Sugar Daddy struggles to keep a hard-on for Sugar Baby in Sugar Baby’s dinky bedroom sublet, despite having her puffy college pussy yawning for the tip of his dick in doggy style. Sure, other men might be able to perform while girlish giggles and footsteps sound off from outside of the messy and weed-rank bedroom — hell, the indecency might even add to the session for some with proud perversions, but Sugar Daddy considers this to be “traumatic” for him. He has a daughter around Sugar Baby and her 20-something-year-old roommates’ age, and he can’t help but feel like he’s about to be the victim of a setup organized by his wife and recorded by a YouTube-verified pedophile hunter.

In an attempt to stay present and get his money’s worth, he awkwardly pushes his limp dick into Sugar Baby’s hole and holds it there with his hands, hopeful that it will grow inside of her. Sugar Baby forges a moan, prompting his soft cock to fold and slip out. She rolls her eyes at the rejection and sways her ass from side to side like a finger gesturing to “come here.” But it’s no use. Something about experiencing where she lives disgusts Sugar Daddy. A pile of dirty clothes is stacked on an Ikea chair, and an ashtray painted in thick layers of tar is by her bedside. Beloved polaroids of friends and puppies are taped to the walls. An in-call session isn’t her preference either. Still, Sugar Daddy offered to pay her a fatter allowance to observe her (fuck her) in her natural habitat, a curiosity he, or at least his dick, now regrets. “Do you have a Viagra or something?” she asks, turning around to face him. “No, I don’t. I’m so sorry,” Sugar Daddy says, “You know me, this doesn’t usually happen. I don’t know what’s wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here.” “Awww are you scared?” she teases, lightly flicking his flaccid penis with the soft ball of her foot. “Don’t worry about it. Wait here.” Like a sprite, she runs out of the room naked and with knots in her hair. Sugar Daddy can hear the opening and closing of kitchen cabinets, muffled laughter, and the digital hum and beep of a microwave while he waits naked and helpless at the edge of her full-size bed. He dissociates.

Until she’s standing above him like a nurse or an angel with a red, white, and blue jar of marshmallow fluff. She drops to her knees and tugs on his balls, dipping them into the tub of fluff, just skimming the top—“Ah, it’s warm!” Sugar Daddy squirms. Sugar Baby smirks devilishly when she says, “I know. Doesn’t it feel nice? Just relax.” Sugar Daddy closes his eyes and unclenches his posture with a deep exhale, permitting his low-hanging fruits to drop lower into the porcelain paste. The warm and sticky supports his nuts like a memory foam 10 pillow before it swallows them with an ooze. In anticipatory rapture, Sugar Baby gasps as she submerges Sugar Daddy’s soft head and shaft into the pillowy goo so that he’s completely sunken. He gives into the plunge, releasing an awkward little whimper. Sugar Baby observes his confused delight and licks some flooded fluff off her fingers. She slowly glides the flexible container away from his groin, revealing his erection plastered in a dripping hot mess of marshmallow. “Mmm, there we go,” she sighs. Sugar Daddy opens his eyes and can’t help but laugh at how gross and stupid his dick looks. Has she done this before? Who taught her this? Did she read about this on Reddit? Does she have an older brother? What’s their relationship like? He’s getting in his head again.

Sugar Baby laps her tongue around his shiny white cock head until it’s clean and pink, then pulls away from him. She swallows the thick creamy confection before declaring, “YUM!” White speckles cling to the corners of her mouth as she smiles up at him. Sugar Daddy smiles back at the kid in a candy shop before he pushes her head down to his balls. She sucks and tugs on them like she’s pulling taffy, letting her frothy white sugar spit dribble from her chin down to her tits and onto the floor. His balls and cock are clean with slobber. Sugar Baby unhinges herself from his gooch and begs, “Please fuck me, daddy. I’m so wet.” She slides against the wooden floor onto all fours, pushing her head into the pool of fallen drool and fluff. She spreads her ass cheeks apart. Sugar Daddy stands and shoves his cock deep into her. She squeals and sweats and licks the dirty, gooey floorboards clean while he drives into her as fast as the old man can in the pornographic position. Sweat flies from his brow onto her back. A splodge of marshmallow adorns her asshole. Sugar Daddy fingers it while he fucks. He unplugs his finger from her ass and licks it, dissolving the sugar against his cheek. His legs cramp. He crimsons from exhaustion. His dick deflates once more.

“What the fuck!” Sugar Baby springs up. She’s annoyed and offended. Sugar Daddy collapses onto her bed. He’s breathless, embarrassed, and $700 poorer. “It’s fine,” she says coolly, recognizing his defeat; she’s an empath. “Why don’t we try that again? Close your eyes and breathe for me.” He does as he’s told. “That’s a good boy, daddy.” Sugar Baby grabs the mutilated container of fluff from off the floor and steadily slips it over his collapsed penis as she whispers, “Just relax…everything is sweet and warm in life right now.” And suddenly, Sugar Daddy believes that to be true. Life is sweet and warm right now: her voice, her grubby snug bed, her readiness to please and be patient with him, and, of course, her maniacal marshmallow fluff which now softly seeps into the grooves of his growing dick like she’s taking a silicone mold. Spotting his comfort on the exhale, Sugar Baby gently lifts and lowers the sticky warm jar atop his cock as if she were jerking him off with a pocket pussy. The more his dick stretches, the tighter the fluff closes in on it. Sugar Daddy moans and bites his lip as Sugar Baby jerks him off faster and faster. “Are you gonna cum for me, daddy?” she purrs. He lets the fluff become him. He’s just a cock in a cement mixer and she is the cement mixer. He cums.

“Daddy, you did it!” She yanks the plastic tub off of him, releasing a big pop as his dick spills out into the cold air. She slips on a nightgown, hands him a pink towel from her dresser, then grabs the container of fluff before directing him to take his time getting dressed. “Meet me in the living room when you’re ready.” Sugar Daddy cleans his cum-candy-covered dick and balls with the towel, leaving it a sticky mess on her bed for her to wash later. Another successful session. He puts on his button-down, jeans, and socks, then makes way to the living room, where there he finds Sugar Baby reclining cozily on the couch with her roommates, sucking on a spoonful of cummy fluff straight from the jar. The girls pass around the sweet slop, taking turns scooping and swallowing their very own heaping spoonful. “Want some?” they ask Sugar Daddy in synchronicity. Sugar Baby makes room for Sugar Daddy on the couch, patting the open seat like she’s calling for a dog. He sits beside her devotedly and opens his mouth. They rotate the jar until it’s devoured and empty. He leaves.

