I’ll get this out of the way: I’m not a fan of Frank Ocean, nor am I really familiar with his music. Ocean’s return to the stage wasn’t some long-awaited moment for me as it was for many festival-goers on the final night of Coachella’s first weekend. But that didn’t matter one bit as I dived into Jeff Weiss’ fantastic dispatch from the festival, in which he transports the reader into the desert as the crowd waits for the singer’s headlining performance. Ocean puts on a shaky, underwhelming, and chaotic show, which Weiss masterfully describes, but what makes this piece so good is the perfect encapsulation of the collective experience that is Coachella, which — for someone like me, who experienced its earliest iterations in 1999 and the early 2000s — is an insightful read not just on this specific performance, but a look at how the festival has evolved over the years, and a deep, thoughtful critique on the music industry, performance and artistry, and our culture today.
But this is all slightly hyperbolic. It’s reductive to describe it as a complete failure. There is something inherently compelling about watching a preternaturally talented artist struggle to stitch his vastly disparate ideas together. It may make for poor entertainment, but it’s fascinating as a document of unmet ambition. He appears trapped in something that we can’t understand, hounded by demons we can’t see. What most in the crowd are responding to is the death of something that Ocean cannot control. The outsized expectations that had made him infallible, a timeless avatar of their vanished youth, the dark reality that what comes unglued cannot always be repaired. For Frank Ocean to no longer be the same Frank Ocean who held them emotionally hostage for a decade meant that they would realize what Andre had told the previous generation: Heroes eventually die, horoscopes often lie.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/C06hqXs
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/Lq9WwZn
You might recall Thai Stick and Maui Waui from your misbegotten youth, but today, the legalization of marijuana has spawned an infinite number of strains, all with, it seems, a wacky name. For Esquire, Bill Shapiro goes behind the scenes of the weed industry to learn about naming practices and participate in a naming activity by partaking in some products.
But that was then and this is now, and the cannabis space has entered a fascinating, fast-flowing moment where legalization—which begat commercialization, which begat corporatization, which begat commodification—has created today’s modern dispensary where the choices for consumers can be dizzying. As it turns out, there may be no better gauge of the changes rippling through cannabis culture than the humble menu at your local dispensary. Weed names have always added to the fun and intrigue (as a teen, even the relatively straightforward Thai Stick sounded entrancingly exotic), but today, as the power dynamic shifts from seller to buyer, and as growers and retailers find themselves strategizing to make their products stand out on increasingly crowded shelves, the names are taking on even more importance.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/ksrQaIB
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/Lq9WwZn
This week we are featuring stories from Renata Brito and Felipe Dana, Jeff Weiss, Maddy Crowell, Stephen Rodrick, and David Jenkins.
Get the Longreads Top 5 Email
Kickstart your weekend by getting the week’s best reads, hand-picked and introduced by Longreads editors, delivered to your inbox every Friday morning.
In today’s edition, our editors recommend:
The tragic story behind one of the many boats that wash up to shore carrying the bodies of desperate migrants.
A profile of a Southern California rap legend with an underappreciated talent.
A glimpse into the life of a cybersecurity expert who rose to the top of her game.
Time in class with an Indian guru who boasts nine million social media followers.
The joy of soaking up the sights and sounds while walking in a desert.
