We all know who I’m talking about, even if it isn’t ‘okay’ to say it, right? The bad people, with their evil ways, their uneducated ideologies, persecutory mindsets, and their ridiculous world views. You know, the Republicans. Or the Democrats. Or the Foreigners. Or the White People. Depending on who you are, we all have a group we define as deeply, unforgivably ‘Ungood’.

Since graduating college, I’ve come to the realization that most people are not extremely angry about queer theory or imperial colonial theory. People who aren’t incredibly clued up on white privilege are rarely the nazi monsters we created in our heads, and Uncle Max who works in credit management isn’t a greedy capitalist intent on enslaving Libya for oil profits. My mother called this newfound understanding Growing Up. Unfortunately, like that childhood fear of the dressing gown in the dark, tropes still die hard, even for me. But why?

I was reading a Facebook thread today on transgender rights (a…

Sexuality, like all things, comes with the good, the bad, and the ugly. It can mean incredible closeness, intimacy and affection between you and your partner. It can mean a slightly embarrassing crush at college. And it can mean having an attraction that is so monstrously warped that an individual ends up causing serious harm, or even death. As the big media platforms and mediums rightly take aim at sexual abuse and violence, it does however raise an interesting question: how should we, as as a society, navigate harmful and dangerous elements of sexuality?

A friend of mine, a hockey dad with three boisterous athletic daughters, discusses his latest worry at navigating a safe path for them in a world where girls as young as three or four are routinely sexualized and endangered through increasingly ugly pop culture. “I get that they want to be like their friends,” he says, anxiously, “But it really creeps me out when I see them copying sucking on their fingers, lollipops and a cutesy Lolita aesthetic. I’ve had to ban Arianna Grande in my house.”

It’s not really hard to see why. Queen of Lolita Pop, Arianna Grande…

I’m used to people treating me like a stupid bimbo when they hear I ‘work in PR’. The expectation of extraordinary stupidity and a vacuous grin. The unnecessary attempts to simplify everything down to what they assume a stupid, boring woman who can probably look pretty at a shareholder meeting could understand. The problem is that real PR, PR at a level that actually saves you millions, requires a whole lot more thought and research than what you’d probably thought. As AZ found out, the hard way.

I could go off in a rant here about the number of (predominantly male) clients who have suggested that I research their sector, or insist on explaining ‘profit’ to me, but that’s not why I’m writing this. PR isn’t, contrary to popular imagination, calling boring board members ‘babes’ at conferences as you hand around useless leaflets saying actualize and optimize. We don’t really do press releases anymore. Conferences are more egofests than any genuine attempt at learning or releasing anything. A lot of PR is gritty research, networking, getting information from hardcore academia and investor documents into an understandable format…

I’ve been on this planet for twenty-four long, drawn out years. Sometimes it seems like a lot longer, if I’ve spent too long going through my message requests. Throughout it all, from training bras to conference calls with Madrid, I’ve endured both the brilliant and beastly of male attention. I’ve seen success, and I’ve seen failure. I’ve been repulsed, and I’ve been overwhelmed.

And I don’t hate you, incels. In fact, I hope I can help.

Surprisingly for some, although definitely not for others, I haven’t always been the girl in the bright red lipstick rolling her eyes at frightened men in Players. In fact, if you knew me at all before I turned twenty, I think you’d find it surprising that I’d even be let into a club, let alone one where I’d have the dubious honour of having a Lord pin me against a vodka stained piano surrounded by hollow-hearted civil servants bellowing Mr Brightside. So, let that be a lesson to the bitter hearted among you: I was unattractive, too.

I was an…

Have you ever been to the circus? I have, as a child. I remember the giddy hedonism of nostalgic stripes striping their way across the sky, as clowns beamed cheerfully at impressed toddlers. The air was acrid with gunpowder and the brilliant illusion of a fading past burnt its way into my eight year old brain, burying itself there for seventeen years.

Of course, it’s all a façade. The tent comes down, the clowns drink bitter lager in their trailers and the dancing elephants and lemurs are shut away in the gloomy hollows of iron cages. I’m sure you know…

So yesterday, I commented on a friend’s post: she had been struggling to report racism and sexism, but was still getting banned herself for extremely innocuous comments such as ‘you’re a f****** idiot’ and, hilariously, ‘silly sausage’. To my intense amusement, it turns out that I, too, was guilty of driving men into the pits of emotional despair through my unwavering hate speech.

No doubt the men reading this are shocked by my venom, my unrivalled cruelty. You must be clutching your handkerchiefs and weeping at my utter betrayal of your gender. Because I am, basically, Hitler. What I’ve said…

If you haven’t gained 5lb since December, congrats, but I think the majority of us in Lockdown Britain can contest to the fact that it is harder than ever to stick to a boring, low calorie diet when leaving your house could get you arrested and the only legal pleasure is a takeaway. Now, with April glimmering with a small hope at leaving the house, many of us seem to be plunging into fad diets and starvation plans. To this I say: expect to fail.

It’s not because you are weak willed. It’s not because you suck as a person. It’s because when you starve yourself, food becomes an obsession. Your body produces a hormone called Ghrelin that makes you feel really hungry. This lowers your ability to resist high calorie foods and your capacity to avoid over-eating and bingeing. Which believe me, matters even if you are confident you can fast for three days a week. Let’s do some light maths.

You’re a 5ft 6 woman and you never exercise because you hate it and you look stupid doing it. You need about 1,900…

Here’s the thing, male teachers: you shouldn’t have found any of us sexy at thirteen. You shouldn’t have been aroused by the sight of our knees under our grey school skirts. You shouldn’t have had ‘uncomfortable’ urges at the sight of our Barbie crop tops. Because, if I’m honest, you shouldn’t have been teaching us while openly having pedophilic tendencies.

Never have I ever encountered any female teacher who was even slightly ‘uncomfortable’ (what a euphemism) around a 13 year old boy, no matter what he was wearing. They’ve never had to divert their gaze or write a letter to his parents about his ‘inappropriate’ uniform violations. Because that would be extremely disturbing. I’d advise absolutely anyone with sexual thoughts about children, particularly ‘uncomfortable’ intrusive ones, to quit teaching immediately and report themselves. And yes, that includes female children. Particularly teenage girls.

The idea that it is in any way a teenage girl’s fault for a forty year old man…