven't been any human tests to show the efficacy of fecal transplants as a depression treatment yet, but a paper published in the Clinical Psychopharmacology and Neuroscience Journal shows the potential of fecal transplants to treat neurological disorders. If you're worried that your doctor's going to hand you a prescription for poop the next time you're feeling down-don't stress. Fecal transplant studies aren't there yet, and it'll be quite a while before any such treatment would be approved, especially for depression.

On the flip side, if you're thinking of taking a little bit of a happy person's poop and doing an at-home transplant, please, please don't. Oh for the love of God, please don't do that. It won't work, and it'll be ever-so-gross.

Though there isn't hard proof to show that depression and gut health are connected, it's pretty likely that what you eat does affect how you feel.

I know that's a real "no duh" statement, but we're not talking about, "I just ate a salad and I feel so great." We're talking about diet reversing the dread, apathy, and pain that depression and anxiety can cause. And if we can relieve some of the most common mental health issues through eating healthier food, that's pretty good news.
Amber Petty is a freelance writer in Los Angeles. If you like easy crafts and Simpsons gifs, check out her blog, Half-Assed Crafts.

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There's a Connection Between Gut Health and Depression

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Everybody's into guts these days. Well, not having a gut, but promoting intestinal health as a solution to a wide variety of health problems. On the other side of the coin, everybody's depressed! Depression and anxiety are on the rise, so doctors are beginning to look beyond the brain to learn what might be causing this wave of sadness.

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The Gut as the 'Second Brain' - contesting the mind-body dualism

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The Gut as the 'Second Brain' - contesting the mind-body dualism

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A great interview with Emeran Mayer about why the gut is often referred to as the second brain

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Why Your Gut Is Your Second Brain | Emeran Mayer on Health Theory

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The book written by Emeran Meyer about the mind-gut connection

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Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with the latest discoveries on the human microbiome, a practical guide in the tradition of Wheat Belly and Grain Brain that conclusively demonstrates the inextricable, biological link between mind and body.

We have all experienced the connection between our mind and our gut-the decision we made because it "felt right"; the butterflies in our stomach before a big meeting; the anxious stomach rumbling when we're stressed out. While the dialogue between the gut and the brain has been recognized by ancient healing traditions, including Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, Western medicine has failed to appreciate the complexity of how the brain, gut, and more recently, the microbiome-the microorganisms that live inside us-communicate with one another. In The Mind-Gut Connection, Dr. Emeran Mayer, executive director of the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress, offers a revolutionary look at this developing science, teaching us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health.

The Mind-Gut Connection shows how to keep the brain-gut communication clear and balanced to:

* heal the gut by focusing on a plant-based diet

* balance the microbiome by consuming fermented foods and probiotics, fasting, and cutting out sugar and processed foods

* promote weight loss by detoxifying and creating healthy digestion and maximum nutrient absorption

* boost immunity and prevent the onset of neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and

Alzheimer's

* generate a happier mindset and reduce fatigue, moodiness, anxiety, and depression

* prevent and heal GI disorders such as leaky gut syndrome, food sensitivities and allergies, and IBS, as well as digestive discomfort such as heartburn and bloating

* and much more.

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The Mind-Gut Connection - Emeran Mayer - E-book

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Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with the latest discoveries on the human microbiome, a practical guide in the tradition of Wheat Belly and Grain Brain that conclusively demonstrates the inextricable, biological link between mind and body.

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What does the rising popularity of gender reveal parties say about our current society? I see these kinds of events posted on facebook or pinterest quite often, and in many cases the 'gender reveal' not only states whether the baby will be assigned as a male or female, but they are ripe with symbolism perpetuating gendered norms (via the colours used and roles or activities chosen to represent male and female). It is interesting to note the language chosen, when calling it a gender reveal party as opposed to a sex reveal party, thus conceptualising the two as intertwined. However as Oakley (1972) says, “In contrast to sex, gender refers to the established psychological, social and representational differences between men and women, which are socially determined and culturally variable" (as cited in Howson, 2013,52). But this begs the question - what happens if the child is born intersex or transgender? The rigidity of the gender binary is an organising principle for society, however it is also a site of trauma for those who do not necessarily conform to its outline. The imposition of a gender prior to the child even being born embeds a web of expectations of how they should work upon themselves to embody such binaries.

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‘Gender denotes a hierarchical division between women and men embedded in both social institutions and social practices. Gender is thus a social structural phenomenon but it is also produced, negotiated and sustained at the level of everyday interaction’ (Jackson and Scott, 2000, p1).

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The above two images and the below short documentary relate to the Swedish gender neutral pronoun 'hen' and the proliferation of gender neutral upbringings or educational settings within Sweden. Known for its forward thinking and world leading stance on gender conceptualisation, this was something that personally stood out to me whilst living in Sweden last year. The gender binary (classifying gender into two dichotomous options of masculine and feminine) is experienced on a day to day level here in Australia, with schools regulating and policing gender through differing uniforms, offering different sporting options for males vs females, the promotion of male and female pronouns to address children and so forth. In contrast, we see in this documentary that Swedish kindergartens are regulated by the government to reduce the promotion of gender stereotypes, through the language they use and the types of play they perform. The effects on society could be visibly seen, in my opinion, with non-gendered bathrooms and a more general acceptance of gender non-conformity than I have experienced in Australia. Many of my male identifying, heterosexual friends would wear nail polish, and I would regularly do face masks and pampering sessions with a few of them. As Jackson and Scott (2000) highlight, gender as a social construct is embedded within institutions and social practices. Thus, the gender binary, as it exists in my lived experience in Australia, would have no room for such activities without one questioning how it breaks with normalised gendered expectations.

