Melissa Petro

Hate hurts us all, but we don’t all receive it with the same systemic intensity. Those of us with the privilege to do so need to push against the borders of what is “permissible” in this society. We need challenge the idea of “normal” — rather than conform to it — so that all of us can live more closely to our truths.

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

Sometimes the fights I pick with my fiancé are really fights with myself.

Is there anything problematic about trading foot rubs for blow jobs? Or is it a healthy way to add a little spice to a long term relationship?

“If you believe in the decriminalisation of sex work,” Ian Dunt rightfully points out, “you will instantly come under a sustained and highly emotive attack on your morality and your identity.” In this vein, when a man comes out in favor of sex worker’s rights, he becomes “a betrayer of women, a gender Judas encouraging violence against them.”

Stock photos seemed to get pregnancy and parenting all wrong. When a Facebook friend posted looking for a real life pregnant stock photo model, I offered.

How do you break up with a best friend?

For any couples thinking about moving in together, I thought I’d share my Dos and Don’ts, and how my husband and I are making my small and unattractive (but inexpensive!) apartment work for our family.

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.

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