| |  Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash | For the past two weeks, I’ve been on the road: talking about my book, living out of a single carry-on suitcase (a point of pride), and hearing from women about what’s on their minds. Everywhere I go, there are two questions that always seem to come up. The first is one I’ve gotten on a daily basis since the 2016 presidential election: What can I do to make a difference? There are lots of great answers to that one — from voting to organizing around an issue you care about to showing up at a town-hall meeting to running for office. The second question, though, is harder: What do you do to practice self-care? The women who ask — and it is almost always women — look at me with hopeful expressions, waiting for me to share my secret to staying sane and balanced in these crazy times. And I get it. It’s impossible not to feel demoralized when so many of the values we share — not to mention the progress women have made over the past century — are under relentless assault. Just scrolling through Twitter or reading the headlines can be physically and emotionally exhausting. I can see the disappointment on their faces when I have to admit that I’ve never been great at self-care. As hokey as it may sound, I feel enormously privileged to get to choose to work as an activist and troublemaker. My work is what drives me, inspires me, and keeps me going. But the truth is, that’s only part of the answer. For me, there has always been one place where the usual rules don’t apply. When I was a sixteen-year-old high-school student in Texas, looking for a summer job, a neighbor family with three small kids said that I could be their nanny for the next few months in Maine. The dad was a history professor and taught in Boston during the summers. I’d never been to Maine, but the idea of being away from home and out of the Texas heat sounded great. That chance encounter changed pretty much everything about my future. I flew up to Maine with an enormous suitcase, full of every possible kind of clothes since we didn’t know any better, plus several homemade shirts and skirts my grandmother and I had sewn together. This would turn out to be a familiar pattern in my life — my mother always wanted to make sure I had the right outfits for any occasion. Little did I know that all anyone needed in Maine was a pair of cut-off shorts, a sweatshirt, and Wellingtons for the inevitable rain — none of which I brought. Since I would be gone all summer, my suitcase was also filled with cans of Old El Paso enchilada sauce, tortillas, and Herdez hot sauce, plus a few cans of Ortega jalapeños. We were certain these would be difficult to procure in Maine. At least on that count, Mom and I were correct. I arrived in Portland by myself and found Widgery Wharf, the pier from which the ferry left to head out to the island where the family lived. Portland in those days was a true seafaring town, with no restaurants or downtown to speak of. There were fishing boats, clam shacks, seagulls, and lobster buoys everywhere. Hauling my gigantic suitcase down the ramp to the boat, it was so clear I was not from Maine. People were friendly enough on the ferry, but I now know that more than a few must have been making jokes behind my back about what in God’s name I could be bringing out to a tiny island. Luckily for me, a truck was waiting on the shore to meet the boat — otherwise I never would have gotten my suitcase to the house. As it turned out, there weren’t really cars on the island, only walking paths. And there wasn’t any store, so good thing I’d brought the tortillas. To top it all off, it was cold — something Texas absolutely never is in the summer (or even the spring or fall). I was freezing, so we made a fire in the fireplace and Sarah, the mother, sent me to bed with a hot-water bottle to warm my feet. As I fell asleep, I wondered about this crazy place I had landed. But over the course of that summer, I fell in love with the island. It was so different from anything I’d ever experienced back home in Texas, from the pine trees and rocky coast and seaweed to the jars of raspberry jam we made after foraging from the wild bushes on the island. The people were quirky, resilient, and hardworking. I’ve been returning to the same island ever since. My husband, Kirk, and I came here for our much-delayed honeymoon, once we finished organizing a nursing-home workers’ strike in Beaumont, Texas. We stayed in the same farmhouse I had as a teenager. And once we had kids, we kept bringing them back, renting the odd house or staying at someone’s place while they were out of town. Now that our kids are grown, they come and bring their friends. One unforgettable summer, we built a wooden dory with my mother and named it the Red Rocket. Maine is home to some of our most indelible family traditions: fresh fish from the mainland, homemade salsa verde, pasta with clams, beans and rice suppers where we invite the other islanders to join in. Some of my happiest moments have been jumping off the dock into the coldest water I’ve ever experienced — either on a dare, or because a loved one is leaving and that’s our ritual for wishing them a safe return to the island next