Leandra Medine's Blog, page 357

Foolproof Ways to End a Bad Date

I have been on so many bad dates. One time this guy suggested we split a burrito (no), then ate my half when I wasn’t looking (no), then asked me to run an errand with him after the date (no), then (dad, don’t read this) when I lied at the end to be polite — “I had a nice time” —  he whacked my butt (no) and said, “I know you did.” No. A date once showed up to the restaurant he chose completely blackout drunk (no) and a personal favorite: the guy who got mad at me because I didn’t want him to read my aura (this may be surprising to some, but no).

Yet I sat through them all.

There was a time where I took bad dates in stride. I wore them like Girl Scout Badges, as though making it through three miserable cocktails in a row to the droll sound of a very rude ego was like completing a School of Life course that could bump my GPA. I figured the terrible ones would thicken my skin in that celebrated New York City way and the bad ones would make me “ready for anything.” When I was dating a ton — back to back to back — I would return from boring dates and tell my friends I much preferred horrible ones because, “At least then I’d have a story.”

But that isn’t true. You don’t give up an evening of your busy life to potentially have it ruined, especially not when the alternatives include hanging out with people you actually like, making progress on a project or hanging out in glorious sweatpant’d solitude. Bad dates stretch onward because we let them, and we let them because the alternative feels rude. Or awkward. Or like failure. Well, great. End bad dates the moment they go from, “this feels…odd,” to, “I would literally rather be anywhere than sharing breathing room with you.” Let it be rude and awkward and be considered failure if a date is indeed preparation for some sort of reality. So how do you do it?

Always Carry Cash

Be ready to lay down a $20 for your drink and GTFO if need be. Definitely consider why you’re going on a date with someone who you feel wary about — so much so that you come armed to potentially leave. But this isn’t a post about what dates you should and should not accept, this is about how to end one.

Have a Getaway Plan

Are there a lot of cabs in this area? Are you by a subway? Are you in an area with on-demand car service apps that allow you to order a car with the click of a button? (Have your account set up before hand.) Are you driving yourself? (If so, monitor your alcohol intake.) Do not stay on a bad date for the sake of a ride home.

Have a Friend In Cahoots

It’s helpful to have a friend at the ready to save you. Come up with a code word, or code emoji, that you can text if you need to get out. Have a pre-set plan so that she knows whether it’s her job to call the bar, call the cops, crash the venue herself or call you with an “emergency.”

Make Up an Excuse

This is really where you “end the date.” A friend helps, but you don’t need one to make up an excuse. Extract yourself from the situation to think. (My choice location for this matter is a little place called the bathroom.) Call a car if you can, take a deep breath, then walk back to your date and say the following, “Thank you for the evening so far. __INSERT WHITE LIE HERE____.  It doesn’t matter what your excuse is. You don’t feel well; you just got a text and your cat died; you got a work email; you realized you’re allergic to the dinner you just consumed. Use it, thank your date, pay for your drink or dinner and go. You never owe anyone any explanations for exiting a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable.

You never owe anyone any explanations for exiting a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable.

You never owe anyone any explanations for exiting a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable.

You never owe anyone any explanations for exiting a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable.

You never owe anyone any explanations for exiting a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable.

You never owe anyone any explanations for exiting a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable.

I can’t repeat that enough.

Be Honest

If it’s fine and you don’t feel unsafe in any way, but do want to exit the date and are feeling exceptionally adult and brave, you could flag the waiter, then turn to your date and say (in as kind a manner as you can muster because all people have off-nights), “I’ve really enjoyed meeting you, but I don’t see this continuing beyond this evening.” Then you very promptly turn the conversation to the weather, and when the check comes, get out of there whether you got the story or not.

Collage by Maria Jia Ling Pitt; photo by GraphicaArtis via Getty Images.  

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Can Mouth Taping Grant You Better Sleep, Better Health, Better Everything?

I woke up at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning with a start. I’d forgotten to tape my mouth shut. I stumbled out of bed and dug around in my backpack for the Duane Reade bag that contained the medical tape I’d bought the day before. In my half-asleep stupor, I ripped off a piece that was far too long. I put it on my face and felt like the Joker. Worried the adhesive in the tape might cause me to break out, I tore it off (painful) and pulled off a smaller replacement (too small). Very Goldilocks. When I finally got it right, I placed it over my mouth carefully, snuggled back into bed and closed my eyes.

This whole thing — my mouth taping — started with a text message a few weeks ago. It came from my brother: “Have you heard of mouth taping?”

“What the hell is mouth taping?”

“Google it. Mom told me about it. I think she caught onto a health fad before we did.”

A quick search brought up this top hit: “How to Mouth Tape For Better Sleep,” from a site called Ask a Dentist. It explained that taping my mouth shut at night might change my life. What? “If you’re breathing through your mouth while you sleep at night, it’s a big deal,” the piece read. “In this post, I’ll cover why mouth taping is an amazing sleep hack and how to get started with mouth taping if it’s your first time.”

The author was Dr. Mark Burhenne, a dentist who’s been practicing for over 30 years with a very pointed mission: “To empower people to understand how your mouth is a window into the health of the rest of your body.” He explains that our mouths are for eating and our noses are for breathing — but somewhere along the way, people stopped caring about that distinction. “Mouth breathing elevates blood pressure and heart rate, worsens asthma, allergies, and deprives the heart, brain and other organs of optimal oxygenation.”

Optimal oxygenation! Are you breathing through you mouth right now? (*Shuts mouth.*)

Dr. Burhenne believes nasal breathing is an overlooked secret to better health. “Nasal breathing is important because of nitric oxide, which your body produces in the sinuses. When you nose breathe, you get the benefits of nitric oxide, which are extraordinary. The body produces 25% of its nitric oxide from nose breathing.” He cites better sleep, cavity prevention, improved memory, physical pain recovery, weight loss, anxiety and depression reduction, stronger immunity and better concentration among the benefits of more nitric oxide in the body. In other words, breathing through your nose might improve nearly ever aspect of your health.

A couple weeks ago, my brother showed up to a party with a roll of medical tape in his pocket. “I’m trying it tonight,” he said in a hushed voice, as if he were planning to drop a tab of acid instead of tape his mouth shut and go to sleep alone. He said he couldn’t resist trying; the potential upsides were too good. The next morning, he texted me a selfie that still haunts me: his lips wrinkled beneath a piece of tape.

After doing some of my own research and discovering that Dr. Burhenne, the man behind Ask a Dentist, was from Sunnyvale, California, a neighboring city to my hometown, I put some pieces together and realized he was…how do I put this…MY MOTHER’S DENTIST.

