Questions from the A+ Inbox were taking up such an enormous portion of the A+ Insider that we started dedicating an entire post to them instead! This A+ feature is now bi-monthly and advice questions go into our twice monthly Into the A+ Advice Box. We think this will be a lot of fun for the whole family. We’ve included as many questions as we can. We love you and your hair looks fantastic today!

MERCH, BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL CONCERNS

Did you change your website highlight colors? Like, the color of several elements, like the “Submit”-button for forms and the link colors and the background colors for sidebar header boxes. Somehow they are now green? I remember them in a different color?

Nicole: Yes! It was a whole revamp Sarah and Tracy and Yikes worked on!

hi friends, I was wondering if it was possible to bring back the “Bisexuality” tab on the “Identity” menu. I really miss it! I’m not sure if the reason it disappeared was, like, philosophical, or a side-effect of all the SEO/navigation/tagging updating y’all have been (brilliantly!) doing, but I hope it can come back, and I suppose if it can’t it would be interesting to learn the reasons and/or reasoning :)

Nicole: Riese put it back! As a bisexual, I appreciate this as well and am also pretty sure linking to this in the nav just got lost in our tag / category overhaul.

You’re probably aware of this but trying to like comments still sends me to the WordPress thing xx

Nicole: We are very, terribly aware of this and I am so sorry! It does it to me, too! :( We got into an endless help ticket feedback loop a while ago, and may yet try again, mayhaps even persevere someday!

Any news on A-camp 2022?

Riese: As Omicron descended upon us this winter and so many events that had really believed 100% that it was not risky to host an event suddenly had to cancel – it became clear this is not on the immediate horizon for us. Event venues are also more expensive than ever, which is fun! But we can’t afford to invest the time and money for paying for camp if there’s even a 5% chance of cancellation, because that would mean our entire business going under. We’re currently barely able to pay the website team! Assembling, paying and consulting with a camp team is a huge up-front investment that we simply can’t make until we know 100% that we really understand the parameters of this pandemic and can hold an event that’s safe and accessible for all. Events right now are offering generous refund policies in order to get people comfortable signing up, but if we really did have to refund everybody – or even a big chunk of people close to the event date – we’d be completely fucked.

Oh no! I just got a Tucker Carlson ad on this page 😝 haaalp!!

Anya: Thank you for flagging this — that’s definitely not a placement we want on our site! We noticed this on our end, too, and immediately flagged to our ad-serving partner, since it’s important to us that ads on our site are in line with our ethics. This was a weird fluke, and we’re working with our ad-serving partner to ensure it doesn’t happen again!

are the in-article ads a lot easier to sell? I want autostraddle to have all the money but the ads are pretty distracting/confusing especially in articles where there’s already media integrated

Riese: Basically every single type of display ad that brands pay good money to place on websites, we refuse to implement! like that little video guy in the corner of every website, the 5 in-article ads you see even at prestige media properties where you have a paid subscription, the ad that takes over half the page at gizmodo media properties and you have to scroll forever to get it to go away so you can actually read something? but alas we have to compromise *somewhere* and alas this is that place! We agree that the placement isn’t ideal w/r/t other media in the post, but i think it looks pretty ok otherwise, and we’re going to work on that, as well as how the ads integrate in general. Right now this is for a specific campaign that pays well, and yes those ads pay well in general. Also; whatever Anya says lol

Nicole: THANK YOU every time you tolerate an ad! I appreciate you <3 That is all!

I read Autostraddle through a feed reader because I’m very old, and lately it tries to get me to categorize posts. Like it asked if Every Kristen Stewart Movie Ranked is about “Parenting”.

Riese: In a way aren’t we all Kristen Stewart’s parents

When you say an article was “one of our most popular posts” last month, or of all time, etc. does that mean it had the most people read it beginning to end (can you tell if someone stops reading an article in the middle and closes the page?), does it mean the most people clicked the link, or does it mean that it had the most shares/likes on socials, or that it had the most comments? I nerd out on stuff like this, thanks for indulging me Lol!

