But what stayed with me wasn’t the money. And it wasn’t even really the food—though I truly was hungry.

What stayed with me was something harder to name in real time: the bodily sensation of being misread, of being treated as less legitimate than the facts of the situation required, and of watching how easily ordinary rules can stop applying when someone decides you are safe to disregard.

It took me a little time to put language to that distress, because the most modern forms of discrimination don’t always announce themselves with obvious hatred. They show up as misrecognition, as selective enforcement, as escalation—things that can sound abstract until you’ve felt them in your body. And the closer your proximity is to power—or to observing how power works—the more sharply you can feel the difference between how you are perceived and how you should be perceived.

This essay is my attempt to name what happened, and to name why it matters beyond one night and one restaurant. I’m writing it because these dynamics shape who is treated as enforceable in public life, who is granted the benefit of the doubt, and who is subject to escalation when a situation could have been resolved routinely.

I’m okay this morning. I slept. I’m steadier. For an OB, six hours is practically luxury. But being “fine” is not the same thing as something being acceptable—and that distinction is the point. The incident matters, and this essay explains why.

📍What Happened

On Christmas night, while I was still on call, I left the hospital during a brief window to do something I hadn’t been able to do since Tuesday morning: eat a real meal.

If you’re reading this without context: this is about a prepaid pickup order, a locked door, a refusal to hand over paid-for food, and a police escort—on Christmas night—while I was still on call.

Not “grab something when you can” food. Not crackers between pages. Not a protein bar swallowed in a stairwell. A real meal—the kind that reminds your body you are a person, not a machine that keeps working because the pager keeps chirping. My kids were sick at home, recovering from the flu, and I was already carrying the quiet grief that comes with missing a holiday you can’t get back. The day was so busy I kept having to remind myself it was even Christmas. People would say, “Merry Christmas,” and I’d have this split-second pause—oh right—before moving on to the next patient, the next urgent decision.

It was around 8 p.m. in a small-to-medium-sized town in North Carolina. On Christmas Day, most restaurants are closed, and the few that stay open advertise it like a badge of honor. Red Lobster was one of them—one of the few places openly claiming they were operating on normal hours. There weren’t many alternatives. That scarcity matters.

So I did what a reasonable person does in a limited-options situation: I placed a Grubhub pickup order and paid. The transaction was complete. They accepted my money. This wasn’t a dispute over whether I had paid. It wasn’t “we’re closed.” It wasn’t “we can’t make that.” Payment had already been accepted.

That detail matters because it eliminates the easiest storyline for people who want to dismiss this.

💢 I didn’t show up after closing demanding special treatment.

💢 I didn’t try to force a kitchen to produce something impossible.

I placed an order, paid for it, and arrived during the stated pickup window to retrieve what I purchased.

Grubhub sent curbside pickup instructions by text at about 8:06 p.m. It listed an expected pickup window—8:45 to 8:55 p.m.—and it provided a number to call for curbside service. I followed the instructions. My call log shows I called the curbside number at 8:40 p.m. for four minutes. I then called the restaurant line at 8:44 p.m. No one answered.

So I went to the door, because again: the order had been accepted, charged, and confirmed.

The door was locked. I entered only after another customer opened it. Inside, staff told me they were not accepting online orders.

💢 Read that slowly: not accepting online orders—after accepting and charging an online order.

In any functional commercial system, once payment is accepted, the exchange is no longer optional. If a business cannot fulfill the order, the correct response is to cancel it and issue an immediate refund with documentation. That is not a moral debate. That is basic commerce.

That is not what happened.

Instead, staff refused to provide the food and refused to provide clear, immediate refund confirmation in the moment. While I stood there being told they weren’t accepting online orders, I watched active service continuing in the restaurant. A man only a few feet from me received multiple bags of food. I saw additional trays of freshly prepared food coming out.

‼️ Food was moving.

‼️ Service was continuing.

‼️ I was the exception.

So I asked for the manager on duty and requested the only reasonable outcome: fulfill the paid order or cancel it and document the refund. Rather than resolve a routine consumer transaction, staff escalated by calling the police.

I did not simply walk out. I left escorted out by the police. ‼️

On Christmas night. While still on call. After days of not being able to leave the hospital to eat. In a town where most places were closed—which is why I ordered from one of the few restaurants claiming to be open.

That is the story. Those are the facts. I’m also pursuing the paper trail: I will be requesting the police report as a public record, because escalation should always be documented—not hand-waved away.

And if you’re reading this thinking, this is irrational, this is unbelievable, this makes no sense—you’re right. Which brings me to the point.

They took my money, withheld the food, and ended the interaction with a police escort—on Christmas night.

🔍 What This Actually Was

Most people misunderstand discrimination because they imagine it as an emotion.

They picture overt hostility: slurs, explicit hatred, someone who wants to take rights away and feels comfortable saying so. That version exists, but it is not the only form, and it is not the most common form many Black professionals are navigating.

Modern discrimination is often a technique rather than a feeling. It’s not always “I hate you.” It is often “I can do this to you.”

It is the unequal distribution of burdens—who gets denied, delayed, dismissed, humiliated, or escalated on—because someone has decided, consciously or unconsciously, that you have less leverage to make consequences real.

And one of the most powerful techniques is misrecognition: the refusal to recognize legitimate authority and standing when it appears in certain bodies, especially Black bodies, even when that authority has been earned through the most conventional pathways our society claims to reward.

We live inside power infrastructures. Everyone knows this, even if we pretend not to, because naming it makes people uncomfortable. Power comes in many forms: financial power, social power, institutional power, symbolic power. Certain roles carry standing because society depends on predictable recognition of legitimacy.

A priest may not have wealth but still be treated with deference because the role is coded as authoritative. A physician carries institutional legitimacy because medicine sits at the center of life and death. Leaders, founders, executives, people embedded in institutions are generally treated differently not because they are “better,” but because society assumes they are enforceable.

In a functioning society, power is supposed to travel with you.

Not as worship. Not as entitlement. As predictability. As baseline recognition that the person in front of you has standing that cannot be casually ignored.

But for many Black professionals, the defining injury is that earned power does not reliably translate. It does not consistently travel. Credentials become situational. Standing becomes optional. Black authority is recognized when it’s convenient—when it can be applauded, marketed, used, or admired—and ignored when it’s inconvenient.

That is the mechanism.

This is Black authority—ignored when it’s inconvenient.

And if this sounds “too big” to map onto one night at one restaurant, consider how familiar the pattern is at the highest levels of American life. A significant portion of the country could look at a sitting President of the United States—Barack Obama—and insist he was not truly American: not a U.S. citizen, not eligible, not “one of us.” That wasn’t a policy disagreement. That was misrecognition at scale: the refusal to let earned authority travel when it lived in a Black body. 