Buy the audiobook here!

Buy the new Just the PiXXX edition of My Gaping Masshole here!

Upgrade your sub to unlock XXX “Fluff or Nut” collages from My Gaping Masshole 🕳️❤️🤍💙

Read more

Can’t read? No problem! The cult favorite gets stripped down to just the pictures.

This special edition of My Gaping Masshole gapes wider than ever as an expanded collection of every collage from the original hardcover alongside 30+ never-before-published works.

Brought to you by Cum Punk, My Gaping Masshole: Just the PiXXX has over 100 pages of Masshole debauchery, highlighting our beloved culture, people, and places through digital collage and photography by Madison Murray.

Got blurbs? A plenty!…

Put this book on your coffee table and scare your visitors. 5 stars.
—Andy Ferg, North Shore Beefs

Art for guys that like roast beef sandwiches. Girls who like plumbers.
—Lucas Restivo, forthcoming author of several mysterious, undisclosed books

The world has a new folk hero, and no, we don’t mean Luigi Mangione.
We’re talking about Madison Murray.
—Boston.com

Preorder HERE and get all this for just $30!*

• A signed copy of the book!

• Entry into a special raffle!

• An eXXXclusive digital photo set and video from the artist

• Loads of Cum Punk swag!

*ONLY 100 PREORDERS AVAILABLE!

HERE ARE 6 BRAND-SPANKING NEW, NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN COLLAGES IN MY GAPING MASSHOLE: JUST THE PIXXX:

Read more

When first they learned about Paul Revere
and his famous ride, the advancing British troops,
the Longfellow poem—“One, if by land,
two, if by sea”—in their 8th grade classroom,
they were unimpressed. And now on the field trip
to Boston’s North End, crowded together inside
the tiny 300-year-old Paul Revere House,
the docent pointing out the original hearth,
wainscot, beams and ceiling joists, they are still
unimpressed. Then out of nowhere, a chamber pot
changes everything: One of the children notices it
under the four-poster, raises his hand and asks
what it is. “A chamber pot,” says the docent. “For pooping
and peeing.” Titters, gasps, giggles and groans go up,
and up go the hands, the follow-up questions buzzing
around the master bedroom of Paul and Sarah Revere,
the children more interested now than they ever were
for any part of the patriot’s story, or the country’s.
“Didn’t they have bathrooms?” “What about
toilet paper?” “What about privacy?” “What about
the smell?” “Where did they empty it?” The class
is all ears now and the docent is hitting her stride
because this is interesting stuff, this is important historical
stuff: “Bathrooms were invented much later,” she says,
“in the 19th century. Here it was either the chamber pot
or a long cold walk to the outhouse in the middle
of the night. They emptied them in the street—everyone did.
They didn’t know about hygiene. They didn’t know yet
about germ theory. The smell was hideous. People got sick.
They died young. Paul Revere had sixteen children,
but only nine survived.” And now the class is impressed—
they’re rapt, engaged, learning. And all because poops and pees
are basic. The stuff of life. The stuff of history. The stuff of poetry.

Paul Hostovsky’s poems appear and disappear simultaneously (ta-da!) and have recently been sighted in those places where they pay you for your trouble with your own trouble doubled, and other people’s troubles thrown in, which never seem to him as great as his troubles, though he tries not to compare. He has no life and spends it with his poems, trying to perfect their perfect disappearances. Visit him at: https://paulhostovsky.com/

Cosmically, our trip followed the Tartan Army’s Boston takeover by just a few days. This wasn’t planned, of course; we don’t give a fuck about sports. But we are from Massachusetts! And I certainly give a fuck about Massachusetts! Many! I wrote a book sexualizing my birthplace, North Shore, Massachusetts. It’s titled My Gaping Masshole. If you haven’t bought or read it yet, you suck! But if you haven’t bought or read it yet because you can’t read, don’t worry! The Just the PiXXX Special Edition cums out with Cum Punk this July and an audiobook drops later this summer. No reading required! Anyways, it was cool to know that Boston loved the Scots and that the love was shared as monumented by Glasgow’s declaration of Boston as their new “sister-city.” And Glasgow was cool. Out of all of the cities and towns we spent time in, Glasgow was by far the best. The people were kind, polite, and helpful, and there was tons of [free] shit to explore.

We started our trip in Glasgow, drove up and down and in and out of the Highlands on the A82, making stops in Glencoe, Skye, Inverness, Perth, and other small villages, and ended it with a few days in Edinburgh.

Overall, I give Scotland 2.7 stars. Here’s a breakdown of my rating…

People: ⭐️⭐️

Not great which was unfortunate! The locals were mostly rude and unhelpful. Glasgow, however, was lovely. The closest Masshole vibe: a little punk, a little nautical, blue collar, hard, but kind. Without Glasgow, they’d get 1 star. The people of Inverness were dicks. My mom asked for a few extra leaves of baby gem lettuce for her meat packed “salad,” and the waitress literally laughed in her face and called her weird. My mom nearly punched her in the face, rightfully so. The people of Edinburgh were disturbingly uncool and off-putting. The only kind person I met in Edinburgh was the Pakistani corner shop owner. We had a nice chat while he let me charge my phone.

Sex Appeal: ⭐️

I saw like 1 hot person. The hottest and best dressed of the Scots were in Glasgow. Everywhere else was so yuck. Zero hotties. Poorly dressed—the men and women and they/thems—with half-assed grooming habits. Men had long finger nails and interesting facial hair (scraggly beards, chin straps, etc.) Badly-barbered mullets. Women were spray tan orange with Sharpie-filled eyebrows. Many of them wore Western inspired clothes—cheetah print cowboy hats, cowboy boots, “hip hop” garb (as labeled in the thrift stores)—which was weird. They all looked ancient(!) with smokers’ lines and dry skin, which made me all the more ashamed to be white. It didn’t help that they were all vaping. Pick up a cigarette, goddamnit!