Riese: That means it had the most pageviews!

Ugh I’m starting to think it might sadly be time to stop allowing people to comment without at least making an account… I guess it’s the price of growth, but the number of comments from TERFs, butthurt men, and spambots is starting to get out of hand.

I mourn the old days when this used to be one of the few places on the internet when community members with different viewpoints could have civil, productive conversations about our shared experience as queer people in a cishet world.

Riese: Actually hahah it’s always been like this! It used to be worse, actually, because in ye olde internet, people commented more in general and also had worse opinions than they do now!! I mean, we used to have worse opinions than we do now too, which did not help. We keep the option open to register for an account to comment or not because everybody is on mobile these days and signing in can take too long for people.

Carmen: I know it’s also frustrating because it can take us a minute to see and take down the comments (fun fact is when y’all say “Mod take down the comments” it’s one of us who does it, and the fastest way to get our attention is to inbox us, that goes directly to myself and Nicole and we check our emails a few times a day). The truth is Riese’s right, we used to get waaaaay more out of pocket comments, the fact that there’s less of them now — enough that we can roughly handle them ourselves — does show improvement in comment decorum? Though I get that seems counterintuitive.

We also do have a policy for blocking repeat offenders IP address, which hopefully also helps. It’s hard because we want AS to be a place for civil discussion, and yes even disagreements, but there are people who definitely take advantage of the generosity.

No response required – just putting this into the gay ether — I have a matchmaking meeting in five minutes and I’m nervous AF.

ALL-CONSUMING NEEDS TO SHARE

Amazon’s 2013 show Alpha House, which has a WILD amount of celebrity cameos for a show that maybe ten people watched, not only features Cynthia Nixon as a senator, but also has a lesbian storyline between two republican congressional staffers who are first dating, then expecting a baby throguh IVF, then engaged. It’s cute!! Also Rachel Maddow has a cameo too!!! It’s only 21 episodes long but it was funny and had lesbians.

Heather: In the immortal words of my favorite internet cat that doesn’t belong to me personally: WAHT! I feel like this is a trivia question only you and Riese Bernard would know the answer to! And now me and the A+ members lucky enough to read this post. Is the show any good? I have a hard time looking at Republicans, even fictional ones!

Has anyone read La Toya Hankins’s wlw stories?

Heather: Okay maybe it’s because I’ve been watching so much Killing Eve, but I really thought that one book title was Married to the STRANGLE. I see now that it’s struggle. Thank you for this recommendation, this seems right up my alley AKA Gay Fan Fic Alley.

I played Charades with my family on Christmas Day and none of them had heard of Portrait of a Lady on Fire! I forget that straight people live in a whole different world.

Heather: I will Venmo you ten dollars right this second if you will upload a video of you doing whatever charade you did to try to get your straight family to guess Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Nicole: Heather now you have me running through the possibilities. Would I pretend to paint…and then what? AND THEN WHAT

Carmen: So Nicole I think you do “whole concept,” walk around motioning to the petticoat of your fancy dress, paint, and then mime lighting a match and building a fire/like warming your hands against the fire and then hope your audience puts 2 + 2 together. Alternatively, you do 6 words, zero in on portrait — first word (paint a photo) and then lady — fourth word (same petticoat mime) and fire— sixth word (same match/warm by the fire mime)

We play… a lot of Charades in my family. 🙈

OK, so it’s ONLY gay by association but  I still think this is relevant.

Kayla: I GOT SO EMOTIONAL WHEN I SAW THIS. I am a very recently converted Stephen King Queer (actually am currently reading Needful Things! But even cooler than King’s tweet was Yellowjackets co-creator Ashley Lyle’s thread of reactions to it :’)

BURNING URGE TO SHARE –

I finally put up a Lex ad for sexts involving exactly the type of things i’m into (it has taken me a lot of shame and doubt to get to a place where I can admit to myself what I’m into!) and I got HEAPS of very enthusiastic replies, and I’m feeling so affirmed, and managing to let go of my scarcity complex a little!!!