Or consider Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor, returning to his own home and forcing open a stuck door—then being arrested at that home after police responded to a break-in report. You can debate the personalities involved, but the structure is the point: Black standing did not function as protective legitimacy in the moment it mattered; escalation did. 

That line makes some people uncomfortable because it forces clarity. It refuses the soothing story that this is just “a misunderstanding” or “a personality clash.” It forces us to ask why the usual rules of legitimacy and deference did not apply.

Because if we are honest, what happened at that restaurant was not just that someone was rude. It was that multiple people behaved as if a completed transaction did not bind them, as if withholding paid-for goods was a reasonable option, and as if escalating to police rather than resolving a routine refund was normal. That’s not a customer service lapse. That’s a legitimacy decision.

Escalation is not neutral.

Calling the police turns a basic consumer dispute into a confrontation with a state-backed enforcement apparatus. It increases risk instantly. It shifts the question from “how do we solve this?” to “how do we remove her?” And in America, we all know that police involvement does not carry equal risk for everyone. Escalation is a tool. It is a choice. It is a way of imposing consequence on the person you believe is safest to punish.

That’s why this cannot be reduced to “customer service.”

If the restaurant truly was not accepting online orders, there were multiple non-punitive solutions available: cancel the order, refund it immediately, provide documentation, apologize, and move on. That is what happens for many people every day. The system has a script for this.

But the script I encountered was different: deny, dismiss, and escalate. And denial becomes especially powerful when the context is scarcity—when it’s Christmas night, the town is quiet, and options are limited.

And the question that clarifies why is the one people avoid because it forces them to admit how society actually works:

Does anyone credibly believe this sequence—prepaid order, refusal to fulfill, observed others receiving food, insistence on resolution, police called, customer escorted out—would have unfolded the same way if I were a white man? Most people, if they are honest, do not believe that.

This is what modern discrimination looks like: Black authority treated as optional, and escalation used when recognition becomes inconvenient.

⚖️ Why This Matters

It matters because public legitimacy is not a vibe. It’s infrastructure.

Public legitimacy is the social recognition that your standing is real, enforceable, and consequential. It is what makes institutions negotiate rather than dismiss. It is what makes people think twice before escalating. It is what makes “policy” suddenly flexible, and what makes a simple transaction resolve itself without drama.

And power is not only what you possess. Power is what other people believe you can use.

If people believe you can create consequences, they respond differently. They de-escalate. They resolve. They treat you as legitimate. If people believe you cannot, they test you. They stonewall you. They escalate on you. They treat you as socially unenforceable.

That belief does not stay inside one restaurant on one night. It travels.

It travels into workplaces, where Black executives are asked to “prove” leadership in ways their peers are not. It travels into hospitals, where Black physicians are undermined and Black patients are doubted. It travels into schools, where Black authority is treated as negotiable and Black children are disciplined for behaviors that read as normal in others. It travels into housing markets and courtrooms and boardrooms and police encounters. It becomes a pattern: whose legitimacy is automatic, and whose must be constantly re-earned.

And that is why this matters to everyone who claims to care about opportunity. Because opportunity does not exist in a vacuum. Opportunity requires enforceable legitimacy. It requires that earned power be allowed to translate into durable security.

This is where modern racism is often misdefined. People want to locate racism in language: whether someone used a slur, whether someone “meant it,” whether someone has the right feelings in their heart.

But the biggest racial harms in America are not sustained primarily by people saying the N-word. They are sustained by systemic failures of translation—the failure of Black education to convert to the same stability, the failure of Black income to convert to the same wealth, the failure of Black credentials to convert to the same presumption of competence and protection.

💢 That is how the racial wealth gap persists.

💢 That is how unequal outcomes persist.

Not only through overt hatred, but through the steady undermining of whether Black authority is allowed to become enforceable power. You can sanitize language and still preserve hierarchy if you keep making Black legitimacy negotiable.

And once enough people are trained to experience Black legitimacy as negotiable, bigger fantasies become politically possible: the fantasy that citizenship itself is something “we” can confer or revoke based on belonging, loyalty tests, or identity. That entitlement does not appear out of nowhere—it grows in the soil of everyday misrecognition, everyday selective enforcement, everyday escalation.

To be clear: U.S. law does not make citizenship infinitely revocable at someone’s whim. There are legal constraints, and denaturalization is legally bounded and contested. But the existence of formal constraints does not prevent a cultural drift toward the idea that some people’s status is inherently more precarious—more conditional—more available for punishment. 

And for those of us who are trying to make transformative change—trying to build new infrastructures of care, accountability, and protection—this is not an abstract insult. It is a structural constraint.

Because change requires power. And power requires legitimacy.

If a society can look at a Black physician-founder—someone working on Christmas while her kids are sick at home—and still treat her as a person whose money can be taken and whose presence can be policed, it sends a signal that does not stay local. It teaches the world, quietly, that Black authority is contestable.

That is why I will not treat this as trivial.

I am not asking for reverence. I am not asking for a special category of humanity. I am asking for the basic consistency the country claims to believe in: if you accept payment, you deliver the goods or you refund immediately; if you cannot resolve a transaction, you do not escalate to law enforcement to remove a customer who is requesting a routine remedy.

And I am naming the deeper truth behind why it happened at all: Black authority is recognized when it’s convenient and ignored when it’s inconvenient. ‼️

If we actually believe in opportunity, earned power must be allowed to translate.

Because legitimacy cannot be conditional.

It has to be real.

A society that treats Black legitimacy as negotiable will eventually treat Black citizenship, safety, and authority as negotiable too.

💭 A question: Have you experienced something similar? A moment where the rules that should have applied and didn’t? Where your standing was treated as negotiable?

If you have, I’d like to hear about it. Not for collection or spectacle—but because these patterns become clearer when we name them together.

Comment below if you’re willing to share. Even if it felt small. Even if you were told to let it go. The conversation matters. Your voice in it matters.

Last week I finished a call shift, came home, and did what I do when I’m trying to be faithful to the most basic ethic of medicine—reduce preventable harm. I got vaccinated. COVID and flu. My body responded the way bodies sometimes do when they’re asked to practice for an enemy: fever, aches, that bruised, heavy feeling like your immune system is running drills at full volume.

And because I can already hear the familiar chorus that shows up every winter: no, the flu vaccine did not give us the flu. That’s not how the flu shot works. Feeling crummy afterward is an immune response—your body learning, rehearsing, building recognition. What came after was the actual virus, delivered with the casual efficiency only children can manage, because kids are tiny, beloved vectors and they do not care about anyone’s timing.

