Feature image via Shutterstock

A long time ago, in a land far away, we invited Autostraddle readers to ask invasive personal questions to our senior editorial team — and boy, did y’all ever oblige! We intended to answer these questions in our first podcast, and we did! Alas, however, that particular podcast recording has now been lost to the dark cold abyss of WetLaptopLandia and thus the first episode of the A+ podcast included no such answers. But we didn’t want your pressing questions to go unanswered, so we thought we’d answer them right here, right now, in writing. Is this more than you want to know about us, or just enough? You be the judge! (But not like judgmental; we’re too insecure.)

Do you believe in life after love?

Riese: I believe that life and love can happen SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Rachel: You mean do I believe that this is one of the top five karaoke songs of all time? Uh, yes.

Laneia: I don’t like this question. Do you know how hard it was to try to be a cool teenager when this stupid song was playing on the radio 24/7? And then you just throw it back into my life like it’s nothing! Like it wasn’t the most horrific thing to happen to the radio AND MY SOUL since “Achy Breaky Heart”! WHICH BY THE WAY IF YOU’RE KEEPING SCORE WAS FUCKING TERRIBLE. :weeping cat:

Yvonne: Yes, there’s a whole life after love. The only reason you asked me this is because you weren’t really in love, ok Cher. If you were really in love you wouldn’t ask me this question. You would know the answer is no.

Heather: I do believe in life after love because of the reason I believe in all things which is: Paige McCullers.

More than puppy love? There’s no such thing as MORE than puppy love!

How did you know when you were in love? How did you know it could last, that it was worth it?

Riese: I think “being in love” is so difficult to describe, that’s part of what makes it the magical feeling that it is! I think the golden rule is that if you’re not sure, you’re not in love. And Lenore, I must admit that I am indeed in love at the moment, and I’m absolutely sure of it. It’s hard to pinpoint a moment, but I’ll do my best: see, my girlfriend is a total fucking weirdo. Like we have entire days where we’re just playing characters, making disgusting faces, doing strange voices and practicing skits for our imaginary sketch comedy show. But way back when we were first getting to know each other, there were a lot of things I loved about her but I didn’t know yet that she was just as weird, if not weirder, than me. Then she got hooked on this running gag where she’d beg me to describe to her the erotic possibilities of removing her brain from her skull through her eyeballs while she pretended to be highly aroused with her eyes bugging out of her head (it’s hard to describe, you’ll just have to trust me) and I think that was when I knew. Probs that was the same night we watched Pump Up The Volume. When did I know it would last? Probably the second or third time that we approached a disagreement like a thing to talk out and work through rather than a referendum on the viability of our relationship. When did I know it was worth it? Love is always worth it.

Rachel: This is so hard! I wrote out multiple responses to this and then deleted them because they felt inadequate. I guess that’s because the only answer is that you don’t know, I didn’t know. Not for sure. There were times that I felt it was worth it and it wasn’t. That happens to people every day, that they have to accept that something they thought would last and was worth it is gone and wasn’t. I’m married, and even now I don’t have a guarantee from the universe that it will last forever. I didn’t know for sure that this relationship was gonna be “worth it” any step of the way, but I guess it was something that felt like I wanted to be in it anyway, whether I knew it would last or not. Maybe that’s one way of knowing you’re in love, I don’t know.

Laneia: I think I knew I was in something that could last when I imagined us being old together, which sounds really cliche but have you ever tried it? Imagine yourself being old with — and therefore having lived a super long time in the same house, and dealing with all the ups and downs of life with — the same person. That person. The one who’s making all the noise in the kitchen while you’re trying to write and always hangs her towel in the place you ask everyone to please not hang their towel. Imagine 40 more years of that, and see what you feel like. I imagined it and I felt like I’d be the luckiest asshole on earth.

Yvonne: I think I just knew one day. Being in love feels like coming home and being able to be the youest you. My partner and I are coming up on five years together and it totally snuck up on me! I didn’t know it would last this long, but at the same time, I can’t imagine not being with her. Sometimes when we’re eating brunch at home on Sunday, I look at her and think, “Wow, I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I meet new people and talk with friends and learn about their habits and idiosyncrasies and I also think, “Thank God, we’re together forever, amen. I’m so lucky to have someone who likes to shower way more than 3 times a week.”