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Fat Kid Dance Party Will Teach You To Love Your Body

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Fat Kid Dance Party Will Teach You To Love Your Body

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This video and the connected article hint at a sentiment of a dichotomy between fatness and self worth. Being fat reduces your social capital, as it disrupts notions of a civilised body. The very phrasing of the video's title indicates that self worth and body love is something that has to be taught (as opposed to being inherent) to fat individuals.

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"I call bullshit on the idea that a fat woman doesn’t deserve to feel sexually satisfied or good about her body because some people can’t handle the idea a fleshy body can be sexually pleasing not only to others but to themselves" -
https://www.ravishly.com/sexual-at-any-size

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"to vow
to solemnly swear solemnly promise
to dedicate to you, my deity
the feminine to my masculine
the masculine to my feminine
and everything in between." (Nico's vow to Bethany).
As we've learnt in lectures, gender difference is something that is socially constructed. Females are invited to enhance their femininity and males their masculinity through the way they dress and perform in a space. These images and this article shows how a couple has responded to such pressures, dissolving gendered roles and performance in both visual and inherent ways.

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This is a beautiful reflection piece written about Nico Tortorella (actor and queer activist) and Bethany Meyers' (wellness entrepreneur) wedding. This couple is an openly queer, polyamorous duo and this piece reflects on their binary shattering relationship (on various levels), both over the course of their connection and on their wedding day.
"we’ve pushed social constructs and broken boundaries. we’ve confused our friends, families, lovers, coworkers, the media, and even ourselves. we’ve said and done the right things and most certainly the wrong ones too. we’ve been boyfriend and girlfriend, boyfriend and boyfriend, girlfriend and girlfriend, no friends, and all friends. we’ve been sober, drunk, high, and addicted. we’ve been straight, confused, fluid, queer, bi, poly, gender enthusiasts"

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The queer, polyamorous couple wrote about their wedding day and their love, exclusively for them.

no matter what, and Marriage. I can't say the word never resonated with me. I remember being 16 years old, having sleepovers with my besties, combing through bridal magazines, cutting out favorite photos of flowers, rings, dresses and colors. 16 years old and planning a wedding. The event every fairy tale had told us was the finish line. I decided I would be married by 27. I picked a number much older than the going age for most girls in my small Missouri hometown. I had my heart set on bright lights, big city, so I padded myself a few extra years before I would tie the knot and become Mrs. New Last Name. the day was march 9, 2018. 3/9/18. in numerology the 18 becomes a 9, so for all intents and purposes, we shall forever remember the day as 399. an angelic number if i've ever seen one. you see, 39 is a blessed count, and with an extra 9? this was entirely planned. Cut to 399. A few months shy of 32. The wedding day. No guests. No flowers. No rings. My "dress," consisting of trousers. His "tux," gown inclusive. I suppose you would dub our wedding color white. It was certainly the most traditional thing we did. i've always planned on being a husband - my own version of one. not that i "prince charming" dreamt of it, but being from a family where everyone had been divorced at least once, it was a tradition i was prepared to re-shape. everyone loves a big wedding, said no one ever. we knew we wanted to be married at the courthouse. the office of the city clerk at 141 worth street in lower manhattan, to be exact. immediately upon entrance of this landmark, the rush of love almost makes you catatonic. from street vendors outside selling rings and flowers, to couples and families passing by from all walks of life, their outfits representing various parts of the world. from the seemingly proper acceptance and recognition of gender and sexuality, to the structure's deeply rooted history and porous marble walls, which absorb pure devotion in human form. from the smiling faces of the employees, security guards, police officers, all of whom are strangers, all welcoming the holiest of matrimony. there's even something romantic about the metal detector if you could imagine. but our day started way before said courthouse. Honestly, it's shocking that it happened this way. My religious upbringing had told me it would be different. Young ladies like myself went from their parents' home to their husband's home, no pit stops. They certainly didn't have "write about it for a queer publication!" pasted in their childhood wedding scrapbook. They probably also didn't marry bisexual men while simultaneously dating women. the looks are everything we've ever dreamed of. genderbending ensembles designed by our dear friend andrew morrison. timeless androgynous paraphernalia mimicking romanesque sculpture that fluidly blends masculine and feminine. in this relationship, we both wear the pants and the dress. we put on our faces and machinery, finally topping each other off in crowns. duh, we wore crowns. not for the gag of it all, but because it feels like something we've done in the past, so we had to keep the tradition alive. in this life's iteration, this is, in fact, our royal wedding.

