Voices

When the police arrested Wendy Barnes's pimp, it appeared as if she were free at last, she recalls during our phone interview. “Maybe this nightmare ends,” she thought. But that's when they handcuffed her, brought her to the station, and charged her with the exact same crime: prostitution.

Having someone steal my cancer history and co-opt it for their first-person Facebook blog is unbelievably violating. Somehow, it feels almost as invasive as my mastectomy.

“I don’t even know what to say, Joni. Your baby isn’t alive.”

“Why would you do that? You have a daughter. Why would you put yourself in that position?”

I'm not a woman. I never was. Full stop.

The first time I remember learning what a safeword was, I was sitting in my college dorm, devouring blogs about kink and BDSM. It all seemed so foreign to me, a teenager who couldn’t imagine real people doing any of the taboo things these blogs talked about.

My oldest daughter Sophie is not even 3, and she is awesome. She’s unapologetic about the space she takes up, any inconvenience she may cause, or if she passes gas in public. No. Big. Deal.

If you're having a shit day and you don't feel like smiling, DO NOT. I don't care who tells you to smile — if you don't feel like smiling, you don't have to.