Catherine Gigante-Brown

I asked a handful of women: why are people so scared of ladyparts?

erotic. intimate. unapologetic.

The Daily News quoted one painted lady as saying, “People come up to us sometimes and say what we do is disgusting,” she said. “But what is disgusting about the female body? They shield their kids sometimes, and I think, ‘Kids come from the female body.’”

After I got over the initial devastation, I pulled myself up by my big-girl panties and got on with it. Chemo was no picnic—but it was do-able.

"Bring over a meal—and leave. Breakfast, lunch or dinner, from soup to nuts. And coffee. Plenty of coffee."

What Stephen didn’t know –– what no one knew –– was how weak my knees grew when I pushed through the swinging doors of the ICU.

In the photograph, my great-grandmother, Margarita Cirigliano, is sitting at a small table on the front porch of the family home in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

Why do we venerate individuality in adults but condemn it in children?

To the tattoo artist, I was a flesh canvas that she could transform into something beautiful.

Makeup and I have always had a love/hate relationship: I love it; it hates me.