This made me skeptical, to say the least. Had my mom stumbled upon the beginnings of a niche trend or just taken a wack-a-doodle idea from her dentist at face value? My skepticism deepened when I reached out to (more than) several sleep doctors and dentists and none would talk to me about mouth taping or the nose-breathing claim. All had either never heard of the former or didn’t know enough about the latter to feel comfortable to comment.

Then finally, this morning, one answered. A dentist, who asked to remain anonymous. “General reaction? Puzzled,” they wrote me, when I asked what they thought of mouth taping. But they didn’t totally bash it: “As an oral health professional, I’m not quite sure of the systemic effects of mouth vs. nose breathing, but I can comment on the oral health effects. Mouth breathing has been associated with several negative oral health effects including dry mouth. Saliva decreases during the night, which is exacerbated by mouth breathing, causing dry mouth. The dryer your mouth is, the more cavity-prone your teeth are.” (This study on Medical News Today, “Breathing through mouth during sleep may increase tooth decay risk,” also nods at the cavity prevention claim.)

The dentist went on to say theoretically, then, mouth taping would make sense, but warns: “Before taping your mouth shut while you sleep, patients should consult their sleep physician or Ear-Nose-Throat physician to make sure their body can handle the potential for decreased oxygen throughout the night.”

As for those systemic effects, Dr. Burhenne’s claim that nasal breathing is excellent for your overall health seems quite popular among alternative health enthusiasts. Hundreds of articles touting the benefits of nasal breathing over mouth breathing are a Google away. Take this one, this one, this one, this one or this one.

A little more digging revealed that mouth taping was invented by “Russian patients” in the 1960s (this is not explained) and was a solution borne out of something called the Buteyko method, “a form of complementary or alternative physical therapy that proposes the use of breathing exercises primarily as a treatment for asthma and other respiratory conditions.” The method was created by a Ukrainian doctor in the 1950s and is “not widely supported in the medical community due to a lack of evidence,” but an emphasis on nasal breathing was part of it, as it “protects the airways by humidifying, warming and cleaning the air entering the lungs.”

All that is to say: The mainstream support for Dr. Burhenne’s sweeping claims about nose breathing is lacking, unfortunately. Still, I was willing to give it a try.

When I checked in on my brother, he told me he kept it up for five nights, stopping once he confirmed that a) he was “a total nose-breather and didn’t need it,” and b) the sticky residue the tape left on his cheeks was a “deal breaker.”

My mom, who’s been doing it for a month, has had a different experience. “I’ve become a quieter sleeper,” she says, of reduced snoring — one of the most easily provable benefits of mouth taping. “I’ll be looking for a different tape that doesn’t leave sticky stuff around my mouth though — a real no-go,” she wrote me. (Lol.) She hasn’t noticed a change in her sleep quality or general quality of life, but intends to stick with it. She said it’s made her more mindful of her breath in general. “I’ve noticed how, even with all my Pilates focus on breath, I frequently only breathe through my mouth.” (She’s a Pilates instructor.)

I agree. Since reading the article, I’ve been more cognizant of how I breathe. It’s through my mouth more than I would’ve guessed (especially my deep breaths), maybe because I’m one of those people who’s consistently 20% congested (call me). Suffice it to say, the thought of taping my mouth shut at night made me a little panicky. I put it off for weeks. The use of medical tape is by design as it’s easy to rip off in your sleep, but a part of me still thought I might suffocate. Cut to 2 a.m. on Sunday: mouth taped, eyes closed.

I was surprised to discover it didn’t feel so bad. I fell asleep fairly easily while breathing deeply through my nose. The couple times I woke up, everything felt normal, breathing-wise. The only difference was my mouth was taped. Around 7 a.m. though, I had to cough. Since coughing with your mouth closed is schoolyard-proven to make your eyeballs pop out, I removed the tape. I tried mouth taping one more time and got through the whole night, but when I removed it in the morning, I relegated the tape to my junk drawer and never looked back.

It’s not that I think it’s hogwash, necessarily, it’s just that I think I’m already a nose-breather at night, like my brother, and the increased breath awareness has been enough for me. Taping my mouth at night just makes me feel…how do I put this…like I’ve lost my marbles. Would you try mouth taping? Have you heard of it?

Most importantly: Are you a mouth breather? (I’ve been waiting so long to ask that.)

Photo by Edith Young.

The post Can Mouth Taping Grant You Better Sleep, Better Health, Better Everything? appeared first on Man Repeller.

10 Relatively Affordable Wedding Dresses

Wedding dresses are insanely expensive. I learned this four years ago when I worked at New York Magazine; one of my internal side hustles involved handling the fashion for New York Weddings, which meant styling wedding dress fashion shoots for the bi-annual magazine. Though I was already numb to the kinds of price tags that come with designer clothes, I couldn’t get over a $10k sticker on a white gown that you’d wear once. Granted, $10k was reserved for the really dramatic, big-train editorial ones, but it was such a prevalent number, $5k options started to feel reasonable. Working in fashion skewed my outlook: I didn’t love the look of a traditional, proper, formal wedding dress. My mind was focused on the runway. In the context of the actual average cost of wedding dresses in the US ($1,546, according to The Knot), you’re left with few options that feel special.

The more affordable (“affordable”) dresses ended up being the kinds of pieces that, under any other circumstance, you might scoff at. A $2,000 dress on Net-a-Porter becomes a bargain — especially when it makes you feel like yourself and not, like Ali MacGraw said, a face being worn by a gown (as opposed to you wearing it).

A recent perusal of white dresses online proved that this truth still holds. Scroll through for 10 could-be-but-technically-are-not wedding dresses with price tags that won’t make your eyes pop out of your head. The highest hit is a puff-sleeved Markarian gown for $2,250 (but you’d pay half now, half when it arrives, like my laser beams); the lowest is good old Topshop coming in hot at $170. (By the way, they actually have a whole bridal section now. Don’t forget Reformation does, too.)

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And for everything else, there is quite literally Mastercard. I’ll rob a cake shop with you, though.

Photos via Topshop, Net-a-Porter, and MATCHESFASHION.com, feature collage by Edith Young with background via Getty Images.

The post 10 Relatively Affordable Wedding Dresses appeared first on Man Repeller.

Kim Kardashian’s Assistant is Brimming With Career Advice

When Refinery29 published a 4,000-word profile on Kim Kardashian’s assistant yesterday, I regret to inform you I dropped my work tout de suite and read it feverishly. Fortunately for all involved, my work does not involve power tools.