Fun: ⭐️⭐️

I had fun, because I can have fun anywhere. But it seemed like most of the Scots required alcohol to have fun. I don’t know if it’s a generational or cultural thing or what, but I went to an Ethel Cain concert in Edinburgh and it was literally the worst audience I have ever witnessed. Barely anyone danced or hollered to the music! As I screamed the lyrics and jumped my American ass up and down to “American Teenager,” Scots in camo and cowboy boots stared at me with disgust.

Diversity: ⭐️⭐️

I think I saw a total of 10 black people throughout the whole trip. Not a single latino! :( Most of the people of color I saw were either tourists, UberEats or taxi drivers, or corner shop workers. Alhamdulillah for them!

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️

It is clear that the UK hates fat people. I’m not even fat and I could barely fit through the baby-narrow doors. In addition to everything having been built for little people, the locals’ rudeness makes asking for help uncomfortable. Usher Hall, Edinburgh venued the Ethel Cain show and the “accessibility” ticket holders just had a separate General Admissions line to uncomfortably stand in. Stairs and hills everywhere. Gross toilets that barely flush. Not a bidet in sight! Do NOT go if you have IBS.

Food & Drink: ⭐️⭐️

Beer, pasties, pastries, and meat. Good luck finding a vegetable if you have high cholesterol! The most affordable food could be found in the main cities (Glasgow and Edinburgh). In the Highlands/touristy villages like Glencoe and Inverness, expect to pay a lot for a little. Go to a grocery store instead. Massholes: they don’t have iced coffee/cold brew! Just iced lattes and iced americanos.

Accommodations: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Scotland has way better accommodations than London, that’s for sure. The hotels actually have air-conditioning and breakfast. The bougier ones have pools and shit. There are also a lot of free and low-rate “car park” and campsite options for van-lifers, backpackers, and bad planners. While in the Highlands, we chose to sleep in the car beside some castle ruins, a cemetery, and sheep farm instead of go bankrupt for a moldy BnB. Park 4 Night rules.

Activities & Sites: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

While some cost money, many of the museums, churches, and universities are free to tour. My favorites were the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow Cathedral, University of Glasgow (roll down the hills!), Glasgow Glasgow Glasgow, Castle Roy, and Blair Castle and Gardens. Go to Glasgow!

Nature: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I mean, duh. I skinny-dipped in the fairy pools, bothered some happy cows and sheep, rolled down hills, slapped mud on my face, and collected pretty rocks, wildflowers, and feathers.

Budget & Value: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

While the UK is expensive, it offers loads of free shit to do—nature-based and educational. The highlights of the trip were the Highlands and Glasgow; I will definitely be back! I doubt I will find my husband in Scotland and that’s okay.

Here are some pics from my trip! <3 <3 <3 <3

“There are ghosts in the walls,” my father said out of breath, sweating and sitting shirtless on the flower covered sheet on the vine patterned sofa. He had just finished feverishly tearing down the entirety of the horsehair and plaster wall behind where he now rested. The rolling sweat made visible trails and tracks on his dust covered forehead and shoulders, as he drank from a bottle of Maalox like it was a soda. Strewn on the coffee table were messy necessities. Ashtray, pack of Camels, assorted pills and various powders of beige and white, nosebleed rag, and a freshly lit cig tucked in between bleeding knuckles. A rusted 10 lb crowbar teetered on the arm of the couch. In the iron fork tongue: wedged chunks of dirt grey sheetrock mixed with thick black hairs and dry dark wood splinters. I could tell the hallway leading to my bedroom was next up for demo because the gold framed picture of sad haloed baby Jesus was removed from the wall and placed safely out of the way. This couch respite was just a coffee break of sorts.

“There are ghosts in the walls,” he said as he looked, truth in his eyes.

“I know,” I couldn’t say back or out loud.

But the notion was conveyed and understood, I believe that to this day. Recovering his breath with a satisfying exhale and double-handed knee slap, he rose.

“Here’s a five. Run down the lil’ store and get me and ya Ma some cigarettes,” [pack of Camels(his) and Winston’s(hers)], “you can get a bag of chips and some baseball coins and a slush fa you and ya brotha”…

January 1990

The radio clicked on, “goodnight champ,” and my hair was ruffled by a calloused, cigarette-stained hand that felt like an old leather baseball glove running over my head. Fred and Derek whispered that the Bruins were down 1-0 in the first to Winnipeg. Rain tapped on the window. The green rotting steel brontosaurus stretched across the Oilies, where they had just fished out Charles Stuart’s body. In the ashtray on the nightstand were 3 snuffed Camels and a pack of Trojans, some of them used.

In the 90s, I lived on a street named “Old Iron Sides Way” in the shadow of the Maurice J (Tobin) a couple blocks from the Navy yard and the parking spot of the USS Constitution, Charlestown and Boston was a very different place at that time. The Navy yard and the surrounding areas were completely abandoned. Looked like a Walking Dead set my entire childhood.

I was home when Chuck chucked himself off the upper deck into “the Oilies” (that’s what Townies call the part of the harbor under the Tobin). The Stuart family used to make the “hot lunch” for some of the Catholic schools in the area, $1.50 square pizza Fridays once a month.

I’m Joshua Manning. Born and raised in Charlestown, MA in the 1980s/90s. It shaped a great part of who I am, a Townie’s Blood$Bones to the CornerBoys&CornerGirls of Cornerville. I dabble in artistic endeavors and writing to sift through the trauma of growing up in that particular place and time.

I’m a tour guide in the city of Boston with Mobsters and Lobsters. Anyone need a ride? You’ll see me out there. Lunch is the best meal. I’m a sub shop guy ❤️

A poet and fiction writer, he is the author of New Age Self Help (2024), Boston Spleen (2025), Man with Head Removed (2025), and novel On Fire (2026), which he’s gradually self-publishing on his substack. He’s the frontman of Boston hardcore band Be Released.

I first met Sam Robinson at some Salem house party or basement show or backyard in high school, through mutual friends. “Met” is a strong word. But hey, we were in some of the same buildings (and even rooms!) as one another on certain weekends, when I’d drink up the courage to stray from my art school gays to drink with my public school gays and their hometown friends. I envied and observed their community. I’m sure Sam and I “met”, and probably even spoke to one another at a few points, but not about art or writing or so soberly. How cool is it to age, use the internet, and have a memory sparked by a writer’s name on an indie publisher’s page? And how cool is it to learn that you like their writing?

