The responses to my public writings about dating have been very varied. I’ve had lovely emails, article comments, and DMs from women and men who support and relate to my experiences about sexuality, gender and digital life more broadly. The trolls, incels, and conservatives who ‘believe in equal rights, just not feminism’ have also crawled…
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I'm an Associate Professor in the School of Health Studies at Western University in London, Ontario. An anthropologist with cultural and medical expertise, I conduct ethnographic research with women and others in sex work, people with HIV/AIDS, and Indigenous populations. My special research interests include sexuality and sex work, gender, marginalization, and the politics of health. Along with contributing to different academic and community settings through her research and activism , I enjoys creative writing and recently had a poem published in Anthropology and Humanism, entitled ‘Arboreal’ I'm currently working on on a manuscript that examines how feminist culture, sexuality, and gendered power dynamics are being (re)configured through Bumble, the worlds first ‘feminist’ dating app. I live with my cat, Elliott, and enjoy yoga, engaging with the arts, travelling, spending time with family, and finding new ways to experience the world.
Toad Totem
Since Elliott’s harness arrived two weeks ago we have been enjoying daily jaunts outside. The first jaunt begins around 6-6.30 am, which I affectionately call “Morning Glory.” But prior to putting the pink flamingo straps around her neck and under her arms, there is much preparation. It’s amazing to see how intent she is to…
Read MoreHealing through Ink
A few hours ago, I made a mistake. I realized this while waiting for my tattoo artist to come downstairs with the design for my next piece. After she left, it was hard to concentrate on mundane things like looking at the people walking by on the street because I was caught in trauma’s sticky…
Read MoreDesigning Calm During Covid-19
While clipping my fingernails in the bathroom sink a couple of days ago, I heard my neighbour across the hallway blow-drying her hair. For over a decade, I have listened to this sound almost every day. Yet, it struck me as something profoundly different that morning. It ceased being the white noise of apartment living…
Read MoreMy Mother’s Jacket
Moving is fundamentally about deciding which material items stay and which go. Some of my decisions in this regard echo Marie Kondo’s joyful approach to “tidying up” in the sense that I actively engage in a dialogue about what my stuff means to me. Such discussions do not involve the items easily tossed into the…
Read MoreGraduation
‘Tis the season of scholastic celebration. Images of young women in generic capes holding flowers and little kids saying goodbye on their final class zoom call are flooding the socials. It’s much rarer to see pictures of young men in their cap and gowns, which is interesting. I graduated high school in 1990, when acid…
Read MoreKneel
Today I wrote a poem about the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Atatiana Jefferson, and George Floyd who were living in Georgia, Texas, and Minnesota. The first line that came to me was: “in the heat of death nothing matters”, which I deleted from the finished product. It felt ridiculous to write about something I don’t…
Read MoreEdge of Seventeen
Candles were among my first Covid-19 home delivery items, along with a pumice stone and colloidal silver, long known to stimulate the immune system. Selecting a fragrance without smelling it was weird and as my indecisiveness crept in, I realized that it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that I was taking forever to decide, no…
Read MoreThe electric moon
And then her head explodedInto a slithering coil of eels Charged hot and nervousWith mislaid energyAmid the viral pause of the planet The old order tumbles out of her bodyIn layers of opaque feelingsPlants push throughBuds taste the grey airYet she cannot grow Why has she come undone?No cough, no one in the hospitalJust the…
Read MoreSicily on Fire
We’re five weeks into Covid-19 and I’m writing, thinking, feeling endless. It’s like the boundaries between what I know to be true, what might happen and what is taking place are invisible. I too am without the usual beginnings and endings, the familiar ways of knowing where I am, who I am. It’s strange and…
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