Nicole: YES! Let go of that scarcity mindset! I’m so happy for you <3

Kayla: Good for you, seriously! Asking for what you want is such a vulnerable and hard thing to do! I’m glad the replies were enthusiastic, and I hope you get even more affirmation!

Carmen: OMG YESSSSSSSSS!!!! CONGRATS! I hope those enthusiastic replies led to enthusiastic hang outs and maybe a few dates. But even if they didn’t, the ad alone was a big leap! Congrats!

Anne Helen Peterson linked the below in her subscriber only edition of her newsletter!

Which Real Lesbian Bars Would the American Dolls Have Visited?

Kayla: Listen, when Yashwina brought this idea of theirs to me, I knew they had something GOLDENNNNNN on their hands. I’m so glad it was such a runaway hit, and just so the folks at home know: There’s much more coming ;)

I just found out about the podcast Kitchen Table Cult and was surprised/delighted to see one of my favorite Autostraddle writers, Kieryn is a host!

Heather: Every month when Nicole drops these questions into a doc for us to answer, I can’t click on it fast enough because I know it’s going to be FULL of brilliant recommendations of things to watch and read and listen to — and here it is! Again! Great tip, friend; thank you!

Hi, I’m the person who came here to vent about the extremely specific lube questions I had! I can now update you on my research.

I expect what I reacted to in the Sliquid was probably the potassium sorbate, since I don’t react to citric acid in foods. I ended up making a 42-row spreadsheet of different water-based lubes, so I could colour-code the ingredients to wrap my brain around the comparisons.

I excluded lubes that contained my “hard no” ingredients – parabens and phytoestrogens, petrochemicals, glycerin and sugars (Sugars! in lube! Just why!), artificial flavours, and the potassium sorbate. After that I was left with a lot of bright red cells in my spreadsheet, and precisely 3 options out of the list of 41 lubes that I looked at.

So in case anyone else ever needs to know, it looks like 1. Earthly Body Waterslide, 2. LubeLife, and 3. Stuil Luxe (NOT sutillube or Sutil Rich), in that hierarchical order, are the best water-based lubes for people who react to potassium sorbate.

Neither Waterslide nor Lubelife are available in my country (💀) so I’m testing out the Sutil Luxe, and hopefully that’ll work so I won’t need to deal with transatlantic shipping and dodgy ebay shops. BUT people with gluten intolerances shouldn’t use Sutil Luxe. Luckily that doesn’t matter for me. Phew.

But now I’m fired up and angry about how much effort it took to find the ingredients lists and make the comparisons. Lots of things are marketed as body-safe and sensitive, but contain toxins linked to death rates in cosmetics workers. Gotta love capitalism and conservative lawmakers f-ing up consumer protection in the sex industry!

Nicole: THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE RESOURCE. Thank you so much for sharing!! And seriously, I would think that body-safe meant not just like “what we think are tolerable levels of toxins,” but perhaps, no toxins.

Carmen: I definitely it meant “no toxins” and now I’m shuddering.

I just binged Yellowjackets in 2 days, mostly thanks to y’all’s coverage! Idk if y’all are gonna do a style thief for Jackie (or Shauna), but this necklace is perf for a casual cosplay outfit.

Kayla: THANK YOU for reading my coverage, and thank you for this link, too! It’s great that it’s also from a queer-owned jewelry brand! I do think I’ll do more Yellowjackets Style Thiefs, but I wanna do Van first. Then maybe a Jackie/Shauna dual/duel Style Thief?! In any case, I want this heart necklace for my Yellowjackets cosplay I’m inevitably doing for my thirtieth birthday later this year.