In this feature, I reconnect with Sam to talk about his debut novel, his involvement in Boston’s hardcore scene, his creative output, and what he calls “impatience” but what I’d call “grit.” And Massachusetts, of course.

What do you love about MA?
I love the proximity to the ocean more than anything, the proximity to the mountains as well. I love it as a home, which means I have a fair amount of disagreement with it.

What do you hate about MA?
There’s basically no space, and it’s often impossible to see the sky. It’s a huge thicket of settlement that has just been piled up over what, 400 years almost? It’s also way too expensive.

Do you think you want to live in MA forever?
“It seems like forever is a mighty long time…” but I’ve been here this long. I would like to live somewhere else, but I haven’t done it so I may never do so.

In your own words, define “Masshole.”
There’s the stereotype that people from Massachusetts are “kind but not nice” whereas people from, say, California, are “nice but not kind.” That’s true up to a point. Now it’s become a self-referential thing, I think, almost a parody of itself but there’s nothing wrong with that, that’s just what happens. Massholes have a love-hate relationship with the place they’re from, and an extreme one… they’ll complain for a lifetime and never leave, never even consider it.

You’ve been making art and collaborating with other artists in MA forever—I remember hearing SUPERTEEN in high school. And you released a new EP with Be Released in June 2025. Which was your first love? Visual art, creative writing or music?
SUPERTEEN… wow… haven’t heard that name in a while. I fell in love with reading first, but never really thought I could be a writer. It’s kind of hard to say I even “am” a “writer.” I sell door hardware… sorry, I fell into a melancholy fugue, where was I… I loved reading first, then I heard punk music via my older sister when I was in middle school and in high school I really fell in love with that, wanted nothing more than to be in a band and was lucky enough to have some friends who felt the same and some of us have been playing music together to this day… we’ve actually got a new project in the works, actually, as yet unnamed.

How do your different mediums inform and inspire one another?
I’ve pretty much always been a singer in whatever band I was in, and I think I wrote lyrics before I wrote anything in the way of a story or a poem. I want to keep the musical element present in my writing, or the sonic or whatever… a lot of writing handles language in this clumsy way, it sounds like shit when you read it. Poetry has this problem especially! Which is a travesty.

What’s a poem? What’s a story? For me, it’s like, a poem is an energy (I usually write them when I’m angry), a sound, or image, whereas a story feels more right-brained. How do you determine which is which?
For me, a poem will come by inspiration, usually in a single moment, and I write it and it’s done. A story is much more something constructed, takes multiple sittings, I have to leave the stream of creation and try and get back in, but you can’t get back in the same river twice…

Where do you like to create? And what time of day? Does it matter?
I try and write when I can, a lot of stuff starting from a note in my phone… I’ll write at work instead of working. Sometimes I’m more productive in the morning, other times in the night. I have a room in my apartment where I write and work out (which I find very helpful for the life of the mind… certain people who love words can get bogged down and stranded in logocentrism…Mishima spoke of this…) and I do love writing there.

Favorite MBTA stop?
Damn… I want to say Central, but only because it’s how you’d get to Seven Stars, which is the best bookstore in the city. I wish North Station hadn’t fallen off so hard. It was better when it was worse.

I read several passages from your chapbook, Boston Spleen (All Flux Press, 2025). What came first for you—the places or the people?
Not to give an non answer but they both came to me… or the people were in the places, which are also places where I was. I had also just been reading Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen, a collection of similar prose-poem vignettes or decadent Parisian life, and that reading fertilized my mind to give birth to that chapbook.

Where in God’s name can we purchase Boston Spleen?
I’d rather you buy Man with Head Removed, which has that included with another 200ish pages of poetry. If you really want a copy hit my line, though, I still have a few that I made by hand. It was fun. They came out well.

Congrats on Man with Head Removed! Was that self-published?
Thank you, it was self-published with critical support from my friend Raegan Bird. Did it out of impatience, and I think in large part from the experience of playing in bands and just posting music on the internet without waiting for gatekeepers to approve it. This attitude is much more frowned upon in the literary world, probably because people are more cowardly there.

Why/do you think people from Salem and/or North Shore are good writers?
Salem specific, I’d say proximity to the power plant (IYKYK) or maybe periodic possession by spirits…the veil is thinner there. Massachusetts in general punches well above its weight in terms of writers.

What’s next for you? How can we best support you and your work?
I’m publishing a novel at my substack. I have a couple poetry manuscripts currently languishing in the inboxes of more or less indifferent publishers. I have nothing to offer but my work, which doesn’t get you as far as it should in the “creative world.” Like and subscribe… the best thing you can do is read what I write. I’m also learning about psychoanalysis. I’m going to pivot to being an amateur analyst. If you want to be my analysand, please do not hesitate to reach out. My rates are very reasonable!

Jeu No. 171 (Rats!)

Still
nothing
but eyes
make
tears.

Jeu No. 25 (Made Mad)

Good luck compelling my baptism!
I just got out of the river, I’m clean,
the Sun is going down, despite that
approaching chill I must sit down to
watch the last precious metal flee us,
then pray outdoors for its safe return.
I’m thinking… a sacrifice! A festival,
exuberantly red to pierce the world-
night… you up? It’s going to be so lit.

Jeu No. 42

All comes from trying to tell the secret
in another language. Je joue le jeu.

Sam Robinson is a writer from Salem, Massachusetts. He publishes regularly at sunworship.substack.com.

Mara Palmquist is a home grown folk and tattoo artist with formal training in sign painting, and a devoted wife and cat/dog mom. She’s been slaying tattoos for 17 years (Woop! Woop!) She’s also an avid fan of hip hop, comic books, and video games.

Whether she’s in New Hampshire or Ontario, tattooing, painting signs, or being the world’s best wife, Mara owes her charm and attitude to her North Shore roots.

Subscribe now

MY GAPING MASSHOLE
Where did you grow up?

MARA PALMQUIST
I was raised in Rockport, MA in a working class home, I lived there til 18, then I spent about 12 years living in the Beverly/Salem area! I also attended sign painting trade school in Boston for 2 years, and spent a year in Amesbury before moving North!