It was a surprisingly informative read, and not in the way I expected. If I came for the behind-the-scenes scoop on America’s royal fam (sorry everyone, I don’t make the rules!), I stayed for the woman behind them, Stephanie Shepherd. Sure, her story — which takes her from rural Ohio to driving to Kanye’s house in her Audi A4 while dictating texts to Kim via Siri — might be a little rag-to-riches cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less compelling. It’s hard to come by a Hollywood-adjacent success story that celebrates quiet, hard work over fame.

The piece is packed to the gills with work tips, without even meaning to be. Shepherd, who’s in her late 20s, came to Los Angeles to be a dancer and ended up the COO of Kardashian West Brands. A casual career arc. If you’re looking to make a leap of equal or lesser value, consider the below advice, which I’ve gleaned from Stephanie’s professional rise. Apply it to your own career and who knows, this could be you:

A post shared by STEPHANIE ANN SHEPHERD (@steph_shep) on May 4, 2017 at 8:01pm PDT

1. Build North’s stroller and plan her parents’ wedding, too.

Be as down for the menial work as you are the glamorous work.

Shepherd does her work — all her work — with excitement, no matter the task. “Assistant to Kim since 2013,” writes Refinery29’s Arianna Davis, “Shepherd has been responsible for everything from putting together North West’s first strollers to getting Kim down the aisle in Italy.”

2. Be such an incredible assistant that your boss will want to refer you.

Don’t underestimate the importance of being a competent and hardworking employee, even if you don’t feel important. It will open doors.

Shepherd came to L.A. to dance, but ended up assisting a choreographer instead. But she took the gig, and worked hard. “After a few years working for [choreographer] Minden and Girardi and a few freelance backup dance gigs for artists like Pitbull, Minden’s business partner and former Pussycat Doll Robin Antin asked Shepherd if she might be interested in an assistant job with a friend of hers: Kim Kardashian. And just like that, dancing became a distant memory.”

3. Tell Kim you can do it and then figure the rest out later.

It’s okay to be nervous and fake it at first.

Of her interview with Kim for the assistant gig, Shepherd explains, “[Kim] had no makeup on and was in her sweats, super pregnant with North. She was just like, ‘Look, I need help, Robin loves you and says great things about you; this is what I need. Can you do it?’ And I was like, ‘Okay, sure, I can do that — and if I can’t, I’ll figure it out!’ Meanwhile in my head, I was so nervous.”

4. Stay late at Kim’s until shit is more than taken care of.

Exceed your boss’s expectations whenever possible.

“I was doing her whole schedule, doing her laundry, booking travel, putting the stroller together and all of these things. But I wasn’t nervous. I was just excited,” Shepherd says of her first months on the job, “always staying longer than I needed because I was trying to prove myself.”

A post shared by STEPHANIE ANN SHEPHERD (@steph_shep) on Mar 3, 2017 at 9:36am PST

5. Keep your trunk stocked with Kimoji merch.

Anticipate your boss’s needs and be ready in the wings.

“Shepherd is still in assistant mode,” Davis writes of her time with Shepherd, “constantly checking her iPhone and revealing a trunk fully stocked with Kimoji paraphernalia. ‘With Kim, you never know when you might need to gift some merch!'” A good employee is always prepared.

6. Once you know the exact amount of time it takes to get from Kris’s to Kourtney’s house (to the minute), ask for a promotion.

Get your job down to a science, then move up.

Shepherd explains the transition she made from acting as Kim’s executive assistant to helping with Kim’s growing businesses. “My role has expanded outside of just an executive assistant… I’m basically Kim’s liaison at this point,” she tells Davis. “Every time she launches a product or makes a move to own her brand, it’s essentially like launching a startup. … The assistant stuff is like second nature now; I don’t even have to think about it. I know her, I know her schedule, I know how long it takes to go from Kourtney’s to Kris’ down to the second, I can map it out.”

“It was time for a title change.”

7. Hire Michael — he’s saved your ass so many times!

Extend a hand to people who have helped you in the past.

At one point Shepherd hired an old coworker from her dance assistant days to be Kim’s personal assistant. “…I’ll check in with her personal assistant, Michael, who I also brought on to the team — he used to work with me and Erika,” Shepherd explains. “I knew I could trust him because when we worked together before, he saved my ass so many times!”

8. Text Kim all day every day.

Stay in close touch with your boss. Communication is key.

“Obviously Kim and I text all day every day,” she says, “from the second we wake up until we go to bed, so we just bounce off ideas, like, ‘Oh my God this is so funny, let’s make it a Kimoji!’ It’s fun to have an idea and see it brought to life.”

you guyssss #kimojis are out now!! also I’m going to Miami for nye and my morals are not coming with me. bless up!

A post shared by STEPHANIE ANN SHEPHERD (@steph_shep) on Dec 21, 2015 at 2:50pm PST

9. Absorb everything you can from Kris Jenner.

Find a good mentor, figure out what they do well and then emulate it.

“Kris Jenner is a fucking G,” Shepherd says. “The biggest lesson she’s taught me is to not procrastinate. When you want something done, get it done. If you’re a procrastinator, this is not the world for you. If someone tells her no, she has no problem standing her ground…”

(Or just make Kris your mentor from afar?)

10. Appreciate the spoils, but don’t forget you still have to schlep the bags.

Don’t let work perks distract you from your responsibilities.

As Kardashian staff, Shepherd gets to travel the world and enter spaces she’d otherwise never get to, but she never forgets her job. “Truly, this family is so much fun, and we go to some amazing places and do some incredible things. But don’t forget that when you’re an assistant, with all of that glamour comes schlepping the bags and the suitcases and taking the fall when the car doesn’t show up or the flight is delayed or something goes wrong.”

11. Don’t let the followers go to your head.

Stay humble.

“Sometimes I think about how it’s such a weird thing that people want to know or even care about me,” she says, of her 700,000 IG followers, “just because I work for Kim.”

12. Tell Kim when you fucked up.

Own up to your mistakes and then fix them.

Shepherd says she’s made plenty of mistakes, but that hasn’t slowed her down. “I’ve fucked up a lot. I’m only human,” Shepherd says. “…[I]f you mess up, take responsibility and own it. I’ve fucked up, I’m human. But I will just say, ‘I am so sorry, and I will fix this.”

classic.

Health Care: Should We All Be Freaking Out?

In my early 20s, I moved to New York to try to make it as a writer. This was before the Affordable Care Act. I did not have insurance and did not go to the doctor for years. I don’t remember being particularly concerned about this. It seemed very much a fact of life, just a risk you took, like how people in Florida still legally ride motorcycles without helmets. (I was, and still am, incredibly privileged to enjoy good health.) I recall vaguely, childishly hoping that something terrible wouldn’t happen to me that would inevitably bankrupt me or my family. I’m obviously lucky that I made it out of that period of my life safe and sound.