Here we are, the day I dreamed of yet not the day I imagined, and I couldn't be happier. Plenty won't understand it, something I'm gradually learning to accept. For others, it will help open their eyes to different ways to love. And for some, our story will make them feel less alone. It will give them strength to ask for the things they want and need in a partner. As traditional as we may appear on the outside, we are far from it on the inside.
No matter what,
this is a story of love

we got to the courthouse a little later than expected and were immediately welcomed by those smiling faces. among them stood our good friend and photographer victoria matthews, and our friend jk carrington, who so graciously came as an extra pair of hands. bless both their hearts. here i was, in a new york city courthouse, one of four queer humans, one of whom i was about to marry. unspeakable pride rushed through my entire being. the next hour flew by. we went through security, got our ticket number (c-35), and within minutes we were called to booth number five. we posed for a few pictures, had small talk with the other lovers getting hitched and their families, i peed, and the tears were already gathering. while waiting in the corridor just before the east chapel, a man's voice echoed through the alabaster chambers - nicolo and bethany. it was time. If you had to label it, Nico and I are in a queer polyamorous relationship. Labels that help people understand, but not labels that define us. Most think we planned this and one day decided we would be multiple-love kind of people. We didn't. It's just the way our relationship developed over 12 years. We became polyamorous without ever really trying, and we let each other go so often; I guess we finally realized it's the reason we are impenetrable. It's hard to break something that bends. the human that married us was named angel, but he was far from the only angel present. we floated into the east chapel, which had been painted the wrong hue of dusty rose. however, as the sun's rays glared through the unstained glass, the dust got magically swept. our ceremony lasted less than two minutes. do you nico? i do. do you bethany? she does. And from the mouth of an angel it was official, you may now kiss the bride. in hindsight i wish we would have asked angel to use nonspecific gender titles, but so be it. this husband now had a wife, and this wife now had a husband. a bride becomes a wife and a groom becomes a husband, but what does a partner become? i choose to believe 399 produced two husbands and two wives from just bethany and i. For my wedding present to Nico, I went through all my old journals and found every entry I had written about him over the course of our relationship. I scanned them into a binder and gifted him stories of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. It's pretty amazing to see how early I speak of poly love, an entry from eight years ago reading: "I could be with someone else and have feelings for them, but feelings for Nico exist in some other compartment of my heart." Or how undefinable I describe our "friendship" in 2007, a year after we first met: "What makes us tick? I cannot put it into words. It is the thing we feel but cannot see. the thing we know but cannot describe. It is the reason we found each other. The reason you can read my mind. The reason I know your thoughts. How can I describe our friendship? I can't. It just is." It wasn't all that sweet. There was also this from 2009: "Are the last seven months real? Did they actually exist? Has Nico been away that long? It feels like so much less time. if you truly love someone, shouldn't one week feel like an eternity? Have I lost my love for Nico? Am I over him? Is he over me? Could we ever really be 'over' each other?"

I also found the vows I wrote to him high on mushrooms long before we ever touched the topic of marriage. This binder is pure gold. And an eye-opening look back on everything that we are, where we came from, how we became the couple we are today. Truth is, this isn't our first shot at it and it's not our last. Our lifetimes together run deep.

the hard part was over. we were in control for the rest of the day and there wasn't anything or anyone that could tell us otherwise. congratulations and cheers all around as we left 141 worth street from the strangers who didn't seem so strange today. as we sauntered down a block in the financial district, where greek revival architecture is ubiquitous, thus creating the perfect backdrop for our neo-grecian drape dress, time seemingly paused altogether. I started dating women around six years ago. I started exploring nine years ago. I started crushing 12 years ago. I'm sure it all would have started earlier had I known it was an option. Relationships with women did wonders for my views on gender. I imagined what it would be like to marry my girlfriend. Now that I was looking at marriage from the lens of two women, it felt different. Who would drop their last name? Who would walk down the aisle and who wait at the altar? Who would pay for it? The idea of marriage started to shift. It no longer felt patriarchal, it felt equal. And I finally began to view it for what marriage was at its deepest core. The union between two people who love each other, who wanted to build their foundation of future generations together, who wanted the legal rights to wed and be recognized by the state as a single unit. a proper photoshoot prevailed, sans proper permits. this was our wedding day, we were going to shoot bullseyes. no matter what. I realized, if I was ever to marry, the person to fill that role was Nico. There wouldn't be another soul I could share my life with, another human I'd be able to trust with my family. Another person for whom my guarded heart would open. The truth is, I asked Nico almost a year ago to marry me. It was a weekday afternoon, he came to my place to dump a dead mouse from a trap that I was too terrified to do myself (gotta love New York). I told him I loved him, that I was going to have his kids regardless, and that I needed health insurance (true romance). "Let's get married," I told him. "No one has to know." It was he who wanted it to be more grandiose, and I who felt timid about the prospect of planning a wedding (gender roles have never been our thing).

