Melissa A. Fabello

Melissa A. Fabello

Bio

Melissa A. Fabello is a sexuality educator, body image and eating disorder activist, and media literacy vlogger based out of Philadelphia. She currently works as a Managing Editor of Everyday Feminism and is a PhD candidate in Human Sexuality Studies. Follow her on Twitter @fyeahmfabello.

Melissa A. Fabello Articles

Two words: Manny Santos. Image: TeenNick.

I Just Finished Rewatching Degrassi – 3 Reasons Why It Made My Feminist Heart Burst

Street harassment. Eating disorders. Rape — three times, including one storyline that involved Zoe being sexually violated at a party by two star athletes who filmed the assault and distributed the video online. Intimate partner violence. Sexist school dress codes. Police brutality and racial profiling. Islamophobia. Sexting and child pornography.

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TROLL. The cute kind.

Never Read The Comments: A Trolling Translator

Being a person with a presence on the Internet is . . . weird. It fills your life with a lot of — well — weirdness. Being a feminist with a presence on the Internet is even worse – besides the general weirdness, there’s also a lot of backlash.

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School. Stress.

5 Ways to Keep Your Eating Disorder Recovery In Check When The Stress Of School Gets Serious

I finally looked at my syllabus today. It’s been sitting in my inbox for over a week, flashing at me to find out what I have to look forward to this upcoming fall semester – which books I need to buy (and how much money I’m going to drop on them), how many assignments I’ll be graded on, what I need to have prepared before our first class meeting.

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Sexual Fluidity: Queer, Straight, And Anything Else You're Feeling

Right now, today, as of writing this, I identify as queer. But I didn’t always.

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long distance love . . . it's possible.

Long Distance Dates: How To Date Your Partner 3,000 Miles Away

Another awesome idea, whether the relationship is new or established, is to look at a sexual inventory checklist (like this one). The list goes through different sexual situations that are important to discuss with a partner – from body boundaries to birth control and safer sex options to what you’ve done, what you’d like to try, and what’s a big “no” for you. It’s a great, less-awkward avenue to talking about sex in a big way and to understand one another’s needs more intimately.

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Taylor Swift Fearless Tour 03 by WEZL

Taylor Swift And White Feminism

And as much as I’m a Swifty, I’m a feminist first (a white one, by the way, at that), and I’m not here for any kind of feminism that would excuse, for instance, Taylor’s misunderstanding that race is irrelevant in pop culture politics (a la the feud with Nicki Minaj that never was).

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Let Them Eat Cake: My Weight Restoration Story

And so I slid the scale to the back of my closet, started freely eating doughnuts when I craved doughnuts, and simply donated the jeans that stopped fitting instead of holding out hope for them.

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50 Resolutions.

50 Body Acceptance New Year Resolutions (That Don't Involve Dieting!)

And it’s that last one that really irks me: that most people — and especially most women’s — new year’s resolutions center on dieting and weight loss as the key to happiness.

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Thanksgiving ain't easy.

3 Tips For Surviving Thanksgiving When You Struggle With An Eating Disorder

I’m a big proponent of teaching our loved ones how, during the holidays, to be gentle with our eating disorders (both in recovery and out).

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Bottom line: communicate.

Sex And Eating Disorders: A Guide

Not everyone who has had an eating disorder also has an issue with perfectionism, but the two are often linked: A persistent feeling of never being “good enough” and needing to do something — anything — to feel under control is a warning sign that a person might be susceptible to an eating disorder.

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