Both my parents are from MA (though mom was born at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard when gramps was stationed there during the Korean War), my dad was actually born at home in Rockport, Massachusetts, making him one of the last “real” townies (RIP Mom and Papa Palmquist). I also have “North” and “Shore” tattooed across my wrists.

Where do you live now?
These days I make my home in NH—Dirty Dovah—to be specific. Even though I don’t live there now, Massachusetts will ALWAYS be home to me. Every time I’m in Rockport the air feels heavy with memories and ghosts. I have been thinking more and more of leaving New England altogether though, the cold is starting to seep into my bones…

What do you love about MA?
The people! And the social services available! (Both of these in comparison to NH, which features beautiful nature and a very specific form of “freedom”). I love a good rotary!

We absolutely might appear cold or unfriendly but we take care of each other. A fishing vessel, the Lily Jean, was lost with all hands off Gloucester just recently. This is an absolutely monumental tragedy but I know the community is rallying around the families and doing their best to honor the legacy of those lost to the sea.

What do you hate about MA?
The cold is really starting to get into my bones. I think Dunks coffee is mid, at best. I still LOVE dunks though because it means “home”. My wife is Canadian and I love to see the Tim Hortons turn into Dunks when we are driving back from Ontario!

In your own words, define “Masshole.”
I am stealing it from someone else on your page! I read Charcoal Boston’s explanation and it really stuck with me. To paraphrase, it was something along the lines of, “Massholes are kind, but not nice. In other places, people are nice but not kind. A Masshole will help change your tire in the snow, but will talk shit to you while they do it.”

How long have you been tattooing for and how did you get into it? Where did you apprentice?
I have been tattooing professionally for 17 years now! I just kind of…decided I wanted to be a tattooer when I grew up, and did it! Some of my friends joke that I’m the only person they know who said, “I’m going to do such and such when I grow up,” and actually did it.

Like I said earlier, I come from Rockport. It’s pretty richy there these days but my family wasn’t like that at all. Growing up, Rockport was not exactly a bastion of tattoo art so tattoos weren’t really on my radar til I was about 14. My best friend at the time was another teen girl, and she was dating…an adult man. I think he was 26? Obviously as a grown up I understand how fucking horrific that is, but as a teen I just thought we were cool… He had some tattoos but more than that, he had tattoo magazines! This was back in Ye Old Tymes when the internet wasn’t really a thing yet, so these magazines were my first exposure to tattoos, and I fell in love. I still remember sitting in the back of English class flipping through those magazines and thinking, “This. For me. Forever.” I know it sounds silly, but that was it for me.

I worked 2 jobs through high school—as a cashier/office girl at the local IGA (RIP) and as a cook at the Fish Shack in Rockport (which is still going strong)! While still in high school, tattooing was legalized in MA and the Purple Scorpion (RIP </3) opened up in Gloucester. I started finding any excuse to spend time there, telling everyone of my intentions to one day also be a tattooer, and was eventually asked if I would like to work the counter. I went to sign painting trade school after high school so my mom didn’t freak out. And then I started my apprenticeship. A couple years later, I was a full fledged tattoo artist!

Do you have any favorite tattoos you’ve done? Favorite style?
I like anything that’s bright, bold, colorful. That’s my favorite stuff. I love American Traditional, New Skool, Color Bomb, NeoTraditional. But really, it’s like asking what my favorite flavor of ice cream is. It’s all ice cream!

For specific tattoos, I did a piece that’s pinned on my instagram of Reptar as Godzilla attacking a city. Also the Nuka Cola caps. I have an Introduction Reel pinned on my insta as well and that has a bunch of my favorites if anyone wants to check it out!

Weirdest tattoo you’ve ever done?
Haha, soooooo many weird things. I do weird things everyday! Usually when people ask me this question, they wanna hear about genitals, and I am all about giving the people what they want!

I once tattooed a Bumble Bee on the head of a man’s Johnson. His reasoning? He knew of a group of guys who were in Vietnam together and they each got a fly tattooed on their dick. He was telling a gal about it and she said, “You’d never do something like that,” so he did! Went with a bee to be different, and because then, “It’s just a little sting.” Same dude came back later to get the yellow touched up, and to get a tiny shamrock on the other side!

I’ve done some other genital tattooing, but the only other one of note was this guy who came in as a walk in, wanted angry eyes on either side of the head, so it looks angry when it’s coming at ya…

He growled and barked like a dog while I did it, and brought not only his wife, but also his best friend, and his best friend’s wife? I can only assume they were swingers.

What are, in your opinion, the main differences between the North Shore and NH?
Ooooh geez, haha, really putting me in a spot here. I love both places, and New Hampshire is where I’ve chosen to make my home as an adult, but I am SO GLAD I was raised in Massachusetts and shaped by the views there…

It feels like MA cares about its citizens a little more, and it feels like it’s easier to be poor there. NH claims to care A LOT about freedom, but it’s the freedom to not wear a helmet or a seat belt, the freedom not to insure your car. If you’d like the freedom to…smoke the devil’s lettuce you better get back to Puritanical MA (or…literally anywhere surrounding NH…) but you know… Freedom!

NH definitely feels like the South of the North to me, and the Free State Movement is real! It is cool that we have guns, and flavored tobacco products! And we have some really wonderful nature up here, and no income OR sales tax! I know our property taxes are supposedly high to compensate but I find them similar to what I’ve seen on the North Shore.

Most Beautiful Rt 1 Landmark (dead or alive):
I would have to say the Hilltop sign! I saw someone online somewhere discussing the Hilltop, this person was talking about going there for a big steak dinner after getting their American citizenship and going there and being like, “This is America!,” in the best way. As a kid, I thought the Hilltop was probably the fanciest place around!

Most Hideous Rt 1 Landmark (dead or alive):
I would have to say Karla’s Shoes. But hideous doesn’t mean unloved! It’s been a trip watching that building’s slow decay over the years, and to see it gain recent popularity and have its story told by various podcasters and what not! Who doesn’t love a good home grown Urban Legend?

How can we support and book you?
Easiest way to support OR book would be to give me a follow on the social media! I am @sweet_tattoos_by_mara on insta and just sweettattoosbymara on most other things!