Heather: I hate confrontation. Hate it. Hate it more than just about anything on earth and will avoid it at almost any cost. I dated a million zillion wonderful girls, but always bailed when the relationship skidded to the inevitable place where I was going to have to argue about something. I just wanted the fun stuff, the easy stuff, the sex and the laughing and the butterflies stuff. I knew I was in love with my girlfriend about three years ago when I was standing in her bedroom crying while she cried and shouting while she shouted. I don’t even remember what we were arguing about, just that it made me want to throw up, and in the middle of it, I just blurted out, “I love you. I love you. I fucking love you.” It made her cry even harder when I said that, and in between choking sobs, she said, “I … love … you … too.”

I didn’t know it could last, just that for the first time in my life, I wanted it to last. Wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything. And I knew right then that doing the hard work with her and for her was better than a lifetime of easy stuff without her. And now I’m like, “If I live 50 more years, it still won’t be enough years to spend with this girl.” So.

Do you like anal sex?

Riese: It’s okay? I think it’s an interesting thing to try if you haven’t, and it can be fun every now and then, but it’s definitely not on a list of my top 10 favorite sex acts and I could never have anal sex again and still die happy. Also the first time it made my ass bleed for like an entire day, so there’s that.

Rachel: It’s not my favorite, no. But I’ve had partners who were into it, and doing things that feel good to your partner feels good, so!

Laneia: I mean, whatever. Before I had sex with a girl, I was staunchly anti-anal. I think that had more to do with the lack of trust I had in the men I was sleeping with or would potentially sleep with, if we’re being honest and I guess we are because wheeee!

Yvonne: I’ve never tried anal sex, so I wouldn’t know. I’ve been close but no anal sex for me.

Heather: Nah, not so much.

Rachel, what are your friends like? I like to imagine that we would be friends if you moved to town and didn’t know anyone cool so I could get in on the ground floor.

Rachel: My friends are rad! Probably you are rad also, which means that your instincts are right on about us hanging out. My friends are all into and do a lot of different stuff, but I guess something that characterizes a lot of them is that they pursue their really cool interests & passions. One of my friends wrote a computer program that creates sestinas out of Twitter hashtags; one of my friends teaches queers about safer sex practices; a few of my friends work for this website you might have heard of called Autostraddle. It’s mostly important to me that my friends put up with listening to me narrate my favorite TV shows scene by scene over gchat and hold my hand through writing emails that stress me out, so if you can do those two things, you’re in like Flynn.

Alternative lifestyle haircut and an advanced degree in gender studies?! BYE, HEART.

Have you ever had a crush on an AS commenter?

Riese: Yes.

Rachel: How could I not? You’re all so funny and smart and cute!

Laneia: Yeah.

Yvonne: I don’t think so. I’m intimidated by most of y’all, tbh.

Heather: No, but I have heard that Autostraddle comments sections are the second best place in the universe to meet girls (after A-Camp).

What is your favorite/least favorite sexytimes activity? Apart from toeing which doesn’t even look like it should be a word or at most a misspelled german word?

Riese: This is really hard! Especially ‘cause you won’t let me say “toeing.” But definitely my least favorite is 69 because it’s too confusing. There’s too much going on. I just can’t with it. Picking a favorite is SO HARD though! What if I said “rough sex.” What then.

Rachel: I’m unclear on whether we’re talking about our favorite AND least favorite or picking one, just for future question writers out there. Picking a favorite is hard! I don’t know, I like fucking, just sort of generally speaking. I don’t like any kind of sex that involves me being penetrated from behind; it makes me want to dissolve into a fine powder and blow away in the wind and then maybe be reincarnated as a rock at the bottom of the sea so I don’t even have to have a body anymore.

Laneia: I hate 69. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw things. It’s just too much! Like trying to watch an action movie and listen to a new album by your favorite artist and give directions to your old apartment and get a full body massage at the same time while also making sure your recent manicure doesn’t chip, while you go down on someone. Just what are we even trying to prove here. Most favorite is probably… face-sitting? La-tee-da.

Yvonne: I really dislike having sex right after eating or drinking. I hate that feeling of being full and you can’t move and then you’re trying to be sexy but all you feel is like a gross manatee. My favorite is probably going down on my girlfriend — it’s just so amazing to hear the woman you love make all these noises all because of you!

