HELLO and welcome to the 158th installment of Things I Read That I Love, wherein I share with you some of the longer-form journalism/essays I’ve read recently so that you can read them too and we can all know more about Sex Ed movies! This “column” is less feminist/queer focused than the rest of the site because when something is feminist/queer focused, I put it on the rest of the site. Here is where the other things are.

The title of this feature is inspired by the title of Emily Gould’s tumblr, Things I Ate That I Love.

Courts Without Reporters, by Francine Prose for The New York Review of Books, December 2014

Prose, who teaches at Bard, was asked by her students if it was a coincidence that the readings she assigned the week of the Ferguson decision were both “essays about trials, courts, and the legal system.” It was — but the discussion that sprang from it, and the thoughts and feelings she shared in this piece, are intentional and necessary.

Stain, by Sharon Harrigan for The Rumpus, December 2014

“It’s hard to remember why I was silent. Maybe, like some of the women only now reporting they were raped by Bill Cosby decades ago, I was afraid I wouldn’t be believed. Maybe I didn’t want people to tell me the world was too dangerous for girls to navigate alone. How many steps is it from not being able to walk your dog by yourself in the middle of the day to not being able to drive or go to school? How many parents would respond to a daughter’s being attacked by keeping her home? How many already do this by preemptively not allowing their daughters the same independence they give their sons?”

Slut-Shaming, Eugenics and Donald Duck, by Lisa Hix for Collecter’s Weekly, December 2014

This in-depth look at the history of Sex Education films in America is so thorough and so interesting and so good! It’s also, in its own way, a history of sexual culture in America. It will not surprise you to know that things have not exactly moved progressively forward as much as they should have.

The New Republic: An Appreciation, by Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic, December 2014

Holy fucking hell I cannot believe the racist nonsense this magazine used to pump out on the regular. JUST KIDDING I CAN. Read this one. I’m not sure if the fact that I work in media is why this article (and its various k-holes) grabbed me, why don’t you read it and let me know. There’s just a lot of interesting observations about working in what is essentially an echo chamber of privilege.

He Beat Her And Murdered Her Son — And She Got 45 Years In Jail, by Alex Campbell for Buzzfeed , December 2014

There are these laws where a woman in an abusive relationship whose partner kills their child can also be sent to jail for “failing to protect”their child. It’s also very specifically aimed at mothers. It’s really awful, all the ways the criminal justice system finds to incarcerate abused women.

Livin’ Thing: The Oral History of Boogie Nights, by Alex French & Howie Kahn for Grantland, December 2014

Y’all this is one of my favorite movies of all time so I ate this up like a grilled cheese sandwich.

We’re Not Going To Stand For This Anymore: New York After Eric Garner, by Michael Greenberg for The New York Review of Books, December 2014

The protests, the politics, the circumstances, the everything. A really solid overview of the State of Things in New York following the Eric Garner decision, which managed to stun just about everybody in the five boroughs.