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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna

I’m terrified of bodies, men’s bodies,women’s bodies, fat bodies, skinny bodies, young bodies, old bodies, my body, yours. I don’t know how I’m going to handle two years worth of communal showers boarding school has thrown at me.

From pretty much birth until the age of 18, I hated my fucking body. HATED it. I kept a whole journal of things I hated about my body. I wore oversized clothing and layers to hide myself. I never had sex with the lights on.

Because my own body made me wish I’d been born a hamster/eskimo, I was similarly repulsed by everybody else’s bodies. I realize now that the repulsion I felt was likely tied into the fact that my TRUE SELF actually thinks all naked women are hot, so looking at them felt somehow wrong. w/r/t men – is a longer story.

Certainly most of my friends when I got to boarding school hated themselves too, because it was an elitist adolescent environment so that was that. But it didn’t make them afraid to be naked. Nobody cared 10% as much as I did. We didn’t have communal showers, but people seemed way ok with running around naked.

I don’t know if I’m allowed to recommend websites that feature nudity? But looking at how actual women look in real life (e.g., http://www.007b.com/breast_gallery.php) might prepare you. If anyone else has tips, share them in a reblog?

I’d also recommend becoming a hippie.

Or going to boarding school with communal showers. This is secretly awesome because you’re going to be forced to face these issues head-on at a young age and realize before most girls do that we’re all just humans with our random-ass limbs and bellies and boobs and ears and whatever else. It’s just a fucking body. We have to clean that shit.

In conclusion, everyone else in the shower is either:

1. Unashamed - THIS COMES FROM CONFIDENCE/PERSONALITY, NOT ACTUAL PHYSICAL APPEARANCE. you can learn from these girls. they are your role models. Celebrate their comfort with themselves and let it inspire you to be comfortable with yourself.

2. Also scared – these are your silent allies. They’re just like you. Don’t worry about them.

3. You - you’re a mammal. You’re just a mammal teenager. And the moment you stop caring about whether or not anyone sees you naked the more comfortable you’ll feel in clothing.

The only way to look good naked (and to be able to look at other people naked, too) has nothing to do with what your body looks like. The only way to look good naked is to fucking own it.

Act as if.

Ask Riese anything

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I just ordered my Calendar. When will I get it? So excited. Also, LOVE the redesign.

Thanks!

Actually I’m sending a whole bunch of calendar orders out tomorrow morning – like ones that have been ordered within the last week and a half.

It’s hard for me to get to the post office because of my lame full time job. #excuses

Basically, I’ve been slackin’ but I WILL get to the post office tomorrow otherwise I couldn’t live with myself any more.

Ask Alex anything

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Redesign – Why can’t we see the number of comments each post has once we’re inside the post? We have to scroll all the way to the bottom to see the #

Bleh… one of those things that wasn’t supposed to disappear, but we’re trying to put it back asap. WEBSITES ARE SO HARD YOU GUYS.

Actually the article pages themselves have to be updated/redesigned as well, so they’re next and soon they will be SO GOOD.

For now, thanks for letting me know that something is up.

Ask Alex anything

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I don’t like this new autostraddle…its confusing for five seconds, and then…I just don’t like that huge banner at the top of every page. I’ve already read everything on there, guys, believe me. How much would I have to bribe you to switch back?

You don’t have to :) This is all part of the process. Thanks for letting me know and actually, I completely agree. It’s one of those things that is good in theory, but doesn’t work in practice… I didn’t realize how annoying it would be to have the featured box on every page until it went live and I was clicking through. Also: because you guys let me know how you feel too!

Thanks and we’re working to amend it.

Ask Alex anything

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just had the time to check AS for the first time today (work) and i was pleasantly surprised with the new layout/design and i must say, it’s lookin very chic/wonderful/awesome. nice job a;ex :)

Thanks! thanks to ALL you guys and for your compliments, and also! Feedback! It’s much appreciated… we’re still working to make this thing better and still have more to do. But you know, if you have feelings or issues with anything on the design/layout, please let me know! alex [at] autostraddle [dot] com.

:)

Ask Alex anything

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Dear Laneia. There is nothing to my life beside books and TV shows. Sometimes I want to change that and sometimes I’m fine with it and just want everyone to leave me alone. What the fuck is wrong with me?

