Gabrielle Noel

This piece is part of the Radical issue, a special package from Outward, Slate’s home for coverage of LGBTQ life, thought, and culture.

Our definitions of crime and victimhood are socially constructed and not actual representations of who is good or evil in the United States.

Disclosing a sexual identity requires a lot of bravery. It puts us at risk for violence, discrimination, and rejection. And it becomes a continuous experience throughout our lives -- we have to come out every time we meet a new colleague, friend, or acquaintance, and at every new job or organization.

After admitting to sexual misconduct almost ten months ago, Louis CK has made his return to comedy.

I didn’t come out to my mother because I wanted to. I called her into my room because she was getting better at using technology—something I had not anticipated when I began writing about my sex life on the internet—and I wasn’t about to let Google snitch on me. I sat her down on the edge of my bed and I asked, “Would you still love me if I liked women?” And then I immediately burst into tears.

Bisexual people, and bi+ (anyone who is attracted to more than one gender identity) women in particular, are met with a skepticism that gay, lesbian, and heterosexual identities do not face. While “born this way” has become somewhat of a rallying cry within the LGBTQ+ community, this mentality isn’t always put into practice when bi+ women are involved.

One woman even said, “With my ex, I hid a very simple basic vibrator. It wasn’t even phallic in shape, and I only used it to vibe my clit. But I was anxious about sharing it with him. Then he found it and immediately wanted me to get rid of it because it was ‘bigger’ than him.”

For all the women who never saw themselves represented in the stories on television, Brown Girls is the answer.
Brown Girls is a web series taking over the internet through its commitment to centering women of color and queer women. Creator and screenwriter Fatimah Asghar noticed a lot of the relationships she had weren’t reflected in the media, and so she sought to create a work that resembled her experiences.
“I wanted to create something that was a love letter to the different communities ...

Bisexual and pansexual women experience a unique system of prejudices beyond homophobia. We are marginalized in both straight and queer communities. We are seen as indecisive, greedy, promiscuous, dishonest, confused, and even sexually indiscriminate. And many of these assumptions are informed by the cultural hypersexualization of bi+ women.

We have some pretty messed up ideas about female sexuality across the board.
From the belief that women without their hymen intact are “not virgins” to the imaginary connection between vaginal tightness and number of sexual partners, all of these myths mean that women are often engaging in penetrative sex that does them a disservice. For a long time, we didn’t even believe women were capable of orgasming, which is probably why the female orgasm is seen as elusive and difficult to achieve now....

Perhaps you remember Amber Tamblyn from her roles on “Inside Amy Schumer,” “Two And A Half Men,” or “House.” For me, she still sticks out as Tibby from the “Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants” movies that gave us all the feels 10+ years ago.
Either way, the actress has been up to a lot since then. After more than ten years in front of the camera, not only is Amber shifting towards darker films, she finally took a stab at directing (and she’s great at it). In her new film, “Paint It Black,” she...

Masturbation is my favorite form of self-care. It’s so many things -- a way for me to connect to myself, a reminder that my pleasure isn’t someone else’s responsibility, a way to grow accustomed to my sexual body.

I wish we learned about consent in high school. I was taught abstinence, sexually transmitted infections, and the annual cost of raising a baby. But I never learned what counted as permission to have sex. In fact, I wasn’t even cognizant of the fact that someone needed my permission; teachers and parents mainly reinforced that “no” meant “no”, not the importance of “yes”.

The first time I kissed a woman, I was eighteen. While I realized that I was bisexual at a young age, conversations with my peers about sexuality had always been surrounded in judgment and disgust. Politically and religiously, I understood that same-sex relationships were seen as a moral failing in our culture. I planned to remain straight-passing for my entire life.
I didn't express interest in women until a party shortly after my high school graduation. At that age, my ideas about female bi...

A common idea is that finding a monogamous partner is how we can show ourselves love. Our rhetoric is often that we “deserve” people who love us exclusively. Sharon and Isaac rewrite that.