Renata Brito and Felipe Dana | The Associated Press | April 12, 2023 | 4,355 words
People call them “ghost boats,” the small vessels — at least seven in 2021 alone — that have washed up in the Caribbean and Brazil carrying dead bodies. The boats come from West Africa carrying desperate people bound for Europe via the Canary Islands, a complex, treacherous route. Somehow, somewhere the boats were forced off course and drifted out into the Atlantic, all but ensuring the deaths of the people on board. But who are those people? What are their stories? Who back home is missing them? This years-long investigation uses a handful of clues — a SIM card and scraps of clothing, for instance — to identify the dead found in one ghost boat in Tobago. Renata Brito and Felipe Dana do an impressive job situating a sensitive story about the impacts of global policies and politics within the framework of a mystery. A moving feature, and beautifully designed too. —SD
Jeff Weiss | Los Angeles Times | April 17, 2023 | 3,271 words
One of hip-hop’s greatest conflicts, and I’m speaking for myself here, lies in the pimp persona. Careers have been built around it. National sweethearts have leveraged it. (Looking at you, Martha Stewart’s best friend!) Undeniable artistry has flowed from it. But it remains deeply discomfiting, a strain of misogyny that you can never quite unhear. That paradox lurks deep inside Jeff Weiss’ profile of Southern California rap legend Suga Free, a man whose prodigious talent couldn’t guarantee quantitative success. Suga’s impact and influence are undeniable; every time you’ve heard a hustle-culture tech bro say “if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready,” this is where it came from. But other than a few indelible (and NSFW) guest appearances here and there, he’s all but disappeared. For him to pop up in a feature-length profile — happy, healthy, and seemingly finally at peace with his life and his creativity — is an unanticipated joy. One of Weiss’ great gifts as a music writer is evoking the intangible aspects of an artist’s style, and here he manages a near-perfect characterization of Suga’s silky breakneck patter: “He didn’t rap, he glided like a swan at the Player’s Ball, inventing his own unquantized, improvised rhythms,” he writes. But Weiss also doesn’t shy away from confronting the outlook that suffused Suga’s lyrics, and gnaws even more insistently at the listener’s ears and brain 20 years later. That conflict never takes center stage, thankfully, but to ignore it would be equally contrived. And so it sits there, peeking out from Suga’s aphorisms and overstuffed closet. It’s part of the art and part of the artist. What it means for his legacy is for you to decide. —PR
Maddy Crowell | Columbia Journalism Review | April 17, 2023 | 4,553 words
If my observations of people and their digital habits are any indication, most tend to have poor security and password hygiene. I suspect I wouldn’t pay as much attention to computer security practices if it weren’t for my job inside a tech company. “Being hacked is not just a possibility but a likelihood,” says cybersecurity expert Runa Sandvik. Simply existing on the web comes with risks. In this piece for CJR, Maddy Crowell gives us a glimpse into Sandvik’s work and focus on internet privacy and freedom: She advises reporters and other individuals at risk, like activists and lawyers, on how to protect themselves and their data online. Growing up in Oslo’s hacking community in the 2000s, when privacy wasn’t yet a thing, Sandvik found a job in ethical hacking, and later fell into her niche as a privacy and security researcher. (Crowell recounts Sandvik’s brush with a guy who simply introduced himself as “Ed,” and would later go on to rock the very foundations of the surveillance state.) I appreciate Crowell’s look into Sandvik’s fascinating life, and her path to becoming one of the world’s top information security experts. —CLR
Stephen Rodrick | British GQ | April 11, 2023 | 5,892 words
I clearly don’t spend enough time perusing influencers on TikTok, because I had never heard of this Indian guru with more than nine million followers. Luckily, Stephen Rodrick’s editor did know of him, shipping Rodrick off to Sadhguru’s Inner Engineering class to learn more about the media-savvy mystic. Rodrick arrives at the center in McMinnville, Tennessee, with a healthy dose of skepticism (and contraband caffeine pills and prosciutto), so it is perhaps unsurprising that inner peace remains elusive. However, the guru’s oddly harsh approach and occasionally inaccurate statements seem worthy of Rodrick’s questioning. While a picture of a strange and stubborn man emerges, Rodrick also recognizes how Sadhguru’s language and tone “appeals equally to the TED talk crowd and the climate-anxious suburban parent.” Some of this crowd are with Rodrick at the center and the characters he describes and secret alliances he forms create a highly entertaining read, whether or not you’re convinced about the guru’s message — or even sure what it is. —CW
David Jenkins | High Country News | April 17, 2023 | 1,343 words
