I was on a diet at nine. Atkins at thirteen. I have been on the receiving end of my family telling me I needed to lose weight, of dates who made me the joke, of men at bars who came up to me and said: you look a lot bigger when you stand up. The only effect I felt like I had when I walked into a room was to give people something to comment on. How much my body had chosen to grow. What I’d done wrong with it.

I tried for a long time to change my body. Stop it from expanding. I lost twenty pounds before my dad died. Gained fifty after. Then severe back problems, anti-inflammatory everything, PT. A little weight lost again. I am 39 now with a fully formed frontal lobe, and size 20 jeans, I am just now starting to understand that the weight never needed protecting from the cruelty of others. But more so, how I felt about it needed to adjust . . . and thus giving myself more power than I realized I had.

What I believed: I don’t matter enough to hurt anyone. So why be careful.

A reference (non-fat): the 30 Rock episode where Liz Lemon goes to her high school reunion and finds out she was the bully. Blerg. She was just trying to protect herself from the hurt she assumed her beautiful classmate would bestow on her. But it was just her own self-hate finding somewhere/someone to hit.

A reference (fat): I just started watching American Housewife . . . I love Katy Mixon in it. Her character moves to Westport, Connecticut, all these thin polished women around her, openly fatphobic to her face. And she has every right to be guarded. But then she turns around and does the same thing to people who just wanted to be her friend. And it’s so uncomfortable to watch because I recognize it completely. The judgement, the strike first so no one can hurt you, the big fat wall guarding our body and brain on the other side.

A reference (fat): And My Mad Fat Diary. The main character actively cannot see how beautiful she is. So she pushes away the best friend, the guy who loves her, everyone, before they can get close enough to leave. I have done that so many times . . . remind myself that I’m not worthy of anyone else’s love or space, and just assuming the exit before anyone has even walked toward the door.

Another reference (non-fat): I think about SATC’s Miranda with her protection wall so high after sooooooo many bad dates and Steve asking why she can’t see he’s not like the others. And honestly? Why should she??? Why should any of us lower our guard after being hurt over and over again? Like, fuck off you have everything else!

[DAMN, SLIPPED BACK INTO IT.]

Growing up fat and female meant I didn’t have girl clothes to wear at Fashion Bug or Delias (I wore FUBU). I used oversized everything as a shield. I wanted people to look past me, and a lot of the time they did, and I told myself that was what I wanted.

In work settings, friend settings, colleague settings, I always had this thing in the back of my head: they’re not going to give me this. It doesn’t matter how hard I work. I’m fat. There will always be a me versus them. In my rational brain, I know this isn’t true. BUT BUT BUT: I have been on client emails when I’m being pushed as talent to be told that I’m not the right fit. I have tried to put plus-size talent in content to hear they are not brand-safe. I see the internet. I see comments. I have soooo much evidence. Why shouldn’t I bark??

[CALMING DOWN, SLIPPED RIGHT BACK IN]

And in the worst moments of my lashing out, I took that and aimed it at people who didn’t deserve it.

Lately some people I’ve actively hurt 8-9 years ago have shown up in my Instagram feed. And I feel so much shame around it.

There was a colleague. Senior to me, smart and beautiful and thinner than me, which is not a reason to judge someone. She was leaving the company and I said in front of a group of people: well, you’re never here anyway, so why does it matter. I knew it was mean when I said it. I saw her recently in my feed and I didn’t feel resolved. I felt the shame of it fresh.

There was an ex I was in an open relationship with who I didn’t tell I was seeing other people. When she found out she was really hurt. And in my brain at the time: she’s so much cooler than me, so much better than me, I don’t matter enough for it to affect her. My logic was wrong. The wall of hurt is so real though.

I don’t want to put all of this on how I grew up or how the world treated me.
I was the mean one.
I wish my frontal lobe had formed faster.
I wish someone had taught me.
But I think you just have to go through it, grow through it, say sorry as much as you can.

It’s so hard being fat. Knowing what the world can say to you/do to you. Knowing people have actively hurt you because of how your body decided to grow. But it’s also hard holding all that self-hate in. Even when you love your body, even when you’ve done the work, the knowledge of what’s out there sits there.

And I think sometimes that knowledge made me mean. Made me strike first. Made me assume I was already the joke so I might as well be the one telling it.

I don’t think there’s a solve. I think you go through it. Say sorry. Lower the guard even when it scares you, and recognize when someone is being unkind . . . then by all means, unleash.

Chat soon, and be nice.
Laura

Friday I woke up and felt worthless. Fell asleep in the middle of the day, which I don’t do. Immediately my inner saboteur was raging: fat and lazy, fat and lazy. It’s incredible how much self-love you do to then be met with the basic of the basic bitchy inner voice.

Saturday, more smoke, two naps, a big storm that made my bulging disc seize up because apparently my back is a barometer now.

Sunday I was overly emotional and offended by everything from my partner to the internet. Thought: I’m getting my period. Monday my back fully gave out. I am currently on gabapentin, Celebrex, and an edible writing this to you.

In that window I thought about doing yoga. I will not be doing yoga. Sometimes wanting to feel good and actually feeling good are not the same thing and you have to let that be okay. So here is what I actually did instead.

This newsletter is supposed to be about feminine appetite, about wanting things, about feeling good in your body. And sometimes feeling good in your body means acknowledging that your body is currently staging a revolt and the most radical thing you can do is get out of its way. So.

• I drank water out of my Stanley. I know. But I love the straw and it makes me drink more water and if a trend makes you take better care of yourself then the trend is doing its job.

• I took an edible. Specifically the 1906 ones that reduce inflammation. They help with the compression in my back in a way that feels like actual relief. If you are of legal age and it works for you, I will never tell you not to.

• I ate garbage. The vegetables are coming back. Right now I am existing in the apocalypse and my back hurts and the sky is orange and I needed the popcorn with M&Ms.

• Soft pants only. There is no other option. Wearing jeans right now would be insane.

• I let myself be ugly. I call it an ugly reset. There are hairs to pluck and things to file and new areas on my face to address and I absolutely cannot do any of it right now and that is fine. I put so much of my worth into looking good because being pretty has been the thing I wanted since I was a kid. So when I feel like this, I try to remember that the bikini photo exists. That I was that person recently. That it’s not gone, I’m just not her today. One thing I read in a meditation book that actually stuck: remember when you didn’t feel this way. Take stock of when your body feels good because when it doesn’t, you need that memory to know it comes back.

That's it. See you on the other side.
xx
Laura

A fun thing! When I worked there, the Sex and the City tour would come in 5-7x a day. Women in tutus beelining straight for The Rabbit like it was a saint’s relic or something. And look, at the time, I judged them a little. All the shrieking, the making fun of everything in the store, the way they would turn on products and leave them on glass shelving. It was annoying (I did get soooo many Magnolia cupcakes out of it though).

I don’t think that anymore. Now I think it was curiosity in a costume . . . or maybe insecurity? Or just having fun, not taking it all too seriously. I took it WAYYYYYYYY too seriously because I saw how hard it was for some people speak about their pleasure / hide what they wanted from their partners / holding onto outdated information about sex toys (they stretch you out, they make you numb, they make your partner irrelevant, they make you gay, they make you dirty), and I felt personally offended by the giggles. That’s on me not being able to separate. Now, I get it. It’s fun but also scary so let’s laugh!

Here’s the other part of it: I’m Italian American Catholic (in theory on the catholicism . . . it’s more rooted in this next part:) , which is basically a whole finishing school in guilt. Guilt about how much you eat. How little. What you wear. Who you bring to the party, whether you even show up to the party. Pleasure was not on the syllabus, put it that way. So even now, doing this for a living (a living is comical . . . more like doing it for fun) there are still days I have to talk myself into believing I’m allowed to want things. That I deserve a gourmet sex life the same way I deserve my matcha ordered exactly right with no apology in my voice when I ask for it.

I think there is space for the insecurity, for the curiosity, for the deserving energy, for caring, for giggling.

So. If you walked up to my counter tomorrow, a little overwhelmed by the wall of silicone behind me (feeling insecure, nervous, laughing, etc), here’s what I’d actually tell you:

Skip the rabbit, for now. It’s iconic, I get it, it’s basically the Birkin of the sex toy world. But it only does one thing one way, and not everybody wants fluttering on the outside while something else is happening on the inside. A rabbit is a whole relationship. You want a first date to test the waters.

Get yourself a wand. Broad external head, Hitachi style, works on literally any body. Externally, your nerve endings are just sitting right there at the surface, which is why vibration feels like so much. Internally you actually want more shape, more presence, hard plastic or glass or steel, because those nerve endings are more spread out and need something to find them (read: bang into them). Sometimes wand vibes can be big (lol) because of the motor. This one from Lovers is a great alt!

Give your toy the sniff test, it’s a fun little party trick actually. Plastic smell, chemical smell, weirdly fake-cherry smell? That’s porous material, and porous material holds onto bacteria no matter how devoutly you clean it. Silicone, pyrex, steel, medical-grade ABH hard plastics is the good stuff . . . they don’t hold bacteria, so you can go wild with it and not think twice. If you ever land on something you’re not sure about, a condom slipped over it turns any toy into a safe toy instantly. Not sure what is what?! Ask your local, friendly, adult-shop employee! They know!

Lube is the must-have, cheat code! Spit isn’t lube. Water isn’t lube. Whether you’re wet has way more to do with hydration and hormones than how badly you want something, so let’s retire that myth for good and just enjoy the slip and slide. Water-based for anything front-internal, it washes away clean. Silicone for anal (Sliquid, überlube, and Pjur are all excellent), because that area doesn’t self-lubricate and deserves something that sticks around for the whole show.

One rule of the game for anal play: flared base, always. Think of it like a seatbelt, it's there so you can actually go faster. Your rectum just keeps going with no bottom (lol), and the internal sphincter muscle right inside your opening works on its own schedule, so you want a toy built with a wide stopper that simply can't fit all the way through. B-Vibe has great options! Once you know that rule, anal play stops being a nervous experiment and starts being genuinely one of the most fun rooms in the house.

None of this needs a bigger budget. It needs one toy, one lubricant, and the nerve to walk into a shop where somebody's actually trained to talk about your body like it's not a scandal. I used to be that somebody, pretending I was only there for a paycheck, while a parade of women in tutus taught me, way before I could've said it out loud, that wanting things is the whole art. Not the reward. The starting point.

Hot:

• crisp white t-shirts stretched over big boobs

• book recs

• ’s travel guides

• ’s women get hard too

• backwards hards

• hands-free vibrators

chat soon,
laura

I have had laser hair removal on my entire face once a month since I was twenty-five. Not all of the pesky hormonal fuckers will leave. I’M BREAKING UP WITH YOU, CHIN HAIR. GET A LIFE.

I cannot be left alone with popcorn and M&Ms. All self-respect leaves the building. My dad introduced me to the combination at the movies when I was a kid and I have never recovered. It is biblically good.

I hate buying clothes. I would rather own nothing and just wear bike shorts and a sports bra. Clothes are not made for my body. I have the expensive belly and butt but slim legs and a small waist, so it’s gapping and bodycon at the same time. I maintain this is not my fault.

I am not very patient. When my dad was first in the hospital for cancer, I waited an hour past when I was supposed to speak with his doctor. When the charge nurse told me I’d just have to wait, I said: It is not my job to wait. It is my job to represent my dad who is dying. Do your job and get the doctor to his room now. I met with the doctor five minutes after that. I was not kind. I didn’t really care.

I can tell you everything about sex toys. Ask me. I worked at The Pleasure Chest in the West Village in my early twenties, playing detective to people’s desires. My best advice for all genitalia: get a hard, curved, weighted internal toy and a separate external vibrator and experiment. Dual vibrators are great but you’re spending sixty dollars without knowing if you like it. Buy separate. Play around.

I exist in imposter syndrome but give me half a glass of red wine and there is nothing anyone could say to me. Half a glass. That's the sweet spot of my inner bitch. I always eventually find myself in a bathroom mirror taking selfies, telling myself I should stop apologizing for my existence. That I'm hot shit. That I've got a fat ass and big titties and a kind heart and anyone who thinks less of me can eat a dick. I do think my imposter voice humbles me and keeps me grounded. Thanks inner saboteur.

