Tag: Relationships

We Tried a $33 Sex Swing and Now You Also Have to

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By The Babes (Maddie Womack & Katie Harbinson)

Once upon a time, The Babes™ lived in the magical land of Kansas City. The rent was high, our standards were low, and sex was on our minds. So we thought to ourselves, how DOES one ball(s) (haha) on a budget? The answer left us feeling conflicted: Amazon. We’re ashamed to admit it, but we’re non-profit employees in our 20s. We love trying new sex toys, but our bank accounts do not. So with that, a babe volunteered to give it a swing. Which babe you ask? You’ll have to guess 😉

COME ON, SWING IT. Ok, we must confess, the babe who was first enticed with the concept of a sex swing was just a bit intimidated by it. Before a bit of research, we imagined they were super hard to install, expensive, and well, inconvenient. Post-research, we realized we were wrong—oops!

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I can’t come. What have my antidepressants done to me?

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By Nicole Mitchell
Illustrations by Kelcie McKenney

I have chronic “white coat” anxiety—I am terrified of doctors and medical offices. Pair that with the somatic symptoms that come with my anxiety, my heart disease, and other illnesses I’ve had to deal with, it’s been quite a ride—especially when the pandemic hit.

After months of suffering with chronic stress hives, panic attacks, severe cleaning routines for my body and apartment, refusing to go outside, and absolutely avoiding everyone, I decided it was time to try antidepressants.

The good news? They worked! I’ve been taking them since October 2020, and I’ve only had one panic attack since then. And those stress hives? Disappeared. 

The bad news? Once I was on those meds, I couldn’t come. And I lost my sex drive, which changed the whole dynamic between my boyfriend and me.

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SOUP: Anything for Love

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By Jen Harris

SOUP offers a content warning prior to every column, as the subjects discussed herein may be triggering for some readers. Please proceed with caution. If you would like to try a grounding technique for triggered moments, here is a personal recommendation.

The song goes, “I would do anything for love… but I won’t do that,” and the great debate is, “What IS ‘that’?”

That is all of the things that wreck a relationship: addiction, codependency, attachment style, jealousy, infidelity, financial strain, untreated mental illness, misogyny, sexism, racism, sexual repression… the list is long. So, the song is inherently claiming, “I would do anything for love, except be human.”

Historically I’ve claimed to be the sort of person who “won’t do that,” even though I totally DO THAT and that and that. I’d still like to believe I would do anything well-intentioned and healthy for love.

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Loving Loving Day: How Richard and Mildred Loving Paved the Way for Interracial Relationships—Including My Own

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By Kelcie McKenney

On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court decision on Loving v. Virginia struck down 16 state bans on interracial marriage.

The case was centered on the couple Mildred and Richard Loving. Mildred was an Indigenous Black woman and Richard was a white man. The couple was married in 1958 in Washington—where interracial marriage was legal—then moved to Virginia. In the middle of the night, their local sheriff broke into their home and charged them with violating Virginia’s anti-interracial laws.

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