When I run or walk alone outdoors I almost always listen to music, a podcast, or an audiobook. In this thoughtful piece for High Country News, David Jenkins remarks upon passing a runner while on a 10-hour walk in western Colorado, the man’s ears “clogged with headphones.” The word clogged stopped me short. How true that even in solitary pursuits we compromise the peace we seek by inviting others’ words into our heads. “I puzzled over the need to listen to something other than wind and raven, the scuttle of a lizard, the skittering of small rocks underfoot,” he writes. Less is so much more, and while you’ll revel in soaking up every sight and sound the desert has to offer, the greatest beauty of Jenkins’ piece is that because he’s fully present during his walk, you can’t help but be, too. —KS
Monica Potts | The Atlantic | April 6, 2023 | 3,436 words
This excerpt, from the forthcoming The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America, captures how heartfelt Monica Pott’s exploration into small-town America is. By focusing on the women she grew up with, a story that is the same across many places becomes personal — and thus deeply resonates. —CW
from Longreads https://ift.tt/3jX45DQ
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/Lq9WwZn
In this profile of the yogi Sadhguru — spiritual adviser to Hollywood celebrities and the ultra-rich — Stephen Rodrick takes a skeptical look at what Sadhguru offers. Rodrick may not find inner peace, but he does discover some interesting insights into both Sadhguru and those who surround him.
Just then came the hellish noise of an engine, and a motorcycle rose over a crest. It was the guru. He rode toward us, his blue robe and white beard flowing behind him, and brought his Ducati to a stop so that it would be perfectly framed behind him on camera. He adjusted his brown felt fedora and spoke to his publicist for a moment. He then positioned himself in his seat, checking that his robe and scarf were aligned. His hair was perfect.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/GRxPlDM
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/PWqEjSi
We’re just going to say it: April 20 is exhausting. Thirsty brands. SEO farms masquerading as “media brands.” The seventh-grade edgelord who owns Twitter. What started as a wink-wink holiday built on a wink-wink teenage ritual has officially become as commonplace (and inescapable) as any other greeting-card tradition.
Which is fitting, if you think about it. “There’s a surreal cultural transformation happening across the country,” wrote Livia Gershon in 2019, “from dime bags bought and sold in avoidance of the police to meticulously packaged extracts and edibles in plain view at shopping centers.”
Big business brings big changes. It also makes for some conflicted feelings. As Peter Rubin pointed out in 2021, “the stories of post-legalization America are in many ways the stories of the nation itself.” In fact, that goes for any story about cannabis in the U.S. — money has always been lurking in the background, like a sight gag in a Cheech & Chong movie. Legalization has simply erased the distinction between background and foreground.
Thankfully, that flattening hasn’t diluted cannabis’ stature in the world of journalism and essay. It remains a potent force for introspection and comedy, as demonstrated in Jen Doll’s “Edible Complex.” With its newfound legitimacy, it’s become a fertile breeding ground for science writing. And there’s always the economic angle. So no matter how you choose to celebrate this year, take some time to revisit our many 420-friendly original pieces and recommendations.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/R7DCgUX
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/PWqEjSi
If you’re not a hip-hop fan of a certain age — or an Angeleno — then the name Suga Free may not ring a bell. Which is, to be clinical, a damn shame; the man is one of rap’s great unsung regional heroes. Thankfully, the Los Angeles Times saw fit to commission a full feature profile on Pomona’s finest, and Jeff Weiss does it justice, giving Free his well-deserved flowers while not shying away from his music’s conflicting nature.
There is a YouTube video from around 1995 that goes viral just about every time someone posts it on social media. It’s alternately known as the Suga Free “Pen and Nickel” or “Kitchen Table” freestyle. Filmed with a handheld camera at a Compton dope house, Suga Free performs the rap equivalent of hitting a full court shot backward and following it up with a 720-degree slam dunk. Using a nickel as a kick drum, a pen as a hi-hat, Suga Free floats like he had never experienced gravity. He’s Gregory Hines in alligator shoes, Cab Calloway on a mission to make money with Minnie the Moocher. The voice pirouettes and crip walks, flows and bends like alien cadences from an advanced civilization where “Dolemite” is revered as sacred text. When Questlove posted the clip last month, the reactions were typical: thousands marveling at the level of difficulty, describing it as the pure essence of hip-hop creativity. Or as A$AP Ferg chimed in: “Unbelievable 🔥.”
