HELLO and welcome to the 257th 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 picky eaters! 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.

The Kid Is All Right: In Defense of Picky Eating | Serious Eats, by Irina Dumitrescu for Serious Eats, February 2018

I, too, was defined by what I didn’t eat, by the one area in life in which I was not perfectly obedient. I, too, was encouraged to ignore my instincts and preferences at the table, urged to continue stuffing myself even when I felt full. I was taught to feel guilty about what I didn’t put in my mouth, and now I often feel guilty about what I do. As hard as it is to see my son turn down the food I want to share with him, I do not want the family table to be a battleground for his bodily autonomy.

The Old and the Restless, by Chris Walker for The Atavist Magazine, February 2018

Thank you to @requiemforradio on twitter for alerting me that this story was very “on brand” for me as it combines so many of my interests, among them lesbians, clueless white people and murder!

Why Are Millennials So Into Astrology?, by Julie Beck for The Atlantic, January 2018

As someone who is really not into astrology, I had no idea that interest in it has legitimately ramped up recently — I thought it had always been there, I’d just never been in charge of a site with so many astrology-related submissions until recently. But! This is a very interesting look at this apparent phenomenon.

Masher Menace: When American Women First Confronted Their Sexual Harassers, by Lisa Hix for Collectors Weekly, December 2017

Newspaper accounts from the period about “mashers”—a term the media first applied to sexual harassers in the 1880s—describe behavior that’s sickeningly similar to today’s creeps. They called the women “honey,” “sweetie,” “cutie,” or “chicken” and commented on their good looks. Some mashers just stared too long and hard, ogling or making “goo-goo eyes.” Like silent-movie villains, they gave women self-satisfied smiles while twirling their mustaches. They winked, made wolf whistles, touched women on the arm, and petted women’s hair.

Why ‘Black Panther’ Is a Defining Moment for Black America, by Carvell Wallace for The New York Times, February 2018

The artistic movement called Afrofuturism, a decidedly black creation, is meant to go far beyond the limitations of the white imagination. It isn’t just the idea that black people will exist in the future, will use technology and science, will travel deep into space. It is the idea that we will have won the future. There exists, somewhere within us, an image in which we are whole, in which we are home. Afrofuturism is, if nothing else, an attempt to imagine what that home would be. “Black Panther” cannot help being part of this.

Poppy Just Might Be the Warhol of the Youtube Era, by Allison P. Davis for New York Magazine, February 2018

I had never heard of this person! I find her whole situation pretty cool though, now that I’m in on it.

Deleted Scenes, by Linda Besner for Real Life Magazine, January 2018

Behind-the-scenes footage is like the tiled floor of the shallow end of a pool — solid ground underneath the wavering element that bathes us. It appears to support the viewer at the slippery intersection of the fictional and the real, offering a clear delineation between the two. But this reassuring surface is still slick, still underwater. The goal of behind-the-scenes footage is to make the viewer feel like an insider. But in fact, genuine behind-the-scenes footage resists the viewer, fulfilling a paradoxical goal of transparency and illusion.

Death in the Village, by Anthony Oliveira for Hazlitt, February 2018

A serial killer targeting gay men in Toronto doesn’t engender the type of police response the community would hope for. Hazlitt is uniquely good at these stories that are a mixture of personal essay and actual reporting.

“Gay blood when it is donated is thrown out, and when it is spilt it is easy to forget, running unnoticed in the gutters.”

Safer Spaces: Is There a Smarter Way to Think About Sexual Assault on Campus?, by Jia Tolentino for The New Yorker, February 2018

On a study of sexual behaviors and assault on college campuses called SHIFT, which was undertaken at Columbia University and is unprecedented in magnitude and texture. I love everything Jia writes and she took characteristic care with this topic and you can too.

The Breakup Museum, by Leslie Jamison for The Virginia Quarterly Review, February 2018

Leslie Jamison talking about the breakup museum and breakups and how we remember and keep them and the commonness of a broken heart — what a sad and perfect treat. I think what I learned from reading it will help me finish a personal essay I started in 2016 that I keep meaning to finish but can’t tell just how. My favorite read of the week. The ending BROKE ME.

To speak of an ex too much was seen as the sign of some kind of pathology, and the gospel of serial monogamy could have you believe that every relationship was an imperfect trial run, useful only as preparation for the relationship that finally stuck. In this model, a family full of divorces was a family full of failures. But I grew up seeing them as something else, grew up seeing every self as an accumulation of its loves, like a Russian nesting doll that held all of those relationships inside.

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+!