Who’s doing TIRTL, I forget, anyway tell them they are an evil wench for using KSTEW as the word and I mean that in the nicest possible way. :)

HAVE YOU WRITTEN ABOUT THIS / I NEED INFORMATION / ARTICLE IDEAS

Following up on a comment I left asking for Carmen’s redacted opinion on Slave Play. Carmen, what are your thoughts? I recently saw the play and felt quite underwhelmed. Given the strong positive critical reaction to the play, I was expecting to feel more. More moved, more challenged, more outraged, just more something…

[and also, from a different A+ member]

Please, please, please, tell me all of your feelings about Jeremy O. Harris and Slave Play. Also have you read/seen Water Sports; or insignificant white boys? Thanks for all your work!!!!

Carmen: Ok so here are my very real feelings about Slave Play. To start, I believe in every artist’s right to make their art (assuming it does not physically harm people, is not targeted in its bigotry or otherwise purposefully abusive).

I want to say that upfront because while I respect Jeremy O. Harris’ right to make Slave Play, I believe in my deeply soul that all our time these last two and a half years would have been better spent if he had just gone to therapy to work out his trauma around interracial relationships and his role in them, instead of throwing it onto the page — and later, the stage, and subjecting all of us to it.

I do not believe there is anything necessary, or productive, in playacting antebellum slavery as (deeply unsound and unsafe, in realistic terms) sex therapy, let alone on an elite stage in front of rich theatergoers who on average pay more on one single ticket than I spend in several days worth of groceries. The power dynamics of the theatre space alone, not even getting to what’s on stage is upsetting to say the least. And I know that not everyone will agree with me! Clearly! This month we’ve had some interesting conversions even on our own editorial team around art, sex, desire and power dynamics as it relates to historically marginalized folks and/or people of color. I know that for some people, playing with those dynamics in an imaginative space opens up opportunity for reclamation or being transgressive. I happen to firmly believe you don’t “play” around with slavery (or the Holocaust, for that matter), period. Again, I respect, and will continue to use this platform to support, everyone’s right to make their art — but that’s my personal line.

I’ve actually read the script for Slave Play several times because the first time I read it, I though I was missing something. After all, it’s beloved by so many “taste makers” starting from when it was Off-Broadway, let alone its Broadway debut, and went on to be nominated for several Tonys. But my own issues with the actual plot aside, which is a large leap (I didn’t even touch the startling depictions of rape) — I just don’t think it’s particularly well written or that Jeremy O. Harris is a particularly gifted writer. Perhaps with strong actors on stage some of the thinness of the script can be overlooked, I’m sure Teyonah Parris was excellent when she was cast because she’s excellent in everything. However, I agree with A+ inboxer #1 that once you take away the violence and the shock, its a patently unmoving play. If you have to resort to “shocking” white people into paying top dollar by manipulating centuries old tired stereotypes of Jezebels and Mandingos in your rape fantasy to convince yourself that you are a “genius,” have at it. But you won’t convince me.

I think its deeply telling the once Slave Play did begin being seen by broader audiences, particularly by broader Black audiences, we saw it slowly saw it move from being “lauded” to “controversial” and that’s not a mistake. It was not written for Black people or with our interests in heart. And again, those are Jeremy’s choices to have and make. But as a Black person who’s deeply invested in work that allows our communities to see and challenge themselves in our honesty and vulnerability and yes even in our own ugliness — it’s clear that Jeremy’s project and my own are vastly different. I don’t believe in making art about a community that they don’t have easy access too. I don’t believe in making art about a community only for them to see themselves rape and be raped and then having the audacity of calling them uneducated or uncultured when they don’t like it. Those are decisions made out of insecurity, not auteurism.

Black queer person to Black queer person, I wish Jeremy O. Harris well on his journey. But those choices will come back to him. I bet your bottom dollar it wouldn’t and couldn’t be me.

Are y’all watching Sort Of??? I feel like I saw one acknowledgement that it was a show that existed and then nothing further, which is so sad because I just finished it and it is an INCREDIBLE and SUPER QUEER show! I hope there are plans to talk about it in depth because it deserves all the hype.

