Melissa Petro

Melissa Petro

Bio

Melissa Petro is a former sex worker and "hooker teacher" who has written about the industry for HuffingtonPost, Salon, and others. She is also the founder of Becoming Writers, which provides free and low cost memoir-writing workshops and mentoring to writers of all backgrounds and experiences. More info at http://becomingwriters.wordpress.com. 

Melissa Petro Articles

Leave the kids at home. Image: Thinkstock.

Becoming Bride: Don't Bring Your Crying Kids To My Wedding

The quickest way to reveal yourself as a douchenozzle — not to mention unoriginal — is to remind someone who’s about to get married that most marriages end in divorce. The second-quickest way to offend is tell us what our wedding has to be like or whom we need to invite.

Read...
newborn baby (image credit: thinkstock)

I'm Scared To Have A Baby

After gaining as much as forty pounds and pushing a cantaloupe out my vagina, I wondered: will my body ever be the same?

Read...
I'll just get a new one.

Your Bike Is Stolen, And It's OK: Signs You've Changed Social Class

The other day my friend on Facebook had made a remark about how there are people who have multiple income streams and travel abroad constantly and drive cars and eat at restaurants every week and then talk about class privilege like they don't have it and in my mind I was like, Oh. Yeah. She’s right. In the past six months or so, my life has dramatically changed.

Read...

Abstinence-Based Sex Ed Doesn’t Work: Duh

Teaching sex ed the right way doesn’t have to be weird or hard.

Read...
You know you're a newlywed if... (Image credit: Thinkstock)

6 Ways You Know You're A Newlywed

If you missed my weekly column this summer all about getting engaged and planning a wedding, here’s the highlight reel: after doing

Read...
Your friends might know more about style than you do. So learn from them already.

Copycat - Don't Be Ashamed To 'Steal' Your Friends' Styles

The biggest fashion mistake of my lifetime may not be what I wore, but what I didn’t.

Read...
Image via YouTube.

Why "Kiss Bang Love" Is Not For Me

On FYI’s newest, Kiss Bang Love, the show sets one man or one woman up with ten strangers who the contestant will kiss, one after another, while blindfolded. From these ten hopeful suitors, the contestant chooses five and then two, with whom they go on “intimate 24-hour dates.” The producers ask: Can blind sexual chemistry lead to love? I say, probably not!

Read...

Sex Work Isn't Consensual Or Exploitative—It Can Be Both

It's time to talk substantively and honestly about how sex work isn't any one thing.

Read...
Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

What Not To Say When You're Pregnant

A lot has been written about what not to say to a pregnant person. Being on the opposite side of that, I’ve learned pregnant people make mistakes, too.

Read...
Not pictured: a filling breakfast.

Celebrity Diet Nonsense

In an interview last week for The Cut, Bernadette Peters made some absurd statements about how she eats to stay in shape. “It turns out there's no shortcut,” The Cut notes, “just a lifetime of exercise and extremely healthy eating” — except if you keep reading, you’ll see this relationship with food doesn’t sound healthy at all.

“Lately, I’ve gone back to coffee,” the two-time Tony-winning actress begins the interview, as if she’s admitting to a heroin relapse. She goes on to share that her typical breakfast consists of “three little smiles” of grapefruit and a spoonful of hemp powder.

This — which is all of about 50 calories — is fuel for a morning trip to the gym.

Read...