One of my biggest weaknesses, one that has always shamed me, is that I have always been lonely. I've struggled to make friends because I can be socia… - Roxane Gay

It is an amazing thing,” my father once told me after Christophe was born, “how much a child loves a parent. That kind of love terrifies me.

It’s okay if most of your friends are guys, but if you champion this as a commentary on the nature of female friendships, well, soul-search a little. 3A. If you feel like it’s hard to be friends with women, consider that maybe women aren’t the problem. Maybe it’s just you.

Perhaps the most horrifying thing about nonconsensual sex is that, in an instant, it erases you. Your own desires, your safety and well-being, your ownership of the body that may very well have been the only thing you ever felt sure you owned — all of it becomes irrelevant, even nonexistent. You don’t need to be a helpless, innocent child to be changed by that.