My daughter got the real flu. Not the polite kind that makes you tired and then politely exits. The kind that makes a home feel like it’s under siege. Fever. Vomiting. That awful combination of lethargy and irritability that makes a child cling and fight at the same time. Then it moved through the rest of us in its own order, like it was checking names off a list.

🤒 Before you have children, being sick can contain a strange little permission slip.

You can lie down. You can call out. You can let the world proceed without you for a day or two while you surrender to the fact that you are a mammal with limits.

Being sick with kids—especially sick kids—comes with no permission. There is no sanctioned rest. Care doesn’t pause because you’re feverish. It doesn’t soften because your stomach is rolling. It just keeps arriving in new forms: another cup of water, another towel, another load of laundry, another child who needs to be held at the exact moment you feel least capable of holding anyone.

We have a soaking tub in our bathroom—one of those domestic fantasies that implies serenity if you ever live long enough to deserve it. This week it became a staging ground for wet linens and ruined blankets, an unintentional monument to the volume of mess that can be generated when three small bodies decide to revolt at once. My husband and I were both sick, both trying to keep the house upright, both searching for patience inside bodies that had none left. And toddlers, when they’re sick, can be astonishingly unkind—not because they are cruel, but because they are suffering and have no words for it. They need you. They fight you. They demand you. You love them fiercely and, if you’re honest, you also stare into the middle distance at some point and think: I cannot do this for one more hour.

We did what most families do when the situation is both frightening and exhausting: we escalated to whatever tools we had. Tamiflu. Fluids. Rest in fractured minutes we stole from the night. Two of the three kids began to improve. One lingered with fevers, flirting with that familiar pattern parents learn the hard way—when recovery is real, but incomplete, and a secondary infection tries to write its own sequel. Still, the trajectory tilted in the right direction. Christmas, in our house, got rescheduled. It turns out holidays are more flexible than we pretend. The kids will still get their magic; it just won’t arrive on the calendar’s schedule.

A traditional gratitude essay would end here. Chaos, then recovery, then a tidy moral about resilience and perspective.

But this year, gratitude didn’t arrive tidy.

🏥 Because while I was living through my own domestic collapse, I was also on call. I was also doing my job as an OB-GYN.

And I found myself—again—in one of the most ethically brutal spaces in obstetrics: the periviable window.

Details in the clinical vignette that follows have been intentionally altered and blended to protect patient privacy.

Periviability is the borderland. It’s the stretch of pregnancy where modern medicine can sometimes sustain life outside the womb, but not reliably, not without profound risk, and not without consequences that can reshape an entire family’s future. It’s where certainty becomes a luxury no one can afford. It’s where every sentence you say as a physician feels like it weighs too much, because the person in front of you isn’t asking for a lecture. They’re asking for a way to survive the next decision.

A young patient came in uncomfortable—scared, trying to be brave, trying to understand what her body was doing. She had a cerclage, a stitch placed in the cervix when the cervix begins to shorten too early in pregnancy. Cervical insufficiency is one of those diagnoses that reminds you how humbling reproduction is: we can describe the pattern and we can intervene, but we still can’t always explain why one body begins to change early while another holds steady. We treat with what we have—progesterone, cerclage, monitoring—knowing that sometimes the interventions slow the process and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the body keeps moving toward labor anyway, and all you can do is try to read the signals with enough honesty to keep people safe.

The work starts in the most human, unglamorous way. You ask permission. You explain what you’re doing. You go slowly because fear tightens everything. You tell her to hold your hand and you mean it. You collect swabs to look for infection, because infection can make the cervix and uterus “unhappy” and push the body toward labor. You try to determine whether membranes might be ruptured, because sometimes the water breaks before dilation becomes obvious. You watch the difference between mucus, medication residue, and amniotic fluid, knowing that at this gestational age, the difference is not academic. You speak carefully, because the wrong kind of reassurance becomes betrayal later, but the wrong kind of alarm becomes trauma now.

Then you run headlong into the reality that makes periviability what it is: time. Gestational age. Thresholds.

Not because babies are morally different on different days. Because physiology is. Because lungs and brains do not mature on a timeline we can negotiate with. Because NICUs—no matter how skilled—are limited by biology and by the capabilities of their particular institution. Many hospitals do not offer resuscitation under a certain gestational age. Some specialized centers will consider more earlier than others. Most modern facilities mark the mid–twenty-week range as viability in the practical sense: with intensive care, there is a reasonable chance of leaving the hospital with a living child. Between those numbers lives the gray—where outcomes vary, where facility policies differ, where one zip code can determine what “options” even means.

⚖️ In that gray zone, counseling becomes an exercise in ethical precision.

You have to explain the reality without making the family feel like they are being asked to play God. You have to name that there is no right or wrong choice in the abstract—only choices that align more or less with a family’s values, resources, and tolerance for risk and suffering. You have to tell them the questions they may soon be asked: Do you want everything done? Do you want interventions only when there is a meaningful chance of benefit? Are you trying to maximize survival at any cost, or are you trying to minimize suffering, even if that means accepting limits?

You also have to tell the truth that people rarely say out loud in public, because it makes everyone uncomfortable: sometimes “doing everything” can be its own kind of harm. Not because the baby is not worth it. Not because the family is wrong to hope. But because at the edge of viability, aggressive intervention can create suffering without creating meaningful survival. And even when survival is achieved, the quality of that survival can range from remarkably intact to profoundly impaired. There are children who surprise us. There are children who do not. In this window, we cannot guarantee which story a family will get.

This is where the counseling I did that night settled into my bones in a new way. Because I wasn’t only thinking about survival curves or NICU statistics. I was thinking about what comes after the hospital—if there is an after.

The part the public often misses is that periviability doesn’t just create a clinical outcome. It creates a life. A long one, sometimes. A life that may be shaped by chronic lung disease, feeding tubes, repeated hospitalizations, severe neurodevelopmental impairment, dependence on machines and caregivers, pain we can’t fully eliminate, needs that do not fade with time. That’s not every case, but it is a real possibility, and the earlier the gestational age, the more that possibility becomes central. Some people hear that and still choose maximal intervention. That is their right. Many people, once they truly understand what it can mean, choose something else. What matters is that the choice is made with honesty, not with slogans.

And then there’s the logistical reality that becomes its own moral problem: where you are.

In a smaller hospital—capable, staffed, doing our best—there are moments when you cannot ethically pretend you are the right setting for what may come next. In those moments, your job becomes two simultaneous things: care for the patient in front of you and move the system fast enough to get her to a place that can hold the complexity if the worst happens.

