Ack! Where has this week gone? Even with The Teenager firmly ensconced in college and thoroughly enjoying it, I’m as busy as when she is home, attending to the various life things. I’m republishing a post from last year, on condoms, because right now, I have to shlep a shopping cart filled with items to the Housing Works.

I hope you are using condoms, unless, of course, you are interested in becoming pregnant. Condoms make sex-sense. Beyond the usual sky-is-falling cry from the CDC about STD’s being on the rise. It is so easy to find sex, so so so easy. Which leads to a divine flippancy about our invincible selves, particularly if we’re in a post-menopausal universe. The dating apps, which make it so easy to shop for humans, allow for a fluid exploration of sexual identity and behavior. It’s been my experience since joining the dating app world in the summer of 2015 that I’ve had a great deal of exposure to a panoply of idiots looking for a shortcut to the game of fucking. There’s no courting, there’s no flirting, there is only the goal of sex. I’ve met maybe three people in the old school way–at a party, in a bar, through a friend—that have turned into viable relationships, men looking for connection and eventually (and inevitably) fucking, but beyond those people? Every one else has made their way to me via a digital component. Swiping is a go-to; if insomnia seizes me, I can do some low-impact browsing instead of going to Zappos. And really, dating? It’s a chore. From who is picking up the tab (come on, really? I need to reach for my wallet when I’ve just listened to you whine about how much you work?) to what-are-we-doing-for-New-Years, it’s work, the kind of work you need to be committed to to endure. Dating leads to something more-than. Not sex on the apps. Sex is low-expectation, medium level reward. And it’s easy to have. Even if you are a man, you can get laid in this era of swiping. Yes, there may be the complications of roommates and minors, but it’s still quite easy to get off with another body. Which is why practicing the rules of safe sex is imperative to one’s health. The refrain, “But I was just tested!” is just that; how many men have said this to me, with a straight face? So, so, so many. And the fact is, it doesn’t matter how recent a person has been tested, there is always this sobering fact:  men are not tested for HPV.   All these STD’s are so easy to contract; I don’t know many women who do not have it. So. Fuck all you want. And use the condoms. They are the final frontier to your health.

Jill Soloway: “For a while, I felt like my mind was getting in the way of me being lovable, for heterosexuality, anyway.”

Saema Khandakar, M.D.: “I had never really noticed my hair before. Now it became a precious relic of the old me.”

Melissa McCarthy: “You need to see the human experience, and you need to be able to laugh at yourself instead of just making fun of other people. I’m not saying what we do is so important, but it’s a little stupid thing that maybe can take some of the tension off.”

Who is a badass? RIHANNA.

Will we be ready for a Post-Roe world?

So when Republicans talk to black women, they go “Girl.”

Post MeToo, how do you move on with your career?

A look at the women who got us the right to vote.

And now have a laugh with Gina Yashere.