from Longreads https://ift.tt/DJPbXwf
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/PWqEjSi
When Bob Lee was killed in San Francisco in early April, that tragedy almost immediately birthed a second one: people turning his death into a political cudgel. The true circumstances becoming known (and Lee’s alleged killer being arrested) has undone some of that craven weaponization, but not all of it. Now, Scott Alan Lucas speaks to Lee’s friends and associates — some of whom are far more sympathetic than others — take the measure of a man who, by all accounts, was loved dearly.
It’s not that Lee’s friends don’t think the city has its challenges. They do—and they want the city to address those problems. It’s more that they don’t want the memory of their friend to get lost in the process. “There was a sense that all of us have that San Francisco has seen better days,” said Schultz. “Now isn’t the time to talk about where San Francisco will go. I want it to be about what Bob was about. This is the only time that the vast majority of the world is going to hear about Bob and the only impression I want to leave is what we’ve lost.”
from Longreads https://ift.tt/okvZ3ni
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/PWqEjSi
Lauren Oyler was pretty determined not to enjoy her nine days aboard a cruise ship on a “Goop at sea package,” and she succeeded. There is plenty of whinging going on here, but both Goop and the cruise ship industry feel like fair targets, and Oyler’s dry humor lifts this piece up.
Last summer, I got an email from my editor asking, sneakily, among the how are you’s, “Have you ever thought about writing on wellness??” She was looking for someone to go on “the Goop cruise.” Like most female writers, I had thought about writing on wellness, mainly in terms of the free stuff I could get to do so. And for name recognition and potential hate-read appeal, a Goop assignment is the ne plus ultra of wellness writing.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/M2A0vK8
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/WnK1rIH
This story might make you think twice about taking a cruise. Based on extensive documentary evidence and interviews, Tom Warren and Anna Betts paint a portrait of an industry riddled with wrongdoing: sexual assaults — the crime most often reported on cruise ships, according to the FBI — inadequate investigation, potential coverups, and more. It’s like one of the central storylines of Succession come to life:
By midnight, the party was in full flow. [Jane] Doe decided to run around the cruise decks. As she ran up a stairwell, a Carnival crew member was waiting for her. According to a complaint filed in 2019, which BuzzFeed News reviewed, she claimed he then lured her into a closet and locked the door.
“I remember being scared seeing him holding the lock, so I started asking him where he was from to, like, calm the situation down, and he just kept saying that I looked like his girlfriend,” Doe recalled during her deposition.
She said the crew member then raped her and ejaculated on her.
When the assailant finally unlocked the closet door, Doe immediately rushed to her room. According to her deposition, she was pursued by the employee, who caught up with her and asked to be let into her cabin. She declined and closed the door behind her.
Once inside, Doe burst into tears and told her friend what had happened, she recalled in her deposition. She began having a panic attack and hyperventilating. She and her friend immediately reported the alleged crime to Carnival guest services.
Doe was placed in a wheelchair and taken to the ship’s medical facility. When she told the doctor what had occurred, Doe said the medic apologized and told her, “Unfortunately, this happens all the time.”
from Longreads https://ift.tt/RvxZrQM
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/WnK1rIH
Pairs figure skating is a truly beautiful thing to watch — but with far more women in the sport than men, why does a pair have to be opposite genders? It feels like a question that should have been asked a long time ago (apart from in Blades of Glory). But it’s only recently that a step was taken, with Skate Canada, the country’s figure skating governing body, removing all gendered language from its competition rulebook, redefining teams as “Partner A and Partner B.” In this informative, thoughtful essay, former skater Talia Barrington considers what this means for the future of the sport, along with a detailed look back at its history.