I’m a boyfriend girlfriend. Or I guess now a husband wife, we’re getting married in September. This was not what I thought would happen. I genuinely didn’t think I would fall in love, that every day would feel better than the last. I have this memory of telling someone at work that girls like me don’t get to fall in love. Implying ugly girls re: Hello, I’m an ugly girl, we don’t have to keep pretending I deserve more than gruel. I was wearing an Old Navy jumpsuit I had sewn the crotch back together on multiple times. I was holding onto a narrative about myself I couldn’t shake. I see Lauren (he/they) as proof that I was wrong. A manifestation that I could love myself, and know I deserve more.

I’ve been going through a long-term friendship ending since September. It has been extremely hurtful. A lot of why wasn’t I good enough. A lot of crying. But I’ve also learned I can love someone platonically so much that losing them causes a real, actual effect on me. I didn’t think I had that in me. I think of it like a train. People get on and sit in my car. Some stay a long time. Some get off. Maybe it was about me. Maybe I did something wrong. It was never discussed. But the train is still moving and I have to move with it.

I wear a retainer at night.

I hate wearing a retainer at night.

I call my mom every other day. Not because we have a good relationship. We don’t. Because I’m afraid each call might be the last one. I jump at midday calls thinking someone is going to tell me she got into a wreck or finally succumbed to her addictions. I know she lies to me. I can’t do anything about it. So I just call and hope it’s not the last time.

I am terrified of losing my hair so I use men’s strength minoxidil 5% on my scalp every night and derma stamp.

If I could do it all over again I would have started fine art in middle school, ignored everyone, stayed Rachel Leigh Cook before Freddie Prinze Jr. gave her a makeover in She’s All That, and just kept painting and drawing and collaging. I would have studied abroad. I would have become an artist known for large scale abstracts.

I have an extensive skincare routine that involves red lights, microcurrents, oils, and sheet masks.

Sometimes when I’m really stressed my grandfather visits me in my dreams. It might just be my subconscious trying to calm me down. But there’s no harm in believing it’s him. He walked with a limp from a screw in his ankle, multiple sports injuries. Sometimes in the dream I just hear him walking, the pause between steps on the wooden floor in my grandmother’s house.

I am self-conscious about my belly. I have come a long way with it but it’s never going to be a perfect relationship. I know it sticks out in every pair of pants I wear and that drives me crazy. When I was younger people would offer me their seat on the subway thinking I was pregnant, which is really a great way to designer-fit a complex into a 20yo. On the other hand, my dogs rest their heads on my belly and it’s the sweetest thing that has ever happened to me. So. Mixed bag.

I don’t think I’ll ever make Softcore paid or subscription based. But if anyone wants to give me some money towards a new halter top, I’ll never say no.

When I was nineteen I almost died from an infected cyst on my face that traveled to my brain. I had just gone on the pill to regulate my period and then suddenly: deadly cystic acne. Immediately off the pill. It was a very blurry time and I am still here, which I think about more than I let on.

I will overextend myself until I feel useful and needed. I know it's toxic. I am afraid of people leaving me, throwing me away, deciding I'm not worth keeping around. I grew up knowing I couldn't just be plus-size. I had to give people more for them to stick around. Fat and funny. Fat and helpful. Fat and indispensable. I am working on just being. It is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do.

I drink whole milk. Moo, bitch.

I’ve never seen a Real Housewives season ever. I don’t even know where to start in the universe.

Are we having:

• a good time?

• a moment of self-reflection?

• a breakdown?

chat soon,
laura

This past weekend I visited my favorite respite: Sojo Spa in New Jersey. Lauren and I schedule it way in advance as something to look forward to, a treat. My look: black bikini from Skims. I wrap the excess string around my waist for extra support but also because it looks really hot when I do it.

I have never. I mean never. A bikini would never have been on this body. Not by choice. I have memories of big t-shirts over swimsuits, frilly dress bathing suits, sports one-pieces with a neck so high you might as well be wearing a turtleneck. I have covered up so much that finding a bikini in my drawer would more likely mean it belonged to someone else, switched in the laundry or the space-time continuum or something.

So today we’re just reveling in how fucking nice it is to be in a bikini. To feel the pleasure of going in and out of hot pools without fabric anywhere. To lay without a robe in the salt room and roll up to reveal hot, purged skin, probably in rolls because that’s what it looks like from some angles and positions, and just. Not care. To simply feel how nice it is to be impervious to outside gaze.

The other part of this is my ongoing pain that starts in my butt and travels across my back and down the front of my leg to my knee. Bulging disc. Manageable but I barely want to think about it. When I’ve done everything to keep the inflammation down, had enough water, created enough space for myself to feel good, existing in my body doesn’t feel like such an emotional weight. The spa is part of that. The bikini is part of that.

To any woman reading this who wouldn’t be caught dead in anything but a full coverup: I am arriving at the place my grandmother would describe as where you just don’t care. About the stretch marks, the back roll, the need to feel fully hairless. I, an Italian woman, will never be hairless. I can shave tonight and have a full bush tomorrow.

Something falls away as you repeat the same experience over and over in time: the first time swimming with friends as a child, the first beach trip, the first time changing swimsuits in front of other girls, the first public pool, the first vacation with strangers around, the first spa and freaking out about being nude, the next spa when it became more okay, the times after that, this past weekend. You start to gain the experience like learning to drive a car. Bad example, I can’t drive and I’m scared to, I’m working on it. But the idea: you figure out how the car handles, how to get comfortable with each turn and forward motion. You repeat the moment until it stops being scary and starts being yours.

Again: I don’t know how you go about feeling good in your body. Here’s my version.

• I follow a lot of Instagrams of women with similar body shapes to mine. Forced exposure. I see them as muses, goddesses, angels. I have a conspiracy that plus-size women are the most beautiful and the most physically desirable, and if we all knew that we would be too powerful, which is why the world is hell-bent on making us feel like we don’t literally fit in.

• I don’t try to stop a bad body image day. No one is impervious to it and you might as well go through it to get it out of your system. Trying to stop it makes it build up until I can’t control it.

• I try to remember I am just a simple being on a floating rock through space. Someone’s opinion of my body is not my business. They don’t pay my rent so I don’t have the energy.

And, not to hawk my book again, but: pleasure and getting to know what makes you feel good, what makes you cum, what allows you to feel safe in sexual exploration is a gift that transfers to the rest of your life. Do you know how to make yourself cum? You can ask for a second opinion at the doctor’s office. You feel comfortable learning about and evolving your own sexual interests? You can wear a bikini.

There is so much stopping us from knowing our own pleasure. When you do, everything else is at your fingertips. I mean that exactly how you think I mean it.

Shopping List:

• Djerf Avenue Button Up Amorini Red Cardigan

• Repetto Cendrillon Ballet Flats

• This pink dress from SATC Season 2, Episode 18

• Library Science Tee

• Emma Kohlmann: Watercolors
  

chat soon,
laura

There are intersecting things that make me find someone attractive. It starts with them doubling down, tripling down on who they are and refusing to be any different. I love a crooked tooth. I love when people say “like” and refuse to polish their natural speech. I love feminine touches on a masculine aura. I love weirdos. People who obsess too much. I love revealing too much. I love when someone throws themselves hard into their own art. I love real displays of sex and intimacy.

Her general way in interviews, on red carpets, with cast members, feels like a perfectly crafted personality that had no crafting to speak of. It’s just her.

There’s a version of attraction that’s really just longing. Not for the person exactly, but for something they seem to have figured out that you haven’t yet. I think that’s part of what’s happening here. My list, the crooked teeth, the people who say “like,” the weirdos who reveal too much and throw themselves hard into their own art, that’s not really a type. That’s a portrait of the person I want to be when I stop editing myself. Hannah Einbinder just happens to already be that person. So maybe the crush is less about wanting her and more about what she gives me permission to want for myself. Both can be true.

And maybe part of this is the classic queer woman question: do I want to sleep with her or do I want to be her? (inset SATC end-sentence typing).

There’s something very freeing about watching a woman not participate in the male gaze in any way while being deeply sexy doing it. She’s just contagious

So she can get it. Parasocially, of course.

Crushing On:

• The Polyester Book of (Bad) Taste (Hardback).

• Boomba, because I want a set for my other crush:

• Tubetops.

• Lena Dunham.

• TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA

chat soon,
laura

Growing up I never felt like I understood what was happening around me. I was preoccupied with how I looked, which was exactly how I should have looked as a teen: chubby, covered in acne, no facial harmony to speak of. I clung hard to the magazines that could wade me through the waters of ugly duckling. My brain had no bandwidth left for anything else.

So now I’m living in a sexy adult body with sexy adult interests, and one of them is reading. I’m not a fast reader. I take my time, re-read, mark up my copy, and find similarities I’m convinced the universe is trying to tell me something through. The theme I keep landing on: woman in motion.

Not crisis. Motion. I think there’s a difference. It’s so easy to label women’s stories fictional or not as a crisis.

The Books
Margot’s Got Money Trouble. Two things being true at once: sex and security, addict and parent, OnlyFans and motherhood. Systems designed to pit themselves against each other, and Margot lives inside that with more grace than anyone gives her credit for. I don’t want a child, or I didn’t think I did, until Margot says she can’t explain it but there’s nothing she’d rather do than have Bodhi, and I got it. I thought about my dogs. How you can love something so much it strips you of everything embarrassing about yourself. Margot only feels shame when someone else places it on her. That’s the whole thing.

Yesteryear. A pioneer-woman influencer wakes up in actual pioneer times and I was struck by how much lying is going on at every level: the mother-in-law hiding her pain, the mother hiding her real feelings beneath her Christian values, the husband hiding what he actually wants, the protagonist lying to herself about how she makes her picturesque bucolic life happen. What the book does brilliantly is show what happens when reality breaks through all of that, like a weed through concrete. I loved how it moved through real and fake time. It reminded me of a combo of Landman, Don’t Worry Darling, and Mommie Dearest.

All Fours. Babe. It’s giving much-deserved ennui and I mean that as a compliment. This woman lies about going on a two-week road trip but only gets as far as Monrovia, CA, which is like thirty minutes away, and then redecorates a motel room without the owner’s permission so she can reassess her midlife sexuality, perimenopause, a near-death birth experience she can’t stop flashing back to, and an ongoing will-they-won’t-they with a well-known pop star. I thought the title was about sex. It’s really about rebirth: childhood on all fours, navigating big feelings through creative output, allowing yourself to expand while watching others expand around you. I understood why someone would pour their heart into a motel room. That’s not a joke.

Go Gentle. Follows Adora Hazzard (the name, y’all), a staff philosopher pulled into an art-and-arms deal, with a pseudo-coven of women sharing a floor of a doorman building on the Upper West Side, planning to go into their late chapter together with grace. But the center of the book is Adora in the 90s: a chubby (hi) comedy writer with porous boundaries at a West Coast SNL, where she becomes “one of the guys” and is used accordingly. You understand completely why she crashed out. There’s a scene where her daughter asks why people tell girls to stay innocent but let boys be obsessed with sports teams and cars without anyone blinking. She makes a great point. The past version of Adora never fully disappears and the book doesn’t try to fix that.

These four books converged in my brain over two months and I think the thing they share is this: the crisis is never really the crisis. It’s the lying, the shame, the creative energy with nowhere to go, the body doing something the mind hasn’t caught up with yet. All of them find their way through making something. A baby, a brand, a motel room, a set of systems designed to keep you safe.