Heather: I’ve been thinking about this for 24 solid hours, and I actually can’t choose which sexytime activity I love best. I just really, really love sex. I love the quick times in the middle of the nightand I like the times when it’s a 12-hour marathon that only stops for snacks. I like the times when it is planned and the times when it just happens. I like the times when it’s all about me and then times when it’s all about her and the times when it’s about both of us together or separate. I don’t like to have sex if I’m too full or too tipsy.

Do you feel weird being quasi-famous? do you feel that you have lost any privacy in your personal lives?

Riese: I don’t feel like I am quasi-famous! I do get recognized in real life fairly often, but I actually was approached by readers a lot more frequently when Autostraddle was smaller. Maybe now people think I’m legit quasi-famous so they prefer to stare and whisper from a distance. Anyhow it’s always nice to meet readers, I think!

As for losing privacy in my personal life… I do feel like I’ve lost the ability to write as openly about my personal life as I used to, mostly because I monetized my friendships by getting an entire social group involved in Autostraddle and A-Camp. Now, writing about my ex-girlfriend means writing about your A-Camp co-director, and writing about my best friend means writing about your Executive Editor. When I started blogging I had to be careful what I said about Haviland because she was a “public figure” as an actress, but I could say whatever about basically everybody else in my life. Now I’ve turned everybody else in my life into public figures! Oops. I’ve also learned that every time i go to Whole Foods looking like a swamp monster, I’ll get recognized, so I have to like, put concealer on. THAT’S A DRAG.

Rachel: I’m not “quasi-famous,” as far as I know — I’ve never been recognized by anyone in real life, although I did meet a random stranger who had read a recipe for iced coffee I published, which was nice. 90% of the (straight) people I interact with in life either have no idea what I do or don’t understand it once I tell them, so it’s mostly nice when someone says “Oh I love Autostraddle, I like your articles!” I don’t write about my personal life much, so really the only ones losing any privacy are my cats via Instagram.

Laneia: I’m not famous! I’ve never been recognized in person and I doubt many readers on AS even know that I exist? I write so little now. Anyway A-Camp is one of the few places where anyone might possibly know who I am as it pertains to what I do, which is cool because I love A-Camp and talking to readers. The other day I was waiting with Slade in urgent care and a girl came back to her seat in front of me and said, “Are you Lay-nee-ah?” and immediately I was like “OMG A READER??!” But then it turns out she was just telling me that the front desk person was trying to get my attention. So.

Yvonne: A friend from Seattle told me that she can’t believe she has a famous friend, my friend from my hometown thought I must have thousands of followers on my Tumblr because I’m famous, my other friend thought it was sooo cool to have a famous Autostraddle editor as her friend. Omg, y’all. I’m not famous and I don’t feel famous. I’m just a girl on my computer.

Heather: I don’t feel famous ever, probably because the actually famous Heather Hogan was the voice of Ducky in The Land Before Time. And, unlike actual famous people, I get to choose the parts of my life that I share with other people.

Do you guys worry about having an overly dramatic ‘chart’ of Autostraddle peeps as a side-effect of the already apparent though currently mostly-online commune that you have created? Or is that just lesbians and inevitable.

Riese: We definitely have an overly dramatic “chart” of Autostraddle peeps, which got messy when we all lived in New York, then died down a little, and then exploded into an unfixable quagmire when A-Camp began. There has been tacky backstabbing and bitter gossip, that has happened, but I think that specifically is changeable. The rest of it is pretty inevitable, though, and usually really awful for me to have to navigate as a CEO and people manager.

Rachel: It’s sort of terrible, but also sort of funny? Every couple years we’ve tried sketching it out while at some IRL event like camp, and it is pretty intense. But I think having a sprawling chart is the inevitable other side of the coin of having a big, healthy network of queer female friendships, and to me it’s worth it so we can have that.

Yvonne: When I first heard about Autostraddle’s very own “chart,” I kinda freaked out because I didn’t realize how intricate it was and also I knew I would never be on it and thought it automatically made me “not a cool kid.” Now, it’s whatevs because yeah, it’s pretty inevitable and I think it’s fine.

Heather: I haven’t been here long enough to see the chart, or understand the chart even if I had seen it. But I feel like what Rachel said is true: It’s the inevitable flip-side any time you have a network of amazing women like this.

Riese: I am suspicious regarding Laneia’s non-participation in this question, but I’d also like to add that Crystal our HR Director made Stef destroy the Chart she made at last camp, but I think Grace took a picture of it first.

Even if you caused irreparable damage to my dictatorial regime, I wouldn’t make you eat poisonous berries.

