Every Woman Has Been a Little Bit Raped

Terrific piece on Role Reboot about why we (as a culture) need to broaden our understanding of rape and sexual assault. See also this piece on Bustle and this follow-up piece.

One of the most striking things to me was the idea, apparently expressed as often by women as by men, that stopping in the middle of sex "robs a man of his orgasm". This is particularly odd given that what's being discussed here, for the most part, is stopping intercourse. There's no indication, for example, in the Bustle piece that the author wouldn't have been happy to continue having some other sort of sex. Of course, it's her right not to stop altogether, if that's what she wants to do, but, as I said, that's actually not what seems to be at issue in most of these stories. There are other ways a guy can have an orgasm, you know?

Springsteen Cancels Show in North Carolina

I'm not a huge Springsteen fan, but I'm a bit fan of what he's doing to stand up for LGBTQ people in my home state.

Amicus Brief By 113 Female Attorneys About the Role of Abortion in Their Lives

This happened a while ago, but I just saw it today and read through the brief. It paints a fascinating picture of the importance of safe and legal abortion in the lives of American women.

There are interesting stories about this in Slate, in the Atlantic, and in Forward. There's an op-ed by one of the women in the Washington Post, too.

But maybe the most powerful thing I've read on this topic is this series of stories, collected by the Atlantic. Some of them are just heartbreaking. All of them speak to just how intensely personal the decision to abort is. Perhaps what is most inspiring is what the stories say about ordinary people's ability to navigate the ethical complexities that such decisions involve.