We don’t live in that world anymore. The nationwide fervor around health care has reached a fevered pitch this month thanks to the American Health Care Act, a piece of legislation that would radically remake that Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). Over the past few weeks, I’ve read a lot of think pieces about the AHCA, which the House of Representatives passed on May 4th. I even clicked on a photo of a list of pre-existing conditions on Twitter, scanning its tiny type with my old-ass eyes to see if I fit any of the categories. Who knows who assembled this list, or if it even came from a reputable news source? It felt like everyone around me was panicking.

I needed more information, so I decided to speak with someone in the know to find out to what degree I should or should not be freaking out. Someone with a comprehensive viewpoint, who could break down what was really at stake.

Dr. Andrew S. Kelly is a political scientist whose research and teaching focuses on US health care policy and politics. He has held positions at University of California, Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University, and, in the fall, will be an assistant professor in Health Sciences at California State University, East Bay. We spoke for over an hour; our conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

Leslie: There’s so many things about this health care situation that seem scary. There are also so many headlines. People are freaking out. Is it time to panic? All of these headlines make it seem like it’s time to panic.

Andrew: Regarding how much you should be freaking out: Yes, [the bill] has passed through the house, but the process in the Senate will be much harder. There’s still a big hurdle.

What’s surprising is that the headlines haven’t really been focusing on what I think is the scariest part, and that’s the large cuts and restructuring of Medicaid. A lot of articles have focused on pre-existing conditions. I understand the concern — it’s a serious issue. A recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation (a great source for easy-to-access data) states that 27% of the population has a pre-existing condition. Those are people that, before the ACA, likely would have been rendered unable to get health insurance coverage. Either they’d be denied outright, or they just wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

But this bill, the American Health Care Act, also completely restructures the Medicaid program (a means-based health care program). It would eventually get rid of the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, but it would also take the entire Medicaid program — which covers almost 75 million adults and children, it’s huge — and turn it into either a block grant, or what’s called a per capita cap. It would change how [the government] gives money to states. The AHCA cuts Medicaid funding by an estimated 880 billion dollars.

When the Congressional Budget Office came out with its estimates a couple of weeks ago, after the initial introduction of the AHCA, they estimated that 14 million people would lose coverage by 2018 and 24 million people would lose coverage by 2026. Most of that was the result of changes to Medicaid.

Leslie: How does Medicaid get funded?

Andrew: For every X amount of dollars a state spends [on Medicaid], the federal government will chip in money based on a certain matching ratio, which is tied to a state’s per capita income. Take a state like California: For every dollar California spends on Medicaid, it gets a dollar from the federal government. It’s open-ended; there’s no cap — California can spend as much as it desires “on eligible populations and covered services,” and the government matches that.

The AHCA changes this. It’s predicted to create a lot of cuts within states. A portion of the reductions will come from the termination of the ACA Medicaid expansion and its generous 90% matching rate. The other reductions will come from the restructuring of Medicaid’s financing system. If a state spends over its yearly cap, the amount they spend over the cap will be solely the responsibility of the state — there will be no shared financial responsibility with the federal government for that portion of Medicaid spending.

Medicaid is a 52-year-old program. It’s a cornerstone of the American social safety net. It has long been seen as covering lower-income people, but it’s really grown over the last few decades to reach the middle class. The statistics are incredible. For instance, almost half of all births in the United States are covered by Medicaid. It’s the largest single provider of coverage for people with HIV. 24% of women between the ages of 19 and 64 in California get their health coverage through Medicaid. So it’s a women’s issue, it’s a children’s issue. That’s one of the reasons it will be really hard to pass in the Senate.

Leslie: Can you talk a little bit about how people get on Medicaid?

Andrew: It’s a means-tested program, which means eligibility is based on income. The federal government sets the minimum requirement, and states have to follow it in order to participate in the program. There are certain populations that states can cover optionally. Medicaid, in many ways, is 50 different programs because it’s that different state-to-state.

For a very long time, it was means-tested and also categorical — so, say, if you were at a certain poverty level, you also had to fall into particular categories to be eligible, such as single-headed households and children, pregnant women or people with certain disabilities.

Leslie: Why do you think people are focusing on the pre-existing conditions conversation?

Andrew: That’s a really good question and one that I’m puzzling over myself. Historically, Medicaid has been seen as a program for the poor. Programs that serve people of low socioeconomic status are less politically protected for a host of reasons: poorer people have a lower rate of voting, making it potentially less electorally dangerous to target programs for them; there’s no strong interest group to represent them, as compared to the AARP for senior citizens. And because of the nature of Medicaid’s funding and eligibility, it is easier to portray Medicaid recipients as “undeserving.” Look no further than recent comments by Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget. Also, the system is incredibly fragmented and convoluted. It is divided among the federal government and state governments, between private insurance companies and private providers.

This vote [in the House] was taken without any sense of how much the AHCA would cost or what its impact would be, which is pretty wild. You’re voting to restructure about a sixth of the US economy.

A lot of senators, [on the other hand,] have voiced their opposition to this version of the bill because of its threat to Medicaid programs. It’s quite possible that the Senate will just start from scratch and write its own bill, because it will be that difficult to pass it in the Senate.

Leslie: In speaking about pre-existing conditions, my first question is how are they decided? There are these lists being passed around on Facebook and Twitter and everybody’s like, “I have three of these.” How or who decides upon pre-existing conditions?

Andrew: This article does a good job of explaining it. Sometimes, they are defined by states; it’s not going to be the same from one state to the next. [The list] also changes depending on the insurance company. It also differs in terms of, are you denied coverage outright for that preexisting condition, or are you just charged way more and effectively denied coverage because you can’t afford it?

Before Obamacare, 20 states didn’t even have a definition of pre-existing conditions, and insurers had a lot of leeway in determining what counted. After Obamacare, you could get health insurance regardless of your health status. Insurers were limited on how much they could charge one person versus another, the criteria pretty much boiled down to age, geographic location and if you smoked.

As you saw with the Jimmy Kimmel monologue, the pre-existing conditions conversation is really powerful. If 27% of people have one, then you or someone in your family has one. It touches a lot of people. Going back to a pre-ACA world where you’re allowed to charge people more based on their health risk is a big concern and people are rightly worried about that.

Under the AHCA, if you have a gap in your insurance coverage for more than 63 days, you can be charged more based on pre-existing conditions (this was not allowed under the ACA). This is particularly hard when you’re establishing yourself and moving between jobs or working in a freelance economy.