What was the last thing you put in your mouth?

Riese: A raspberry.

Rachel: Blackberry sage tea from Republic of Tea.

Laneia: Toasted rye bread dipped in plain hummus.

Yvonne: Mint green tea.

Heather: Iced coffee. [Note: This was true when I answered this question a month ago and it’s still true as I format this post for WordPress.]

What came first: The chicken or the egg?

Riese: Did nobody read The Book of Genesis? G-d made all the animals FIRST.

Rachel: I’m voting chicken. My mom raises chickens and you need a chicken AND a rooster to make a fertilized egg, so I think you’d need at least one chicken and one rooster before you could have an egg.

Laneia: YOUR MOM.

Yvonne: Definitely the egg.

Heather: Eggs, I think, because breakfast is eggs and dinner is chickens.

What was the last thing you masturbated to or made you horny?

Rachel: I don’t remember exactly what it was, I’m sorry! It was some mediocre TV show and there was a bad arc with some eye-roll-inducing sexy female character and poorly done sexy scenes, and I remember being annoyed that it turned me on at all.

Laneia: Probably this one girl on Abby Winters.

Yvonne: My period and probably boobs on my Tumblr. I was just laying in bed, scrolling through Tumblr, and then all of sudden I knew my period was coming and I was horny.

Heather: I’ll tell you the truth: Reading these million femslash fanfics for our Fan Fiction Friday column is really doing a number on my libido. And my sex drive is already pretty high to begin with. So, specifically, the last thing that got me going was this story about Spencer and Paige being roommates at Stanford and hardcore going after each other because they miss Emily. (Hashtag Pretty Little Liars, Hashtag BooRadleyVanYowzah)

Do you give your or your partner’s genitals a special name? If so, what is it?

Riese: Nope.

Rachel: Oh good lord no.

Laneia: No, but I did recently introduce her to the term “front-bottom” and I’m hoping she starts casually using it because I LOVE IT.

Yvonne: Hahaha, no.

Heather: No, but my cat and dogs have about 20 nicknames each.

Have you ever USED food during sex? i.e insertion of bananas

Riese: My first-ever sexual experience with my gay boyfriend involved whipped cream, but never below-the-belt. I bought chocolate body paint at some point but we ended up just lying on his bed eating it out of the jar. In general I fear involving food will either cause a yeast infection or make me feel sticky and I don’t like either of those things.

Rachel: I don’t think so no! I’m not very good at either pre-planning elaborate activities for sex OR stopping sex partway through to introduce something new or change gears; using food during sex seems like it would require doing one of those two things.

Laneia: I have done way more below-the-belt food stuff during sex than I care to admit or remember. It was all horrible.

Yvonne: Let’s just say there was a carrot involved one very desperate time.

Heather: I don’t know a girl on earth who would let me come near her with some chocolate syrup or whipped cream or something like that. I am so clumsy I can’t make it through a single day without pulling the Shout of the closet to work on some kind of stain. I’ve been having sex with my girlfriend for years but it still makes me have so many feelings I sometimes shake like a little leaf when I get naked with her. Food + bed would be a disaster.

HEY GIRL HEY

Weirdest thing you’ve thought of during sex?

Riese: My brain is a wild machine I have no control over, so pretty much anything in the world that a person could think of, I’ve thought of it during sex.

Rachel: I think about really boring weird things during sex, mostly just because I can’t turn off the anxiety part of my brain, even during the most passionate of moments. It’s usually stuff like “If I mail the rent check tomorrow, will it still make it by the first?” Recently I accidentally left Zombieland playing during sex, so that brought up some weird stuff.

Laneia: One time I thought about the neighbors’ baby and whether or not hearing us would make her a more sexually affirmed individual. That was neat.

Yvonne: It was probably something having to deal with my family or something my mom told me to do asap or writing back to a writer with some notes on their work.

Heather: I sometimes wonder during sex what I would do if a Tyrannosaurus Rex were to burst onto the scene. I mean, I’d die, right? There’s no actual way to fight off a T-Rex, especially if you’re naked.

If you could save one animal species on earth what would it be? What kind of impact would like to leave on this world?

Riese: I don’t know anything about animals, but puppies are cute.

Rachel: Bees are supposed to be really important, right? I don’t totally understand why but that’s what I’ve heard. Do bees count as animal species or are insects a different situation? I have some follow-up questions. I thought about buying a mason bee house to help out the bees but our downstairs neighbors have a toddler so maybe they don’t want a bunch of bees around, idk.