we hopped in a cab for the next destination. i had decided the night before that i wanted to head to a church in the city to read our vows. as much as this is a valued civil union, this is also a spiritually religious fusing that deserved an applicable house of worship. the oldest church in manhattan, st. paul's chapel, was just the spot. this is where george washington came for service immediately following his inauguration. this was exactly where we were supposed to be, and once again it felt like we had been there together before. We tossed around the idea but it wasn't solidified until we took a trip to the Amazon jungle in December. Out in the rainforest with no internet, no indoor plumbing, no society, just the heavens and the spirit of the universe, we connected at our deepest level. We saw each other in past lives and future lives and the visions of the good we were brought here to do in our current lives. And we were meant to do it together. On our first day back in society, Nico looked at me over dinner and asked if we should marry on March 9. I said, "finally." And just like that, we were "engaged."
No matter what,

not thinking it would be an issue in the least, we just walked in. people spend years planning a wedding and reserving churches and here we were, just winging it as angels do. after another round of metal detectors, we doused ourselves in holy water, said a prayer, and approached the altar. now, there were plenty of people in this church. a table outside was serving lunch to the homeless, and a mic check for mid-day service was under way. in no way were we alone, but i swear to god we were the only two people in one of the oldest, holiest places in all of new york city. When you tell someone you are getting married, expect a very big reaction. The billion-dollar business is deeply rooted in emotion. We are taught that the proposal, the ring, the date, the dress, the location and who will be invited are quite possibly more important than the love itself. Maybe that's why the business of divorce is booming, too. But when I imagined marrying Nico, we were the only two in the vision. No pomp or circumstance, processional or cake cutting, nothing borrowed, definitely nothing blue. So when I wasn't able to match the excitement of those who inquired, the disappointment was often palpable. I felt inadequate as I proceeded to tell them that it's a courthouse wedding with no guests and no party to follow. It's a shame how often having your wedding exactly the way you want it creates a feeling of guilt. This was our moment, for us. as we stood before each other, christ, and our own respected gods of our universes, we recited our vows face to face, our tears the holiest of water present. after the emotionally-charged exchange of love, we lit two candles, made a donation, and i uttered just five words to the security guard, whowas not the happiest with our impromptu ceremony: may god be with you. in that moment, i knew deep in my heart that god, they, were certainly with us.

CONGRATULATIONS! I'm still perplexed by the amount of congratulations given to people who are engaged. I kept thinking, congratulations for what? Congratulations you aren't single. Congratulations you're marrying a man. Congratulations you won't die alone. Or maybe it's congratulations you found true love, but even so, of all the major milestones in my life, "finding true love" required the least work. College? Work. Paying for your first apartment? Work. I launched my business - so much work - the same month we decided to get married. And yet my successful-female-business announcement received minor applause, if any, compared to the roaring cheers heard when I spoke of my future nuptial plans. Congratulations? Why? Of course, it would be Nico. Nico was a no-brainer. Nico wasn't earned. Nico was ritual. the obvious next part of this piece would be our extravagant honeymoon, right? although we did jump in the pickup truck with our puppies and sat in traffic for hours heading upstate, we decided to spend the weekend post-nuptials writing this piece. not to exploit our union, but simply to share a piece of our love story with the hope of shedding light and inspiring other nontraditional relationships. As nontraditional as our day may be, I was surprised by the traditional emotions that swept over me that weekend. The rush of excitement when the finishing touches were placed on our outfits, the tears that came during vows, the anticipation I felt to see our wedding photos and send them to family and friends. I realized that no matter what type of wedding you may have, the rush of love will be forever present because that is the universal bond found in all sacred unity.

we are two kids from the midwest who fell in love almost twelve years ago on the south side of chicago. we grew up together, we grew up apart. we taught each other how to love, taught each other how to break. we've pushed social constructs and broken boundaries. we've confused our friends, families, lovers, coworkers, the media, and even ourselves. we've said and done the right things and most certainly the wrong ones too. we've been boyfriend and girlfriend, boyfriend and boyfriend, girlfriend and girlfriend, no friends, and all friends. we've been sober, drunk, high, and addicted. we've been straight, confused, fluid, queer, bi, poly, gender enthusiasts. we've been students of the world and seekers. we've been individuals, we will forever be. we've been lovers, we are lovers, twin flames and we will forever be. we both realize that even the ability to share this story is a privilege we have for a number of reasons. hopefully a piece of love has jumped from these words to your field. this is our now, shared with you, and tomorrow is a future for us all. No matter what,

I, Bethany Meyers, take you, Nico Tortorella, as my life-long companion, my forever partner, my permanent foundation. I stand before you with walls stripped, heart exposed, hands alert, vowing to be your Witness. To witness the good times and the hard times. The many laughs and the many tears. To witness the importance of each low and the triumph of each high. I witness the many loves. To cherish their presence. To recognize their addition. Every color on the spectrum;
energy exchanged;
I witness. You the husband. You the father. You the grand and great. Blessed are thee. Blessed to be a witness. And just as I have done in lifetimes before and just as I will do in lifetimes ahead, I vow to stand beside you. Jacks,
Queens,
Kings,
Aces,
Equals,
Powers.
Trees rooted together in the forest.
The universe breaks open to place me by your side.
And there, I vow to stay. And in that place, I vow to honor the things you need - space, time, respect, freedom, comfort, love - but the greatest of these is truly love. I vow to love. I vow to air your fire. And when the gust too strong, recede. And when the gust too faint, swell. I vow to take the chalk when you need rest, to continue writing our equation, our never-ending story of love. Nico Tortorella. Forever. Forever. Forever. I vow forever. I vow no matter what.