time. Having a place that in our vagabond organizing lives we can call “home” has mattered more than I ever could have imagined that first summer when I was sixteen. Today my son, Daniel, comes from Washington; his twin sister, Hannah, from Colorado; and Lily, our oldest, from whatever campaign spot she happens to be living in at the time. And though I’m not a romantic, I do imagine that one day in the not-too-distant future, they too might bring their families, raising their children to love a foggy day on a tiny island off the coast of Maine — a place that’s invigorating and restorative. When I first set foot on the island all those years ago, I had no idea then that I had found more than a great place to spend a summer. Going to Maine has taught me the importance of having something outside of my job that brings me joy. In all the times when I can’t pack up and run off to Maine at a moment’s notice (which is most of the time), playing with my dachshund, Ollie, trying to master a new pasta recipe, or even scrolling through my favorite Instagram accounts (shout out to Harlow and Sage!) will do the trick. Having those happy distractions provides a much-needed sense of perspective and reminds me that there’s a whole world outside of the constant battles and soul-crushing political news. Even in the toughest moments, that can make all the difference. Cecile Richards is the former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the author of Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead. | | | | |  Illustration by Vivian Shih | It was a yawning Monday morning in Maine. Above me, the sky was filled with Earl Grey–colored clouds. A gentle rain fell from them, drumming the aluminum roof of my car like bony fingers. I flipped on the driver-side butt-warmer then reached over and turned on the passenger’s as well. I was the only human in the car, but I wasn’t alone. My dog Maybe Trouble was riding shotgun, and my other road dog, Huckleberry, sat in the back. Today, the three of us would be visiting a pet psychic. The very act of spending money on gasoline and a full workday to visit a person who claimed to be a modern-day Dr. Doolittle, with all the vast, wicked, and unjust things going on in the world, struck me as absurd, perhaps useless. But there I was, and it was happening. Something hidden somewhere within me told me that this trip going to be more than a twee voyage to a pet whisperer. So we drove. The dogs snored and farted while I wondered how this would work. What exactly does one do during a pet-psychic consultation? Was I supposed to come prepared with an objective, a list of specific questions or detailed pet problems in need of a diagnosis and prescription? Whose problems were they supposed to be — the dogs’? Or my issues with them? Also, would she sue us if they bit? *** My husband Andrew adopted Maybe, a furry, overweight, cantaloupe-shaped Jack Russell terrier with tremendous eyebrows, right before he and I met. Not long after we began dating, I adopted a mutt from Kentucky — a bluetick coonhound–Shar-Pei mix that looked like he needed a Sherlock Holmes hat and pipe. He was brought to us from a dog-rescue group called “Recycled Treasures.” I named him Huckleberry. The dogs quickly became a part of our little family: we took weekend road trips together, we celebrated the dogs’ birthdays, got them holiday presents. We called our parents their grandparents; the dogs were their “granimals.” All of this changed when I got pregnant. Now we have two kids. Human ones. I can’t remember what it felt like to give birth, but I still recall the look on Huck and Maybe’s furry faces when I left for the hospital to go deliver my son. It’s like they already knew: that they were being downgraded, that they were about to turn into an item on a checklist (daily chore number three: walk dogs). I felt terribly guilty about this. And lately, the dogs had been acting out — running away in the woods, giving strangers attitude, chewing up the kids’ toys. So I figured I’d bring this up with the pet psychic. Enlightened Horizons was located in an old railroad station house near the White Mountains of New Hampshire — a crème-brûlée-colored office building that looked like a dollhouse in the center of North Conway. The building smelled like cupcakes. I knocked on the door to the office of Enlightened Horizons and was greeted by Sara Moore, proprietor, intuitive healer, psychic medium for people and pets, Reiki master, hypnotist, and the woman we’d be working with today. The dogs greeted Sara with wagging tails (Huck attempted a mouth-kiss), and she greeted them right back with the unbridled joy of a golden retriever. “So,” I began, settling in, “they’re both rescues.” I said this almost as an explanation, but really, it sounded like an apology, as Huck was already clamoring and barking loudly at the window at a UPS delivery truck in the parking lot below. “Oh, Huck doesn’t think he’s a rescue,” Sara quickly retorted. “His attitude is ‘No one would ever abandon me.’ He has absolutely no abandonment issues, which is actually really cool, because this goes directly into you,” she said. I steadied myself and held on. “I close my eyes — it turns off my ego — and I think in pictures. The way you see your breakfast is the way I see what they’re talking about. So they show me in my head. It’s like I’m looking at a memory, but it’s a movie screen. And I’m also an empath, so I’ll feel what they’re feeling.” I looked over at Maybe, who had made herself quite at home and was snoring in the corner of the room. Huck, on the other hand, had tuned in and was practically climbing up into Sara’s lap. We continued to talk a little bit about our dogs’ issues, about Maybe’s attacking anyone who walked into our house, about Huck’s relentless baying, barking, and occasionally lunging at everything that moved. “My husband says these two are the most magnificent pains in the ass,” I said. “Oh, he is,” Sara confirmed, referring to Huck. “But he is also saying this: I’m also here for a purpose. I’m here to make sure you find your way, to clear the way for you. So when you think about you finding your way, doors are opening for you, and they’re opening very easily; he wants credit for that.” I looked over at Huck, who was now staring straight back at me. He wagged his tail. “Huck is the one pulling you forward enough and giving you the inspiration that you need,” Sara continued. “I’m not sure if you’ve written about this or not, but there is a divine story in there that the dogs have conjured. Just divine.” Sara was spot on. The reason we lived in Maine was the dogs. Before we’d had kids, Andrew and I had left Brooklyn. We’d had it up to our breaking point, and we owed so much of it to our pets. When we weren’t working (or, overworking), we were in the dog park with the pups. Like, always. Mornings before work, evenings afterward. For hours. And the weekends. Andrew and I were often irritated, stressed, and bickered. The dogs must’ve picked up on this energy, because they started acting out and nipping randomly at strangers. Their misbehaviors led us to say “Enough is enough,” pack up shop, and start life over in a slower setting: a tiny island off the coast of Maine. Since then, life has mostly done a 180 for the better. But I told Sara that lately, the dogs had started acting out again. “What’s up with that?” “Here’s what he wants you to know: I need you to make me sit, stay, walk. Be more authoritative. More than that, I want you to be more present.” And just like that, the conversation shifted from my questions about the dogs to the dogs being answers to questions I’d had about myself but, up until that point, hadn’t realized, at least consciously. HEY, HUMAN. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS, Sara went on, paraphrasing for Huckleberry. “The intricacies are in the details,” she said. “Why are you not there right now? Just because you’re a writer doesn’t mean you should stay in your shell all the time.” Until recently, I’d thought that’s what was required by writers. You sit in your cave like a hermit. You surround yourself with your work, and you keep your nose hard to the ground. But this kind of approach wasn’t making me thrive. “You have to get out and meet people and expand your audience and expand your mind,” she sang. “Huck wants you to pay attention to the world around you. That’s why he and Maybe act out.” I lowered my hand down to Huck’s velvet fur and petted his head. “They want you to know that you can’t go around the world with your head in a bubble.” She was right. It was winter. I was on a book deadline. I had gotten lazy and was staying in my house, on an island, not showering and not taking the dogs to the woods as much. “Ouch! That hurts!” Sara squeaked, interrupting my thoughts. “Your late grandmother on your mother’s side is making my butt hurt. She’s here right now. Did she have any hip issues? Because she’s here and letting me know.” I took a breath. My grandmother died from incredibly painful rheumatoid arthritis and limped with a cane. Sara’s accuracy didn’t make my heart skip a beat; it felt more like she was relaying a message from a friend. Which, depending on what you believe, I suppose she was. Shortly after that, our time was up. The four of us hugged, the dogs and I got in the car, drove back to the ferry that would take us to our little island in Maine, and that was that. *** Months have passed since meeting with Sara. Her observations allowed me to see things from a different perspective, which is exactly what I needed. The older we get, the more we get locked into cycles and habits and ways of being in and viewing the world. We lose the ability to see things in a new and innocent light. We all know this. The hard part is taking the leap and actually being open to someone helping you change (even if that someone is a canine) and trusting that you will be able to grow from it. My dogs aren’t just my pets — they’re my spirit animals. True, one looks like a potato on toothpicks and the other has a police record in three states, but regardless, Huckleberry and Maybe are helping me chart my course. What Sara Moore interpreted from them was that I must slow down, look, listen, and let my guide dogs lead me to the best place I’m supposed to be. Mira Ptacin is the author of the memoir Poor Your Soul (Soho Press, 2016) and the forthcoming book The In-Betweens (Liveright/W.W. Norton). @miraptacin | | | | |  Illustration by Stephanie O'Byrne | Being Facebook friends with someone you greatly admire but know only through their creative work is weird. You feel compelled to interact through a sense of false intimacy, like when you inadvertently say “Hi” to an actor on the street who you’ve vaguely misfiled as a neighbor. This is especially true if their work has made you privy to their inner workings for decades. So when I learned on Facebook that Cynthia Heimel, a renegade feminist writer and one of my formative literary idols, passed away in February, it hit me like a shit-filled brick. As one of her sanctioned social-media voyeurs, I knew she was living in a California assisted-living facility and suffering from early-onset dementia — I'd read about it in numerous posts from her real friends, detailing visits and blow-by-blow updates on the status of her declining health. It took everything I had not to jump in to offer her or her family solace IRL, for Facebook was the only way we were very loosely acquainted. It was a few years ago when she accepted my friend request, likely a why-not click for her and a thrill for me. Ask my friends from the ’80s and early ’90s, and they’ll testify in court they received their copies of Sex Tips for Girls, If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?, and Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-Bye! from me in acts of post-breakup morale-boosting and sisterly solidarity. That same sisterly solidarity drove Heimel to write unapologetically, frankly, and rip-roaringly about sex, yet the act was a mere byproduct of her endgame: staunch feminism. She used the travails of her own life to systematically dismantle the status quo from deep within the female psyche. She contextualized the joy and pain of being female with a sharp and salty fuck-it-all turn of phrase in the form of a self-help tome that mocked the hell out of well-worn tropes while dispensing heaps of practical wisdom — wisdom we so badly needed back then. For example, in Sex Tips for Girls, she advises: “‘Stop treating my nipples like chewing gum, you abysmal wart hog’ won’t get you nearly as far as ‘I simply crave you when you suck on my elbows in that gentle way of yours. And my nipples, which are very sensitive, would like to be treated in exactly the same way.’” For the time, Heimel was a renegade, a deft wordsmith in leather pants who discussed the merits of muff-diving, Quaaludes, back rooms at clubs, and Manolos before Carrie Bradshaw even got her period (well, Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell was probably just wrapping up college). It was quite enough for Cynthia to be Cynthia, revered for her mind and the words that poured out of it as her quotable coterie of devout gal pals, Rita, Cleo, and Lynn, served as both sounding boards and a Greek chorus. As a sheltered, straight teen raised by Middle Eastern parents who taught me absolutely nothing about being a woman (other than that it was a painful exercise of self-sacrifice), Sex Tips for Girls, an amalgam of Cynthia’s Village Voice columns published in 1983, was a revelation. Those columns, “Problem Lady” and “Tongue in Chic,” positioned her as sort-of a Dear Abby for the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll set, a medium later mimicked by Bushnell and in “Female Trouble,” the New York Press single-girl-about-town column by writer Amy Sohn. As for me, I finally had a big sister to boost my self-esteem when I blew a guy and when he blew me off. “Her writing was both timely and timeless. She was tremendous in her ability to be candid about her own life and to grapple with the feelings on the page,” says Anna March, who edited and published some of Cynthia’s final essays in ROAR, an online feminist magazine. “She was funny, raunchy, self-deprecating, and fiercely honest. Her books definitely influenced my books — especially the titles. Also, she was a nice Jewish girl and freelance writer in New York and LA, so I overidentified,” says Susan Shapiro, New School and NYU writing professor and author of numerous books, including the upcoming writer’s guide The Byline Bible. So many of us are guilty of overidentifying; Cynthia’s confessionals about fashion, women, men, children, dogs, friendship, feminism, and politics let you in on her in-jokes. Marvelously, in rereading her books these past few months, I found everything she wrote about writing, motherhood, Republicans, middle age, and the myriad ways women are inherently screwed resonated as deeply with me as everything she’d written 30 years prior. Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I’m Kissing You Good-Bye! is rife with #MeToo moments, like the time she interviewed the Who and Roger Daltrey asked if she’d give the band blow jobs. After sharing that anecdote, she went on to write: “There is the argument that sexual harassment happens primarily in blue-collar situations, where the men are so powerless and frustrated they need to find a scapegoat to make their miserable lives slightly better. But I work at a movie studio in Hollywood with a lot of educated, affluent people and, believe me, some very big-shot guys proposition, fondle and threaten young women on a daily basis. These young women have no power, they need their jobs to live, and they’re afraid to retaliate.” Again, this book came out 25 years ago. The only time I met Heimel IRL was at a Boston bookstore, where she was promoting Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I’m Kissing You Good-Bye! in the early ’90s. Though I was armed with a sample of my own work should we hit it off and she decide to take me under her dolman-sleeved wing, words abandoned me in her presence. “This isn’t a schmooze,” I uttered, beyond awkwardly. “But your writing has deeply informed my life and work, so thank you!” She responded tartly by signing my book “This isn’t a schmooze either.” Most inspirational was Heimel’s rise — a story of true grit, without the benefit of J-school or writer’s retreats in exotic locales. A single mom supporting her son on welfare checks, she plodded along at secretarial jobs before working her way up to a column at the now-defunct Soho Weekly News, which eventually led to the aforementioned columns at the Village Voice. Eventually, she wrote for Vogue and Playboy, a lone feminist voice in publication completely dedicated to pleasing the erect male penis. She wrote a play, A Girl’s Guide to Chaos, which starred That 70s Show actress Debra Jo Rupp. Eventually, she moved to Los Angeles, where she became a scriptwriter for Dear John. Her final book, Advanced Sex Tips for Girls: This Time It’s Personal, was published in 2001. Caroline Leavitt, best-selling author of Cruel Beautiful World, admits to fangirling Heimel-the-human as much as Heimel-the-writer. “I always wanted to be able to stride into a room in hot-pink tight pants and red high heels and a yellow shirt, which is what she was wearing when I met her,” Leavitt recalled during a chat with me on Facebook messenger. “She was the first famous person I ever met when I moved to New York. She was at a brunch thrown by a friend of mine and had just gotten a book deal for Sex Tips for Girls, which made me, a newly minted novelist, both deeply admiring of her … and a little freaked out. But Cynthia immediately came over to me and asked me all sorts of hilarious, sometimes personal questions, and I liked her instantly. Over the years, I’ve been following her career, devouring her work, and catching up with her life on Facebook, because there was something about Cynthia that made you want her to be happy. She was real.” “Real” is also the term March used to describe the mensch-ess. “Cynthia was real. She was true. She was hard-core,” she wrote. “Working with Cynthia illuminated her kindness. She wanted to know if I’d had my propane delivery. She wanted to know if I was getting enough sleep. She wanted to know why I sneezed during a call — was I sick? Should I be napping?” And, of course, she wanted to talk about sex. “She wanted to compare notes on the ex-lover we had in common. She wanted to know if I was sexually happy with my boyfriend and said, ‘Be sure you’re satisfied in bed, Anna. Don’t just write about it, y’know? Make sure you’re articulating what you need. I know it’s easy to say that on the page and forget to say it in the sack. Speak up, doll.’ She made me grow. I owe her so much. I miss her,” wrote March. Don’t we all. Vivian Manning-Schaffel is a journalist, essayist, and rumpshaker who's written for the New York Times, The Week, NBC News, New York, and a wide variety of additional publications. She's currently writing her first novel. | | | | |  Lauren Cierzan | Just before my novel Talk was first published in 1968, I had the idea for another taped book. The concept was to invite a number of ex-boyfriends over for dinner one by one, serve them each the exact same meal. I'd turn on the tape recorder the minute they came to the door of my New York apartment, and keep it running until they left. Then, I'd edit the recordings into a book, hoping, in the process, to discover What Went Wrong. I invited — or at least considered inviting — twenty guys; in the end, twelve showed up, including a crime reporter, a radical radio personality, two sculptors, an auctioneer, and one businessman. Each encountered a different version of me. The shortest session was only seven minutes (after which the paranoid invitee fled at the sight of the microphones); the longest lasted until late the next morning. Certain things didn't play out as planned. The menu changed from homey Jewish to more classy career girl, and there may have been a little too much wife talk. One purist was disappointed that the tapes would be edited and not exposed raw; another said he'd kill me if the book were ever published. This story is part of a series of five excerpts from the taped dinners — but not that last guy's. You can read the first installment here and the second here. This is Lukas.  Lauren Cierzan |