As piano echoed over the sound system, they began to dance, their bodies matching effortlessly, limbs stretching in identical lines, torsos coiling. With their arms wrapped around each other tightly, they unfurled to spin around in endless motion. Improvisation became choreography, and they alternated between carving across the ice and laughing at a botched move. Over and over, they practiced a Fred Astaire–style dip until it was easy. Cheek to cheek, then far apart with just a single push, the pair forged a new routine.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/ByIAFOb
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/WnK1rIH
Author Amy Silverstein has had a heart transplant—twice. Now she’s dying of cancer. Those facts are related, as she explains in this essay. The procedure that saved her is now killing her:
I gave my all to sustaining my donor hearts despite daunting odds, and the hearts rewarded me with extraordinary years. I have been so lucky.
But now I lower my chin and whisper the words malignant … metastatic …lungs … terminal. It is the end of the road for my heart and me — not because we didn’t achieve and maintain sparkling cardiac health. But because the sorry state of transplant medicine took us down.
Organ transplantation is mired in stagnant science and antiquated, imprecise medicine that fails patients and organ donors. And I understand the irony of an incredibly successful and fortunate two-time heart transplant recipient making this case, but my longevity also provides me with a unique vantage point. Standing on the edge of death now, I feel compelled to use my experience in the transplant trenches to illuminate and challenge the status quo.
Over the last almost four decades a toxic triad of immunosuppressive medicines — calcineurin inhibitors, antimetabolites, steroids — has remained essentially the same with limited exceptions. These transplant drugs (which must be taken once or twice daily for life, since rejection is an ongoing risk and the immune system will always regard a donor organ as a foreign invader) cause secondary diseases and dangerous conditions, including diabetes, uncontrollable high blood pressure, kidney damage and failure, serious infections and cancers. The negative impact on recipients is not offset by effectiveness: the current transplant medicine regimen does not work well over time to protect donor organs from immune attack and destruction.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/AWoyvZs
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/WnK1rIH
Stefano Cernetic was the Prince of Montenegro. His ancestors were said to be Julius Caesar and the real Count Dracula. He socialized and attended lavish parties on the French Riviera — as princes do — but something about him was off. He told people he could secure them diplomatic passports for a few thousand euros each; he bestowed titles upon ordinary people not born into nobility. Eventually, Cernetic was called out as a fraud.
In this entertaining, unbelievable story for Truly*Adventurous, Alessio Perrone unravels the truth about a conman and self-proclaimed prince.
Weeks later, a copy arrived on Tamenne’s desk of a baptism certificate from the Christian Orthodox Church of Trieste, the prince’s hometown. Tamenne showed it to an acquaintance who had experience verifying authenticity. Right away, the acquaintance suggested that something seemed off in part because some sections of the document seemed to have been tinkered with. It also appeared to contain a suspicious combination of fonts, indicating that multiple typewriters were used.
That was enough for Tamenne—the rumors, the obscure family history, even some of the bizarre titles. He discovered that the prince had not received the collar of the prestigious Order of Saint Sylvester after all, but the relatively worthless collar of the similarly named Association of Saint Sylvester, a different organization with a far lesser pedigree. Exaggeration was one thing, deceit was another. He had believed in the prince. With the Riviera awash in so much money, the currency with the greatest value was honor and trust.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/qhkfi5a
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/WnK1rIH
Alone on a 10-hour walk through western Colorado, David Jenkins finds community in the company of strangers, communicating by paper messages left inside hidden geocaches.
My message, cast adrift, simple and global, personal and ranging across the centuries, joined other messages, from Mary, who was pleased to find her fifth geocache; from Sebastian, visiting from Germany, who was joyous in the Erhabenheit of the desert; from Moonlight and Feather and Sunburned Rat, all “free-kin on the color”; from Joey and his boyfriend Joe, and a half dozen more. I wondered what future cache-seekers would find in this bottle. I silently wished them well and imagined their playful, rock-hopping, light-footed exuberance for a walk on their planet in their days of desert transcendence.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/62oSTEx
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/WnK1rIH
“None of this is normal, yet we treat it as if it is,” wrote Sam Keck Scott in his Longreads piece on the disappearing tiger salamander population in California’s Sonoma County. “And it isn’t just Northern California that’s changed — the entire planet has. All the way down to the fish in the sea.”