You can also shoot me an email at sweettattoosbymara@yahoo.com or stop by the Seacoast’s oldest continuously operating tattoo shop, Jim’s Tattoo Studio, in lovely Seabrook, NH, on a Monday, Tuesday, Friday, or Saturday to say hi!

I do tattoos, take sign painting commissions, paint, sell prints and flash. I also have some limited edition pins available. Come check it out! See what I have to offer!

Subscribe now

Shoot your shot! Contact Jo on Instagram at @jofaelynbova

Submit to love and to be featured here. 🤍🩵💛🩷❤️

Shoot your shot! Contact Jess on Instagram at @professional.sweetheart

Submit to love and to be featured here. 🤍🩵💛🩷❤️

Shoot your shot! Contact Melissa on Instagram at @iamthesubpargatsby

Submit to love and to be featured here. 🤍🩵💛🩷❤️

Collage elements: cock ring dick pic from an anonymous Masshole and an original painting by My Gaping Masshole author, Madison Murray.

Will the Patriots get their seventh Super Bowl [cock] ring tonight? 💍💍💍💍💍💍💍🍆💦💦💦

Buy the book

Subscribe now

The Original Bianchi’s Pizza, Revere, MA: “I was flirting with the girls on the counter. It was a quickie and a blowjob after closing with some Revere girl who loved my punk haircut. Back then it was a 10/10. Now, it would be about 3/10” – Anon

Salem Willows Bushes, Salem, MA: “I was 18 and had just started smoking cigarettes. I’m 60% sure a homeless man was watching us. He like power-walked by us with a huge smile after we were done. We both basically made eye contact and never talked about it again. 5/10” – Anon

Read more

There was the Northshore Shopping Center, an outdoor shopping center and mini amusement park that opened to the public in 1958. Throughout the 1960s, the Northshore Shopping Center was, “the ‘go to’ spot for all shopping,” according to one commenter on Facebook.

North Shore Massholes could enjoy “Kiddietown,” the parking lot’s own perpetual carnival decked out with a ferris wheel, carousel, bowling alley, and car track, in-between running errands at Sears and Jordan Marsh. Later in the 60s, Carmelite Chapel, the first ever mall Catholic Chapel in the United States, and a cinema opened at the shopping center. Films such as Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and Disney’s “Miracle of the White Stallions” were played.

In 1972, New England Development decided to enclose the outdoor shopping center into a proper two-story mall to compete with the now desolate Liberty Tree Mall.

There aren’t many relics of the Northshore Shopping Center at the Northshore Mall since the renovations that followed its joint venture with Simon Property in 1999, despite many older Massholes’ heartfelt memories of it. I suppose boomers’ nostalgia for Kiddietown and the Northshore Shopping Center is like our own for Bugaboo Creek.

The Carmelite Chapel still remains in the basement level of the Northshore Mall. Try praying next time you’re there to visit the Genius Bar. Maybe you’ll be saved in more ways than one.

Resources:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/6380750228712142/posts/24550314071329147/

https://www.allproelectric.com/post/the-northshore-mall-a-timeline

https://www.tumblr.com/peabodyinstitutearchives/159754792158/a-postcard-of-funland-at-northshore-shopping

Subscribe now

Ryan Davis grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts. He was exposed to a community driven by working class fishermen and traditional seascape artists. He has had the opportunity to be both an artist and a lobsterman; this has molded his work.

Ryan Davis is known primarily for his oil paintings and drawings that focus on a variety of subject matter including New England maritime seascapes to Pop-Art.

He has shown his work nationally and internationally in Italy, Ireland and Denmark. Davis received his BA in Art and-Art History and Business in the Liberal Arts from St. Lawrence University in 2018. Additionally, he received his Master’s Degree from the New York Academy of Art in 2022. He currently lives and works in Rockport, Massachusetts.

MY GAPING MASSHOLE
Rockport is so dead in the winter, but I’ve never been mad about it (I’m antisocial like that). When is your favorite time to be in Rockport? Any suggestions for winter activities for people “over the bridge?”

RYAN DAVIS
I love the changes of seasons here because it resets my mind and body and helps me continue to be creative and not fall into a boring routine. Personally, I love Rockport during the fall/ winter as the cold temperatures make a cozy creative environment for me. As someone who loves being outside I often find it hard to get work done in the studio when it’s sunny and 75 degrees.

As for winter activities in Rockport, I enjoy exploring the snow covered paths of Halibut Point State Park. Grabbing a morning coffee on Bearskin neck and gallery hopping around town. The Rockport Art Association has a great collection of historic and emerging artists too! Lastly, a great way to wrap up the day would be to take a nice long walk at Long Beach!

What do you love about MA?
Being by the water, surrounded by nature, and, of course, Dunkin Donuts!

What do you hate about MA?
The cost of living, for sure! Too many potholes on the roads.

In your own words, define “Masshole.”
An individual who is passionate, stern and unapologetic about Massachusetts culture, embracing erratic driving, Dunkin, and using “wicked” every other word.

What is your process like? Do you work off of photographs?
I would say my process is all over the place—when creating a painting I use a combination of photos, photoshop, and my imagination. I like to create a scene that’s believable but not perfect in the sense that its an exact match to my photo. I start with a black and white underpainting to match values but try and make up color as I go.

I’m obsessed with how you combine the traditional and contemporary in your work; it’s something I tried to do in my book, My Gaping Masshole. Especially in your case, it really captures the power of the landscape—its consistency and co-dependency with its people throughout time—and Massachusetts’ cross-generational working-class culture. When you’re working, do you think about who came before you in this landscape—and who’s still inside it now? How do you decide what to preserve versus what to disrupt?

Oh yes, 100%. I love spending time reading novels on the history of Cape Ann whether that’s related to art or marine culture. I enjoy getting to know my environment and studying artists like Fritz Henry Lane, Winslow Homer, Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper and Emile Gruppe to name a few. My work now tends to lean towards the preservation of history rather than the disruption of it. I think in today’s climate, it’s important to stay unified. That being said, I have spent more time collecting historic images of fishermen working as inspiration. Something about bringing back a lost past is magical to me

.Which landscape do you keep returning to in your work and why?
The Annisquam Lighthouse beach has been a subject of my work many times for its charming, quiet, and undisturbed beauty. It’s the perfect location to watch a sunset and offers amazing views of the ocean! For me, it’s the epitome of New England.