Currently:

• thinking of substack visuals as seasons

• creating a self portrait

• gardening

• creating a visual reference library

• planning my wedding

• from the archive: horniness
  
  
  chat soon,
  laura

somewhere along the way, i got more closed off to the whole idea of my body as something to be seen, consumed, reacted to.

i became way more interested in putting my brain forward / existing without needing my body to do all the work for me.

but i’m really glad those photos exist.

they’re like receipts. little time capsules of a version of me who felt hot, confident, very unbothered. and on days when my brain decides to be rude, it’s nice to have visual evidence that she was and is that girl.

moira rose had it right. take the nudes. one day you’ll look back with much kinder eyes.

truly. take them. keep them. don’t let shame erase the record of you. sometimes you just need proof of yourself.

be your own museum.

growing up, my grandmother would always say people born in march are pazza or pazzo because of the ides of march, julius caesar, or some other italian superstition she picked up as a teen in naples. she said it lovingly. yes, crazy, but deep feelers. drawn to water. naturally mystic. even though we were catholic, we understood the munaciello and listened wide-eyed when she told us about san gennaro, about his blood liquefying, about the miracle that sits at the center of neapolitan faith.

basically, we feel it all. and maybe that makes us crazy.

i don’t always love this trait. it’s giving chrissy from now and then. sweet. damp-eyed. too trusting. i never thought being branded pisces was that serious but dear goddess, do i fit the bill. i call, i try, i overextend. i hand people entire oceans and then feel personally victimized when they offer back a paper cup of lukewarm sink water.

and when that happens, i don’t just get sad. i sink. straight to the ocean floor. form into a sea witch. i don’t want your vibe disrupting my vibe anymore. i am ariel and ursula at once. tender-finned. heart-ripped-out devoted. dramatic but not wrong.

i would love to simply see a movie and not have it relate to my entire existence. or let a memory happen and pass. i would be less tired all the time.

pisces is a sign that needs to feel, and feel we shall! sometimes it’s like living as an infinity pool with no edge, emotions spilling past what the body can reasonably hold... i have had to develop my tricks over the years to find stoicism in tough moments. pleasure helps us release. damn... thinking about it, should all pisces get a prescription for endless amounts of lube??? it’s always referred to as waves of pleasure. that’s so pisces branding. there is nothing, to me, like the ride of a hitachi magic wand. i’m sensitive (yep, physically and emotionally), so silicone only. always body-safe, non-porous.

the world loves a cool girl with a sealed heart and a faint frown. i wouldn’t last five minutes as a lily-rose depp-type. sure, i can detach when i’m wrung out. that’s the other side of the fish. but the real truth is this: big feelings are an asset. yes, we need alone time. yes, we will cry. yes, we will tell you exactly how that made us feel. and then we will make art out of it.

and if that’s too much for someone? let them have less. they don’t need to swim in our ocean. there’s a perfectly good kiddie pool over there.

• read next: chlorine by jade song

• also drifting around: circe invidiosa by john william waterhouse

• from the archive: ugly girl core

• siren song: high by the beach by lana del rey

• fall into the mysticism: the pasta tarot

spoiler: the new wuthering heights is very horny.

let me draw your attention to the horse bit scene (i can’t find an image as of yet) where joseph and zillah (wh’s house servants) meet in the stables for some midnight, windy cliffs sex. joseph places a horse bit on zillah’s mouth, and they proceed to have nasty barn sex.

cathy is above them in the attic, watching through a crack in the floor. as she witnesses the scene, heathcliff comes up behind her and covers her eyes and mouth, as if attempting to preserve her innocence, though the moment clearly awakens something in her because the next scene is her masturbating to the moors.

i love this scene. it’s so thick with power dynamics and tension, while also marking one of the first moments of true physical proximity between cathy and heathcliff, his body pressed close to hers. i loved that the film chose to include it. the novel is filled with suffocating tension and repression, and the adaptation feels, in many ways, like a release valve for that pressure.

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the horse bit is especially striking. it is not only about dominance and arousal, but about the broader language of control that runs through the film. the doll motif everywhere. cathy as something delicate, a collectible. isabella and her dollhouse within a dollhouse. heathcliff’s devastating saying he “can’t play with her anymore.” children surrounded by dolls. isabella in chains. the fish contained in jelly.

the horse bit works: it’s provocative, yes, but also deeply aligned with the story’s fixation on ownership and desire.

admit it. the scene maybe you a little curious. maybe it is worth exploring?

• silicone bit — $39

• strict silicone bit gag and nipple clamps — $41

• love in leather silicone bit gag — $28

• sinful bar gag — $25

• lockable silicone horse bit gag — $35

why be gagged? why introduce something like a horse bit into sex? for some, the appeal lies in how removing the ability to speak heightens sensation, awareness, and vulnerability. this intensifying the feeling of surrender and trust between partners.

a tiny mini zine about WH book

more soon,
softcore.

IMMIGRANT DEFENSE FUND

Okay, now onto my thoughts:

I can remember holding a copy of Wuthering Heights in my hand in my art classroom at 15 or 16. I remember feeling really embarrassed for not getting it, for not understanding how to read the 19th-century gothic lingo. I settled for a D on the paper. I wasn’t interested in reading about the infatuation between teenagers when I was struggling with my own teen identity.

Embarrassingly, I was living out of a hotel room with my grandfather and brother for most of my junior and senior year. I was overdeveloped, full of acne and fat, and didn’t have the mental fortitude to care about Catherine Earnshaw’s struggle to decide which man she should go for and why. My tits hurt my back, I couldn’t fit into anything, my mother’s alcoholism was raging, and I felt really alone.

So why would I give a fuck about these sad people living in the moors of England?

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to read. It was more that I had other things to worry about in my own life than deciphering what was happening in this two-volume book. It was embarrassment. And probably feeling like I wasn’t good enough to even try.

I understood the story from my grandfather’s perspective instead. The original film came out in 1939, and every once in a while it was part of his Turner Classic Movies daily watch. A young man and woman grow up together but aren’t family, are torn apart by society and what it means to love someone from a different class.

I’ll admit it. The movie clips and the Charli xcx music got me into reading the book.

This past year became my year of being 16 again i.e. doing everything I felt like I couldn’t back then. Smiling. Reading. Being in nature. Crying. Making art. I found every opportunity to do those things. Reading really stuck. I read about 20 books, which was 19 more than the year before.

So when press around the Emerald Fennell movie started showing up, I thought I’d finally try to find a place in the Wuthering Heights literary world I didn’t feel smart enough to occupy back then.

At first, the language was hard. I kept my phone next to me to look up words. I highlighted names to track families and timelines. I listened to gothy playlists to get into the mindset. I found reels explaining each chapter and what to look out for.

And by the time I got to the second volume, about 180 pages in my version, I was sobbing on nearly every page. Doesn’t help that I’m deep in reading music when I’m intwined in the book.

From my POV, the book is about nature’s refusal to be controlled. About what happens when people try to live against who they are.

Heathcliff is an orphan boy brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, Catherine’s father. He and Catherine grow up wild together in the moors, inseparable. Around adolescence, Catherine ends up staying at Thrushcross Grange after being attacked by a dog. When she returns, she is transformed. She’s a lady. She’s corsets and manners and society. And Heathcliff is still poor, still wild, still without status.

She agrees to marry Edgar Linton. Heathcliff leaves. Three years later, he returns with money, power, and social standing.

I’ll stop the plot there.

I can’t listen to this song without sobbing.

What gets me is this: nature brought these two together. They are one soul that belongs to Wuthering Heights. When Catherine turns away from that and tries to live the life she’s “supposed” to, she splits herself in half. She becomes something ghost-like. Not fully alive.

No matter how dangerous the moors.
No matter society.
No matter marriage.
No matter death.
Nothing separates them. Personal nature always finds a way out.

Like weeds breaking through concrete.
Like trained dogs growling.
Like ghosts crossing worlds.

From my POV of the book: Heathcliff in the book is kind of a monster and Catherine is kind of a brat, there’s still something so emotional and beautiful about the idea that two people, regardless of who they are or where they come from, will find each other by nature. Literally and figuratively.

I think about that a lot with Lauren and me.

We existed in the same spaces for almost ten years. Same city. Same scenes. Same circles of life. And somehow never met. We both had to go through our own heartbreaks, our own evolutions, our own becoming before we were ready.

And then one day we found each other and it was like… oh. This feels right. This feels easy. This feels like the universe kept us gently apart until the timing could actually hold us.

They live in this liminal space.
Wild and proper.
Heaven and hell.
Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

And make no mistake, the book is about obsession. But it’s also about what happens when you hide from who you are. I wish I had understood that when I was younger. Hiding is my favorite destructive quality. Still is. And for these characters, hiding their true nature is what destroys them.

I’ve spent years running from that 16-year-old version of myself. The girl who wanted to read, wanted softness, wanted beauty, but didn’t feel like she deserved those things. And now, somehow, it’s showing up again in wedding planning.

I’m starting to think about my wedding. Who to invite. How big it should be. What it looks like. And very much like Catherine, I’m hiding my true feelings about it.

I wanted it filled with friends. I’m realizing it might be much smaller than I imagined.

Moving to Beacon has made my world quieter. My friend group smaller and more spread out. Now as I plan, it feels like I’m planning alone. Sometimes I wonder if my true nature, loving smaller circles, quieter life, slower days, has cost me connection.

And while I love Beacon, the calm, the art, the lack of sirens, the kindness, especially after watching my father die with New York City blaring outside the window like an orchestra, I still miss being a subway ride away from the people I love.

Now I feel like Catherine at Thrushcross Grange, hoping Heathcliff will cross the moors.

Hoping someone will say:
I love you.
You’re worth the effort.
I’ll come to you.

Maybe distance shows the truth. Maybe this quiet is my Wuthering Heights. And here, in my swamp lands (not really…more like the mountains), I’m learning what remains.

The plan I’m building is still beautiful:

wedding day:

• wake up at a sexy hotel

• get glam in a muse Italian dress

• photos at city hall

• get married at city hall

• more photos

• brunch

• hold hands at the Natural History Museum

• Uber Black to the Bronx

• lay flowers on my grandparents’ graves

• small family dinner

next day:

• same sexy hotel

• brunch

• walk The Met and draw

• 60s Italian dress

• friends dinner

• House of Yes dance party

• late-night Bushwick tacos

• 4am bedtime

Maybe this is just me choosing my own nature…choosing my own moors.

xx
Laura

I’ve been held at gunpoint twice.

You think you’d spring into action and remove yourself from the line of fire. You think your body would use those unknown fight skills. No. Your body becomes frozen in terror and everything moves really slow, even if it was only for a split second.

This happened around 2010–2011?? I think. Both a few months apart.

I was working at The Pleasure Chest in the West Village as a sex educator/sales associate.

To their credit, to give advice on the products in the store you had to go through rigorous training in order to know what products can work with / satisfy specific anatomies, what lube can be used on certain materials and condoms, what to recommend based on gender-affirming asks, and how to navigate an array of allergies, kinks, embarrassments, fear, and jokes thrown your way every day.

The Pleasure Chest years

I loved working there but I was very angry.

I was angry at my body. I was so sick all the time. Binging purging binging purging.

I was angry at my skin, forever breaking out and trying to manage cystic acne. The bulimia probably wasn’t helping.

I was mad at my situation: I was working all the time, 10–6pm every day in retail, three days a week from 7–3am as an overnight production assistant at Viacom, and then grad school Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

I never went out. I couldn’t do anything but work and try to be thin.

I was emotionally very young. Naive. A try hard. I still feel this way now. There is a big, thick, embarrassing current that runs through me and I can’t stop aligning myself so hard with Chrissy from Now and Then.

As an aside, I love plus-size women who are mean. I adore you. I want to be you. I haven’t figured out how to make people emotionally suffocate under my silence, how to not give 10000000% all the time in hopes that people will like me, enjoy being around me, trust me.

I was very trustworthy at The Pleasure Chest. I cared a lot about people and what they were going through and what they wanted to accomplish in their sex lives.

You think it’s just giggles and fun and being surrounded by butt plugs. It is, but also you’re handling women who want to use a vibrator during sex but their boyfriend is ADAMANT they can’t.

You’re spending time with celebrities who just want to privately purchase their wares.

You have the once-a-week teen who comes in knowing the store is 18+ and who can’t buy condoms where they live.

You are watching people overcompensate, nervous laugh, worry if they are too much.

I’ll never forget the woman who thought something was wrong with her because she never had an orgasm, and I spent two hours walking around the store with her to explain everything I could, to land on a simple mid-price-range product and lube that I told her how to use (in the most appropriate way). And I told her to take herself out on a date. Take a bath. Have some wine. Watch some porn, or better yet read some erotica. To give herself permission to feel good.

That woman came back and hugged me the next day.

You’re a therapist and doctor and counselor and support for people, even if you’re also cleaning end caps and dusting dildos and reorganizing the lube.

It gave me this sense of purpose and confidence. I had a new skill set and basically an informational degree in anatomy and pleasure. When I could, I would teach workshops and do bridal showers. It was fun.

