Pretending

by Holly Bourne

I now want to have sex with him, not because I’m horny, but to make things OK. Offer myself as an apology for being myself.

All my loneliest moments in life involve a man asleep when he knows it’s likely I’m crying.

The main red flag? He said he was looking for a “partner in crime” which everyone knows is shorthand for “a woman who isn’t real.”

What does it say when a man you’re willing to compromise on isn’t willing to compromise on you?

Don’t fall into that trap of being the untogether one whom people care about deeply, but whom they also use to feel more in control of their own lives.

Rape is the entitlement someone feels to someone else’s body, regardless of the consequences on the soul inhabiting that body, who has to spend every moment of the rest of their life knowing their body is not as important as someone else’s entitlement.

I wonder why men worry about women not coming when, during sex, they regularly do things that it’s common scientific knowledge do not lead women to come.

Do you know how powerless it makes you feel? To lower your standards to try and love someone and even then they don’t want your love?

“I’ve never felt guilty before. Never in my whole life. Guilt is the luxury of the powerful.”

“Do you have any idea of the privilege you must have to be able to debate sexual violence from a place of emotional detachment?”