Would you rather be a fish or a seagull?
A seagull. The ability to fly with very little predators and unlimited food sounds like the perfect life to me!

What’s next from Ryan Davis?
Lots more larger work! I’d like to focus on work involving the landscape but with more figures, drama and story telling. I am also in the process of getting work out there to different galleries in hopes of spreading my work outside of Rockport, MA.

Where can we purchase your work and support you?
I have a number of works available through the Rockport Gallery (Rockport, MA), Gallery Poulsen (Copenhagen, Denmark), and the Bryan Memorial Gallery (Stowe, VT). I often run studio sales via my instagram @Ryan_Davis_Artwork and have prints available on my website: Ryan-Davis-Artwork.com. For inquires about specific works or if you would like to contact me please message me on instagram or email me at Rdavi14@outlook.com

Subscribe now

What’s OUT in 2026:

Market Basket. My very first panic attack took place at the Market Basket in Danvers, Massachusetts in 2009. The first (and only, I swear!) No Trespass Order I’ve ever received was from the Salem, Massachusetts’ Market Basket in 2025. Let’s not forget the infamous Cease and Desist their lawyer sent me. I think it’s best I move on.

Kowloon (as we know and love it). While we haven’t received any updates on Kowloon’s condominium redevelopment plans, we’re praying to little baby Jesus that the Wong family is listening to all of our bitching and-moaning, and reconsidering the design.

Saying Durkee & Mower Fluff is from Somerville, MA. Fake news. H. Allen Durkee and Fred L. Mower were both graduates of Swampscott High School and opened their Durkee & Mower factory in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1929.

Overusing AI. Way too many North Shore meme account and small business admins have been dumping buckets of AI all over our social media feeds—cough cough, One Stop Market & Liquors. There are enough real hot women for hire in North Shore that will gladly wear your hoodie for Instagram, buds.

What’s IN in 2026:

Getting involved with the community, even if it means having to create your own space within it to find your people.

Public Access Television. The “youth” has taken over North Shore’s community-access television, and it’s kind of...sexy? Check out podcasts highlighting local artists and comedians, on-the-street interviews, and hyperlocal reality tv.

More spaces for transgressive art in North Shore, Massachusetts. The mainstream North Shore art scene feels like it’s either for students or boring, old people. For the love of God, no more seashells and no more lighthouse paintings (unless the lighthouse is sticking out of someone’s ass), please! Check out Shoe Bones Collective in Salem, Massachusetts for crazy cool art and events, and stay tuned for more artists’ features on the My Gaping Masshole blog!

Courtney is an absolute angel, genius, multimedia artist, small business owner, Snoopy-fanatic, and lover girl. Watch her poke me with needles as we talk about North Shore Beefs, the Rt. 1 HIPPO, and finding love with townies.

Shop Shawty Seven: https://shawtyseven.bigcartel.com/

Book A Tattoo: https://www.timelessink.net/courtney-ryan

WATCH THE FULL 38-MINUTE EPISODE!

Read more

As the essay in its entirety is blocked behind our membership paywall, I shared only the introduction and some key historical context to social media. The people of the internet were certainly aroused by this subject. With almost 5,000 shares and 200 comments either in solidarity with or disgusted by working-class Massholes using the word “retard,” a war was born. How revolutionary! How American! 🕳️

When the comment section turned aggressive with users telling each other to kill themselves, I decided it was time to turn off commenting. I don’t have the time or insurance for all of that. As we say goodbye to the digital debate, let’s look back on some of my personal favorite comments:

Before things got too crazy, I was surprisingly proud to see the discourse that the post influenced amongst Massholes and non-Massholes, some people even commenting from Seattle and the UK (which, ew why?) I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of such a hyper-specific topic causing such an international stir.

People are funny. Camaraderie is funny. And both can be so beautiful and scary.

Subscribe now

In 2025, we the people observed a marked increase in cultural criticism concerning the resurgence of the “r-word” in popular media (The Joe Rogan Experience, Ari Shaffir’s America’s Sweetheart, Elon Musk’s X, etc.) In her CNN article, “The ‘r-word’ is back. How a slur became renormalized,” Scottie Andrew situates the term’s renewed online circulation within the broader rise of “rage-baiting,” a strategic mode of social media engagement that leverages provocation and outrage to maximize visibility and interaction. Other commentators attribute the resurgence of the term to political ableism, while linguists refer to Sharon Henderson Taylor’s “euphemism cycle,” the process by which a neutral term is rendered derogatory through social stigma and subsequently replaced by a new word, which will inevitably become offensive in turn. But aside from its recent mainstream revival, what can be said of the r-word’s persistent use across time and in certain regions such as Massachusetts?

For Massholes, “retard” is cross-generational. Nearly every Masshole—here defined as a proud Massachusetts native from a working-class background—uses the word: to bust balls (”What are you, retarded?”), to emphasize excitement or approval (“Dude, it was so fun it was retarded.”), and, of course, to criticize or insult. If your formative years didn’t involve being called “wicked retahded” by a beloved guardian, I hesitate to believe you can genuinely call yourself a Masshole. The r-word is so closely tied to New England that one could argue its surge in national popularity during the early 2000s traces back to its depiction as regional slang in Massachusetts– and New England–based pop culture, most notably in Good Will Hunting (1997), Family Guy (1999), and The Departed (2006).

So what, then, is the connection between the word “retard” and Masshole identity? 🤔

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest recorded use of the word “retarded” dates back to 1895, appearing in Mentally Deficient Children by British physician and medical superintendent of the Royal Albert Asylum, G.E. Shuttleworth. The clinical term “mental retardation” was introduced to the United States by Maine native and Director of Research at New Jersey’s Vineland Training School, Henry H. Goddard—psychologist, eugenicist, and segregationist—in 1908, following his research on intellectually disabled children in Europe. While there, he became acquainted with the French Binet-Simon intelligence test, developed by Alfred Binet in 1905 to identify children requiring special education, and subsequently translated and adapted it for use in the United States. Goddard’s adaptation of the IQ test categorized intellectual deficiency into 3 levels: “Idiot” (IQ < 25), “Imbecile” (IQ 26-50), and “Moron” (IQ 51-70), all categories considered to be “mentally retarded.”