The first robbery

When the first robbery happened, it was at night. I was alone on the sales floor cleaning up different sections.

Two men came in quickly and pointed a gun to my head and told me to open the cash register. I put the Windex on the counter and opened the register and said “okay okay” and backed away.

I will never forget their hands in front of me grabbing at money (which was also so dumb because we had a displayed $2k gold vibrator in the case just sitting there).

They left after the pillage and said “have a good night” as the door closed.

I called up the manager from the basement (who was doing restocking work) and I sank to the ground in shock. The police were called, I had to give a statement, and I had to testify in court and relive the whole thing.

I was withdrawn from everything.

I would have panic attacks if people moved close to me too fast.

And it just made me angrier.

I took a week off and came back. I had to pay rent and go to school and keep up my grades. I should have quit and figured something else out. But at the time I couldn’t even think of a next step.

The second robbery

The next time it happened, it was broad daylight, like 10:45am.

These two must have cased the place and known the schedule because The Pleasure Chest in the West Village would have the Sex and the City tour pop in upwards of 5x a day.

It’s the spot the Rabbit, an elastomer pink dual vibrator that spins on the inside for g-spot action and flutters its little ears on the clit, is introduced in season 1, episode 9.

We sold a ton of them.

It wouldn’t be my recommendation for dual vibrators, but it is an excellent entry point into the world of sex toys, so we have to love it for that.

Well, these two must have known we were in between the tours because that’s when someone has to go downstairs to grab all the restocks from the tour while the other person checks the till and makes sure all the bills are the right way, and checks to see if we have ones.

Same thing, they came in quick, but this time one of them grabbed me and held me in the corner behind the register and shoved the gun into my stomach.

I saw them from the corner of my eye come in and instinctively backed up and didn’t shut the register.

My heart was pounding. I was so scared.

What I regret

I’m around 25–26 during this. I wasn’t in my career yet. I wasn’t skinny yet. I wasn’t dating yet. I was still angry. I wanted to get back at the store. I shouldn’t have felt that way.

I was a bit immature and still naive, but these two moments took away my safety. They made me have fear. I ended up taking a freelance job at Condé Nast and left The Pleasure Chest.

No notice. Nothing. I didn’t care.

I’m sure it was a slight at the time to the people I worked with. I admit it: I meant it to be.

In my immature, hurt, traumatized, life-flashed-before-my-eyes way, I wanted them to be slightly inconvenienced by the fact that, out of nowhere, they didn’t have a full-time employee to backfill.

It was dumb and I shouldn’t have done that. I have made amends in time.

What I carry now

The Pleasure Chest gave me so much. It got me to do eating disorder group therapy. It helped me learn so much about myself and sexuality. It allowed me to be an empathetic communicator and care about the people around me in my career as a creative director.

It gave me knowledge to write my book: My Pleasure: An Intimate Guide to Loving Your Body and Having Great Sex.

It made me both more afraid and less afraid of the world.

And now you can ask me anything about sex toys, products, lube, porn, genitalia, and anatomy and I most likely know the answer, or the way, or people to help.

I say all this because I am helping a friend in her retail space here in Beacon. I did one shift to support and I had the best time. I was happy to chat with people, to give advice, to vacuum.

And it’s not that those fears are gone. But I’m not angry anymore. I am proud of my tiny little journey through space where I’ve learned to manage my fear….where I’ve become more cautious and smarter and stronger….where I’m a kind person knowing that people are always going through something.

And where I’ve realized something simple.

Fear doesn’t mean I’m weak. It just means I survived. So while it was two of the most terrifying, life altering moments of my life, it gave me me even in my most try-hard ways.

xx

Laura 💋

I’ve spent the past few weeks thinking, plotting, redesigning Hey Laura, only to come up empty in its rebirth.

A new name will come.
A new design will show up.
Just not today.

All of this in an effort to shed some narratives I cling to, narratives that ultimately hold me back.

So today, a quick and easy (but also perfect) post, all my queer roots in one list.

I’ve been in queer relationships for 20 years. Before that, survival looked like laughing at cishet jokes and listening politely while men explained, at length, in overcompensating detail, the sports they watched and the names stitched onto the backs of jerseys they absolutely needed.

And while I don’t think (to my knowledge) that I read as queer (another post, maybe), these characters and people are part of my DNA. A real, formative part of my childhood. I love them deeply.

Jane Lane, Daria.
I don’t wear them, a lot are closed, but I have five ear piercings along both ears because of Jane Lane. She’s my artist dream gurl. The reason black and red are my main colors. I loved that she was inquisitive and open but refused to be sucked into the bullshit of Lawndale High, or into Daria’s monotone inner world. She was obscure and funny and sexy and creative and saw people beyond their performative gender roles. I do think she and Quinn had a thing. I do think Sandy was secretly in love with her. Jane Lane, thank you for letting me take in the dark side and turn it into art.

Lucy Liu as Alex Munday, Charlie’s Angels.
Maybe the sexiest monologist ever? She knows how to command a room without raising her voice. And the leather in that one scene… Christ. I was hooked the moment I left the theater. I went in for Drew Barrymore, because since childhood I was always told I looked like her, and naturally I needed to see a round-faced woman be sexy and dangerous (the dream of every 13yo gurl). But Lucy Liu. Oh my god. And that one scene in Chicago?! She’s so beautiful. Even when she severs that man’s head in Kill Bill, I’m like: yes. I would be Lucy Liu’s furniture if she needed a new footstool. A lesbian, freckled painter. I’m broken.

Queen Latifah as Cleo, Set It Off.
It might not shock you to learn that I wrote a short paper in grad school about queer representation in crime dramas, centering Set It Off. But damn. Cleo is so sexy when she grabs Ursula around the waist and pulls her close. And yes, the film ends in tragedy. But the heist itself feels like an act of agency i.e. Black and queer women pushed out of “good” options by a system designed to deny them safety, dignity, and money. Cleo’s queerness (hot) isn’t treated like a punchline or a problem to solve. It’s real, visible, and hers. It’s soft and loud at the same time. She’s powerful and confident and also, underneath all that hard, deeply tender. It’s on my Criterion Collection. Obviously.

“I Was a Teenage Fairy” by Francesca Lia Block
A teenage model named Barbie is dealing with her abusive mother and the dark side of the modeling world when she meets a pixie fairy named Marb, who might not be real, but instead a manifestation in Barbie’s head, who comes to save her and help her discover self-love and magic, all set against the backdrop of LA. I was a kid when I read this and it dealt with a lot of big topics for a YA novel. I loved it. It made me a reader.

The film Better Than Chocolate.
Is it a perfect film? No. Is it overacted? Yes. Is some of it deeply upsetting and not aging well? Of course. But there’s something sweet about the whimsy of it all. Young lesbian finds a nice-ass loft, meets a soft butch painter, and they have hot sex in a van + make sex art on perfectly clean sheets. And on the same day, her newly divorced mother and adult brother have to come live with her??? It’s insane. It’s sexy. It’s imperfect. I loved it from the moment I rented it at the very small local video store when I was 15. I hid it under a stack of other VHS tapes (one of them being But I’m a Cheerleader, the 90s movie that named the queer root) so the checkout girl wouldn’t notice. She definitely noticed, but never said anything. There’s something about the independence of these women, being free in themselves regardless. I admired that. I wanted that.

Judy Funny, Doug.
The outfit, the bob, the Shakespearean drama. She stood out even in black and purple. And maybe that’s it, finding the character that feels like the odd one out from the ensemble is very queer to me. She was Reneé Rapp before Reneé. Kind of mean, fully into her own existence. Judy walked so Jane could run.

And of course, 90s Pamela.
She was feminine personified for me. While yes, straight, she was a woman I wanted to be, and also wanted to hold seductive power the way she could. And her smile… swoonnnn. I love her smile. To me, she embodied womanhood, and also the kind of magic queer people recognize instantly. I wrote a whole piece on here at the top of last year (below), and I’m still not done thinking about her especially now.

If you want to show some lust:
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I do not want pain.

I do not want to become pain.

Maybe because I come from people who lived with it, or around it, in a way that made everything harder.

My mother never wanted to process the pain of losing a son, my brother, when he was 3 (she was probably 25 or 26). Instead, she drank. And drank. And fell. And drank. And fell some more. She’s had so many broken bones (currently a broken wrist) and oscillates between painkillers and hard liquor. Every time she calls, I don’t know which version I’m getting. My uncle, her brother, told me to prepare for the inevitable: accident, overdose, tragic ending.

And my father—ah, my dad—he dreaded doctors more than anything. He walked around with fake teeth by his 30s because the real ones all fell out from not taking care of them. He died last year of colon cancer. The worst part: he told me he knew he had it before we ended up in the hospital. By then, it had metastasized everywhere: bladder, kidney, lungs, stomach, skull. He was 68. I was furious and devastated all at once. Why didn’t he try to figure out what was happening to him? If not for himself, for me? For my living brother, Chris?

Chris is just like my dad: terrified of what he might find if he looks too closely.

I’ve spent my whole life trying to be the opposite. I take every medical recommendation seriously. I track every appointment, every symptom, every follow-up date, every possible marker of improvement. I wanted to be someone who doesn’t let things get bad. I wanted to believe I could outrun pain through discipline alone.

And then this…thing…this pain came for me anyway.

I first noticed it in 2020. Sciatic burning down my left side as soon as I lay down. In the mornings, I could barely walk without stretching and icing. When social distancing came about, I walked five miles every morning through the empty city, thinking maybe I wasn’t active enough. I did virtual HIIT classes. I swallowed every vitamin marketed for nerve pain. I tried everything.

By late 2022, the flare-ups synced to my period and arrived like clockwork: one week before my period, every month, taking me out for days. And all of this was happening against a backdrop of losing people I loved: an uncle, a friend, then my grandmother, who I clung to for Italian heritage and belonging. I lost her as I held her hand and sang opera to her. By the end of that year, I was heartbroken from a breakup. I was grieving everything and everyone. And this pain…this fucking pain…he was relentless.

But then came 2023. I found Pilates. Little pockets of mobility. Over-the-counter meds. And then I found Lauren.

Falling in love while being in pain is a very specific type of vulnerability. I didn’t want him to see me like my mother: unsteady, unpredictable, someone to be taken care of. He would massage my left butt cheek (not that he minded) or watch me laminated to a heating pad until I could walk. But he stayed. He always stayed. He learned my pain map before he knew my coffee order.

In 2024, after my dad died and life stopped spinning long enough for me to actually care for myself again, I saw a doctor. She prescribed Naproxen—non-opioid, non-addictive pain reliever—and suggested the pain was weight-related. Ugh. Okay. I’ve heard this my whole life and have tried every lifestyle change, fad diet, long-term diet, workout (because unfortunately chubby girls are indoctrinated into thinness culture before we can read). But I was pretty over this pain, so I followed the rules. Bone broth. Sad lettuce wraps. No bread. Pilates. Ten pounds down.

And then the pain RAGED. It screamed at me.

It was almost comforting to say out loud: It’s not the weight. I sacrificed pasta heaven and I’m still in fucking hell.

I’d already taken a million X-rays, so I knew it wasn’t my spine. But still no diagnosis. No name. Nothing to hold. Just me and this constant awareness that anything could tip into another flare.

Ice packs in every freezer. Anti-inflammatory meals on repeat. Not a sexy shoe in sight. Not one day without warming tea. Not one night without elevating my legs. My life became one long game of prevention. And still, pain.

Cut to February 2025. Lauren planned a Valentine’s Day getaway at The Heartwood at Vassar—the kind of trip meant for champagne and sex with the windows open. And instead? On the drive up, the pain exploded.

I mean…3-Naproxen, no-relief, crying-into-a-pillow, ice-pack-welding, writhing pain. For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could fall into opioid addiction. I understood my mother’s alcoholism. If I could have opted out of my body, I would have.

In the CVS parking lot, I begged Lauren:

1. Get me topical pain gel and put it on me right here.

2. Leave me.

Find someone who can have hot sex in a boutique hotel. Find someone whose life isn’t derailed by random, earth-shattering pain.

He held my face, kissed my head, and said what he always says: “There is no one else. Just you. You’re my dream girl.”

“Even with the pain?”

