objectification – The Trailer Park MFA

Sexual Assault and the Slow Erosion of Self-Efficacy

Young woman locked alone in a dungeon looking up to a window

Impact statements have revealed the many self-defeating, destructive lessons that sexual assault taught me. In the ten years between 16 and 26, I survived four sexual assaults. The assailants were a high school classmate, a man ten years older than I was who hired me as his English tutor, and my own father. At 20,Continue reading “Sexual Assault and the Slow Erosion of Self-Efficacy”

Candice Carty-Williams Wows with QUEENIE

A brilliant interrogation of the “chick lit” genre, Queenie starts off slow, with the usual plot points: career woman struggles with career and the quest for the perfect life and the perfect man. But about 100 pages in, Candace Carty-Williams begins to unravel this aggressively normative genre. And by the novel’s midpoint, Queenie is beginning to question her entireContinue reading “Candice Carty-Williams Wows with QUEENIE”

The Fetishization of Girlhood

I first realized that men look at girls as sexual objects on the day of my kindergarten graduation. Our teacher had set the theme as a Hawaiian luau (yes, cultural appropriation was all the rage in the 1980s). The girls had made skirts of green paper streamers to wear over our swimsuits as well asContinue reading “The Fetishization of Girlhood”

Safety

I knew safety was the first step towards healing after trauma. But I had thought that simply meant pushing my assailants out of my life and locking the door behind them. Done. I hadn’t understood that was only the beginning of the beginning. Safety is not achieved by the absence of the perpetrator. Safety isContinue reading “Safety”

Disrupting Porn Fantasies: Midnights at the Electric Blue Angel

A new work written by Josh Hornbeck (Heavy Lay the Chains, The Beating of a Warrior’s Heart), Midnights at the Electric Blue Angel swivels a white-hot spotlight onto porn fantasies and reveals the abusive sexual objectification that lies beneath. The play opens on two young people sipping coffee on a first date. Suddenly, a spotlightContinue reading “Disrupting Porn Fantasies: Midnights at the Electric Blue Angel”