Laneia: BEAVERS. I watched that documentary about beavers on Netflix a couple of months ago and it changed my life forever. Did you know that beavers can singlehandedly bring all forms of life to a plot of land JUST BY MAKING A POND. If I had beavers, I bet evolution would take care of the rest. I’m so serious. Beavers forever.

Yvonne: Dogs! I don’t think I could live without my big puppy and I don’t think dog parents or the millions of people who watch puppy videos couldn’t either so there would be great sadness in the world if we didn’t save the dogs!

Heather: I would save all the stray cats and dogs. The impact would be ultimate happiness.

What do you wish you didn’t know?

Riese: Most of the shit I’ve read people saying about me on the internet, I guess? I don’t want to let that stuff get into my head but sometimes it does.

Rachel: This is such a cruel question because it makes me think about all the things I wish I didn’t know. Maybe about bronies? Or that red pill reddit? It has to do with men, whatever it is.

Laneia: Regret.

Yvonne: Self-doubt.

Heather: I wish I didn’t know Skins Fire existed. I will never, ever, ever stop radiating white hot fury for that garbage.

How even do you get a threesome started. This? Like this?

Kinkiest activity you’ve ever engaged in for fun?

Riese: I’m not sure where certain activities fall on The Scale of Kink (are threesomes kinky?) but I’m gonna go with intense D/S stuff, like stuff that leaves bruises and stuff that fucks your soul in the best way possible.

Rachel: Are there kinky activities the rest of y’all have been engaging in not for fun? I’m going to go ahead and classify all consensual sex as “for fun” for the purposes of this conversation, in which case the answer would probably be choking play (not with actual breath restriction because that’s super dangerous! Do your research, kids).

Laneia: WHAT IS KINKY THO.

Yvonne: I’m the most non-kinky person in the world so…

Heather: I have had sex a couple of times in the woods when I’ve been hiking or mountain biking. Not with like strangers in the forest or anything, but with girls I was dating who were also super turned on by nature. Sometimes even just ambient nature noise gets me riled up.

What foods are you obsessed with currently?

Riese: Scrambled eggs with brussels sprouts, Ben & Jerry’s Core, Trail Mix, Smokehouse Almonds and orange juice spritzers.

Rachel: I’ve been planning on making this vegan moussaka recipe for like three weeks. It just keeps getting put off for some reason, but I think about it every day. In terms of foods I’m obsessed with that I’ve actually succeeded in eating: I just put tahini-miso sauce on everything. Once you’ve tried it, using other sauces seems unreasonable.

Laneia: Baby kale under a tofu scramble, cheese plates forever, and making perfect pot roast on Sunday.

Yvonne: I’m currently trying my best to “eat clean” for the next two weeks so that means I’ve eaten a bunch of fucking kale. I’m not obsessed with kale. I would say I’m currently obsessed with pizza because I’ve been thinking of pizza ever since I started this thing yesterday.

Heather: Soup dumplings. I cannot get enough soup dumplings. I did not even know soup dumplings were a thing that existed until I moved to New York and now I want to take the train to Flushing and eat them three times a day. It’s a dumpling with soup inside it. It’s heaven for your mouth parts.

Oh wow I feel really invasive asking this, but sometimes I get really invested in the relationships of people I admire. What happened with you and Marni, Riese? I hope you are all ok. Also, are you dating the person who we see you on Instagram with all the time?? SORRY. I’m being super snoopy.

Riese: Marni broke up with me because she felt like there was “something missing” between us, and once I got done crying about how my life was over, being generally hysterical and pleading with her to go to Couples Counseling, I realized she was right. “Realizing that she was right” involved a lot of things, like getting lost in the woods (seriously) and falling in love with The Girl Who You See Me With On Instagram All The Time. Both Marni and I started dating other people pretty much immediately and we are both in relationships with those people right now and we’re both happy about it. It was hard to go through but honestly I think the harder part was the few months beforehand, when she knew that it was over but I didn’t yet, so I just felt sort of ambiguously lonely and depressed all the time and didn’t know why? The breakup was a shock and the ensuing two months of still living together were difficult for us, but it did prompt a journey of self-discovery that I really really needed. We’re still friends, want all the best for each other, and will be running A-Camp together like mature grown-ups, I promise!