bethany christene meyers. to vow
to solemnly swear solemnly promise
to dedicate to you my deity
be with me as you have before, forever more
soaring up on twelve years
three plus nine
march ninth
two thousand and eighteen lifetimes
eight plus one is nine
today three nine nine you are mine
fine not so much mine but ours
we are ours to forever hold
our spines told stories of programed homes from where we were born and families known chosen for these bodies.
i choose you every single day.
you are family today and yesterday now tomorrow can we change the way they see? the same way you've changed me? and if we do will they see the we in themselves? i delve deep my queen
i always do to seem
indeed all of it is you
bowing heads and knees
stripping lands planting seeds
for this is not land inherited rather new planetary iterations of marriage. land born from nebulae created as i find the stars in your eyes.
north show me the way home. deep between your ears, your ribs, your thighs.
this land is your land this land is my land from missouri to illinois to california to new york. from mexico to texas to peru. from upstate to ojai to oh my god do i love you and my god loves you and oh my love is god and oh my god is you.
no matter what.

to vow
to solemnly swear solemnly promise
to dedicate to you my deity
i know i haven't always been my best version of myself
for myself
for you
but im trying to be better
whether or not you need me to be
for today is our tomorrow new though
our time together has never been linear
we are everywhere
rare breeds bred for success
relative only to our own abilities as we wake
capabilities of our dreams
caressed as we fall asleep only to rise again
my best friend
my wife and i yours
you make life living
your husband and you mine
we make condition conditioning know knowing gifts giving shine shining glow glowing wish wishing dreams actualizing
children adulting but never forgetting the childish enthusiasm that brings us brought keeps us together.
and when the day comes that the adulting brings children
i promise to be the father we both needed
and you are already the mother of all that is
all that will forever be to vow
to solemnly swear solemnly promise
to dedicate to you, my deity
be with me as you have before forever more
to love is to love all
no matter what
i nicolo luigi tortorella take you bethany christene meyers
except i don't take you i share you
to have for as much as you are willing to give
to hold for as long as you want to be held
from this day forward backwards sideways shortways longways all ways and no ways
for better for worse for best
in good times and in bad and the entire spectrum between
in sickness and in health in the physical plane, mental, and spiritual
for richer for richest for poorer for poorest
until death
i still don't understand why we're talking about death at a time like this but know i am not afraid to die for i know no matter what,
i will die with you like we've died every time before like we die every day to be reborn
as to die is only a new beginning
for death shall never do us part i encircle us both in the white light of universal love and divine protection
i call on louie and fran and ezra and every one of my spirit guides and every one of yours. i call on both of our entire families to join us on this day to protect, to celebrate, and to shine necessary light on all roads. to vow
to solemnly swear solemnly promise
to dedicate to you, my deity
the feminine to my masculine
the masculine to my feminine
and everything in between.
i love you i love you i love you
my baby baby baby nico 3/9/18 399

Photography by Victoria Matthews
Clothing Design by Andrew Morrison
Nico Tortorella is an actor, author, podcast host, seeker, and dedicated champion of the LGBTQIA+ community. All Of It Is You, his debut poetry collection out April 17, explores "all of it," from the smallest cells in our bodies to the outer limits of our universe. He currently stars in the hit series, Younger.
Bethany C. Meyers, founder and creator of the be.come project, is a fitness and lifestyle entrepreneur based out of New York City. Bethany's inspiring approach to wellness shifts the focus from how we look to how we feel, helping to redefine the intention for why we move.

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Inside Nico Tortorella and Bethany Meyers' Private, Epic Wedding

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The queer, polyamorous couple wrote about their wedding day and their love, exclusively for them. no matter what, and Marriage. I can't say the word never resonated with me. I remember being 16 years old, having sleepovers with my besties, combing through bridal magazines, cutting out favorite photos of flowers, rings, dresses and colors.

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Challenging the Sexual Orientation Binary

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Challenging the Sexual Orientation Binary

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The "Still Bisexual" campaign, often seen via these t-shirt pins, aims to remove this idea of bisexuality as 'just a phase' from which one will emerge into one end of the hetero-homosexual binary

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"Bisexuality threatens the heteronormative narrative even more than homosexuality, because it destroys our ideas of a binary; it's an acknowledgment that human sexuality works in a more complex manner than only having romantic and sexual attractions for one gender"

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Almost everyone thinks LGBT visibility in the media is on the rise. On the whole, they'd be right ... but not so fast with those pats on the back.

In reality, LGBT representation on film and TV went down overall last year. It's even rarer to see bisexuals represented in the mainstream media, without hosts like and columnists like Dear Prudence shaming bi people for their sexual habits and discouraging them from living openly.

So much for visibility.

While there are certainly more LGBT characters in shows and movies than during the 1990s and early 2000s, it's a far cry from accurately representing the entire community. And anyone familiar with its politics knows that the racial, sexual and gender diversity of the community isn't remotely well represented.

Indeed, according to GLAAD's latest media reports, on television, out of the "66 regular or recurring LGBT characters on scripted cable television, 35 are gay men, while only 4 are bisexual males." Meanwhile, of the 102 LGBT-inclusive films released in 2013 (note that's not all films, just the ones that had LGBT characters), there was only one bisexual male character. That means that less than 6% of LGBT representation on television was of bisexual men, and less than 1% in films in 2013.