NOTHINNNNGGG nothing. nothing is wrong with you.
sometimes when people are in ruts, they promise themselves they’ll try one new / out-of-their-comfort-zone thing a week / month. mayhaps you should do this?
i would begin with climbing a rock wall, because that is very new for me but it also comes with safety harnesses and cables, so i wouldn’t be as scared. but you do you.

Ask Laneia anything

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sadydoyle-deactivated20110608
I know that it’s a cruel twist of fate that the thing you’re best at is something that’s also so divisive, and so cruel. If you were really, really awesome at cross-stitching, no-one would be mad at you. If you wrote about sports, you’d get yelled at, but that would be because you said “the Giants are great,” and somebody else was like, “no, the Jets are great.” Even if you worked as a literary reviewer-type person, you’d be like, “I like Franzen,” and somebody else would be like, “I don’t,” and you could agree to disagree. But you work in the industry of hate. If someone says, “I think men are better than women,” or “I don’t think rape is all that bad,” you can’t agree to disagree. And you can’t have a discussion. And they’re going to retaliate with hate. It’s like you’re Indiana Jones, but your job isn’t to be an archaeologist; your job, as Indiana Jones, is to handle snakes.

Someone just pointed this out to me. And I thought it was very smart, so I’m putting this down here. As a preamble to the following:

I think I need to step away from this space for a while. This used to be my safest, most favorite space, of everywhere that I wrote. I got to go on at length, if I wanted to, and I had WAY fewer readers than I did anywhere else, and I just got to be what I always was, what I still think of myself as: Some random woman with a blog.

The hardest part, of all this, is recognizing that I’m not just some random woman with a blog any more. That I actually can’t be some random woman with a blog, any more, from here on out. I used to have, for the longest time, under 400 readers here; now, I have over 1,100. Since most of them don’t “like” posts, I don’t know how many are hate-readers. (I mean, aside from iamhatereadingyou.tumblr.com. That one was pretty clear about it.) And I came across a disembodied Tumblr tag — no posts tagged with it, so I don’t know how it came to be, and I don’t even remember how I found it — that read “Sady Doyle always takes the rape bait.” Meaning that they mean to try again. And again, and again, and here. So, no: This isn’t a safe space for me, any more.

But it’s the “not just a random woman with a blog” thing that hurts the most. Because I never meant to be an authority. Or a “celebrity,” God forbid. Someone told me today that observing my life had really shaped their critical framework in re: M.I.A., and when I look at this post? Or any of the other posts I wrote, like the Christine O’Donnell one, or anything else, relating to how we treat women in the public eye? I think it’s pretty clear that I never fucking wanted to be famous. That I feared it.

But every time I do something, no matter how decisively I self-sabotage, the number of people reading me gets higher and higher. And so does the volume of the hate. And here’s the thing: The reason I don’t want to be an authority? Is that I don’t know how.

I didn’t go to J-school. I majored in poetry. I never had any media training. I don’t know how to give an interview. I never had any training in how to run a publication; I just did what I saw my editors do, and not as well. I definitely do not think I would be any good on TV. If you want me to be an authority, or a New Feminist Figurehead, or a role model, or any of that? Fucking tell me how. Like, really. I would appreciate that. Assume that I can’t take hints or learn from your experience or example: Sit me down, make a chart, and then walk me through the chart. SHOW. ME. HOW to be a celebrity, an authority, a role model, a feminist figurehead.

Because I figured everything else out because (a) a few people were very kind to me, and (b) uh, instinct? Because I’m just a random, insignificant, un-admirable woman who started a blog, whose blog unaccountably started to be read by more and more and more people. That is all I am. Don’t look up to me; recognize that you are me. You could do this. If I could, anyone could. That’s the lesson.

The thing is, though, this was the last space I could be random and unrecognized and unremarkable and a random woman with a blog. And now that I’ve showed them how to find it? I can’t be that here, either. So I’m going to step away from this space, and buy one of them Moleskine journals, and when I come back, I’ll be ready to not be Sady any more. I’ll be ready to be Feminism, and to be A Good Representative For The Movement.

And it sucks, that I can’t be myself for you or with you any more. But that’s how it is. The amount of spaces in which I can be a real person are gradually sort of shrinking, because the audience keeps getting bigger. If you’re my friend already, I’ll see you over drinks, and you can meet me again. I don’t think you should or will meet me back here. For what it’s worth.

(via sadydoyle)