One of the amendments that helped the AHCA get across the finish line is that eight billion dollars over five years would to go to high-risk pools, where people with pre-existing conditions or high costs can go.

Leslie: What happens if you fall into a high-risk pool in that scenario?

Andrew: If a state applies for and is granted a waiver for the ACA’s community rating requirement (where a large community of people with varying degrees of health needs are charged the same rate), then that state would have to set up a high-risk pool to become eligible for that eight billion. We don’t know how many states would actually decide to waive certain aspects of the ACA. The general thinking, though, is that eight billion is way too little. It sounds like a lot of money, but in the health care world, unfortunately, that’s not a lot. Conservative estimates of the cost of [this high-risk pool plan] are around 15 to 20 billion dollars a year.

Leslie: Is there some sort of goal to strangle the system to death?

Andrew: The Affordable Care Act is a fairly conservative health care legislation, highly modeled after health care reform passed by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. Yes, it expands Medicaid and taxes wealthy people to pay for insurance for lower-income people — probably not ideal for your average Republican — but it’s still a very centrist policy. Do conservatives want to cause a death spiral? I don’t think so. Are some of the politics and maneuvering creating problems in the marketplaces? Yes, but the rhetoric that Obamacare is failing is just observably incorrect. It’s faced difficulties, there are higher premiums and costs than some expected, but it is improving in terms of how well some insurers are able to function in the marketplace.

It’s been way harder than conservatives thought it was going to be though, and that demonstrates the political influence that the ACA has picked up over the last seven years, that we’re having conversations about pre-existing conditions and essential health benefits, that we are seeing Republican governors opposing the reduction of the Medicaid expansion. Once people start benefiting from a program, they’re going to push back against that being taken away from them.

Conservatives are not building this new policy on a blank slate, they’re responding to the ACA and the politics it’s created. The ACA constrains what options are available to Republican policy-makers. They have a very narrow path to walk to try to repeal and replace the ACA. It’s narrow, and it’s politically hazardous, but it’s not impossible.

There is a lot to be concerned about in this bill in terms of people losing coverage, coverage becoming less secure, coverage becoming more expensive. These are all valid and important concerns coming out of this piece of legislation.

Collage by Emily Zirimis.

The post Health Care: Should We All Be Freaking Out? appeared first on Man Repeller.

Iconic TV Personality Bevy Smith on How She Reinvented Her Life

I’m obsessed with reinvention.

Ever since I cut off all my hair, left politics and moved to the other side of the country for no other reason than to try to make a new life for myself, I’ve gravitated towards women who have fearlessly pressed the reset button on their own lives.

Media personality and entrepreneur Bevy Smith has done just that. Bevy is the host of her own show, Bevelations, on Andy Cohen’s SiriousXM Station Radio, as well as a contributor to Page Six TV. When she’s not on the airwaves, she’s the ultimate connector, hosting dinners and sharing her insights with young up-and-comers.

Her story is the epitome of what it means to design your life, including an enviously successful career in advertising at Vibe and Rolling Stone (where she was motivated by a singular, hilarious, surprising goal that you have to listen to the show to hear), then a switch in her 30s to media personality.

She has built a platform where nothing is off limits and she has the space to be nothing but herself. It’s that freedom that allows her to talk not just about fashion, popular culture and sex, but also the harsh truths of our current social and political climate. In our conversation, we talk about how she created her new life, how she measures her impact and what she wished someone had told her 20 years ago when she started her own business.

In a world where women are encouraged to be demure, humble and cooly uninterested in financial success, Bevy is bold, vivacious and unafraid to be exactly what she is: a 50-year-old Black women who loves culture and life (and isn’t afraid to collect those coins).

I have no idea what my next life reinvention will be or or what yours looks like in your dreams. But I hope, on the other side, we all come out with a little bit of Bevy’s savvy and drive. You can listen to our conversation above, and read an excerpt of it below.

Bevy: I wasn’t [prepared to be an entrepreneur] because I never intended to be an entrepreneur…And by the way, unlike most people, I loved all my jobs — until I didn’t. I’ve actually never worked a job and hated it and stayed. I’m quick to quit a job, and now I know that about myself. Once I climbed the summit, and made it to the mountaintop…yeah, I’m going to have to go. I’m not a rest-on-your-laurels kind of girl. I marvel at what Pat Sajak is able to do. He’s been on that Wheel of Fortune for decades, and it’s that same fucking show day-in and day-out. But guess what, he makes so much money – tens of millions of dollars a year doing that job – [and] he comes in and they tape them all in clumps. But I still don’t know if I could do it.

Erica: What about that do you admire?

Bevy: That they make tens of millions of dollars! I admire that immensely [laughs].

Erica: So you have moments when you’re broke, you have moments when you’re making good money — how do you measure your success beyond money?

Bevy: I’ll tell you this. I was just featured in The New York Times, my Sunday routine. I’m a New Yorker, and have been reading The New York Times since I was like 12 years old. That was a really amazing, aha moment for me. I’ve been in the Times before, but never in such a substantial way. I’ve always known I’m a slow-and-steady type of gal. Fools rush in, and I’m no fool. I love a slow-and-steady pace. It was wonderful to see that, because it represented the culmination of 12 years of work, 12 years of journey.

Collage by Maria Jia Ling Pitt. 

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A Short Girl’s Guide to Wearing Whatever You Want

Height, to me, has never been about limbs and genetics. Growing up, I was taught that with enough gumption and balance, even I – at five foot three inches – could attain mythic proportions. With the right heel, of course.

My mother claims to have married my father for his height. At four foot eleven, she saw in my father dreams of…what, exactly? Spawned athletes? Supermodels? Alas, the genetics of my mother, and my mother’s mother, and my mother’s mother’s mother before her, ensured certain vertical limitations.

After years of fighting my fate, one day I said, Fuck it. Gone were the Steve Madden pumps I was told would elongate my legs and the waist-pinching flares I hoped would do the same for my torso. Instead, I wore strappy shoes that cut my ankles in half and peasant skirts that “did nothing for my figauh.”

The Internet is replete with styles and trends that short women are advised to avoid. Chief among them: knee-highs, midi and maxi skirts, ankle-strap shoes and even the tunic. But what are fashion rules if not meant to be broken, right? Here, proof in photo form that being short doesn’t have to limit your style.

Photos by Edith Young.

The post A Short Girl’s Guide to Wearing Whatever You Want appeared first on Man Repeller.