So you pick up the phone. You call bigger hospitals. You initiate transfer. You try to make sure nothing catastrophic happens between leaving your doors and arriving at theirs, because the last thing anyone wants is a delivery in an ambulance. You do the peculiar dance of modern medicine where urgency is filtered through bureaucracy: long holds, vague answers, incomplete conversations, the sense that the person on the other end of the phone is emotionally absent from the reality you are trying to communicate.

📱 That night, I felt the surreal whiplash that I think every clinician knows but never gets used to.

On one line, I’m discussing thresholds for resuscitation—what we can do, when it matters, when it doesn’t, and why some interventions carry their own risks when used too early. On the other line, the world is texting about Christmas gifts. “What should we get him?” As if time is normal. As if the calendar protects us.

And in the middle of it all is a young woman who needs adults around her—people who know her, love her, can help her think—because decisions like these are difficult for anyone, and even more brutal when you are young, scared, and newly introduced to the fact that pregnancy can become a crisis without warning. I remember saying, in my own way, what I always try to say in those moments: take a few minutes. Call someone you trust. Let another brain hold this with you. Not because you need permission, but because you deserve support.

Here is where my household flu week—small compared to what my patients face—became a strange kind of teacher.

Because being sick while caring for my children reminded me how quickly caregiving drains reserves even in a home with partnership and stability. It reminded me how fragile “coping” is when sleep disappears. How thin the margin is between functioning and falling apart. It made me feel, in my body, what I already know intellectually: sustained caregiving pressure reorganizes a life. And if a temporary, ordinary childhood illness can shake a household to its foundations, then the long-term care needs that can follow periviable birth are not just “hard.” They are life-altering.

💔 This is the part that makes my chest tighten when people talk about pregnancy and newborn life like the moral obligation ends at delivery.

We live in a culture that loves to demand outcomes it refuses to support. We argue fiercely about what pregnant women should do, what doctors must do, what babies deserve, as if obligation is simply a matter of insisting on intervention. But periviability exposes the deeper moral question: are we willing to build a world that can hold the consequences of that intervention?

Because if a child survives with profound needs, the burden doesn’t land on legislators or commentators. It lands on a family. It lands on a mother. It lands on siblings whose lives get reorganized around crisis. It lands on the people least protected by our current systems—people who may not have stable housing, stable childcare, stable transportation, stable insurance, stable work leave, or stable support.

So when I counsel families in this window, I am not only thinking about the next hour. I am thinking about ten years. Twenty years. I am thinking about what it costs to keep a fragile life alive in a society that routinely withdraws support from the disabled, the poor, and the caregiving labor that holds everyone up. I am thinking about the fact that “miracles” are often sustained by invisible work—work done mostly by women, quietly, without applause, without rest, without the infrastructure that would make that work humane.

🙏 And this is where gratitude shows up differently than it usually does on Christmas.

I am grateful my children’s illnesses, while miserable, were temporary. I am grateful my week of caretaking did not become my decade. I am grateful for the clarity that arrives when you are exhausted and your mind stops pretending love is simple. I am grateful for the colleagues who stand in these rooms and keep their humanity intact, who do not hide behind vagueness when patients deserve truth. I am grateful for the best version of medicine—the version that is honest, compassionate, unflinching about tradeoffs, and unwilling to outsource moral weight to a patient who is already drowning.

And I am grateful—strangely, stubbornly—for the fact that I still care enough to be upset by how unfair this is. Because it would be easier, emotionally, to numb out. To call this “just part of the job.” But there are moments in obstetrics that should disturb you. There are thresholds that should make you pause. There are situations where the system’s failures are so loud that you can hear them in the spaces between phone calls.

Christmas, in my house, will be late this year. The kids will still get their magic; it just won’t arrive on schedule. That feels appropriate. Parenthood is mostly a repeated exercise in accepting that love and control rarely travel together.

But the thought I keep returning to is this: if we want to call ourselves a moral society, we have to stop treating people’s most difficult moments as private tragedies they should manage quietly. Periviability doesn’t just test medical skill. It tests what kind of community we actually are—what we are willing to fund, support, and carry together, instead of insisting on outcomes and disappearing afterward.

So today, I’m holding the messy kind of gratitude. The kind that doesn’t perform cheer. The kind that sharpens responsibility. The kind that makes you see what you’ve been spared, and what other people are being asked to endure.

Merry Christmas. 🎄

—Yamicia D. Connor

This has been a season of extraordinary growth for Diosa Ara and the Labora Collective. We have been building, testing, learning, and listening, often all at once. Now, as many of us step into a slower rhythm for the holidays, we’re choosing to do the same—intentionally and with care.

A Gentler Publishing Pace

Over the Christmas season and through January, you’ll notice a gentler publishing pace across our platforms. We will continue to share work on each channel, but with more space to breathe. This is a time for reflection, clarity, and alignment, both for our team and for our community.

You’ll continue to hear from us, just not at a volume that competes with rest, family, or restoration.

A Holiday Gift: Free Access & Luminary Upgrades

As a holiday gift to our entire community, we’re making a meaningful shift during this period. All of our journals will be fully free for the next one to two months. Everything currently published will be open and accessible, so that anyone who arrives here—whether for the first time or as a longtime reader—can explore the ecosystem without barriers.

At the same time, every paid subscriber will be upgraded to Luminary status. This is our way of saying thank you for believing in this work early and helping make it possible.

Restructuring Our Private & Public Channels

During this transition, all premium and paid content will move into a private space. The public-facing journals will remain welcoming, generous, and substantive, while the private channel will house deeper dives, early pilots, and more intensive offerings for those who want to engage at that level. Our goal is simple: to make the free experience genuinely valuable and the paid experience clearly distinct, intentional, and worth opting into.

A More Thoughtful Publishing Rhythm

You’ll also start to see a more thoughtful publishing rhythm designed to respect your time and your inbox. Going forward, if you’re subscribed to a specific channel, you’ll receive one update from that channel each week. In addition, twice a week, we’ll send Labora Collective–wide digests that bring together links and highlights from across the ecosystem. This allows you to stay connected to the breadth of our work without feeling overwhelmed by constant notifications.

Starting this Friday, and continuing weekly, I’ll also be sharing founder updates directly with you. These will be candid, grounding check-ins—celebrating wins, naming progress, and keeping you close to the thinking and momentum behind the scenes. Think of them as a standing Friday conversation between us.

What to Expect in February & Beyond

When we return in fuller stride in February, you can expect a more unified, coherent publication experience. We’re integrating our substacks into a tighter editorial ecosystem so that the throughline of our work—medicine, justice, lived experience, and systems thinking—is easier to follow and more powerful in practice.

You’ll see more guest writers, including physicians, midwives, doulas, and other birth workers, alongside collaborators from aligned organizations who are building in this space with integrity and urgency.