Riese: Sort of WAS SO GOOD I LOVED IT SO MUCH and yes we have an article about it and also FUN TIP is that I keep this page right here updated with everything we have reviewed within the past year and all of our streaming guides so if there’s ever a show that you want to read about and don’t know if we’ve written about it, you can go there and CTRL+F for your show or just go alphabetically and then it’ll be right there for you!

Carmen: LOVED SORT OF!! Sometimes if things aren’t in the guide Riese referenced above, it might mean the she hasn’t had the opportunity to update yet (though she does regularly!!) or that we haven’t had a chance yet to write about it, never forget we are a small team! We try to make it look seamless and easy, but alas it is no.

Was that NYE Anna Kendrick post just an alcohol induced fever dream?

Riese: hahahah what i don’t know what you’re talking abut lalalala hahahaha look at that beautiful goldfinchhh

Heather: Wait, I really want to answer this! So Riese and I used to work together on the same stuff every single day, and we always had the ability to whip each other up into such frenzies about TV and film and Vapid Fluff — but as Riese has moved to focusing even more on the business and money side of things and I have had to take a more laser focused approach to my work because of Long Covid, we don’t see each other nearly as much.

But on NYE, we were the only people on Slack, and that picture dropped, and I had had one half a glass of champagne because I can’t really drink alcohol anymore, and it was suddenly like the old days in here but with no supervision. Within ten minutes, Riese and I had convinced ourselves Anna Kendrick had come out and was dating the person in that photo. It was the shoes for me!

Anyway the other thing Riese and I have in common is we can write coming out posts SO FAST because we’ve been doing it for so long, so that post was up before either of us even had a chance to take a breath. And then, upon pretty quick reflection, we realized that Anna Kendrick has a boyfriend and Riese knows that person in the photo in real life. So we, um. Panic took it down the way we panic put it up. I’M SORRY (MOSTLY)!

Carmen: An even more fun fact (I don’t know that Heather knows this part, but!) Google somehow still index’ed the post before it got taken down? So it still showed up on Google News for “Anna Kendrick” for a few days, like the rest of the weekend. So when I was doing our weekly traffic checks the following week I had to ask Riese, “ughhhh what caused this massive spike on December 31st-January 2nd? I can’t figure it out!” and she had to explain the entire thing to me, whoops hahahhahaaaaa.

Hello! Am I remembering right that ASers have created community on discord, beyond the popups? I would like to share info with a friend of mine who is ace and looking for community but am unsure where to look (I sent her the community group info already). Discord info and/or other ideas welcome, thank you! I love that I can recommend AS as a source of community!

Nicole: Yes! If anyone would want to share in the comments, that is awesome. There’s also, I think, a server called Queerpile that predates the A+ Pop-Up Discords but I’m not in it so someone will have to share an invite in the comments if that is a thing you can do!

Carmen: Definitely there’s at least one for sword lesbians, I know that. And I think a few other that region-specific!

Reading the comments on Riese’s KStew movie list, and I’m wondering what draws rando commenters to some articles more than others? 🧐 perhaps there is no answer. In any case, great work on that list Riese! Some of the negative comments are just so funny to me to like ??? 😆 who the fuck are you and how’d you find this website?

Riese: I think it was on Google Discover! So I guess big K-Stew fans like have a section of their google for Kristen Stewart materials and they were all like oh wow big one today!!!!!!!! But what I did not realize was how many (seemingly?) straight men out there are stanning so hard for Kristen that they cannot recognize, as she herself has, that most of her movies are bad??? Or maybe they are like, pretentious film people who felt profoundly moved by Personal Shopper, IDK. But usually the culprit is a fan forum or a Google Discover hit, which helps our traffic SO MUCH but sometimes that traffic is bad. On that post I didn’t mind it because everybody was so funny in response!

