Category Archives: Feature

These are feature-length stories.

Marriage & Last Names, or That Time I Legally Changed Mine

2nd
Jul. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

In grade-school, as summer vacation came to a close, my body felt sun-sick and lazy. Ready for change. I wondered what everyone was like now.  New clothes, haircut, lingo. Who would I be this year? There were  kids who came back as someone else entirely, correcting the new teacher with their new name. Usually it [...]

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Men & Feminism: Behind the Scenes of the Man Project

29th
Jun. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

The second installment of my project, The Man Series went live on Sexis today. This time I am talking to prolific writer, photographer and sexual activist David Steinberg who was recently named Erotic Photographer of the Year. Being one of the visible and outspoken guys working in the realm of feminism and sex, he’s got [...]

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Exploring Male Anorexia

24th
Jun. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

A bong is being passed around the art school dorm. Brett, a DJ, is talking. “It’s good to not eat for like three days. Then on the fourth day have a little meal. Then little meals from there.” Alex, a film major, listens. He stamps out a cigarette and lights another. “Sometimes I won’t eat [...]

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When you Have to get an Abortion

11th
Jun. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

creatures by donna wilson Ned and I were in the middle of dinner. We were at Handlebar, a vegetarian restaurant we used to go to a lot. He probably ordered 3 sides: vegan mashed potatoes, smoked Gouda mac and cheese and collard greens. I probably got the “green meanie” a sandwich with sprouts and avocado. [...]

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Our Body Hairs, Ourselves

2nd
Jun. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

I grew my arm put hair.  When I’d find myself alone in a rest room, I’d look in the mirror and lift my shirt see the fuzz, a shock of hair that felt luxuriously soft and foreign. Arm-pit hair serves an evolutionary purpose, so I have read, that is why we have it. It helps [...]

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Where the Boys Are: Profile of a Male Prostitute

28th
May. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

Photo: Ryan McGinley I wrote this profile on  male sex-workers 4 years ago. Re-reading, I realized, it sorta fits my thread on enthusiastic consent. Consent, I had concluded, is not the opposite of rape, enthusiastic consent is.  But, still it was tricky.  What about times when you just have sex for your partner?  And what [...]

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Having Sex when You Don’t Want Sex

19th
May. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

image by Conrad Roset My body floated into the bedroom in a cream baby-doll nightie. I  found it hanging in a thrift store. It was Oscar De la Renta and still had the tags on. After buying it, I stood in front of a mirror, admiring the billowy layers of fabric that curved my back [...]

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The Strangest Ads for Menstrual Products

14th
May. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

You know you are watching a commercial for tampons when the soft lighting blurs to reveal some complacent looking woman, joyfully kicking her white-spandex-coated legs. Recently, Kotex came out with an ad that cramps this usual style. “The ads on TV are really helpful, because they show that blue liquid” says the woman on screen, [...]

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Exploring the Secret Spaces in Childhood

30th
Apr. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

I sat on the couch, symmetrically, both feet on the floor and my eyes closed. The inside-world projected behind my eyelids was just as real as the couch beneath me, or the therapist facing me. In that space, I saw a younger version of myself. In the woods, she played a secret game of twisting [...]

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Dumb Blonde Ambition

22nd
Apr. × ’10
By Rachel R. White

When I was bleaching my hair, I had brunette nightmares. I’d go to get a  “root touch up”  and suddenly find that an evil hair-dresser poured black dye over my hair. I’d wake up in a sweat, haunted for the rest of the day, double checking that my precious locks were still intact. Blonde women [...]

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