Piloting Our Clinical Care Model

We’re also entering an exciting phase of experimentation. In the coming months, we’ll begin piloting elements of our clinical care model within the collective, offering members the first opportunity to participate. Some of these early pilots, including potential e-consults, will be offered at very low cost or even free, because feedback and learning matter more to us at this stage than scale. This community will help shape what comes next.

Growing Our Team & Building Partnerships

Behind the scenes, our team is growing. We’re actively recruiting an editor to champion the work and strengthen our editorial rigor, and I’m expanding our executive leadership to support the scale and seriousness of what we’re building. We’re also developing collaborations with partner organizations that we’re genuinely excited to share more about in the new year.

With Gratitude

Most of all, I want to wish you a peaceful, grounding holiday season. Thank you for being here—for reading, for engaging, for trusting us as we build something different and necessary. We’re looking forward to stepping into the new year with clarity, generosity, and renewed momentum, and I’m grateful to be doing that alongside you.

With warmth and appreciation,

Yamicia.

It was designed for the people who stay in the room long after the headlines disappear.

If you’ve ever held a Doppler on a quiet unit at 3 AM.

If you’ve ever had to argue a patient’s pain into legitimacy.

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You deserve healthcare that treats you as a whole person—not just a collection of symptoms to manage or a uterus to monitor.

Women’s Health provides medical expertise grounded in the reality of your life. We don’t discuss PCOS without examining why healthy food costs three times more in certain neighborhoods. We don’t analyze maternal mortality without addressing housing quality, workplace protections, and economic security. We don’t prescribe antidepressants for postpartum depression without acknowledging the absence of paid family leave that forces you back to work while your body is still healing.

The clinical expertise remains central—this is medicine written by a practicing OB/GYN who delivers babies and sees patients daily. But it’s no longer artificially isolated from the systems that actually determine whether you thrive or just survive.

What You’ll Find Here

Women’s Health covers the full spectrum of reproductive and sexual health across your entire life:

• Medical explanations in plain language, not jargon

• Evidence-based guidance for making informed decisions about your care

• Clinical expertise contextualized within social realities

• Practical tools for navigating a healthcare system that wasn’t built for you

• Honest conversations about what your doctor might not tell you

Our Six Focus Areas

Each subjournal addresses a specific aspect of women’s health and reproductive justice:

• The EmpowerHER Journal - Your comprehensive guide to reproductive healthcare navigation

• Her Health Matters - Medical education in plain English, no jargon required

• Yemaya’s Circle of Care - Pregnancy and postpartum support rooted in power and trust

• Pleasure & Power - Sexual health that centers autonomy, healing, and joy

• Roots & Wings - Parenting while healing, mothering while breaking cycles

• Second Act - Menopause and midlife transitions on your terms

Who This Is For

Women’s Health serves women navigating reproductive healthcare in an era of restrictions, barriers, and systemic failures. We center Black and Brown women—who face the worst outcomes—because building solutions for those most harmed by broken systems creates healthcare that protects everyone.

You belong here if you:

• Want medical information you can actually understand and use

• Are tired of being dismissed or gaslit by healthcare providers

• Need to advocate for yourself or someone you love

• Want to understand how policy and economics affect your health

• Believe your health outcomes shouldn’t be determined by your ZIP code

From Dr. Yamicia Connor
Founder, Diosa Ara & Editor-in-Chief, Women’s Health

“I deliver that healthy baby to a woman apologizing for ‘failing’ to attend prenatal care—while working two jobs, raising six kids, with no transportation. The system created impossible barriers, then convinced her that her inability to overcome them was a personal moral failing.

That’s the fundamental lie of American healthcare: we’ve convinced women that their health outcomes are primarily determined by individual choices, when research shows only 10% comes from medical care. The other 90%? Your housing, your work, your ZIP code, the policies governing your life.

Women’s Health tells you the truth about how health actually works—and gives you the knowledge to navigate systems that weren’t designed with your survival in mind.”

Start Here

New to Women’s Health? Begin with:

• Her Health Matters for foundational medical education

• The EmpowerHER Journal for reproductive justice context

• Your specific life stage: Yemaya’s Circle (pregnancy), Roots & Wings (parenting), Second Act (menopause)

Welcome. We’re glad you’re here.

You’re trying to give your children what you didn’t receive. You’re working to parent differently than you were raised. You’re healing your own childhood wounds while raising kids who depend on you to be the stable one.

This is hard work. Generational trauma is real. And you’re not alone.

Roots & Wings acknowledges that parenting is challenging under the best circumstances—and nearly impossible when you’re simultaneously processing your own trauma, navigating economic insecurity, managing mental health, and trying to break cycles of dysfunction.

What We Cover

Healing While Parenting

• Managing your own trauma while raising children

• Breaking cycles of dysfunction and abuse

• Addressing your mental health without guilt

• Finding therapy and support that actually works

Parenting Intentionally

• Conscious parenting when your blueprint is broken

• Age-appropriate conversations about hard topics

• Building chosen family and support systems

• Creating new traditions and family culture

The Realities of Motherhood

• The rage and resentment nobody talks about

• Maternal mental health beyond “baby blues”

• Managing when you’re touched out and overwhelmed

• The gap between how you want to parent and how you actually do

Family Systems & Relationships

• Navigating toxic family members and boundaries

• Co-parenting with difficult ex-partners

• Addressing children’s questions about family dysfunction

• Protecting your children without isolation

Special Features

Love Letters to Motherhood
Personal narratives from mothers navigating the beautiful, terrible, overwhelming reality of raising humans while figuring out how to be human yourself.

Welcome to Motherhood
Support for new mothers transitioning into parenthood—the stuff nobody tells you about the identity shift, the isolation, and the loss of self that comes with becoming “mom.”

Partners in Parenting (Column for male partners)
Guidance for fathers and male partners on showing up, sharing load, and supporting their partner’s healing while raising children together.

Our Approach

We don’t do toxic positivity. We don’t pretend motherhood is all joy and fulfillment. We don’t shame you for struggling, for needing breaks, for sometimes resenting your children or your life.

We also don’t wallow in misery. We acknowledge the hard parts while celebrating the victories—even the tiny ones. We’re honest about what’s broken while building toward what’s possible.

Every piece balances:

• Validation (you’re not failing, the system is broken)

• Practical strategies (things you can try today)

• Long-term healing (this is a journey, not a destination)

• Community connection (you’re not alone in this)

Who This Is For

You’re parenting with:

• Childhood trauma you’re still processing

• Mental health challenges you’re managing

• Economic stress that never lets up

• Little to no support from family or systems

• The weight of breaking cycles for your children

You love your kids fiercely AND sometimes fantasize about running away. You’re doing your best AND know your best sometimes isn’t enough. You’re exhausted AND keep showing up anyway.