While it would be easy to shrug off these statistics - and judging from the lack of protest, many have done just that - media representation of minority groups is important. Fiction or not, media portrayals of minority groups help the general public acknowledge, relate to and humanize a group they might not interact with in their day-to-day lives.

For bisexual representation, it helps bisexual youth see themselves on television, and it helps everyone understand that bisexuals are really not that different from anyone else.

Over the years, Hollywood has slowly showed more queer stories, although they have typically only been those of white, affluent, gay men. Shows like Queer as Folk and Will and Grace were trailblazing because they garnered widespread appeal, inviting millions of Americans to welcome the stories of gay men into their living rooms. In a similar way for lesbian characters on TV, Showtime's The L Word and HBO's current hit Girls have featured the stories of mostly white women in the community.

Since then, more mainstream, family-friendly comedies have included groundbreaking same-sex relationships, as shows like The Fosters and Modern Family depict "normal" gay relationships. But when it comes to bisexuals, audiences usually only see bisexual women, and they're introduced in an overtly sexualized manner to appease the male gaze.

There are few bisexual characters in TV and film, but the word "bisexual" is typically avoided.

Piper in Orange Is the New Black is only referred to as bisexual once in both seasons; her onscreen husband referred to her as a "lesbian" while her ex-girlfriend Alex refers to her as a straight girl. This split portrayal has prompted more than one critic to complain that show's portrayal of its main character constitutes .

House of Cards had a surprise bisexual threesome, but the producers of the show were quick to not label Frank's sexuality, dismissing the scene as " whims and desires."

This year brought an honest portrayal of a bisexual male lead in Halt and Catch Fire, but it's the only one this year. NBC has been accused of straight-washing a bisexual character in its upcoming TV adaptation of the long-running series Constantine, prompting fans to create a petition asking for the character to be bisexual as depicted in the comics. When show producer David Goyer was asked about bi erasure at San Diego Comic-Con, he became contradictory and a little Goyer asserted that he "never said Constantine wasn't bisexual. He just isn't getting out of bed with a man in the pilot."

Goyer's stance on the issue, not condemning the behavior, but casually pushing it out of the frame, seems to echo a recurring theme with bisexual male characters. Why can't we have authentic bisexual male characters in our stories?

Asking for media representation isn't asking diversity for diversity's sake - it's for the sake of accuracy.

According to a 2011 Williams Institute report, researchers found that about half of the LGBT community identifies as bisexual. Yet, as mentioned above, there are only a few bisexual characters portrayed in media.

For some odd reason, many Hollywood producers have internalized the misconception that a man can't be romantically involved with another man and still be interested in women as well. This inaccurate notion centers around the idea that masculinity requires a wanting and "getting" of women, but not that same type of passionate desire for men. Bisexuality threatens the heteronormative narrative even more than even homosexuality, because it destroys our ideas of a binary; it's an acknowledgment that humans sexuality works in a more complex manner than only having romantic and sexual attractions for one gender.

"Our mainstream media reinforces the notion that bisexuality is either a fun, voluntary act of experimentation or a mere myth through two tried and true tactics: misrepresenting and oversimplifying bisexual characters until they are either punchlines or wet dream fodder, or simply refusing to portray bisexual characters in the first place," wrote Amy Zimmerman over at the Daily Beast. "Bisexual erasure - or the tendency to blot out bisexuality and deny its existence entirely - on film and television highlights the way that certain types of queerness are undermined and erased in popular narratives, while others are increasingly caricaturized and/or celebrated."

The "Dear Prudence" brouhaha is just one more example of the importance of elevating bisexual voices, both in the media and in pop culture. Lesbians and gays have witnessed an enormous, positive cultural shift in the past decade, spearheaded in large part by the visibility brought by popular gay and lesbian entertainers and actors. But this push for equality has not been distributed equally, leaving many bisexuals to wonder when they, too, will get their "Ellen" moment.

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gay & lesbian alliance against defamation

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Here's the One Simple Reason Why We Need More Openly Bisexual Characters on Television

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Almost everyone thinks LGBT visibility in the media is on the rise. On the whole, they'd be right ... but not so fast with those pats on the back. In reality, LGBT representation on film and TV went down overall last year.

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The lyrics and sentiment of Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' echo the binary between nature and nurture; between the naturalistic body and the social body. Whilst this anthem may be empowering for many minority groups, it begs the question of how to reconcile something that is seen as natural and inherent to a human, but that is also shaped by culture and history. Within the gay community, there have been various studies on discrimination against bisexual individuals - as many believe that if their sexuality was something inherent (i.e. 'born this way'), then how can they fluctuate between hetero and homosexual? For many, bisexuality is seen as an 'indecisive phase', from which they will eventually grow out of and settle into either a homosexual or heterosexual identity. This phenomenon is known as 'bisexual erasure' and points to a sexuality binary between heterosexual and homosexual individuals.