With the publication of essays in scholarly journals and his 1912 book The Kallikak Family, Goddard’s IQ test spread throughout the nation. By the early 1910s, intelligence testing was being used in a variety of institutions, including public schools and immigration screening at Ellis Island, where Goddard established an early experimental testing program in 1913.

Proud of its reputation for intellectual “progressivism,” Massachusetts was among the first U.S. states to adopt the now evidently flawed IQ testing and implement special education programs in the 1910s. In practice, these tests were often used to identify children deemed “mentally deficient,” many of whom were funneled into the state’s psychiatric institutions, effectively linking educational assessment with institutionalization. Nineteenth-century Massachusetts psychiatric institutions included Worcester State Hospital (1833), Boston Lunatic Hospital (1839), and, of course, Danvers State Lunatic Hospital (1878).

At this time, Massachusetts public schools were systematically using intelligence tests to identify children for “mental deficiency” categories and hiring school psychologists to place them in specialized classes. Over the mid-20th century, psychologists and educators increasingly criticized early IQ tests for being racially and culturally biased, disproportionately misclassifying children from working-class, Black, immigrant, and non–English-speaking backgrounds. These broader patterns of educational inequity were highlighted in the 1965 Report on Racial Imbalance in the Boston Public Schools, conducted by the Massachusetts State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which documented persistent segregation and unequal educational opportunities.

Boston Public Schools reported that 4.31% of students in “predominantly Negro” school districts demonstrated a need for special classes despite being placed in regular classrooms, compared with only 0.75% of students in “predominantly white” districts. This disparity suggests that “predominantly Negro” districts either had higher rates of students misclassified as “retarded” and/or had fewer resources to accommodate students with actual intellectual disabilities. My guess is both.

While Ellis Island discontinued routine IQ testing for immigrants in the 1930s due to cultural bias, most school districts nationwide continued administering IQ tests to children in grades 1–3 well into the 1960s. Subsequent research, critical scholarship, and the gradual dismantling of segregationist and eugenics-based policies contributed to the understanding that intelligence is not fixed, but must be evaluated holistically over time, taking into account an individual’s environment and emotional development. As educational policies became outdated, so too did the language used to describe students. By the 1980s, most school districts had stopped using outdated terms such as “idiot,” “imbecile,” “moron,” and “retard” in student records, transforming the now-pejorative word from a clinical designation into a slur, used derogatorily toward and about people with intellectual disabilities, but also as a normalized slang mocked in schoolyards and at home.

If early 20th-century IQ testing and Massachusetts public school placements disproportionately labeled working-class immigrant children—particularly Irish, Italian, and later Jewish and Eastern European youth—as “morons” or “retarded,” it is unsurprising that these communities subsequently appropriated the term.

Sociolinguistic research demonstrates that marginalized groups frequently reclaim pejorative language as a means of establishing in-group identity, signaling shared experience, and resisting external authority (Bucholtz & Hall, 2004; Eckert, 2000). Within working-class Massachusetts neighborhoods, the repeated deployment of “retahded” among peers, teachers, doctors, and family members could have caused a form of linguistic reclamation: what was a clinical misclassification used to institutionalize minorities, and later as a slur, was transformed into a performative tool for humor, self deprecation, solidarity, and social critique. By the late 20th century, the word would diffuse into some kind of Masshole-vernacular and eventually national popular culture through media in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The word’s mainstream popularization and pejoration contributed to significant cultural and political shifts, demonstrated by Rosa’s Law—a U.S. federal statute passed in 2010 that officially removed the term “mental retardation” from all federal health, education, and labor policies—and by the rise of cancel culture. But who exactly are we cancelling, and why? I would argue that we should stop trying to contribute to the silencing of a community of people the “retard” classification was designed to discriminate against.

The Massachusetts cult classic Good Will Hunting accurately illustrates the different contexts of the modern use of the word, highlighting the line between reclamation and pejoration. Morgan O’Malley, a Southie native and unapologetic asshole, represents Boston’s working-class lower stratum. In one fleeting moment, he calls his best friend and socioeconomic equal, Will Hunting, “retarded” after his friend forgets something—a usage that conveys reactive, casual insult between comrades. In contrast, Professor Lambeau, an academic elitist, refers to Will’s group of friends as “retarded gorillas,” weaponizing the term to discriminate against and disparage Will’s working-class peers.

And obviously, “retard” has been and is still used as a slur to insult people with disabilities. In the comment section of the Instagram post promoting this piece, one user writes, “no one calls people with disabilities retard you call your friends retard after they drunk drive.” Another user writes, “Lots of retards in here. I am yet to see any real ‘violence’ besides calling my friends retarded when they’re being retarded.” With this logic, the person calling a person with a disability “a retard,” becomes the “retard.”

So here’s the basic takeaway: if you’re a WASPy-ass bitch with no personal or cultural stake in the history of the word, just don’t use and/or shut up when others do use it. Or, at the very least, consider the context in which it’s being used and by whom. Quit policing, ya narc! But if you are or descend from a working-class, mentally ill, disabled, poor, and/or immigrant “retard,” maybe you get the pass (in certain situations. You get it—nuance.)

Resources:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/31/us/r-word-slur-comeback-cec

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/retarded_adj?tab=factsheet#25743355

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087798

https://www.wbur.org/news/2010/08/20/strike-the-r-word-from-your-vocabulary

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1263527053

https://www.verywellmind.com/alfred-binet-biography-2795503

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_H._Goddard

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/assessment#:~:text=In%20the%20summer%20of%201908,as%20children%20from%20public%20schools.

https://library.missouri.edu/specialcollections/exhibits/show/controlling-heredity/america/kallikaks

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/r-word-embraced-joe-rogan-elon-musk-inches-back-mainstream-rcna203277

https://www.usccr.gov/files/historical/1965/65-003.pdf

https://findingaids.loc.gov/exist_collections/ead3pdf/mss/2009/ms009071.pdf#:~:text=Ickes%20wrote%20regularly%20for%20the,the%20needs%20of%20the%20people.

https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/good-will-hunting-1997.pdf?v=1729114917

https://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/lib/detail.html?id=2236&page=all