“Yes. Even with the pain.”

My birthday was a few weeks later, and all I wanted was to get rid of whatever was causing this. So I made a list. Everything I could try.

We started with IUD removal. My ParaGard was 9 years old and apparently the size of a coat hanger compared to the new ones. At the gyno, she reached in with medical pliers and plucked it out from what felt like my soul. Note, I have an image of this post-removal and debated whether or not to add here. I have spared you all.

Then acupuncture. Once a week for three months. Needles everywhere: butt, back, knees. They gave me ear seeds and when Lauren asked what they do, I shrugged and said, “Wellness.” Later I learned they were for anxiety, headaches, digestion, pain relief, etc.

Ah. Digestion. Another thing I could try.

So I cut dairy, sugar, meat. I took fiber. I became the person who drinks hot water with lemon before meals. Then we moved on to the wellness Olympics: hot yoga, cupping, stim machines, dry brushing. On my birthday, I visited an herbalist in Chinatown who gave me two weeks of powdered herbs to drink all day. I found any excuse to sit in an Epsom salt bath and drop in CBD bath bombs like I was seasoning myself.

I just realized I haven’t actually described what the pain feels like.

On a good day, my nerves in my left leg feel alive but tender. Sometimes rippling appears on the skin, like visual proof of inflammation. On bad days, it feels like everything under the skin expands and presses into my organs. The left side of my stomach aches. I can’t use a tampon or have penetration. I can only wear oversized leggings. If you work with me, you know when I’m in breakthrough pain because I’m at my standing desk in soft pants, stretching while typing. Throw me a parade the day I walk into the office in jeans.

Then summer 2025 arrived, and we moved to Beacon. The pain lowered a little. Not gone, but not drowning me. I was taking Pilates classes eight times a month at a spot on Main Street and swimming at the local pool. We were eating food from the farmer’s market, in nature all the time, and I wasn’t in the city as much. My skin was even clearing up. Things were starting to look up.

And then, this September, I was in Pilates, mid-tabletop, when I felt an electric surge shoot from my left glute into my lower back. I thought I really messed up my back. I was out for five days in extreme pain. And I had absolutely had enough.

I went to a new doctor. He was kind. He made it clear that he understood I was doing everything in my power not to feel this pain. One thing he told me plainly: stop Pilates. Not because Pilates is bad, but because he was seeing an uptick in injuries from overdoing workout classes. He prescribed physical therapy, more X-rays, and gabapentin. It helps with nerve pain (also, I’ve heard some people have it prescribed from their vets for their dog’s anxiety).

I stopped Pilates. I got more imaging done (again, no spine issues). I started taking my pain meds. Immediately, the gabapentin worked. Some days, I felt no pain at all. Other days, the pain hit 100 and I needed a dose every few hours.

As you can imagine, I do not want to take pills. Gabapentin isn’t an opioid, but it can be addictive, and a user can develop a dependence on it. I am working to the best of my abilities to not have that happen. And I want to say this clearly: my feelings on addiction are not judgment. I know that all of us are a slip and a fall away from painkillers. We are not different from people who experience drug addiction, pain med addiction, food addiction, alcohol addiction. It’s a thin line living in this universe to exist on either side. We are all on one side. I know that my feelings derive from my whole life spent with one, and I have fear of what happens when the physical or emotional pain is so much that there is nowhere else to turn.

The pain didn’t subside its wrath when I felt it or go away entirely, so I went in for my first physical therapy intake session. It’s this cute place in the town above mine upstate that looks like a renovated house that just so happens to have a mini pool for water therapy. My physical therapist took me into a room and asked me to move and bend and make shapes with my legs and back to assess what could possibly be going on. She tested the strength in my legs and arms and showed me some core positions to keep my back safe from putting any more pressure on the affected area.

She spoke about the potential of this being piriformis syndrome, meaning the piriformis muscle in my butt tightens and puts pressure on the sciatic nerve, causing the pain. It flares up when I work out too much or when I’m about to get my period. So while not an exact diagnosis, this was the closest I had gotten to something real and tangible. Something I could work toward solving.

I was set up with eight sessions, which is what my insurance would allow until we do a reassessment and request more. And in these sessions we do: sports massage, bike, planks, lat pulldowns, clamshells, hip raises, tabletop, and so many more exercises until we get to the end where I sit on an ice pack and have E-stim therapy for 15 minutes. All the muscles in my butt finally relax and I walk out feeling like I’m on a cloud.

And this is where we are. Managing pain, preventing pain, attempting to exist with minimal pain.

My last name, Delarato, comes from the word Addolorata. It’s what it was before my family came to Ellis Island. The name means sorrow, grief, pain, and has deep religious affiliation to the Virgin Mary as “Our Lady of Sorrows” (Maria Addolorata) during Jesus’ last years of his life, including arrest, trial, and crucifixion. My dad and I would talk about the significance of our last name and the grief Delaratos have had to incur in their lifetimes and generationally.

And not that I’m equating having butt pain to the generational trauma that has definitely been passed down on both sides of my family, but I do think there is something here about the perseverance despite pain. Even though I wish my dad would have gotten checked out earlier, maybe could have prevented how quick everything was, I remember sitting with him in hospice every day for three weeks knowing nothing would stop the inevitable. Still, his body hung on longer than any of us thought it would. I watched him call out for his mother to the ceiling. I watched him have seizures. I watched him try with chemo knowing the cancer was too far gone. I watched him hurl blankets and tell me the devil was in the clock. I watched him go through ever stage before dying while I held him.

My mother ran from her pain. My father tried to outlast it. I grew up watching both. So I’m trying something else. I look at my pain. I tend to it. I ask what it needs. I let it interrupt my plans without letting it erase my life. I don’t disappear inside it, and I don’t pretend it isn’t there.

Maybe this is what it means to carry my last name: Delarato, Addolorata: Mother of Pain, Our Lady of Sorrows. Not to deny the weight of it, but to refuse to let it take me. I don’t know if my body will ever be pain-free. But I do know this:

I am not becoming what I feared. I am not repeating what was handed to me.

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I would wear capris, a simple tee, and walking flats the way my grandmother used to. I would let my hair air dry in the Sicilian sun as I wander down the tiny road that barely counts as a road.

I would stop at Panetteria La Chicca for un caffe per favore, drink my espresso standing, and grab a warm brioche to eat as I walk. I would tear it into little pieces and pop the dessert bread into my mouth as a get closer to the port.

Then I would take out my small travel paints to the water. Nothing serious. Just tomato red, sun yellow, sky blue. I would sit right at the edge and paint whatever is in front of me. A boat. Piano piano (slowly slowly).

[a little video from Taormina in 2023, my drawing.]

And if I had the energy for it, I would walk up toward Palazzo Florio. The hill is steep, so so steep. Like too steep. The Palazzo sits with its tall windows and tropical plants hugging the courtyard holds the heat of the sun baring down on it.

free mini zine / BLU by Laura Delarato

In the afternoon, I would put my feet in the water at Spiaggia di Cala Dogana, where the sea is so clear it looks fake… again, simulation. My brain would try to stress about something out of habit but would come up empty. Maybe I would think, I should buy more tomatoes when I get home.

I would dry off as I walk to Alimentari Erina, and actually buy them.

At night I would sit by the marina while the whole island gets quiet and eat plate of pasta at Ristorante Bar ROMANO. And my brain is quiet along with the sea.

Here, a few books that fit the mood
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

A quick ferry note
Ferries to Levanzo run from Trapani. They are generally on time but still operate on based on weather, sea, Italian moods. Check Liberty Lines before you go and get to the port a little early… it just makes the day easier.

Which Italian Island Are You According to Your Zodiac Sign?
Italy Segreta has you covered.

If you want to show some lust:
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Since it was one of those in-between weeks: a little tender, a little lonely, a little horny, a little “should I move to Italy and live off tomatoes?” I paid attention to the objects around me.

if you want to show some lust:
follow me on instagram, subscribe, or buy me an espresso.

1. A Tomato-Red Lip Stain That Wants to Be Kissed
Feather Matte Lip Whip in Mon Chéri by Violette
This lip is a whole attitude. It gives spaghetti dinner + kissed someone on the walk home. Smudgy, sexy, imperfect.

2. Olive Oil I Want to Take a Bath In
Giadzy Organic Coastal Puglia Olive Oil
Good olive oil is a love language, and this one is speaking mine. It’s pure Italian summer in a bottle. I’ve been pouring it on bread and tomatoes [and emotionally, on myself].

3. A Collage Scrap That Looked Like a Boob
It wasn’t a boob.
It was a Minne di Sant’Agata pastry cutout. (Sicilian ricotta, candied fruit, tiny domes of soft pastry. Very on-brand.) When I ran it through my scanner, the bottom stretched into this long, sensual point.

4. My Compact Wide-Head Vibrator
Lovers Wonder Wand Massager
Wide head, super strong, great for solo or sandwiched between lovers. Made of silicone (non-porous), so it stays clean and doesn’t absorb anything… except maybe your feelings.

5. The Book I’m Reading Every Spare Second
Wuthering Heights, Ruben Toledo 2009 Penguin Deluxe Edition
I’m reading “Wuthering Heights” slowly, like it’s a rich dessert. Page by page, looking for the hidden temptations Brontë had to disguise in her words i.e. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” I’m in love with the atmosphere, the tension, the weather as emotion.

Thanks for reading and for being here in my little corner. May your week be filled with good oil, good pages, and something (or someone) worth smudging your lipstick for.

xx
laura

I’ve been in relationships where sex feels mismatched. It’s kind of felt like: one person wants one thing, the other wants something else, both people at different stages of trusting the other to give them pleasure (or even trusting ourselves… or feeling like we don’t deserve pleasure at all). And the body shuts down emotionally and physically. It can hurt. It can suck (more like no sucking). And everyone feels uneasy suggesting new things because the day-to-day relationship stuff isn’t finding its footing. But that’s exactly why you should suggest. Play. Have a sex-workshop night with your partner. If we can all just get over our egos and the pressure to “do it right,” then we can all relax a little and F.U.C.K.

In light of the Wuthering Heights trailers dropping: may we remember Catherine and Heathcliff, two people who deny themselves each other and become their own ghosts (alive and dead) of this obsessive love story. Those sexual desires, those fantasies you want to explore safely, those little hopes and wishes (“I just want him to push me up against the wall and press his knee between my thighs”) are not going to disappear. They are natural and normal and deserve attention.

And if we can take anything from classic literature into today’s lesson it’s this: if you betray your true self, you become a haunting. You become split lives. And whatever wild urge you push down will come to your doorstep eventually. Maybe as depression, sadness, cheating, anger, resentment, adult acne.

I just watched Babygirl. Loved it. Was turned on for most of the film. I did have feelings about the lack of boundaries conversation between Romy and Samuel, but maybe that’s part of the point? We don’t have control over what these characters will do or how we feel about watching Nicole Kidman in this role. We’re being dominated by the movie without really knowing it.

But the moment that interested me most: Jacob (Romy’s husband, played by Antonio Banderas) telling her she is making him feel like the villain after she expresses what she wants in bed. That is straight-up ego. It’s the refusal to see your partner as a complex sexual being outside of how you define them. What in the relationship is stopping both people from finding honesty? Or even the bravery to speak desire without fear of shame or judgment?

Finding the right person matters. Maybe that person isn’t here yet. Maybe you have a person and they’re currently the Antonio-Banderas-character version of themselves. Maybe you don’t want a full-time person at all. All are fine. We evolve over time and through experience. But for the love of goddess, please love yourself so completely that settling doesn’t even cross your mind. So instead of “find the right person,” maybe the first step is “find yourself and people who share your core values.”

The river will still run beyond the rocks that are trying to stop it.
Desire will always find a way out.

We need safety. Feeling safe in someone’s arms is rare, terrifying, and—dare I say—uncommon. It requires both people to give in and give a shit, even if the thing the other person needs isn’t something you personally crave. It requires tears and vulnerability. I can only speak for myself here: my safety is emotional safety. I’m a person with 100,000 voices in my head at once; my emotions and trauma crash into my skin like waves, and I can spiral into a memory in two seconds. I’m probably not the easiest partner if you don’t want to face emotional depth lol. But for me, safety is knowing I can experience all my multitudes without the person beside me running away. This takes time. It’s not date one, three, or twenty. It’s someone who won’t flinch when the hard stuff comes up.