Hi there! It’s not pressing in the sense that it isn’t important AT ALL, for anyone else but me. However, it is pressing because it is driving me bananas that I cannot figure it out: does anyone know the name of this terrible, bad, very bad movie with 3 female protagonists, probably about 10 years old, that is a typical z-movie but really terrible and has a weird queer sex scene in a trailer?

I asked Google and it couldn’t help, so I am hoping you can. Forever grateful for everything you do!

Heather: Is it this?

Kayla: If anyone finds out, lmk!!!!!!

Riese: My guess is And Then Came Lola!

y’all already posted about becca tilley + hayley kiyoko’s relationship? as a dyke with complex feelings about the bachelor franchise it is very fascinating to me — also becca tilley has two sisters who are both also gay??? a lot happening here

Riese: Yes I told everybody about this in the vapid fluff channel on August 26th, 2021 and NOBODY RESPONDED TO ME except Drew to say that Hayley has weird taste. But it’s weird how they both like take pictures of themselves in the same place but never together? I don’t understand

Hey – have y’all seen Ellie & Abbie (And Ellie’s Dead Aunt)? It’s Australian and iconic in my queer circle of friends here in New Zealand. Anyway, love your work etc.

Heather: I have not, but Sally has shown me the way with VPNs, so maybe I can!

Hey! I just watched a short thing speculating about alien civilizations, and was disappointed by how colonialist philosophy pervaded their assumptions about civilization. I love reading sci fi and fantasy stories, especially short story collections, and I’m wondering if you have any recommendations for books or even other media formats created by native / aboriginal / indigenous authors

Kayla: I love this question! There was a piece in the New York Times from a couple years ago that amplifies Native writers in the sci-fi/horror genres. It’s not necessarily sci-fi/fantasy, but the horror book The Only Good Indians is very good. Extremely unfortunately, this anthology of Indigenous sci-fi that specifically focuses on queer and Two-Spirit narratives is out of print!!!! But you might be able to find it used or also use it as a jumping off point to look up the authors/editors and see what other work they have out there! For example, Darcie Little Badger — an Autostraddle fav! — had work featured in it. But hark! Here is another anthology of work by Two-Spirit and queer Indigenous writers that is very much in print and won a Lambda award last year: Love After The End. (Darcie Little Badger’s in that one too!) Moonshot is an anthology of Indigenous comics. And also: The sci-fi television show Resident Alien also has a Native protagonist, and queer icon Tommy Pico (who also writes on Reservation Dogs) joined the second season as story editor (and will also have a cameo). Those were some of the first things to come to mind, but maybe we can do a more formal list at some point on the website!

Heather: In addition to Kayla’s comprehensive and brilliant recs, I’d love to suggest N.K. Jeminsin’s work to you, especially her Broken Earth trilogy.

Carmen: Just adding how much I love the Broken Earth trilogy.

Dearest Autostraddle I would love to read a Your Queer Beautician style series! I am imagining something that talks about how to find good-for-you beauty products? I find some of these on Tiktok, but I would love to see a queer spin for all of us — for hair and skincare at every entry point. femmes and butches both need to know these things! we wanna be good to our body parts! Help!

Kayla: Thank you for this! Carmen and I indeed have already been having conversations about expanding AS’s style+beauty+fashion content with an eye toward servicey stuff to help folks out.

Carmen: A LITERAL TOP FIVE DREAM of mine for Autostraddle 2022! I talk about it every chance I get, so please stay tuned!

It is so fucking homophobic that we have to labor endlessly under capitalism.

REALLY NICE THINGS YOU TOLD US

Both the games discord server and the Northeastern server had well-attended server-versary parties this weekend. The gaming server is actually doing another one tomorrow because people are so spread out across the globe. Just thought you’d enjoy knowing that.

Nicole: You were right and I do enjoy knowing this!! I love this so much!!

Carmen: OMG! I love knowing this! I still remember helping Nicole host our first Discord server, and I cannot believe it’s already been a year.