In her reading list “Low Country, High Water,” Spencer George ponders another crisis — water rise and a drastically changing coastline in the American South. “How do you cope with that reality? How do you love a place that is sinking?” she asks. “I spent my entire life waiting to leave the South, thinking I would only find happiness away from here, but now that it is disappearing I find I cannot look away. I am desperate to find ways to archive my home. To preserve it.”
Gathering perspectives that range from bleak to hopeful, the writing we’ve published and recommended on the climate crisis, wildlife conservation, and other topics is at once urgent yet reflective. This week, in time for Earth Day on April 22, we encourage you to dive into our favorite Longreads essays, reported features, and reading lists, as well as favorites the editors have selected from across the web.
Not yet subscribed to our popular Friday newsletter? Sign up today:
Get the Longreads Top 5 Email
Kickstart your weekend by getting the week’s best reads, hand-picked and introduced by Longreads editors, delivered to your inbox every Friday morning.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/Vg5bGQ1
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/vEhHK0L
I came away from this essay by Merritt Tierce feeling … many things. A bit of confusion. Some unease. Unexpected mental fatigue. Tierce makes interesting observations about her and our Very Online lives, and the relationships we have with our phones, the internet, and one another.
The feeling of the internet has become such a feeling, a feeling of continuous vulnerability, and you can’t turn it off, it never ends. Even if my phone is off, is elsewhere, even if my computer is in a different country, the internet is there wherever I am, because it’s in me now. I’m talking about the lingering psychic, psychological, and physiological connection that I can no longer shut off, that has changed my mind. It manifests as a minor but noticeable discomfort, a permanent buzzing in my mind, like a leaf blower that never moves on down the street. Or consider the feeling of having your mouth stuck wide open at the dentist’s, or your breast smashed by the mammographer, or your legs spread for whatever consensually chosen activity you’d like to imagine; you may want what’s happening, you may have voluntarily paid for it or requested it, for reasons that fall along a spectrum from necessity to deep desire, but part of your original want includes the assumption that the experience will end, you will be able to relax your jaw and have your boob back and curl up into a ball.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/NFyvDAL
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/vEhHK0L
John D. Lawrence’s movie-star good looks were wasted on playing extras in films such as 1939’s Of Mice and Men. Did his desire for fame lead him to create a quest for fortune in the “The Americana Treasure Map,” a guide to several hidden troves located across the Western Hemisphere? Daniel N. Miller goes on a hunt for the man behind the map.
Maybe Lawrence just loved mysteries and learned how to hone his fictions in Hollywood. Or maybe he really knew something about treasure. Either way, visiting Mt. Kokoweef hadn’t settled the matter.
Still, Lawrence had mapped 62 other locations scattered across the Americas that were potentially hiding vast riches.
But my hunt ended here.
Because there was a chance that knowing more of John D. Lawrence’s story might diminish it.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/P2yTYLh
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/vEhHK0L
This article, from the forthcoming The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America, captures just how heartfelt Monica Pott’s exploration into small-town America is. By focusing on the women she grew up with, a story that is the same across many places in America becomes deeply personal — and thus resonates.
The first time Vanessa had sex, she asked her boyfriend to stop, and he didn’t. Later, with other boys, Vanessa sometimes felt like she couldn’t say no to their advances, because she’d already lost her virginity. Only many years later did Vanessa recognize some of these incidents as sexual assaults, she told me when I visited her in 2017. She didn’t blame the boys, necessarily; they were just doing what everyone expected them to do, she felt. But her reputation suffered.
from Longreads https://ift.tt/BwVxDFn
Check out my bookbox memberships! 3, 7, or 15 vintage books a month sent to organization of your choice, or to yourself!
https://ift.tt/vEhHK0L