Have the sex convo. Have it early. Go to dinner, wear something hot, reassure each other that judgment and shame are not invited. Bring a list of the things you’re into or want to try. A la Babygirl: “I’m really interested in degradation… I have a fantasy of being blindfolded while someone uses their hands to penetrate me while I use a vibrator. I saw a scene in Babygirl and it was so hot.” Even writing that was hot, right?! And we’re not even at dinner!

Establish a baseline. Hey, maybe it’s been awhile and there is a need to reestablish each other’s sexual reference points. That’s perfectly fine! Relationship check-ins help both people get their needs met. What stresses people out is when there’s no baseline for this openness—and then ten years in someone’s like, “Hey, could you call me a dirty slut while I sit on a vibrator with a gag in my mouth?” Not that fantasies don’t come out of nowhere sometimes! But set a precedent that you both want a hot sex life, and that means talking about it. Put a recurring “sexy check-in date” on the calendar every two weeks. When fantasy arrives, the groundwork is already there.

Check your insecurities. When Jacob tells Romy she’s making him feel like a villain, he’s dumping shame onto her—making it harder for her to seek pleasure from the person she’s supposed to trust most. That’s non-consensual shame. That’s not listening. I used to work at The Pleasure Chest in the West Village many years ago. People would come in and say: “I don’t want my girlfriend to use a toy. It’ll replace me.” Or “How could the father of my children want me to do that to him?” Tame compared to others. But it all stems from how we see ourselves in relation to our partner’s desire. You are not an extension of someone else’s sexual interests—and neither are they. We are adults playing. Get into the fantasy. Maybe it’s not something you want on you, and that’s okay. But look at your partner’s face and how hot they are when being pleasured by you! Egos be damned.

Have a sexy workshop game night. Here, some homework:

• Step 1: Pre-game with yourself
  Write down three things that turn you on lately.

• Step 2: Dinner foreplay
  Each partner brings one item to dinner (toy, quote from a book, a Babygirl scene).

• Step 3: Boundaries check
  Use green, yellow, red as safe words to indicate your boundaries with each other.

• Step 4: Power exchange declaration
  Who’s leading tonight? Who’s following? Who trades halfway through?

• Step 5: Pick ONE thing
  Not five. One. Try it.

• Step 6: Aftercare check-in
  Say: “It was hot when you…” not “You didn’t…”

Schedule the next workshop in your cals before you put clothes back on.

Ask for what you want. No one is judging you. Sure, not everyone wants to leave the house saying, “Okay bye, love you… choke me and spit in my face when I cum tonight!” (I mean, I would say it, but I get that not everyone would.) You can be subtler: point out an erotic line in a book, mention a movie sex scene that turned you on, or write down fantasies together and compare overlaps.

Consider alt forms of pleasure together. This isn’t a cheating conversation. It’s consensual exploration. People have boundaries for real reasons. Maybe someone doesn’t want slapping because violence exists in their past. This is where those sexy conversations help: they build trust, vulnerability, negotiation. Maybe there’s a spanking party you both could attend. Maybe a workshop. Maybe compromise with a paddle instead of a hand. It’s still connection. It’s still hot. You’re still a team.

And if they judge you? That’s not about you. Truly. I once had a girlfriend tell me my fantasies were “base” and asked, “Haven’t we evolved past being so animalistic?” I didn’t see it then, but she carried a lot of self-hate and couldn’t sit with her own thoughts. She judged everyone because she judged herself. But also, I’ve been the judger. I’ve been the person who thought the sexual ask was too weird or too much. And it wasn’t. I was just younger, less experienced, and projecting my fear of not knowing onto another person. Twas dumb. We’ve all been insecure. But now we’re older, smarter, full of knowledge! We know our boundaries. We understand empathy. We want depth and honesty. So if you’ve done all that work and your partner is still being judgmental? That’s another conversation. Note: Their insecurities do not get to rule your pleasure.

Solo pleasure exists for a reason. It’s yours. No one can take it away from you. And the beauty of that is: everything you want to try or fantasize about, you can explore with yourself. Make it fun. Make it educational. Take notes! For example: want to be gagged? Try it on yourself. Explore what it feels like to have that sense removed. How does the gag (or a clean pair of socks) feel in your mouth? Where does the sensation turn erotic in your body? Now… masturbate like that. Put on audio erotica from Quinn or watch porn.

You have the power to experience everything you want with your greatest sex organ: your brain. I love how beefy your brain is, hottie.

Until next time.

xx
laura

“My Pleasure: An Intimate Guide To Loving Your Body and Having Great Sex” was written from the perspective that I, your author, was a regular person who experienced an array of sexual and confidence fumbles, harboring self-esteem issues, that somehow got over the hump of self-hatred into a flourishing sex life/existence with my body that wasn’t at war anymore.

I had/have the background though. I worked at an adult toy store, The Pleasure Chest, from 22–25, taught workshops to big audiences about sex and wellness and consent, spoke on numerous panels, learned to hold a microphone slightly away from my face, wrote article after article for years, making myself a semi-name in the pleasure space (my only regret is I never got to go to AVN in my prime). And I had a newsletter (this one), something that wasn’t as popular to have as it is now—it used to live on MailChimp under a different design from 2018-2021. But it was popular in my small slice of the sexual internet.

I always wanted to write a book. I had the proposal ready (but forever tweaking) and would get coffees with writers and agents and anyone who would talk to me. I tagged publishers and buyers on Instagram, hoping they’d notice. I took classes. I kept writing and being seen.

The US shut down on March 15, 2020, for Covid-19. My company had already sent us home on the 12th. And on the 16th, I received an email from Chronicle Books saying they were interested in a proposal from me to write a pleasure education book (in fact, the book was supposed to be called Pleasure Education… I still think it’s a better name). I went into proposal tweaking that turned into Chronicle offering me a deal. I didn’t have an agent, so I asked a peer to connect me with hers to go over contract details. My then-agent (oh my gosh, I had an agent) negotiated my contract. She even got me to retain the rights for any streaming deals, like if Hulu wanted to make a show out of it. Wild.

Cut to the summer: I have a book deal, and we’re in a global pandemic. Getting on the internet to talk about it felt trite and ridiculous. “Hi, I’m writing a book about sex!” Cue the other nightmares happening in the world! It was not the time or place for me to emotionally give myself away to the internet.

I ended up writing in the mornings from 6–9 a.m. every day. I finished three months early and went through editing quickly. In the early stages, I was adamant about the art. I wanted someone who created shapes and characters with emotional complexity. I begged the publisher (with a handy lil deck) to connect with Amber Vittoria, and she was onboard!

I finished the book. I finished the editing. I found myself in February 2021 staring (masked on) at the East River just sobbing. No one tells you that once you finish a big project there’s this unearthly emotional release. Not that I understand motherhood or childbirth, but I felt like I’d pushed this book baby out of me and into the world. I could love it and care for it but couldn’t stop life from happening to it. I was also in the middle of my own being-seen crisis (that has altered my chemistry and makes me not want to be perceived now/today).

Two months later, a friend died. Someone much younger and much more talented than me. I felt this deep survivor’s guilt, cried forever.

Three weeks later, my grandmother died, and I wanted to hide. She was everything to me, essentially my mom. I felt broken. I felt like I could scream at any point. I was feeling disillusioned. Everything was crumbling. My inner self was living our her Schrödinger’s cat scenario each day.

It was quiet for a bit, and then came promoting the book. I did so many giveaways. Virtual talks. Bookstore photos. I sent books to influencers. I pitched ideas to Chronicle: get it in the MoMA, have an event with the Museum of Sex, do a workshop with The Pleasure Chest, get me on a talk show, a podcast, anything. FROM MY POV: there wasn’t any interest from the publisher. So I sent my own emails to GMA, podcasts, magazines, museums. The PR team would just ask if I’d do another giveaway (from my personal stack).

When the book came out, it had a short burst of stardom. People posted about it, tagged me, said they saw it in stores. I got a few emails from editors. Then it fizzled. I tried to carry what I thought was a great book about finding pleasure in a world set on making everyone miserable.

Over that time, while the world socially distanced, I emotionally distanced from the book. Felt like my dream had failed, that I wasn’t a person anyone wanted to hear from. It’s partly why this newsletter and my freelance work have petered out. Which is worse: the fear of isolation in your own work or finding out it’s not good enough or not worth space on the PR roster?

Recently, I needed the Chronicle link for my website, only to find the book doesn’t exist there anymore. It comes up empty. And that’s how I feel about it.

I took a zine-making class in April, and one thing I learned about zines and print media is that it’s for everyone. It’s DIY. It takes what you love and gives it to people. Maybe “My Pleasure” needed to be in a different form. Maybe it needed to be free.

I’ve been toying with creating a pleasure zine based on the book, just placing it around the city so the information can be democratized.

If I could do it over, I’d have gone to therapy. Something emotional was happening then. I was feeling a profound loss of people and life and myself. I wanted to hide.

And so I feel like a failure. An author failure. A person who could have had a Hulu show. A person with one book you can’t even find on the publisher’s website.

It fucking hurts. I wrote that book for every version of myself hooking up with someone who sucks and isn’t funny, or doesn’t know where my clit is; for her who thought she was so, so fat and so, so ugly she didn’t deserve care; for her who felt she had to take scraps. I didn’t want that for people anymore. I had the experience, and so had many others, and I wanted this book to be a reason people sought their own pleasure for a happier sex life and less painful navigation through self-esteem.

The book talks about a lot, but some main themes:

• Lube and why use it, spit isn’t lube, what lube to use on what kind of toys, lube that causes infections because yeah, some do.

• Navigating shame, finding grace, checking the shame you put on others, how it manifests emotionally and physically.

• Masturbation: solo, with toys, with partners, finding the right toy, direct vs. indirect stimulation, using it to teach future partners how to touch you.

• Finding what you love and where sex fits into that, navigating shame and pleasure.

• Communication with partners, hookups, one-night stands, established relationships, boundaries in group sex and threesomes.

• Kink and power dynamics, creative ways to be sexually and emotionally satisfied without being naked.

And just so much more.

I loved writing it. I loved knowing so much. I loved that it was my thing, I loved that it was a topic that made others uncomfortable but I made accessible for anyone who wanted to know.

I’m not sad I never got a Hulu show (who would even play me?). I’m more sad it was written to do good and maybe never reached its full potential.

I emailed Chronicle early this year with another idea. They passed. I met with my agent to come up with another proposal, which I sent her. When I checked in, Chronicle hadn’t seen it. My agent had moved companies. It felt like a sign to pause all of this book stuff.

I want to write about what I know: having a sex life when you’ve been told your whole life you’re not worthy—and how that feels. I want to write about trying and failing to be beautiful, or at least to see myself as beautiful. I want to write about grief and how it digs a fucking hole in your stomach. I want to write about my art, and art as everything and all my manifested feelings.

I wanted to write a book my whole life, and I got to do it. I’m proud of it…the effort, the care, the artistic detail, the love.

No pity for me or the life of “My Pleasure: An Intimate Guide to Loving Your Body and Having Great Sex.”

I hope she’s safe on a bookstore shelf waiting for a person who needs her and will love her.

PART ONE

What you need to know about me is I, like so many people, have held onto the same narrative about myself and how far I’m able to take this existence—often held back by the story I tell myself every single day: I’m just not good enough.

What you also need to know is that I spent the last five years really shut down from vulnerability on the internet. What was once a semi-influential existence became emotionally distant during the pandemic, but that shutdown was rooted in my relationship with that story: I’m just not good enough.

Why post? I’m just not good enough.
Why pitch? I’m just not good enough.
Why vlog? I’m just not good enough.

So in an effort to come out of my atrophied-for-survival state, I’ve been reading journal prompts on ways to exist more outwardly. This entry by Nia M. of Said Softly has been in my reads on my Substack app for a while: 31 Journaling Prompts for July. And in it, I came across this prompt:

Who hurt me in a way I haven’t been able to fully forgive—and why does that memory still sit heavy?

The answer is: my mother.

PART TWO

I wish it wasn’t. I wish I could tell you I don’t actively avoid conversations about her, but I do. My relationship with my mother is at its best right now, and that is for a few reasons.