Roots & Wings is for mothers doing the hardest work there is—raising children while healing yourself—with honesty, compassion, and zero judgment.

Recent Topics

• “When You Parent Like Your Mother Despite Swearing You Never Would”

• “The Rage Nobody Talks About: Maternal Anger and What to Do With It”

• “Explaining Family Dysfunction to Your Kids: Age-Appropriate Scripts”

• “Finding Therapy That Actually Helps (When You Can Barely Afford It)”

You’re giving your children roots in healing and wings toward freedom. That’s enough.

Named for the Yoruba goddess of the ocean and motherhood, Yemaya’s Circle of Care centers Black women and women of color in pregnancy and postpartum support.

Because the statistics are devastating. Black women are 3.5 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. More than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. And the wealthiest Black woman in California faces higher maternal mortality risk than the poorest white woman.

This isn’t about different biology. This is about a healthcare system shaped by centuries of medical racism, where providers are less likely to identify pain in Black patients’ faces and less likely to believe when you say something’s wrong.

Yemaya’s Circle of Care addresses the unique challenges, celebrates the strength, and provides culturally grounded support that mainstream healthcare fails to offer.

What We Cover

Pregnancy Navigation

• Preconception planning and health optimization

• Choosing providers who will actually listen

• High-risk pregnancy management and advocacy

• Recognizing and addressing discrimination

Birth Planning & Preparation

• Creating birth plans in systems that don’t trust Black women

• Building your support team (doulas, midwives, advocates)

• Understanding interventions and when to question them

• Hospital policies and how to challenge them

Postpartum Support

• Fourth trimester recovery and healing

• Breastfeeding challenges and solutions

• Postpartum depression vs. postpartum anxiety

• Returning to work and life transitions

Your Birth Care Guide
A special series within Yemaya’s Circle
Comprehensive pregnancy and birth guidance specifically addressing what Black mothers and mothers of color need to know.

Our Approach

We tell the truth about risks without creating fear. We acknowledge systemic racism without leaving you helpless. We provide practical tools for navigating a broken system while fighting to fix it.

Every piece includes:

• Medical information contextualized for your reality

• Self-advocacy strategies for getting the care you deserve

• Warning signs that require escalation

• Community resources for additional support

Cultural Grounding

Pregnancy and birth are sacred. You deserve care that:

• Respects your cultural traditions and practices

• Honors your intuition and embodied knowledge

• Acknowledges the strength and wisdom you carry

• Celebrates your family and community connections

Yemaya’s Circle holds space for the joy, fear, power, and vulnerability of bringing life into a world that hasn’t always protected Black lives.

Recent Topics

• “Creating Your Birth Plan When Hospitals Don’t Trust Black Women”

• “The Preeclampsia Red Flags Your Doctor Might Dismiss”

• “Building Your Birth Team: Doulas, Midwives, and Advocates”

• “Postpartum Depression in Black Women: Why It’s Different and What to Do”

Community Wisdom

This isn’t just medical expertise from the outside. Yemaya’s Circle centers the knowledge and experiences of Black mothers and birthing people. Your stories, your wisdom, your survival strategies matter here.

You are not alone. We circle you with protection, power, and trust.

Reproductive justice isn’t abstract theory. It’s whether you can get the IUD you need. Whether your insurance covers the abortion you’ve decided on. Whether your employer fires you for missing work due to hyperemesis gravidarum. Whether the hospital believes you when you say something’s wrong.

The EmpowerHER Journal connects medical expertise with practical action. We examine how laws, policies, and systems shape your ability to make real choices about your reproductive health—and what you can do about it.

What We Cover

Reproductive Rights in Practice

• State-by-state abortion access and legal updates

• Contraception access and insurance coverage

• Fertility treatment barriers and solutions

• Emergency contraception myths and realities

Navigating Healthcare Systems

• Advocating for yourself in medical settings

• Getting second opinions and specialist referrals

• Understanding insurance denials and appeals

• Finding culturally competent providers

Real-World Reproductive Decisions

• Pregnancy planning in restrictive states

• Abortion decision-making and access

• Fertility preservation and family planning

• Pregnancy termination for medical reasons

Your Rights & Resources

• What to do when care is denied

• Legal protections and limitations

• Financial assistance programs

• Support networks and community resources

Our Approach

We don’t sugarcoat reality. Reproductive healthcare in America is fractured, hostile, and often dangerous—especially for Black and Brown women. But we also don’t leave you hopeless.

Every piece provides:

• Clear explanation of what’s happening and why

• Practical guidance on navigating current reality

• Action steps you can take right now

• Resources for additional support

Who This Is For

You’re navigating reproductive decisions in a landscape where:

• Your state may criminalize the healthcare you need

• Your employer might not cover essential services

• Your doctor may be legally afraid to provide standard care

• Your insurance company denies coverage for political reasons

The EmpowerHER Journal gives you the information and tools to make the best decisions possible within impossible constraints.

Recent Topics

• “Planning Pregnancy After Dobbs: A State-by-State Decision Guide”

• “When Your Doctor Says No: Getting the IUD You Need”

• “Understanding Abortion Pills: Access, Legality, and Safety”

• “The Second Opinion Strategy: How and When to Get One”

Knowledge is power. Let’s build yours.

Sexual health isn’t just about disease prevention and risk reduction. It’s about pleasure, autonomy, and healing from trauma. It’s about desire, consent, and power dynamics. It’s about reclaiming your body after it’s been violated, controlled, or dismissed.

Pleasure & Power addresses everything your sex ed class didn’t cover and your doctor probably won’t discuss—always centering your right to make informed choices about your own body.

What We Cover

Sexual Anatomy & Function

• How pleasure actually works (beyond basic anatomy)

• Understanding desire, arousal, and response

• Common concerns and variations

• Pleasure across the lifespan

Sexual Health & Wellness

• STI prevention, testing, and stigma-free treatment

• Contraception options and informed decision-making

• Sexual pain and dysfunction

• Pelvic floor health and recovery

Consent & Relationships

• Understanding consent beyond “yes” and “no”

• Navigating relationship power dynamics

• Communication strategies for sexual needs

• Recognizing coercion and manipulation

Healing & Recovery

• Reclaiming sexuality after trauma

• Recovery from sexual violence

• Healing from sexual shame and stigma

• Body autonomy after medical procedures

Our Philosophy

You have the right to:

• Sexual pleasure without shame

• Comprehensive information about your body

• Healthcare that addresses your actual needs

• Autonomy over every sexual decision

• Healing and recovery on your timeline

Pleasure & Power provides information mainstream medicine ignores and popular culture distorts. We talk about sex like it matters—because it does—while respecting that everyone’s relationship with sexuality is different.