Linda Rosenkrantz is best known for her taped novel Talk, recently republished as a New York Review Books Classic, and she is also the co-founder of the popular baby-name website nameberry.com. Lauren Cierzan is an illustrator based in Nashville, Tennessee. Her scribblings and more can be found at laurencierzan.com. | | | | |  Illustration by Tara Anand | In a recent attempt to forget that this world is engulfed in misogynistic flames, I decided to binge the last season of Real Housewives of Atlanta. I made it all the way to the reunion show, when Andy Cohen, the surprisingly objective ringleader, began, “I know that black don’t crack …” Immediately, I cringed upon hearing a white person attempt to comment on melanin’s natural reluctance to age while also dipping his toes in the ebonics pool. Cohen continued, “... but do any of you get botox or fillers or anything like that?” The camera cut to smirks and side-eyes across the circle of women. I paused and remembered that the previous season’s most titillating story lines surrounded problematic historian Porsha’s enhanced derrière. The ladies threw jabs about its authenticity and the source of the money that paid the expensive bill. “Child, she got some African prince to foot the bill,” the always- perturbed Phaedra said, with enough judgment to overturn a Supreme Court ruling. Back on the reunion show, Cohen proceeded to survey the women about their surgeries and procedures, a sort of plastic-surgery edition of Never Have I Ever. Cynthia and Porsha politely offered their plastic-surgery receipts, and Kandi Burruss proudly announced, “I just joined the club!” as she gestured toward her breasts. The women cheered and nodded in polite approval as Kandi exclaimed, “I’m going to take these from sleek to on fleek!” As my Bravo binge came to an end, I was left wondering why black women are lining up for nips and tucks. After all, black women are known for their titanium-strength confidence. As a black woman myself, I was taught that no matter the shape of my features or the number on the scale, I am beautiful. This confidence is almost evolutionary in our need to survive a society that goes out of its way to objectify and ignore us. A part of me believed that most black women outside of prime-time TV take some silent oath that our bones need not be chiseled to any other ideal of perfection but our own. But with a little research, I learned that RHOA illustrates a tidal shift in black women’s perception of plastic surgery: The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reports that cosmetic augmentation among black people increased 56 percent between 2005 and 2013, and it’s still rising. According to the 2016 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report, black people accounted for 8 percent of all plastic-surgery procedures in the United States — that’s double the percentage from 1997. (Black people make up only about 12 percent of the overall population of the United States, which underlines the significance of these plastic-surgery statistics.) So why are black women increasingly going under the knife? “Sometimes black women have too much pride in not admitting they don’t like something about their body,” says Andrea Hughes, 47, a black woman in Clarksville, Tennessee, who had a breast augmentation and a tummy tuck in 2005. “We’ve been tasked with having to be strong for so long,” says Hughes, whose own confidence radiates through the airwaves. “I don’t think anybody should ever be ashamed to admit, ‘Yeah, I have some issues [with my body]. I see this bulge right here, and I don’t want it.’” I’d subconsciously assumed “discontentment with your own body” had a “whites only” sign hanging on it. But for black people and plastic surgery, a lot has changed in the past twenty years. *** Modern-day plastic surgery came about in the early 20th century to treat war injuries. For the first time in history, soldiers were actually surviving their injuries. As Dr. Peter Geldner, MD, of the plastic-surgery practice the Geldner Center in Chicago, explains, plastic surgery was something “that could restore function and aesthetics.” It became a special form of rehabilitation, empowering people to live the lives they felt they were meant to live. “If an individual sees their appearance as a hindrance to be the person they wish to be,” Dr. Geldner explains, “it’s the role of the plastic surgeon to facilitate that physical change to allow them this state of normality.” For Susan Drayden, 35, a black woman in Dallas who got both a breast reduction and breast implants in 2015, a state of normality meant being able to enjoy physical activity again. She loves sports, but her large breasts were making it hard for her to participate without serious discomfort. “You want to find a doctor that’s honest with you,” Drayden says. She asked her doctor to make her breasts very small, but the doctor advised otherwise. “He said, ‘I want you to like yourself when you wake up. You’re asking me to put small furniture in a big room.’ I valued him for saying that,” she explains. “As blunt as it was, it was the truth.” Together, Drayden and her doctor agreed on a breast reduction to eradicate her daily discomfort and implants to shape her smaller chest. After some intense weeks of recovery, Drayden was back to being active. “I was able to join a running club! My chest didn’t hurt from running anymore.” Drayden’s plastic surgery afforded her a new lease on an active lifestyle. My apathetic assumptions about plastic surgery as a black woman were all wrong. Real black women get plastic surgery for a variety of reasons, from cosmetic to lifestyle — reasons most can relate to. The sound of relief in these women’s voices as they shared their stories was palpable. But I also noticed the presence of another underlying trend: that social media and the black male gaze are seemingly inescapable. *** Social media is the first culprit most think of when they think of plastic-surgery normalization, but Dr. Geldner accredits a much earlier source. “Oprah was the catalyst for a lot of discussions,” he says. “She knew her audience had a fascination with plastic surgery.” From her 1986 show discussing the latest in plastic surgery to her 2004 show interviewing a mother addicted to going under the knife, Oprah brought cosmetic augmentation into America’s living rooms. Dr. Paul Vitenas of Houston’s the Fine Art of Natural Cosmetic Surgery even points to shows like Dr. 90210 for planting the seed long before social media hit the scene. “Black women are like white women in that they want to look good,” Dr. Vitenas says. Melissa Llewellyn, 33, a black woman from Philadelphia, can certainly attest to this. “It was a personal choice for me,” she says of the liposuction she got on her abs and thighs in 2016. She has always been active as a professional dancer and Zumba instructor, but once she entered her 30s, Llewellyn says, “I didn’t like the shape my body was taking on.” Now she’s back to the size she feels most confident at. The 36-26-36 bust-waist-hip ratio is also ever-present, and one particular influencer is impacting black women’s request for this hourglass silhouette: “Kim Kardashian has single-handedly opened a revolution in butt augmentations and fat grafting,” Dr. Vitenas says. Gina Joseph, 35, a post-operation specialist in Brooklyn, adds that she’s the number-one wish pic women bring in as an example of how they want to look. Both Dr. Vitenas and Joseph agree that women of all races get butt augmentations, but Dr. Vitenas points out that nonblack women will usually add it on as an afterthought to other procedures. “Black women focus on it,” he says. Unequivocally, the Kardashians represent the modern-day apogee of plastic-surgery normalization, largely using the black body as their muse. Curves used to be the bane of a white American woman’s existence, a negative body type suitable only for stereotypes like spicy Latinas and finger-snapping black women. The Kardashians made these disenfranchised silhouettes their physical ideal. Joseph laments, “I speak to a lot of people who say ‘I wish I looked like Kim Kardashian.’ But [I want to say], ‘Kim Kardashian is trying to look like you!’” This desperation for surgical perfection stems from many concerning factors, but I’m willing to guess that the black male gaze plays a significant role. Case in point: Future’s “Extra Luv” video, which features a variety of bikini-clad women — largely white, fair-skinned Latina, and Asian women with presumably enhanced booties, lips, and everything in between. “In the past, everybody wanted to look like a white chick,” Dr. Geldner says. “Now, it’s going in a different direction.” In a video posted on Instagram by Trick Daddy, the hip-hop artist warned black women to “tighten up,” since white and Hispanic women are “getting finer.” He punctuated his warning with a premonition that black women would render themselves useless if ever white and Hispanic women learn how to fry chicken. Of course, this messaging is flawed for countless reasons, but the sentiment isn’t lost on black women. “The black race is the only race where you look at the man, and you admire him, and you have to wonder if he even likes his own women,” says Drayden. “We have to compete.” *** Pop culture has been working overtime to influence black women’s beliefs about beauty, and to some extent, these efforts have been successful. However, it’s encouraging to witness a shift toward an alternative narrative: celebrating black beauty. Beyoncé, arguably the most important cultural architect of our time, unforgettably declares “I like my Negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils” in her song “Formation.” In a cultural landscape filled with waist trainers and flat-tummy tea, it is so refreshing to hear an influential black woman honor her own features. In Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble,” he raps “Show me somethin’ natural like ass with some stretch marks.” The video for that song features mostly brown-skinned women. Contrary to Trick Daddy’s premonitions, Lamar reminds us that plenty of black men are still excited about black women. Slowly but surely, we’re shifting the conversation away from a constant pursuit of perfection and toward a celebration of simply feeling beautiful in our own skin. While it’s important to continue examining the ramifications of these constantly changing beauty standards, it’s also critical to celebrate black women’s right to safely alter our bodies. As Llewellyn says, “I look at black women as strong women, opinionated women, and we do whatever the fuck we want.” Jennifer Epperson is a proud Texan living in New York. She’s a writer and product designer who doesn’t believe in laundry-delivery services. Follow her on Twitter @comeonjennfoo. | | | | | | | | |
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