1. I know that she will not be here for very much longer, and I want to feel something other than this toward her before she is just a collection of pretty, destructive memories.

2. Lauren, my fiancé. Ever since we became more serious, he has taken an active role in being a conduit between us. Even now, I barely speak when she calls; he does most of the talking. And when I do talk, my body won’t let me move beyond a monotone. He always says it’s like a different person shows up when I'm speaking with her. It’s like my body can’t let her in or can’t believe any show of genuine feeling from her is real.

[trigger warner: cancer, violence]

My dad died last year. For context, I'm 38. My dad was 68, and my mother is 60. There isn’t a wild amount of time between all of us, and I just don’t want to feel alone, like the only one from my family left out there. My grandparents were the ones who really raised me. My younger brother, Richie, died in a drowning accident when I was five; I was the last person in my family to see him alive. And my other brother, Chris—he doesn’t exist to me.

I don’t bring this up casually, but when my father was dying, Chris got really angry with me in the hospital. I had asked him to see a doctor. My dad died of colon cancer, and I asked Chris to get checked because he had a higher risk. He stood up, pushed me, and slammed my head and arms back into the wall. I haven’t really spoken to him since.

But I think that moment gets to why I name my mother as the person I haven’t been able to forgive: she never protected me from him growing up. He was always angry, and I was always in his line of sight to unleash that anger on. I have experienced his fury in many ways. I have a scar on the back of my leg because when I was eight, he pushed me to the ground and slammed a rake into the back of my knee. I had to get six stitches. When I was six or seven, he handed me a pair of open scissors and cut a chunk out of my hand. There was a whole year of my life where he would terrorize me after school. I escaped into art and TV and music and learned how to jump out of my bedroom window when his anger was relentless.

My mother didn't do anything about this. She told me to "ignore him."

But this doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg of why I can’t forgive, why I can’t let go of the expectation of her as a mother. I just want my mom. But how can I forget the time I was severely depressed, deep in my teenage sadness, and she read my diary out loud? When she got to the part where I wrote about how I wanted to end it all, she drunkenly threw the diary at me and said, “Then do me a favor and just do it.” She would turn around the next day after these outbursts and completely forget how vicious she had been. It came out of nowhere. She would literally rip up my homework and then drive me to school the next day and say “I love you” like it had all never happened.

And as a kid, I thought this was all very normal, like all mothers acted like this. In my last year of high school, my grandfather would drive to Virginia, where I lived with her, and rent a local hotel room for two weeks. He would drive me to school, pick me up after my activities were done, take me to dinner, and I would live in that hotel until he left. Then I would go back home.

I never understood why he did this at the time. When he was dying in 2017, I told him I loved him and thanked him for saving me. But even now, I'm constantly realizing just how much he protected me from.

When I was 16, I was overdeveloped. I had big boobs and hips, and I garnered a lot of attention from older men. I didn’t understand it. I did, however, want to feel beautiful, to feel loved, and I really confused the two. And there are men who notice this vulnerability in young women (especially, I think, in young women who feel overweight) and take advantage of it. My mother’s friends were always younger than her. On more than one occasion, she gave her friends keys to the apartment to stay over—she was kind when people needed help, even if misguided. She ran a bar and restaurant and was always allowing people she barely knew to stay and sleep it off. I would walk into the living room on a Monday morning, getting ready for school and the walk to the bus, and see men sleeping on the couch.

[trigger warner: sexual abuse, manipulation, men]

On more than one occasion, those men knocked on my bedroom door in the middle of the night. One guy would ask me every ten minutes if I was hungry and just walk into my room. Another guy would take his beer and sit on my floor and just watch me. He would watch me read from the floor. I would sit on my bed, frozen, flipping pages without reading a single word. This man got brave one day, stood up, and showed me his penis. He moved it closer and closer and told me to touch it or he’d tell my mother that we had sex and that I came on to him.

Reader, I’ve watched so many films and TV shows with a similar scenario: an older man takes advantage of a younger woman who is dealing with adolescent self-esteem issues, manipulating her into doing something she isn’t ready for. I always want to agree with the people who say she should "just say no," or "run screaming," or "tell her mom"—that she should do something to get out of it. But having been in that scenario and others that held shame and guilt and fear over my head, I know there is nothing more simultaneously destructive to a child just learning how to be a person. Sixteen is a child.

This man did this a few times. He ended up touching my breast and asking me if I had gotten my period. I was frozen. Sometimes, when I get upset now, I can feel my 16-year-old self taking over in those moments. I firmly believe the way we react to things is rooted in what happened to us as children; therapy, self-work, and inner-child healing only help us support and understand those reactions. But in the middle of it all, I felt like I deserved this.

At the time, my mother was married to a 21-year-old man (she was 38, my current age), and she would have these outbursts that made me quiet, insular, and mean to myself. This is the unknowing meanness of a fat girl who believes she isn't allowed genuine connections because of how she has been treated so she is outwardly mean. And my mother, after giving birth to me at 22, was the fat girl. And so was I at the time. I would lie on my floor listening to Michelle Branch, feeling pulled by music videos and cult films that explored the brokenness of women. I am Daria and Gina from Empire Records and Tye in Clueless and Fern in Jawbreaker and Cecilia in The Virgin Suicides. My mother and her outbursts labeled me (to other people) as "highly sensitive," "emotional," and "too serious." But really, I was a kid who wasn't a kid anymore, trying to interact with adults who wanted more from me than I could understand.

An aside: my dad once told me a story about how my mother, when they were in their 20s, would show up to parties with a tray of food or a bag of alcohol, even if the party didn’t call for it. As an adult, I recognize that I do something similar: I try to be liked by everyone. I am very amicable and go out of my way for people who don’t like me or have been hurtful to me. And in turn, I have hurt people who have been kind to me.

It takes years to look back at the damage you have caused to realize it was your own pain making you act that way. I was hurt by men who saw a child to manipulate because my mother was hurt (probably by men), and she just wanted to be in everyone’s good graces—to be seen as fun and cool. I still can’t forgive her for it, but I do get it.

This is the part I just want to say to the universe: I'm so sorry for being a total, terrible asshole to a few people in my life and career. I didn’t care about myself enough to see beyond what I was doing to you, a person who was kind to me. I wasn’t emotionally ready to heal my own stuff, and it was not on you to heal it for me.

It was around that time, at 16, when I began really binging and purging. I thought I was VERY FAT. But looking back at photos, I was a very average-sized child. I was always tall; I just developed early. It was then, at sixteen and a half, that I started counting down the days until I would be 18 and could leave my mother’s house in Virginia. My real home was in New York with my grandparents. No, I legitimately counted the days, frozen in that pain. My brother’s aforementioned anger got worse, and I would find ways to stay after school for as long as I could so I wouldn’t have to be on the receiving end of his pain.

That’s the thing. We were all in pain. Chris is still in pain. I don’t know what to do about it. I worry that everyone will be gone and I will have to take care of him—this person who would drag me across the floor just so my shirt would rise up and my stomach would show to his friends when I didn’t have an after-school activity.

PART THREE

It might be a stretch, but I don’t think I can do one thing particularly well. I have a hard time focusing on something to love or devote my time to. When I was younger, I didn’t have any direction—no one noticed what I loved or nurtured any of my interests. If I could do it all over, I would have started art sooner. I would have gone to art school. I would have become a painter (specifically oil). I would have nurtured that so hard as a teen and into adulthood. I wouldn’t have dated or felt the need to be with anyone until I figured out who I was. I would have lived somewhere else or gone to another state or country for college.

I think there’s a certain level of confidence or self-esteem that parents should impart on their children. I felt like a burden. And now I carry the secret shame of those experiences, of what happened, of what I didn’t know how to stop.

As an adult, I can’t forgive the kind of relationship she wants from me now.

[trigger warner: prescription drugs, surgeries]

One thing about my mother is that she’s had many surgeries. More than you can count on all your fingers and toes. Over the last 20 years, my thoughts on those surgeries have shifted from "must-haves" to something more complicated—maybe even tied to prescription drug use. Some surgeries felt necessary, like the time a few years ago when she fell and hit her head, causing a brain bleed. They had to shave her head, and I don’t think she would have done that unless it was serious. And when I think of my mother, I see her curly black hair in every frame.

Other falls led to broken ankles, sprained wrists. Most started at bars. Drinking turned into surgeries turned into pain meds.

And I do understand that pain. A few months ago, I had to get my IUD removed because it was pressing on a nerve. The pain in my back and leg was so intense I could barely walk. At first, I didn’t know it was the IUD causing it, so I was on very high doses of Naproxen just to function. Some days, I couldn’t even get out of bed.

I’m scared of prescription drugs and alcohol. I have a real fear of not being in control. But eventually, I had to take something just to survive the pain. I get it.

There have been a few low points in recent years. Most of them involve me sitting on the bathroom floor after talking to her. She’ll go on about big plans to move back to New York, get a house, for me to live with Chris and her, and bring the dogs.

[trigger warner: suicide]

I tell her I want nothing to do with Chris. She says I need to get over the past, because I’ll have to take care of him eventually. I yell that she shouldn’t put me in that plan—he doesn’t exist to me. He’s abusive. I have enough actual, real scars.

She yells back that family takes care of each other. I scream that I’ve never been considered a person by this family. That she let people hurt me. That she hurt me.

Then she says she can’t deal with this right now, that she’s having a bad day.

She says, almost every time, "Laura, one of my friends killed himself this week. I can’t handle this."

[So, all of your friends have committed suicide?]

My mom, to her credit, was a nurse when she was young. A really good one. She knew what to do with every illness, every cut or bug. I have a scar on my knee from falling on pavement when I was a kid. She cleaned it and held the skin together with butterfly bandages on my grandmother’s stoop. I remember that so vividly. It was the only time I let her touch me with affection.

So when my dad was sick, I would text her his vitals. They had been divorced since I was a kid, but she still responded. She explained what was happening. It felt maternal, warm—a kind of connection we never had. I let her in a little. I softened.

Even though I was losing my dad day by day over the course of two months, it felt like I was gaining my mom.

I wish I could tell you that feeling lasted.

But it shattered in the hospital.

The day Chris pushed me, she didn’t believe me. She said I could have made it up. Said I shouldn’t be fighting with him. And in that moment, I knew: I couldn’t trust her. I couldn’t share my vulnerability. I knew it was too good to be true.

That relationship is like an oasis that keeps taunting me from afar, telling me it’s safe to drink the water. But the water is poison.

I had to let it go quickly. My dad was dying.

A week or two later, I was sitting next to him, watching his eyes glaze over. Blood at his mouth. He was unconscious. I was wide awake. Alone. Watching the man whose name I carry leave the world.

Afterward, I waited in the family room for Lauren to pick me up. And all I wanted to do was call my mom.

Despite everything. Despite the hurt. Despite the betrayal.

I called. I sobbed. She cried, too. She said she loved me. Said she was sorry I was in pain. That I did a great job taking care of my dad.

I saw her a month later. Something in me needed to lay eyes on her. Something about losing a parent and needing proof the other one still exists.

My dad and I had a rhythm. A language. My mother and I never had that. I don’t remember our last hug.

Before that, I saw her at my grandmother’s funeral in 2021. Before that, my grandfather’s in 2017. Before that, my college graduation in 2009.

Four times in sixteen years.

Each time, she looked like a completely different person.

We used to look alike. Now the only similarities are a few beauty marks and the ringlet curls at the base of my neck—the way her hair used to curl.

Each fall, each surgery, each attempt to suppress emotional pain has taken something from her. Her ability to walk. To think. To remember.

The hardest part now is this: I want to scream at her, I want to remind her of everything that has happened. But she doesn’t remember.

She was my age when I was 17. She struggled with self-hatred the way I do. She drank. Took pills. Surrounded herself with people who used her.

I’ve been on all sides of therapy, journaling, meditation, yoga, microdosing. And I still have to fight the urge to shove myself aside for people I’m desperate for acceptance from.

When I was a kid, I only used a small towel after showers. I thought, I’m not good enough for the big towel.

Now I say: Big Towel, Big Towel, Big Towel—like a magic spell. An incantation for my self-worth.

I never used to put ice in my drinks until Lauren came along. He would offer, and I’d say no. I’m not good enough for ice.