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Lady Gaga - Born This Way (Official Music Video)

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“The ‘boy in a girl’s body’ narrative is used almost unilaterally in the media because it is an easy-to-grasp, soundbite explanation. The reason that narrative is so popular, and why there is such pressure to identify gender non-conformity in children, is probably because it comforts cisgender readers to think there is something inherent in gender non-conformity. If one is born gender non-conforming, then the cis reader does not have to question their own gender and gender practices. Trans-ness becomes something that happens to other people; to the freaks. But fluidity in identity is a very normal and widespread thing. Fluidity is accepted in other ways, from taste in music, books and television, to food, work and even political leanings. Changes in these other facets of identity are not questioned in the same way. The rigidity of the gender binary, however, leaves so little room for fluidity. We are expected to be a singular, consistent self, and that is an unrealistic, damaging expectation.”
This quote from the below opinion piece sums up the sentiment of the article well. The author, Fury, examines why society uses gender binaries and the limits of dualisms/ binaries. As they argue, the gender binary allows individuals to create a distinction between themselves and the 'other', thus helping to assert their own identity. By breaking the gender binary (male vs female OR conforming gender vs non-conforming gender) and claiming fluidity, Fury argues that it breaks social order and removes the heuristic of such dichotomies.

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I had my first instance of gender confusion when I was around eight years old. I was skiing with my family in a little snow-capped town called Ohau in New Zealand. Having just got dressed, I passed the mirror on the way out and I was startled by my own reflection. I suddenly realised that I couldn't place myself - I couldn't tell if I was a girl or a boy.

I calmed myself, clocked that this was an internal thought and filed it away to think about later. I shut the door behind me and halfway to the dining hall, a boy stopped me to ask if I was a boy or a girl.

My body went cold. I felt my blood prickle under my skin. I felt exposed, like someone had stripped me. I stammered, "Girl."

I am the first to admit that I have no idea if this memory, at its core, is true. Although I know aspects are accurate, I hesitate to refer to it as gender dysphoria.

Seeking out treatment when you're trans is daunting. The legal requirements in Australia vary between states, but in Victoria, a rough standard requires four sessions with a gender psychiatrist, several sessions with a GP, and a single yearly session with an endocrinologist.

The endocrinologist was recently added to the process to manage the rising number of cisgender men being prescribed testosterone. This has nothing to do with trans people, but, despite lobbying from medical professionals to make us exempt, we are legally required to adhere to these standards anyway.

To seek legal medical treatment seemed like a huge, expensive commitment for a process that I had doubts about. In particular, I was anxious because I know how easy false memories are to create. I was also concerned about 'the misinformation effect', where memories are altered by new information.

In the past 30 years, a number of studies have examined the circumstances in which eyewitness memories can be contaminated and rendered unreliable. In a seminal 1978 paper, psychologists Elizabeth Loftus, David Miller and Helen Burns examined the effect of misleading post-event information.

In their study, participants saw a series of slides, one of which depicted a red Datsun stopping in front of a sign. After viewing the slides, participants answered questions about what they saw, and some were fed misinformation about whether the sign said 'yield' or 'stop'.

The results suggested that misinformation impacted memory, although the details were inconclusive.
Through further studies, Loftus has also shown that gentle questions such as, "Are you sure?" can notably increase false reporting after an event.

In a different study examining the implanting of false memory, she found that 25 per cent of test subjects were susceptible to developing a memory that had never taken place.

The medical community has spent a long time pathologising queerness, regarding both gender and sexuality. This has directly impacted queer lives, leading to treatments like 'conversion therapy', the term for programs designed to alter sexual orientation.

In some of these programs, patients were fed vomiting agents during the presentation of images relating to queerness.

The pathologisation of queerness has also had impacts on criminalisation, media representation and the opinions of the mainstream - all of which have knock-on effects for queer people's access to housing and employment.
Even using the term 'gender dysphoria' is fraught, as it originates from the medical community and coerces queer people into viewing themselves through a medical lens.

Being told you are crazy, or mentally ill, leaves an indelible imprint on your grasp of selfhood and your relationship to the outside world. It can encourage a wheedling sense of doubt around the perceptions you have of yourself, and leave you wondering if your experience of your body and your identity are symptoms of an illness, rather than expressions of an authentic self.

Undoubtedly, this is a form of gaslighting - a type of abuse that involves undermining a person until they lose their grip on reality.

One generalisation that is fairly true of queers is that we talk. This means it's well known among the trans community that the process of getting treatment is easier if you fulfil certain criteria, such as describing gender confusion as a child.

The diagnosis of gender dysphoria in children is problematic for a number of reasons, but what worried me most was how much I had to dig - and indeed the process of that digging - for memories that adhered to the accepted narrative of gender dysphoria.

The dominant narrative around trans experience is that a person has always known they were 'born in the wrong body'. Mine is not that narrative. Many trans folk do not feel a kinship with that narrative and, as a result, also share in the uneasy relationship with feeling legitimate enough to come under the trans banner.

During my first session, my psych told me he saw himself as having more of a support role than a gatekeeping one. This would have been a fine interpretation, if it weren't legally mandatory for me to see him in order to access treatment.

