Catherine Gigante-Brown

My husband and I agreed: raising a child with an independent spirit who made decisions for himself was a good thing.

I left Cuba in 1949, when I was 11 years old. Back then, I didn't understand why my mother sent me away. I still don't.

raunchy renaissance woman. multimedia artist. probably a slut.

sex sage. fetish specialist. author.

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

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

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.

Wrinkles or lifelines? Chunky or curvaceous? The choice is yours.

Mindel and Maria were young teenagers when the horrors occurred—but they remembered the tiniest details with crystal-clear intensity.

BCBs are loud and proud and refuse to go down easy. And quietly. We have things to say. We have things to teach. We still have life to live. And damn it, we are and we will. With one breast. With no breasts. With reconstruction surgery.