Editor’s Note: Last year Saskia Globig (co-editor in chief of boilerplate) asked if she could interview me about masculinity and butchness for her series on toxic masculinity. I immediately said yes; I love talking about my butchness, it’s a fundamental part of my identity and a community that I often feel is underrepresented and misunderstood. […]
Analyses of the Sex Doll: Performance of Compulsory Heterosexuality and Femininity
Editors Note: I started this article in a class at Vassar called “Gender in American Popular Media”. It brought me down the path of sex dolls, and when I began my research, I had no idea what I was about to encounter. I was immediately drawn into this world. I became obsessed. The growth of […]
Remember That I Love You
I saw my first concert in 2008, when I was ten years old. Juno had just come out—one of the first “grownup” movies my parents ever let me see—and I quickly became obsessed. I liked the plot, but what really drew me in to Juno was the soundtrack, a collection of mesmerizingly weird, folky songs […]
It’s Hard to be a Saint in the City — My Summer Back in Jersey
Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, Bruce Springsteen’s debut album, begins with a gorgeous thirteen-second cacophony. The rhythm guitar jangles its way through a simple four-chord progression while the lead plays an almost ill-fitting rockabilly riff. Somewhere off in the background, the drummer plays a metallic fill while Clarence Clemmons’ burly sax bounces off of it, […]