You’ve Been Thinking About These Foods All Wrong

The moment I found out cereal wasn’t healthy, I was crushed. My teen realization about the sugar content in my Cheerios would be the first of many blows to my food worldviews. Cheese sandwiches and juice were next. Slowly, everything I’d deemed healthy was tossed off its pedestal. But now those seem obvious, right? Today, the litmus test for what is and isn’t healthy has grown increasingly nuanced, with food trends coming and going faster that we can keep track. It seems like every day news breaks that something seemingly benign might actually be killing us. It’s annoying at best, anxiety-inducing at worst.

Dr. Robin Berzin MD is the founder of Parsley Health, a medical practice where she and her team use their expertise and the latest research to help people map out an approach to nutrition and health that’s conducive to their lifestyle. Looking at fads and “health foods” with a critical eye is not just part of Dr. Berzin’s job, it’s a passion. In an effort to share some of her wisdom, below she’s broken down a list of foods that she believes get too much or too little flack. Some of them may surprise you.

You Thought They Were Unhealthy, But They’re Actually Great for You

Egg yolks: Somewhere along the line, the egg-white omelette became the go-to healthy breakfast. I’m here to tell you that you can and should add the color back into your omelette. Egg yolks are one of the richest sources of choline, a nutrient essential for neurological function, and a natural anti-inflammatory. Choline aids in the production of serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, neurotransmitters that boost mood, focus and sex drive. Egg yolks are also nature’s B-vitamin. It’s a great way to get your vitamins from food, not supplements.

Butter: For a long time butter got a bad rap. But grass-fed butter is a great source of brain-building omega-3 fatty acids, as well as short and medium-chain fatty acids (MCTs) like n-butyrate. These feed the lining of the digestive tract, lower inflammation, reduce heart disease and boost metabolism — MCTs are also an appetite suppressant. Butter can be a great source of fat-soluble vitamins like A, D and K2, which support bone, brain, skin and immune health. Why grass-fed butter? Because it’s much higher in all of the above fatty acids, vitamins and nutrients than butter from grain-fed cows.

Salt: Salt has been vilified for decades as contributing to chronic illnesses like high blood pressure and heart disease. However, a healthy amount of sodium is necessary to prevent dehydration and to keep our brains functioning normally. Quality and type do matter. Table salt is just sodium chloride and often has iodine added, too much of which can be harmful for thyroid health. Choosing a high-grade mineral or Himalayan sea salt ensures a more complete nutritional profile providing essential minerals like potassium, iron, zinc, phosphorous and trace elements.

Popcorn: Popcorn can be a low-calorie food when cooked right (the bags filled with the kettle and caramel-corn varieties in the grocery store aisle are definitely to be avoided). The best way to cook it is the old-fashioned stovetop way to avoid additional preservatives found in the microwave bags. After popping, you can add natural flavors like a drizzle of coconut oil or a sprinkle of kelp granules.

White Potatoes: White potatoes can get overlooked for the sweet potato, which is often marketed as the healthier alternative. However, they contain up to twice the amount of potassium — essential for heart health and balancing blood sugar. They also contain more fiber and less sugar than their sweeter counterparts. They are not as bad as they’ve been made out to be! (This is not a license to go all-out with French fries, FWIW.)

You Thought They Were Healthy…But They Aren’t

Granola: Granola may seem like a healthy option, but most brands are usually full of unnecessary preservatives, oils and sugar. Check out the serving size on most packaging, and you’ll see that it’s usually only a fourth of a cup. If you can stick to that serving size, then you are in the minority. Most of us are filling up a bowl — anywhere from 400 to 600 calories plus add-ons like milk or yogurt. You’re better off just sprinkling a tablespoon of oats or nuts over your yogurt in the morning, providing you with plenty of dietary fiber yet a low glycemic index.

Acai Bowl: Yes, these bowls are beautiful and oh so Instagram-worthy, but many store-bought versions contain an upwards of 60 gram of sugar per bowl, equivalent to 12 teaspoons of sugar! Yes, some of this sugar comes from fruit, but frozen acai isn’t sweet at all, and typically, additional processed sugar such as agave syrup or coconut nectar is added.

Tofu/Soy: Tofu is an incredible source of plant-based protein. Unfortunately, it comes with plenty of downsides. Soy crops are heavily sprayed with chemical herbicides like glyphosate, shown to damage neurological and immune health. Soybeans also contain phytic acid and trypsin inhibitors, which can interfere with nutrient absorption. Soy’s anti-nutrient qualities are enough to merit it a food we should avoid, unless you’re getting organic, fermented soy. Be aware that soy is not just found in tofu, but also in many vegan protein foods, vegetable oils and protein powders.

Coconut Chips: Although coconut is a good source of fat and a potent anti-inflammatory, coconut chips are not as healthy of a snack as you might think. Dried coconut is naturally sweet, with about half a teaspoon of sugar per ounce, however the second ingredient in these packaged treats is often cane sugar, which adds more than six times the amount of naturally occurring sugars. When eating a package in one sitting (it can be hard not to!) this can cause blood glucose levels to spike and crash leading to fatigue and brain fog.

Agave: This has been touted as a healthy alternative to cane sugar, and is often thought of as a low-glycemic sweetener. Unfortunately, because of the way agave is chemically structured, it is less than ideal. Agave is made of mostly fructose. Unlike glucose, which converts to sugar in the blood immediately and can be used for fuel, fructose is processed through the liver. When the liver breaks down fructose, it produces fat in the blood, known as triglycerides. In addition to more work for your major detox organ, too much fat in the blood leads to blood sugar imbalances, weight gain and digestive issues.

Parsley Health is a modern primary care practice in NY, LA and San Francisco that combines nutrition, prevention and wellness with cutting-edge medicine from top doctors. Dr. Berzin went to medical school at Columbia University and later trained in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. Collage by Maria Jia Ling Pitt.

The post You’ve Been Thinking About These Foods All Wrong appeared first on Man Repeller.

A Love Story in Progress from a Regular New York Couple

Taylor Patterson is a florist and the founder of floral design studio Fox Fodder Farm. Sam Anderson is a longtime hospitality guru who currently serves as the beverage director of Mission Chinese Food. And Leandra Medine is the founder of this website and a woman who loves love. She sat down with Taylor and Sam to talk about how they met, their relationship advice for others and the exact moment they knew they were smitten.

Leandra: Let’s start at the beginning. When did you meet?

Taylor: Last year in June. Our friend set us up on a date. We went out, then I went away for a month, then I came back and was like, Ehhhh.

Leandra: Does that mean not having it?

Taylor: I was just in my own little la la land. And you [Sam] were like, “Are you back? Do you want to hang out?” and I, casually, was like, “Oh. That sounds nice.”