Now, when I get a glass of ice water for myself, it feels like a win. A win for the part of me that’s still trying to believe I deserve it.

There is one more story. One that provides more context for all of this.

The death of my youngest brother, Richie, when I was five.

PART FOUR

My parents were getting divorced, so we were dropped at my grandparents' house for the summer. My mother went to Florida—she always loved Florida and lives there now—and my father went to Arizona to stay with his brother. I didn’t understand this at the time. I didn’t know they were separating. I just knew I was with my grandparents.

It was June 17th, 1992. My grandfather was working. My grandmother had walked my brother Chris to the corner—he was hyperactive and needed constant motion. I was left with Richie in the kitchen. He was three. He had curly black hair like my mom, while Chris and I looked more like my dad.

We were eating Farina, a milled wheat cereal—like Cream of Wheat. It was always in the house. I didn’t know it was particularly Italian, but it means flour in Italian, so maybe that’s why.

I finished mine and washed my bowl. Richie was still eating, so I told him I was going to sit in the living room for a moment. I walked ten feet to the green velvet armchair, my grandfather’s favorite. It was plush, with button upholstery and wide arms. I tucked my legs under myself, leaned into the soft inner lining, and closed my eyes for what felt like 45 seconds.

When I walked back into the kitchen, Richie was gone.

The back door led to a cement-covered backyard with a small garden for tomatoes and basil. That area wrapped around to the driveway gate. The gate was always locked—secured with a swing lock and tension rope.

That day, the lock was open. The rope was on the ground.

I ran back inside. Upstairs. Downstairs. Under every bed. I couldn’t find him.

By the time my grandmother got back, I was sitting in the green chair rocking back and forth, saying, “I lost him, I lost him.”

My memory goes in and out after that. I remember running to my grandfather when he came home and telling him I was sorry. I remember saying maybe Richie went to live with another family. I remember sirens.

Then I remember lying in bed that night next to my Aunt Jackie and seeing him—Richie—hovering above me. Call it whatever you want, but I felt him there. I saw him. And then he was gone.

The next thing I remember is being at church for his funeral. My mother walked behind the casket, sobbing, unable to look up. The pews were a sea of black. I don’t remember seeing my father, but I assume he was there.

I remember a gathering afterward in that cement backyard. My mother had come back from Florida for it. She was with a man named Tim. I didn’t like him. He wasn’t my dad. But she really wanted me to get to know him.

Eventually, they got married.

I lived with my grandparents for a while after that. I’d visit my mother in Florida until Tim got a job in Virginia, and I moved there full-time around age 12 or 13.

PART FIVE

But there’s already so much here for one reader to get through—or for me to even have to re-acknowledge again.

Still, the highlights:

• I moved to Virginia, where I didn’t know anyone.

• I was a chubby teen who learned how to vomit up everything I ate without getting caught.

• Chris became more violent toward me.

• Tim, my mother’s husband, my first step-father, was an alcoholic who got into screaming matches with her.
  My grandfather spent most of his time in Virginia to shield Chris and me from the chaos.

• Once, when my grandfather wasn’t there, I heard Tim beating my mother in the basement. I grabbed one of my brother’s metal bats and swung it at him until he left.

• My mother was angry at me because Tim left and wanted a divorce.

[trigger warner: suicide]

That summer, right before my junior year, I was sent back to New York and wasn’t allowed to return to Virginia until the day before school started. Why? Because my mother attempted suicide after losing Tim, but then had a change of heart. She decided she wanted to live—and she started dating Nathan. An 18-year-old who went to my high school.

I spent my last two years of high school dodging rumors about Nathan and my mom. I was a fat teen, emotionally shut down, hiding when her bar friends stumbled into my room at night. Dissociating when Chris lashed out. Counting down to my 18th birthday so I could finally leave.

I sometimes think I’m so dumb. Why didn’t I pay more attention in high school? I should have known more. Done more. But when I lay it all out like this—how could I have done anything else but brace for impact every single day?

I don’t think my mother got the childhood she wanted either. She was a chubby teen. She had men take advantage of her at a young age. She wasn’t believed. She experienced death early. She didn’t get the chance to develop the interests she had.

She loves animals. She’s rescued dogs and cats from roadsides and nursed them back to health. That’s something she gave me. It’s why I love Mona and Snax (my dogs) with my whole heart. That was her gift to me.

Just recently, she told me she always wanted to have an animal sanctuary. Land. A vet on staff. She wanted to dedicate her life to keeping animals safe.

That broke me.

What about me?
Why couldn’t I be kept safe?

No matter what her life was like before me, the fact remains: you don’t lose a child at 25 and live a normal life after. Something inside you dies, too. And sometimes the rest of your life becomes a mission to drown that pain, no matter who else needs you.

I don’t know if I’ll ever fully give up hope that she’ll turn around and become “mom.”

But here’s what I know:

“Mom” is for people who call when they get a bad haircut or need advice.
“Mother” is a formality. A fact of life. A title on paper.

Back to the prompt:

Who hurt me in a way I haven’t been able to fully forgive—and why does that memory still sit heavy?

I guess the answer is this:

My mother hurt me in a way I haven’t been able to fully forgive. And the memory sits heavy—because they weren’t just my memories. They were hers, too.

And maybe we’re just on opposite sides of the same coin.

But I’m trying—desperately—to land heads up.

xx
laura

So, why have I been away? Here's the rundown:

In late April, I got engaged! That someone, by the way, is my fiancé, my hot guy, my man, Lauren. I started this newsletter in 2018 (formerly on MailChimp and then with the anti-club club kids here on Substack), and I honestly didn't think I'd be interested in marriage by this point. But here we are.

Early May, Lauren got a new job. For me, I just want Lauren to be happy fishing and baking, and not inputting numbers into Excel. He was actually let go from his previous role in March after this administration (with a lowercase 'a') slashed funding for non-profits earlier in the year. Days after we got engaged, he landed another grants administrator role! Again, I would have been happy for him to bake bread and sell his goods at the farmer's market. Alas, we must purchase fancy dog food.

Then, at the end of that first week of May, we saw an apartment in Beacon, NY that was very different from our tiny Williamsburg studio. It's a 1-bedroom, cuts our rent in half, and is in a smaller, artsy town—exactly what we were looking for. Of course, it needed our style! But we ended up making the decision to move, to say goodbye to the city for now, to save for the future, to live in nature (and more bugs…don't like that), to have a local library, and to commute on the Metro-North (which we can afford since rent is cheaper).

Cut to today: I am engaged. Lauren works his sweet, remote 9-5. I get up early to get on the Metro-North and finish all the books, diary entries, and podcasts I've been meaning to catch up on. It's nice.

Is it perfect? No.

❌ I miss being near Mona, my dog, all the time. If you don't know (you probably don't, and that's okay—the internet makes you think people just know about you), I used to live in a big 400-unit building that my ex (who is a very kind, creative person) also lived in. When we ended things, we were very smart about how our dog Mona would be shared. We lived on different floors, had separate lives, communicated only about Mona, did a two-week on/two-week off schedule, and every once in a while when I had Mona, we would see her other mom, and Mona would be so happy, and that made me happy! Now, Mona is further away when I don't have her, and that's so hard.

❌ Aforementioned bugs. Spiders are a constant outside the apartment. Lightning bugs fly in every once in a while. No thanks. I am not a fan. BUT are they rats? No. I will never miss the rats of NYC.

❌ So, I have a Floyd Bed Frame. I've had it for maybe four years? The bedroom in the new apartment is small and oddly shaped. We couldn't put the frame longways because then the room would be entirely bed, and we'd lose a closet. So we thought, what if we put the frame sideways—the width of the small room might work, maybe??? It's snug in the room! We ended up hiring a TaskRabbit to—follow me on this—cut seven inches off the end of the frame to fit the room. IT WAS THE ONLY WAY. But the wild part is what we saw when the wooden slats were cut: the inside was full-on Ikea-laden particle board! Kind of wild because of the price point. Check the proof:

End to update. I finally don't live inside boxes anymore. I'm so close to being able to think about a wedding, and ice cream in Beacon costs like $3 per soft serve cone. Things are still new to me, and that can feel scary, but I'm excited for the new.

xx Laura

Soft Goods 🍦

On to the topic! And also, a new section here on Hey Laura: "Soft Goods." I love a quality sex toy with the same vigor as a sundress that matches my lipstick color. You know, the simple pleasures in life. I believe that the things that make us internally glow (whether it's how you look or how you cum) are a major secret to living a more fulfilling life.

When I wrote my book, My Pleasure, I was obsessed (and still am) with the idea that pleasure is abundant, depending on how you look at it. It could be the hot sex you have, or the toy you purchase, or the lip gloss you love, or the pasta dinner you make, or the cozy nook you've created in bed for when you read, or the quiet commute you find yourself on, or the trees you pass every day. It's the thing that makes sense to you, spreads a warmth around your chest into your neck and outward with a smile.

In this first version of "Soft Goods," I wanted to pull together some mood boards based on pleasure. So, where did I check first? Pornhub. If you don't know, Pornhub creates a year-in-review of the top searches, terms, and locations of our adult content habits on their site. It's quite fascinating when you see it all pulled together. And if anything, it makes me realize that we're all disgusting perverts who watch porn and enjoy a fantasy 😈

Based on the top trending search terms that defined their latest 2024 review, here's a pleasure pack curated for you, diva.

1. Demure Desires — search terms: authentic couples, modest MILF, modesty
Try: Dame Products Com external vibrator / Maude burn no.3 massage candle. Mindset: Focus on foreplay, non-penetrative intimacy, and creating a sensory-rich environment with soft lighting, calming music, and gentle touch. Deeper Dive: How does embracing a slower, more subtle approach to pleasure unlock deeper desires and stronger connections?

2. The Secret Lives of Porn Wives — search terms: wife swap, cuckold, missionary
Try: Bellesa Dea 2 dual vibrator / Nox Shop glass dildos Mindset: Discussing fantasies openly with a partner, setting clear boundaries for role-play, and exploring new positions or scenarios that challenge the "vanilla" routine. Deeper Dive: What hidden desires emerge when we play with perceived boundaries and societal expectations of fidelity or traditional roles?

3. Coworker Crush — search terms: sex in the office, office affair, workplace fantasy
Try: Lelo SONA™ 2 Cruise external vibrator / LoveHoney Deluxe Leather Cuffs. Mindset: Journaling about the fantasy, creating a "secret playlist" that fuels the desired mood, or even just imagining scenarios during mundane tasks to heighten the thrill. It's about mental play as much as physical. Deeper Dive: How does the thrill of the forbidden, even in fantasy, ignite our most primal desires and add a spark to everyday life?

Quick Book Reviews

I've been actively trying to read more lately, which is something I've always wanted, even though as a kid, reading was a struggle for me; I'd skip words, couldn't comprehend sentences, and often felt overwhelmed. Even now, I still get nervous about reading out loud, sometimes even skipping words when I write, and I actively avoid certain words because I struggle to connect them to their sound or feel self-conscious about how my mouth looks when I say them—a habit that, honestly, stems from wanting to hide as a child. This recent push to read is part of a larger effort to do everything I wanted to do or be at 16, a time when my self-consciousness about my appearance and restrictive diets overshadowed my desire to read, be outdoors, or simply smile big. What I've learned is that childhood shame can linger, it's okay to mispronounce words at any age, going slow helps, and early emphasis on reading builds confidence, and if you're nervous, reading to a dog is great practice! If you have a good book recommendation, please send it my way!

The Vegetarian by Han Kang
⭐️ 4 - Short, brutal, haunting
What happens to a family when a woman decides not to eat meat anymore.

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
⭐️ 5 - Break me in half
This was an incredible book. A woman who feels she is an alien—mixes survival, womanhood, and societal pressure in one surreal, gutting ride.

Woo Woo by Ella Baxter
⭐️ 3.9 - Ghosts, art, dreamy
Fantasy set in reality. Artist for art’s sake, conspiring with ghosts. Loved it.

Brutes by Dizz Tate
⭐️ 2 - Florida, girlhood, anxiety
“Virgin Suicides” in Florida. The monster-as-metaphor idea could’ve gone deeper.

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Art Direction by Lauren O’Connell