Catherine Gigante-Brown

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

Even when I explained to my son that he came from a long line of short people, it didn’t help. David still felt bad about being small. How could a five-year-old possibly get this type of size-shaming message? From other people, mostly insensitive adults. They gave him the idea that bigger was somehow better.

erotic. intimate. unapologetic.

I go for checkups when I’m supposed to: every three months to the oncologist and every six months to the breast surgeon. I go to SHARE support group meetings to bolster myself. I try to get enough sleep, despite the occasional night spent wide-eyed with dread.

Were you going to run into that cute guy John Williams on the way home? Would you see Anne Marie by the lockers and sort out what to do for the weekend? It was hit-or-miss, and that was the beauty of it. The breath-holding chance of it all. Now, our kids’ friends are as close as a keyboard stroke away. It’s too easy.

“It’s almost as though this niche was patiently waiting for us to find it.”

sex sage. fetish specialist. author.

Why, when I'm cool with being a salt-and-pepper chick, does it so clearly unnerve others?

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

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