Leandra: What did you do on your first date?

Taylor: Sam texted me and [rolling eyes] he was like, “Hey, do you want to get an ice cream or coffee?” So—

Sam: Hey, that’s legit! It’s not like do want to go get drinks at 2 in the morning.

Taylor: But yeah, you asked, “Do you want to get a coffee or ice cream?” I thought that was sweet, so we met on a bench outside a coffee shop in Dumbo and sat there and chatted. We mostly chatted about his brother, Paul, who I used to work with when I waitressed at The Smile.

Sam: He’s a legendary character, so he’s a good conversation piece.

Leandra: After this first date, were you O-N on or did it take a minute?

Taylor: I think it took a minute—wait were you on?

Sam: I don’t like jumping into things. I thought, That was really nice. I’m glad that happened, we’ll see what happens next. I didn’t have expectations. Our first time hanging out, we were together for six hours. So I didn’t feel like I needed to push it. I just thought, Wow, I met this person who seems really amazing, we’ll see what happens.

Taylor: I was leaving for Sweden for three weeks. When I came back, I jumped right into work, then he texted me and — what did we do? What was our second date?

Sam: I think we bicycled to get barbecue—

Taylor: In Red Hook!

Sam: In Red Hook at Hometown Bar-B-Que, which is right at the end of Red Hook, then we bicycled to the Red Hook Pier and ate barbecue at the end of the pier—

Taylor: We sat with some guys who were fishing.

Sam: It was the perfect day, in my opinion.

Taylor: From there, I feel like it happened quickly, but not. It was just really easy.

Leandra: Are you engaged now?

Taylor: No.

Leandra: Is it awkward that I just asked?

Sam: No, hahaha.

Taylor: No.

Leandra: Do you think about it? Do you talk about marriage?

Taylor: We don’t really talk about it.

Leandra: Do you care to get married, generally?

Sam: I have a lot of examples in my life, and Taylor does as well, of people who are life-long partners, who have children, who have families, and are not married. I don’t know, maybe there’s going to be some overwhelming reason to do it one day, but it’s very peripheral now.

Taylor: Having worked in the wedding industry [as a florist], I’m just really meh on the whole thing; I have a weird relationship with weddings. If you wanted to go to City Hall tomorrow, I’d be like, “Okay.”

But if you said, “Let’s have a big wedding,” I’d be like, “Meh.”

Leandra: Meh! What are your favorite things about each other? What was the first thing that attracted you to her?

Sam: I really love Taylor’s self-reliance, strength and vision for the way she lives her life. I noticed that right away. She’s very direct and clear about what she wants. I also love how down she is for whatever. I invited her on dates that I think were pushing the envelope a bit.

Taylor: You knew you were smitten when we biked up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from Brooklyn.

Sam: Yeah.

Taylor: What did you say? “You’re a comfortable rider.”

Sam: I like to bicycle everywhere, I love to run all over the city. We’ve bicycled up to the Queensborough Bridge tram and then took the tram to Roosevelt Island and walked around exploring.

Leandra: What are your favorite things about Sam, or what is the first thing that attracted you to him?

Taylor: I was surprised by him. I had created an idea of what I thought he might be like, a little rougher, with more of his guard up, maybe more cynical, and he’s not at all like that.

The thing with Sam is that he’s a really good person. My biggest complaint is that he sleeps in, but you [Sam] actually get off from work at 10, so I’m the one who’s kind of the asshole in that situation. I wake up at 7 and am like, “Okay I’m up!” I really admire how your life hasn’t been a pretty little cakewalk, you’ve had to deal with a lot of things, and you’ve really used that to build yourself into the best person that you can be.

He’s self-disciplined, which I admire, and honest.

Leandra: It sounds like you just are who you are.

Taylor: You are who you are and it’s refreshing. That’s why it was so easy and comfortable, because I wasn’t trying to navigate through whatever show was being put on.

Leandra: When did you move in together?

Taylor: Yesterday.

Leandra: Literally yesterday?

Sam: Yeah. We look a little sloppy right now because we spent all afternoon and evening working on it.

Leandra: Is it too soon in the trajectory of your relationship to ask about The Challenges?

Taylor: One thing that’s been tough for me, but also something that I appreciate — because I am so go-go, do-do — is having to slow down and accept that things aren’t going to get done on the time frame or way that I want them to. I have to just let go. I was stressed about his packing, I wasted maybe two hours stressing for him, but ultimately, it got done.

Leandra: Well that’s how trust is built, right? You’re anxious because you have a way of doing something and then you realize that if you let go and it actually gets done, you have a good relationship on your hands, whether that’s at work or at home.

Sam: Taylor and I are both in positions of great authority and responsibility in our respective workplaces. I’m always waiting for someone else to drop the ball so that I have to come in and pick it up at work, but that’s never happened with Taylor in our relationship because she is that person as well.

Taylor: One thing that I’ve learned is yeah, relationships do take work but it’s shouldn’t be hard work.

Leandra: The work doesn’t start until much later. Were you in a lot of relationships prior to meeting Taylor?

Sam: This is my first one.

Taylor: That’s not true, I stalked them all on Instagram! C’mon, let’s be honest.

Leandra: What feels most different about this one?

Sam: There’s a lot of balance. With Taylor, I’m very confident about how I feel about her. Most other relationships have been fear-driven in some way or another. With Taylor, it’s just not fear-driven at all.

Leandra: That’s a very thoughtful comment. I really believe there are only two emotions: love and fear. We act out on both of them, and if you find yourself motivated by the latter, something’s off. Often in relationships I find that you’re responding to rejection — resisting it, trying not to recreate it…

Sam: We are very present with each other. I’m not afraid of what’s going to come out of her mouth. If it’s criticism, then great, if it’s praise, then great. I’m not like, Oh my god, what’s the next thing that’s going to come out of her mouth?

Taylor: After our first date, the friend who set us up was like, “So how did it go?” I said, “He’s super nice, it was really fun, but his jeans were a bit too tight.”

Sam: Never wore them again.

Leandra: That’s pretty great. So what advice do you have for someone looking for love?

Taylor: When I look at a lot of my girlfriends who struggle in relationships, the one thing that I notice among all of them is they’re not allowing themselves to just be comfortable in their skin. That translates and people pick up on that.

Leandra: It’s so chicken or egg though, because you can’t be comfortable in your skin until you feel like you’re being accepted or you’re not afraid of being rejected.

Taylor: It is, so I guess my advice is to find a way to be comfortable in your skin that doesn’t involve a relationship because once you are there, you will find the person and subsequent relationship that best suits you. You’ll be less inclined to try to force something that maybe isn’t right.

