Sarit Luban

The public response to and media coverage of Bieber’s announcement is just run-of-the-mill celebrity gossip. Star makes major decision. Star disappoints fans. Star having some feels. Is star headed towards total collapse? We’re so used to this that we might ignore what’s really being said: that people’s experiences are up for debate, that some people’s pain is real and others’ is fake, that only some people deserve to have their boundaries respected.

Four years ago, I could be found most mornings at the same café with the same blue notebook and a mug of hot coffee. I was trying to write the story of how I got herpes.

I don’t remember when I started holding in my stomach. [...] It’s hard to trace a habit so ingrained that I don’t know it exists. Until I’m lying on a table and her hand rests at my solar plexus and she tells me to let go. I can’t. I don’t know how, or not yet.