I know I haven’t been to bed in three days, honey, but I need to give just a few more notes on this pitch.

What are your side jobs outside of Autostraddle?

Riese: LOL LOL LOL. Autostraddle is my side job outside of Autostraddle. My regular job is being Editor-in-Chief and the main writer for Autostraddle, my side job is being the CEO and CFO of Autostraddle. Whenever it’s offered to me and I have the time, I pick up freelance marketing consulting or speaking work, because the less money I pay myself, the more I can pay my writers!

Rachel: I haven’t had a “real” job, even a part-time one, outside of Autostraddle since May, when I graduated grad school and stopped teaching. Most of us work 50-60 hours a week for Autostraddle, which makes holding down other jobs difficult at best. Sometimes I pick up a little freelance editing work, often on people’s self-published novels, if I need to. I also write fiction but calling that a “job” would be extremely generous.

Laneia: What is “outside of Autostraddle”?

Yvonne: Before I worked here full-time, I tried my best to freelance for Texas publications. Freelancing is so hard though! You have to be so disciplined and know how to hustle in order for freelancing to be sustainable. It’s something I wasn’t ready for, I think.

Heather: Sometimes I ghostwrite books for extra money, which is basically means I get treated like Anne Hathaway‘s character in The Devil Wears Prada, but I spend more time crying in my pajamas. Also, my Redguard warrior mage runs a lot of lame errands for people in Skyrim for fat sacks of Septims.

Who has slept with who??

Riese: I’m proud to report that nobody on the senior editorial team has ridden the hobby horse with anybody else on the senior editorial team. Laneia and I have slept in the same bed a lot, however.

Rachel: My chart involvement is fairly minimal, and does not include anyone else on the senior editorial team.

Laneia: I haven’t slept with anyone on the Meet the Team page! But I have slept with a person who’s written for Autostraddle BOOM.

Riese: If there was a Chart for who has slept with who and that chart contained everybody who’s ever written anything for Autostraddle, I’d have five people connected to me on that chart. I think only two of those people are on the meet the team page.

Yvonne: Not guilty.

Heather: I heard Tinkerbell slept with Miss Kitty Fantastico. The two were seen canoodling at A-Camp and have been inseparable ever since.

How was your first lesbian sex experience initiated? Did you initiate it?

Riese: This is tricky! You say “first lesbian sex experience” so I assume you mean a time when actual sex happened rather than just kissing? The “just kissing” thing in my life was initiated by the straight best friend who kissed me in my friend’s closet my senior year of boarding school. She introduced this idea with, “First [riese] will kiss [riese’s boyfriend], then [riese’s boyfriend] will kiss me, and then I’ll kiss riese.” We were drunk but she was very orderly about it. Then we went upstairs, just the two of us, while meanwhile our friends who stayed downstairs were getting busted for drinking. So lesbian sexual activity saved my ass that night. I’m telling you all this because I think my actual first lesbian sex experience was within the context of a threesome in 2004, and I don’t remember a g-ddamn thing! Ah, youth.

Rachel: That’s a good question! I kind of don’t remember? The initiation part, I remember the rest of it very clearly. She invited me to her single-person dorm room at like 10 pm, so I guess that’s kind of an initiation right there. There was a lot of maneuvering to get as close as possible to kissing without kissing — sitting very close on the bed! laying side by side on the bed! laying side by side facing one another! — and there were so many micro-movements involved in inching closer to Doing It that I don’t really even remember which one finally tipped the situation over the edge. The important thing is that we ended up having lesbian sex and it was great.

Laneia: Pass. Sorry!

Yvonne: When I was 17, there was a ton of weird sexual tension that built up between me and my best friend at the time and it just exploded when she slept over at my house. We were watching Super Bad in my room, holding hands because that’s totally what best friends do and then she kissed me and I didn’t stop her. We made out for a while and then realized we weren’t going to finish watching the movie. We went straight to bed and then my first lesbian sex experience happened. It was amazing! No, I didn’t initiate it.

Heather: I was on a Christian mission trip with this girl who also had dedicated her life to the Lord Jesus Christ because boys were boring and having a husband sounded like the worst possible scenario. We were talking on day, in the dorm room we shared, about what if we did have husbands, and what would that be like, sex-wise, and I mean, should we, like, oh, I don’t know, practice for having husbands, just in case that was something God decided he wanted to give us? For God, right? God would want us to know how to please our husbands, wouldn’t he? Thigh humping in the name of Jesus was my first lesbian sex experience and it was initiated by the Bible, obviously.