Leandra: Life is a process too, right? You find varying stages of comfort in different phases and doors open because of that.

Taylor: There’s a lot of truth in the notion that confidence is beautiful. People gravitate towards it because that’s what everybody wants at the end of the day, right? To feel good about themselves.

Leandra: How about you, Sam?

Sam: It’s really, really important to fall in love with yourself and really find the romance in being alone and letting that enrich your inner life so that you have something to give to other people and to someone who you eventually will fall in love with. We’re pressured a lot by when we look at other relationships — I’m going back in time to when I was single, and this back and forth where I was thinking, Well I don’t have a date tonight, or, I’m just on my own tonight. You can look at that as either a grand adventure where you’re enriching yourself and be like, Man I’m really happy to be on my own tonight, this is great, or you can be living with insecurity about it.

Leandra: Right, that’s the fear again — I’m going to be alone forever.

Sam: But then it’s like, what the hell am I giving to someone else if I don’t even want to be with myself? It takes a great deal of confrontation of one’s own fear, but maybe you take the scary thing and reserve that. In a certain way, being alone is very romantic. It’s not scary at all.

That’s the first thing, and then you start to build, and you build your presence into something that’s very attractive to other people without even realizing or needing to add to it. Then, all of a sudden, you realize, Wow, I just met someone who’s just attracted to me for who I am.

Taylor: You also just give unconditionally in that way.

Sam: I went on Tinder a few times. It was at the prompting of a couple of my close female friends who were like, “Dude you need to get on Tinder, you’ll meet someone every day,” and I thought, “Okay, sure.” But it was extremely distracting to actually living life and extremely — I don’t know, like extremely disappointing.

Leandra: It was distracting how, because you were constantly on it?

Sam: Distracting in the sense that real life is going by and real people are going by and real connections could happen but you’re just on your phone and kind of missing the whole point. It preys on peoples’ insecurity.

Taylor: You curate this image of yourself and in curating that image, I think you become vulnerable in a very different way but you kind of can’t—

Sam: Take criticism or—

Taylor: Yeah, you curate what you think is the perfect or ideal image of yourself, and if it’s not received it’s probably really disappointing. Then, with the people you meet, you have an idea of what they’re going to be and if they don’t meet those expectations, that is so disappointing. I don’t know — I was never on Tinder because I’m too proud.

I felt it would make me vulnerable in a way that I couldn’t control. In person, I can be funny, I can be charming — I can have more control of the way I want to present myself — whereas on a dating app, I felt like I’d lose that thing that I felt confident in myself about.

Leandra: What is the thing?

Taylor: It’s the gut — the stuff you can’t say — that makes it so great.

Photos by Edith Young.

The post A Love Story in Progress from a Regular New York Couple appeared first on Man Repeller.

Do You Really Want Miss USA’s Opinion on Politics?

Last night, Kára McCullough, Miss District of Columbia USA, won the 2017 title of Miss USA. As part of the competition, she was asked, “Do you think affordable healthcare for all US Citizens is a right or a privilege and why?”

“I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege,” she responded. “As a government employee I am granted healthcare, and I see firsthand that for one to have healthcare, you need to have jobs, so therefore we need to continue to cultivate this environment that we’re given the opportunity to have healthcare as well as jobs [for] all the American citizens worldwide.”

I’d like to open up the conversation about this controversy by saying the thing you’re not supposed to as a 29-year-old woman in 2017: Sometimes I forget that D.C. stands for District of Columbia. I don’t forget as in, “Oh crap, what’s the D for again? Can I phone a friend?” It’s more…a reminder of something I already know but don’t often think about, like how K.F.C. is an acronym for “Kentucky Fried Chicken,” or that not everyone thinks the same way I do in general.

That not everyone thinks the same way I do is most apparent on Twitter. Following McCullough’s remarks, there were tweets echoing my own belief about affordable healthcare (it’s a right), and there were those in support of what the new Miss USA said.

The internet also had mixed opinions about her answer on whether or not she considers herself a feminist.

“So as a woman scientist in the government, I’d like to…transpose the word feminism to equalism. I don’t really want to consider myself, I try not to consider myself, like, this diehard, ‘I don’t really care about men.’ But one thing I’m going to say is, though, women we are just as equal as men when it comes to opportunity in the workplace.”

Her transposition confused those who believe feminism means, “the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes,” myself included. The uproar online was quick, loud and furious.

But here’s my question: Is Miss USA the place for this discussion?

According to the official website of Miss Universe (Miss USA is part of the same brand as Miss Universe, not related to Miss America, no longer owned by Donald Trump as of 2015), the mission is, “to provide the tools which help women to be their personal best. Self-confidence is the key. Every woman should have the confidence to stand up in any situation and declare, ‘I am secure and that’s what makes me beautiful!’”

The prize is cash (not scholarship — that’s Miss America). There is a bikini contest involved. There is, unfortunately for baton enthusiasts, no talent portion. Although, as the website states, “the contestants and titleholders that have gone through the Miss Universe system are able to cultivate their personal career goals, advocate for humanitarian issues and be a voice to affect positive change in the world,” this is a beauty pageant. It is not a reliable news source, nor is it a bank of factual, helpful information with which to calibrate our own opinions. If I were anticipating the imminent vote of an issue I felt torn about, “Thank god Miss USA is on so that I can make the best possible choice at the ballots,” would not cross my mind.

If political perspectives are swayed by celebrity voices, however, it makes sense that there are viewers who form or cement political opinions based on what the contestants of Miss USA say. And if you disagree with what they say, this thought is alarming.

One cannot control the whim of a celebrity’s trigger finger on a political tweet; a media property can, however, control the script of what the judges of a television program asks a contestant. In theory, Miss USA could eliminate questions that might result in a politically partisan answer — one that has the power to influence viewers despite not being grounded in expertise. In theory, any program with a viewership of young, impressionable minds could do this.

Should they?

I’ve had a hard time shaking something the Digital Editorial Director of Teen Vogue and Allure, Phillip Picardi, said during his Daily Show With Trevor Noah appearance: That to tell a young woman she should only care about lip gloss when there are policies up for debate that directly affect her is “frankly, irresponsible.”

What would removing these kinds of questions mean for Miss USA? Does it then become “just a swimsuit pageant,” and does that teach its viewers — who are going to watch Miss USA with or without the hard-hitting questions, mind you — something worse than an opinion you may disagree with?

Microphone pointed at you, now: What do you think?

Photo by Ethan Miller via Getty Images.

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