Throughout these sessions, I had to fill out dozens of questions. He implied the questions were to weed out anyone seeking treatment for the wrong reasons - but people smoke, get tattoos, have children, get breast implants, tan under the Australian sun, do all sorts of irreversible things, sometimes for 'the wrong reasons', every day without medical professionals helicoptering, judging and standing in the way of them.

The questions were not for my safety. They're for the medical community to show they are doing due diligence, to protect them if something goes awry. This is another example of the abusive relationship between the medical community and the trans and gender non-conforming community.

In the final session with my GP, she handed me a piece of paper outlining what irreversible changes would happen to my body if I took testosterone. She frowned at me, cocked her head and asked me if I was sure this was what I wanted.

I had just been through six months of being asked "Are you sure?" over and over again in a thousand different ways. I swallowed the urge to scream.

Part of the discourse around identity in the trans community centres on self-determination. When asked what gender I was, I said girl, woman, or female right up until I was 25, even 26 years old.

The dominant narrative around being transgender seems to be one of consistent certainty. For those who experience that, it is valid and real. For myself, I struggle with the knowledge that I was once comfortable and happy being referred to in cisgender terms.

One way to look at it is that I was a woman, now I am not, although my experience is far more complex.

The 'boy in a girl's body' narrative is used almost unilaterally in the media because it is an easy-to-grasp, soundbite explanation.

The reason that narrative is so popular, and why there is such pressure to identify gender non-conformity in children, is probably because it comforts cisgender readers to think there is something inherent in gender non-conformity.

If one is born gender non-conforming, then the cis reader does not have to question their own gender and gender practices. Trans-ness becomes something that happens to other people; to the freaks.

But fluidity in identity is a very normal and widespread thing. Fluidity is accepted in other ways, from taste in music, books and television, to food, work and even political leanings.

Changes in these other facets of identity are not questioned in the same way. The rigidity of the gender binary, however, leaves so little room for fluidity. We are expected to be a singular, consistent self, and that is an unrealistic, damaging expectation.

The medicalisation of gender fluidity functions as a systemic, structural gaslighting of a huge community of people. Our memories are never wholly ours; instead we are forced to see them through the lenses of people who have historically considered us 'crazy', and, in some cases, still do.

Trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people have been so rigorously pinballed between narratives around how we 'should' feel, that, by now, to be certain of anything is a wonder.

Despite being historically a cisgender, straight, white, male-centric institution, the medical community has set the standards for us and themselves with regards to 'good practice'.

They have historically designated themselves the sole arbiters of what defines trans-ness, and, in many cases, still do. They have controlled our narratives and controlled how the mainstream views us. They've tortured us, and, at the same time, told us we are the ones who do not know who we are.

I struggle with the expectation from the mainstream and the medical establishment that I must always have had these thoughts and feelings about my gender identity. It feels like a choice I have to make: either respect the autonomy of my previous self, or give in to the potential inaccuracy of hindsight.

The fact that a simple suggestion can lead to shifts in memory recall speaks to my own anxiety about the memory of the boy in the ski lodge.

The people in Loftus's experiments had nothing to lose or gain by having a memory one way or another. I had the cost of additional sessions, or worse, my access to treatment, hinging on a memory's realness, or at the very least, my ability to 'sell' it my doctors.

Psychiatry, psychology and counselling are all vital practices that, when used correctly, assist and support patients to lead better lives.

However, the medical profession has done considerable harm to the transgender community - harm that may never be forgotten.

Without a more considered approach to medication and surgery, this harm will continue.
Fury is a despicable changeling creature birthed from the sulphur swamps of greater New Zealand, currently inhabiting the desolate landscape of Melbourne's CBD. You can tell them by their webbed fingers and shifting red eyes. To ward them off, you may leave an inverted coat or open iron scissors where you sleep. Many houses gift them gold and grain to discourage their terrible presence.

This article originally appeared in Archer Magazine #7. Subscribe to the print edition of Archer Magazine here.

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The medicalisation of gender fluidity: Forget me not

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had my first instance of gender confusion when I was around eight years old. I was skiing with my family in a little snow-capped town called Ohau in New Zealand. Having just got dressed, I passed the mirror on the way out and I was startled by my own reflection.

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One of the most interesting themes I have found throughout the course thus far is the notion of dualisms, binary opposites and dichotomies that pervade western thinking, especially in terms of the body. As Grosz (1994) says, “The binarisation of the sexes, the dichotomisation of the world and of knowledge had been effected already at the threshold of Western reason” (p.5). We were first introduced to these dualisms via the notion of Cartesian Dualism wherein the body is seen as separate from the mind. Our culture thrives on binary thinking, as a sort of heuristic to help us understand However, the rigidity of these dualisms/ binaries/ dichotomies can often lead to discrimination and non-acceptance. Such body focused binaries/dualisms (which are seen as mutually exclusive of one another) that this padlet will focus on include sex and gender, hetero-homosexual, old and young (OR old and able vs young and disabled), femininity and masculinity and fatness and self worth, to name a few.

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Do these advertisements from Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign call out dichotomous thinking in an ironic way, or perpetuate such thinking? Under the check boxes, it encourages viewers to 'join the debate' emphasising that these binaries are still contested topics. In any case, having these images on billboards etc encourages conversation about the validity of these often blindly-accepted dichotomies.