Wow! I was just scrolling back through the posts this week and saw how many comments Nicole’s “There’s Something About…” post racked up. I’m sorry so many people took a very closed off and negative reading of your post Nicole, but I’m so heartened to see too how many commenters really clicked with what you wrote. 🖤

It made me realize that of all the things Autostraddle has made better in my life, one of them is that I’ve become a more thoughtful and thorough reader from reading the pieces you publish here, from the variety of voices, experiences, and perspectives you uplift. When I started reading AS in 2013-2014ish, I think I might have been like some of the offended commenters complaining about the post being “a list of cis men”… but now, going on 8+ years reading this website, I’m like dang this is a really cool and smart and hot exploration of gender and masculinity, and props to Nicole for sharing these personal reflections with us. I hope that makes some kind of sense, and I hope you know how much you mean to me and know this website changes ppl’s minds and viewpoints. ❤️❤️

Nicole: Thank you for sending this in! It really means a lot, as did hearing from every commenter who felt seen <3

I gotta say, it was a list of fictional characters and so while I thought I was certainly maybe going to get some pushback, the people who responded as though these are real people and not characters/archetypes chosen from a specific and limited amount of TV and movies I’ve personally seen — they surprised me, but also, it’s the internet and a lot of people read quickly and also sometimes from a really raw place.

I think, when you write something like that, there’s always a moment where you’re really afraid you’re going to be alone, but the comments from everyone who felt like it spoke to their experience (and also this message!) made me feel less alone and I’m grateful for that! I think, too, that Autostraddle has made me a more thorough reader of others’ work and I really appreciate that and your giving voice to the way in which we are all helping each other to grow.

Carmen: Nicole’s piece for “There’s Something About” was hands down my favorite entry of the series (and I’ve told them this before, so it’s not news!), I was so floored by how they took a fun prompt and turned it into such a thoughtful exploration about attraction and self-reflection and gender. Just whew… top notch.

Has anyone reminded you today that you are a gem? you are all such gems!!!

Kayla: I hope I am specifically a sapphire, my favorite gem.

Riese: Thank you I too hope I am a sapphire because it is my BIRTHSTONE!!! And THANK YOU SO MUCH DEAR READER

Carmen: My birthstone is moonstone? Is moonstone a gem?

Heather: I CALL GARNET! (Because of Steven Universe, obviously.)

Nicole: But HEATHER my birth stone is a garnet!

Here to let all the Black contributors know that their writing and editimg is HEALING. There are pieces by Shelli, DaniJanae, and others that I want bound in a book that I can read when I’m feeling impostor-y or insecure in being black and gay. This writing shores me up and gives me a stronger foundation & grounding in my whole self, rather than a fragmented one. I’m forever grateful!

Dani Janae: This is so sweet!!

Shelli Nicole: OMG this is so fucking kind and I needed it omg

Just want to say I love my fisting socks! I wear them to work because they make it easier to deal with the cis straights who misgender me constantly. I just look down at my socks and go to my sexy happy gay place. Please make them in more colors so I can have a pair for every work day.

Kayla: This is how I feel every time I don my Gay Chaos socks!!!!

Carmen: I lost my fisting socks IN MY OWN APARTMENT and I can’t find them anywhere and anyway, it’s the saddest part of my winter.

Hello i want to say thank you because I have recently started having sex for the first time and as a recovering Catholic with body dysphoria, I always assumed when I started having sex i would feel badly about it AND also be bad at it. And neither of those are true! My girlfriend has told me I am really good at communicating my wants and needs and also good at listening to hers and i really feel my ability to do any of that is because of all the great sex and dating advice i have read right here on Autostraddle. So thank you for giving me the resources and tools for that! and thank you for the hot sex tips that have made my gf say she cant believe she is the first person i’ve slept with lol

Nicole: HECK YES!!!

Kayla: LOVE THIS FOR YOU!!!!! You deserve to be having the sex you wanna have!!!!!

Carmen: I KNOW THAT’S RIGHT!!!!! LET’S GOOOOOOOOO!!

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