What Makes Us Different

We’re sex-positive, not sex-prescriptive
Whether you’re having sex with multiple partners, one partner, or yourself—whether you’re having lots of sex or none at all—you belong here.

We center consent and autonomy
No one owes anyone sex, intimacy, or their body. Ever. Under any circumstances.

We address trauma without requiring disclosure
Healing resources don’t require you to share your story or relive your trauma.

We talk about pleasure explicitly
No euphemisms, no coyness, no shame. If we’re going to discuss sexual health, we’re going to be honest about how bodies work and what feels good.

Recent Topics

• “The Anatomy of Pleasure: What Sex Ed Never Taught You”

• “Understanding Desire: Why ‘Low Libido’ Might Not Be the Problem”

• “STI Testing Without Shame: What You Need to Know”

• “Reclaiming Your Sexuality After Sexual Violence”

• “The Consent Conversation: Beyond Yes and No”

Content Notes

Some content includes explicit sexual information and discussions of sexual violence. We provide content warnings when appropriate and always include resources for support.

Your body. Your pleasure. Your power.

No medical jargon. No assumptions that you already know. No dismissive “it’s probably nothing” when something feels wrong.

Her Health Matters is the health education you deserved all along—clear, evidence-based explanations of how your body works, what symptoms mean, and what questions to ask your healthcare provider.

What We Cover

Understanding Your Body

• Menstrual cycle mechanics beyond “normal” and “abnormal”

• Hormone function and what blood tests actually measure

• Reproductive anatomy and how everything connects

• Sexual function and common concerns

Decoding Medical Information

• Lab results: What the numbers actually mean

• Imaging results: Understanding ultrasounds and MRIs

• Diagnosis explanations without the jargon

• Treatment options and what to consider

Symptoms & When to Worry

• Normal variations vs. signs of problems

• When to call your doctor vs. go to the ER

• What “watch and wait” actually means

• Red flags that require immediate attention

Advocating for Yourself

• Questions to ask at every appointment

• How to describe symptoms effectively

• Getting your concerns taken seriously

• When and how to push back

Our Philosophy

Your doctor should explain things in language you understand. But medical training doesn’t include “how to talk to patients like humans,” and 15-minute appointments don’t allow time for real education.

That’s where Her Health Matters comes in. We translate complex medical information into accessible knowledge you can actually use. No dumbing down—just clear explanations that respect your intelligence.

Sample Explainers

“What Your Doctor Means When They Say ‘Elevated Risk’”
Breaking down how doctors calculate and communicate risk—and what those percentages actually mean for you.

“Reading Your Labs: A Guide to Common Blood Tests”
What TSH, hemoglobin, and hormone levels tell you about your health—and when to question the “normal” range.

“Understanding Ultrasound Reports: What All Those Measurements Mean”
Decoding the cryptic language of radiology reports and what to ask your provider.

“Pain Scales Are Broken: How to Describe Your Symptoms”
Why “rate your pain 1-10” doesn’t work, and better ways to communicate what you’re experiencing.

Monthly Features

Ask Dr. Connor
Submit your questions for detailed answers from a practicing OB/GYN who actually explains things.

Myth vs. Medicine
Separating evidence-based facts from wellness industry nonsense and internet misinformation.

The Appointment Prep Guide
Specific questions to ask for different visit types (annual exam, new symptom, second opinion, etc.).

Who This Is For

You’ve left medical appointments confused, with a prescription you don’t understand for a condition no one explained. You’ve Googled symptoms and ended up more scared than informed. You’ve been told “it’s probably nothing” when you know something’s wrong.

Her Health Matters gives you the medical literacy to be an active participant in your own healthcare—not a passive recipient of whatever your doctor decides.

Your health. Your understanding. Finally.

The freedom to always choose me, to be me, despite it all.

My body, for a while, was no longer mine—especially when you embark on the journey of breastfeeding. The multilayered aspects of understanding milk production: overproducing, underproducing, the emotional rollercoaster, simply because that’s how a woman’s body responds after giving birth. Hormones are not within our control.

I’ll never forget nursing my firstborn, Zion, during one of his growth spurts—something I’d never heard about, nor was I informed that it even happens. I was nursing and giving him a bottle, yet it still felt like he wasn’t getting enough to eat. It was so stressful, and I was tireddd. I remember calling my mom in tears, all while breastfeeding, saying, “He won’t stop crying. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Come to find out, babies clusterfeed during growth spurts.

And this—this—is what I never realized I was ultimately choosing. I was choosing a different kind of selflessness I didn’t know could exist.

Becoming a mother made me look at my childhood in ways I had never investigated. I didn’t know it would lead me to question my parents—how my mother mothered or didn’t, and how my father fathered or didn’t. Motherhood unraveled me—and made me want to know all the layers of my parents.

It revealed me to myself.

It handed me two mirrors, two different lenses, two shifting perspectives from two tiny human beings who call me Mommy.

My son has taught me how much patience I didn’t—and sometimes still don’t—have. He’s taught me to love him for who he is—even when he reflects parts of me I haven’t yet learned to love. And oh, my Phoenix, the youngest one. She has taught me how important it really is to raise little girls—future women—with confidence and self-love.

Honestly, both of them have taught me the power of teaching self-respect and boundaries—not just to them, but for myself.

Motherhood has called my attention to trauma both touched and untouched. It has exposed my weaknesses, my faults, my strengths, my desires, my dreams.

I’m not even sure when it happened—when I truly realized how taxing the emotional realities of parenting are. How much we carry to bed with us, even after we tuck our children in—after we say, I love you, turn off the bedroom light, and quietly close the door on the day’s tantrums, school drop-offs and pick-ups, misunderstandings, misfires, frustrations. The invisible weight of it all.

Motherhood is an emotional rollercoaster.

And don’t get me wrong, it’s not always about being humbled by these little humans we brought into the world (that’s another post for another time—giving birth).

There is also joy:

Deep-bellied laughter between siblings you’re raising as best friends.

Moments when you see the very best of yourself shining through their personalities.

The kind of warm little hugs that lift you more than any cup of coffee (and I don’t even drink coffee).

Motherhood will leave you breathless and in awe of how someone so tiny (or not-so-tiny) can leave a footprint the size of a giant on your heart.

I’ve heard that becoming a mom would change you—and have also seen how it may not. I truly believe it’s a choice—to let motherhood make you want to be better. And for sure, motherhood has made me want to be the mom my kids deserve, despite everything and everyone I had already been.

I want to make sure they see my dedication to my dreams. That I’m the mom who understands how to strike a balance between work and parenting. They’ve helped me understand what my true purpose is.