Do you guys want to have kids/Laneia do you want to have more kids? Why or why not?

Riese: Yes! I have always wanted to have kids because I’m a genius and my Dad was a genius and somebody needs to pass on the genius genes. NO JUST KIDDING I don’t really know why, it’s just always been what I wanted. That’s kinda been one of the hardest things about this job, that all that has been pushed off and pushed off and pushed off and now I’m definitely gonna be the oldest Mom at the PTA meeting, which’s weird, ‘cause my Mom was always the youngest Mom at the PTA meeting!

Rachel: This is a really good question! It’s always been hard to tell whether I actually wanted kids or not because whenever the topic came up any of my actual thoughts on the subject were overwhelmed by my extreme anxiety about it. Having kids seems so scary! Anything could happen to them, and you can’t really protect them or make it better. It feels like it would kill me. But also all the best things I’ve ever done with my life have been totally terrifying, so.

Laneia: But I already have so many of them.

Yvonne: Yes, I want to have kids some day. I grew up with such a great family filled with so much love and I want to have that of my own. I have a little family now with my partner and my dog but I think it would be even more amazing if there’s a cute, small human to share life with. My partner doesn’t want kids at all and that makes me sad sometimes but then she changes her mind and entertains the idea. We have some very strong Mexican names picked out.

Heather: I’ve never wanted kids, but I do want to adopt this street cat that I can’t catch but have named Bobbi Jean.

Haha! I love you guys. Ummm can you tell us your most embarrassing life choice?? e.g., dating an enormous weirdo for ages. Invasive personal question achieved haha

Riese: I have made SO MANY embarrassing life choices. Pretty much all of them, really. I imagine a lot of them began in this one frat house in Ypsilanti, including the guy who talked me into wearing a Playboy bunny bellybutton ring for two years… but honestly, it’s not the times I dated enormous weirdos that embarrass me, it’s the times I dated NOT-weirdos. He was so boring. I became so boring!

Rachel: Well I’ve definitely dated enormous weirdos for ages. Probably should have taken the hint more seriously when a friend told me “You know if you broke up with him and then changed your mind later, he’d definitely get back together with you, so you don’t need to worry about it.” Actually though probably the most embarrassing life choices I made were everything I said out loud in discussion-based classes in college before I understood anything about the world outside myself or intersectional feminism. Also everything I said outside those classes.

Laneia: One time I tried to strip for someone? Eck.

Yvonne: When I was a freshman at my super huge public university, I wanted to belong to a group and make friends so bad because I didn’t want to disappear in the masses of students. I think that’s embarrassing enough. I think I tried out for a “spirit group” which is basically like a sorority and it was a process to get in — there were several meet-and-greets, an application and an interview. I had never felt so FAKE in my life. It was so weird and embarrassing for me because I was desperately trying to fit in with these girls and I knew we weren’t clicking. I didn’t finish the tryout process.

Heather: I will tell you the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. I am terrified of Halloween and especially people dressed as vampires due to a haunted house incident in kindergarten that resulted in pee-pants. In fourth grade, on Halloween morning, my sister got onto our school bus and then I got onto our school bus — and Dracula was driving it. So, I flung myself off the bus and ran across the street and across the yard screaming for my sister to get off the bus and run for her life because “IT’S A TRICK YOU’RE GOING TO DIE IT’S A TRICK IT’S DRACULA.” My house was the last stop before school. I had to change schools the next year. I like enormous weirdos, so I don’t think it’s embarrassing to date them.

ZZZZzzzzzz.

Important life question: What do you do with your other arm when you’re being the big spoon?

Riese: I fling it to the side behind me, so like I’m lying on the left side of my body with my right arm around her and then my left arm is flat backwards on the bed. Does that make sense?

Rachel: I usually sort of curl it into my chest, like the position it would be in if it were in a sling?

Laneia: I take both arms and fold them in front of me like a praying mantis, so my forearms are pressed against her back. I mean maybe I’m doing big spoon wrong. I’m big praying mantis-ing.

Yvonne: Like the arm you’re lying on? I sometimes put it under her neck and then after a while, I turn over. If you’re talking about the other arm, it’s around her waist.

Heather: I tuck it between my knees. Isn’t that what everyone does? Is there a different way to spoon?

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!