Motherhood made me anew—while also bringing me back to my roots.

To who I am, who I am not, and who I’m becoming—not just as a mother, but as Danielle Simone Goode: daughter, cousin, friend, entrepreneur, creative.

So much more.

Pleasure is healthcare. It’s autonomy. It’s hormone regulation (hello, oxytocin and endorphins), pain relief, better sleep, and a calmer nervous system. It’s also equity: the erasure of female anatomy from curricula isn’t a quirky oversight—it’s structural inequality. Closing the knowledge gap is part of reproductive justice.

Why This Matters (And Not Just in the Bedroom)

Picture a slow, no-rush moment—alone or with someone you trust. Your breath lengthens, your awareness sharpens, and you notice the texture of the sheets. Pleasure starts there: with attention. And attention starts with a map.

Knowing your body lets you:

• Find what feels good—and find it again.

• Communicate clearly—trade guesswork for specifics.

• Reclaim intimacy—even after stress, shame, or trauma tried to shrink it.

The myths we absorbed—penetration should “do the trick”; taking “too long” means you’re faulty; pleasure is a bonus if the relationship looks fine on paper—aren’t harmless. They shape behavior, expectations, and even clinical care.

The truth 📊: Somewhere between 70–90% of women need direct or indirect clitoral stimulation to orgasm. Only about 18% climax reliably from penetration alone. When the clitoris is included (manual, oral, toys), the gap narrows—because the issue isn’t “female biology,” it’s whether our scripts match our anatomy.

“It’s Not You”—The Orgasm Gap, Explained

Here’s the landscape in partnered sex:

• Men: orgasm ~90–95% of the time (heterosexual encounters).

• Women: orgasm ~60–70% of the time (heterosexual encounters), but much higher in encounters between women (~80–90%).

Timing: Many women reach climax after 4 to 25+ minutes of consistent, pleasurable stimulation in partnered sex. Solo can be faster. Time varies with stress, context, cycle phase, and type of stimulation.

Health wins ❤️‍🩹: Orgasms can calm the nervous system, reduce pain, improve mood and sleep, and strengthen pelvic-floor coordination (supporting bladder/bowel function). Regular orgasmic activity is linked to lower stress hormone levels and better overall resilience.

When it’s hard to reach: Persistent difficulty (anorgasmia) can reflect hormonal shifts (postpartum, menopause), medications (50–70% of SSRI users report sexual side effects), pelvic-floor dysfunction, or chronic stress/trauma. These aren’t willpower problems. They’re solvable signals.

Equity check ⚖️: Black women’s sexual pain is more likely to be dismissed; trans and nonbinary folks often face provider gaps and a lack of affirming care. This is about bodies and power.

Meet Your Pleasure System (Spoiler: It’s Bigger Than “a Button”)

Most of us were taught the vulva = vagina. Not true. The vagina is one part of a much larger pleasure network.

External 🌸

• Labia majora/minora: Engorge, deepen in color, and often feel exquisitely responsive with arousal.

• Clitoral glans: The visible “tip” of a much larger organ; ~8,000 sensory nerve endings (about double the penis). Responds to light touch, pressure, vibration.

• Urethral opening: Sensitive surrounding tissue can contribute to arousal.

• Vaginal opening (introitus): Nerve-rich tissue that adds to sensation, especially in blended stimulation.

• Perineum: Often participates in those rhythmic contractions during orgasm.

Internal 🧠💗

• Clitoral crura: Internal “legs” that wrap alongside the vaginal canal and swell with arousal.

• Vestibular bulbs: Cushions of erectile tissue beneath the inner labia; “fullness” and pressure amplifiers.

• Vaginal canal: A Muscular tube that indirectly stimulates internal clitoral structures during movement/pressure.

• Skene’s glands: Near the urethra; may be involved in fluid release for some.

• Anterior vaginal wall (aka “G-spot zone”): Nerve-rich region rather than a separate organ; often best when combined with external clitoral touch.

Research insight: A shorter clitoral–urethral–vaginal distance can make blended orgasms from penetration + clitoral stimulation more likely.

The Clitoris: Not a Dot—A Network

For years, textbooks reduced the clitoris to a tiny nub. Modern imaging corrected the record: the clitoris is a wishbone-shaped organ ~9–11 cm long, mostly internal—glans, shaft, crura, vestibular bulbs—all designed for pleasure. Internal, external, and blended orgasms are just different access points to the same organ. The clitoris is homologous to the penis but specialized for sensation, not reproduction.

Myth busted 🚫: “Clitoral vs. vaginal” is not a hierarchy. It’s one system, many paths.

Your Pelvic Floor = The Amplifier (and the Drumline)

Think of a hammock of muscles from the pubic bone to the tailbone. During orgasm, they contract rhythmically ~every 0.8 seconds—those are the pulses many people feel. Strong, coordinated muscles can make orgasms feel fuller and longer; hypertonic (overly tight) or weakened muscles can blunt sensation or create discomfort.

Common disruptors:

• Vaginal childbirth (tears/instruments)

• Pelvic surgery (hysterectomy, episiotomy)

• Menopause/hormonal change

• Chronic stress/trauma (muscles “on guard”)

Good news: Pelvic-floor muscle training (PFMT) can improve orgasmic quality in up to ~80% of participants, especially with biofeedback or skilled PT. Scar tissue work, trauma-informed therapy, and breathwork help release tension. And yes, orgasms themselves are a stellar “functional workout.”

Fertility myth-check 🍼

• You don’t need to orgasm to conceive.

• Orgasms may help (contractions can assist sperm transport), but they’re not required.

Four Nerve Highways (Pick Your Route)

Pleasure isn’t local—it’s a brain-body conversation. Four major pathways deliver different flavors of sensation:

• Pudendal: clitoris, vulva, perineum (light touch/pressure/vibration; star of external clitoral play).

• Pelvic: vaginal walls/internal erectile tissue (engaged with penetration, indirect clitoral stimulation).

• Hypogastric: cervix/uterus (often deep, spreading, emotional tones).

• Vagus: bypasses the spinal cord; explains why some with spinal cord injuries can orgasm via deep vaginal/cervical stimulation.

Translation for real life: If one route is altered (birth, surgery, injury), others can be trained. Nipple play activates overlapping brain regions; fantasy, sound, breath, and deep pressure can converge on the same pleasure centers.

Myth-bust corner 🛑

• “If penetration alone isn’t enough, you’re doing it wrong.”

• Reality: Penetration mainly hits pelvic/hypogastric routes; most people still need pudendal (clitoral) input.

• “Orgasms are all genitals.”

• Reality: Orgasms are neural convergence—multiple sensory inputs syncing in the brain.

Blood Flow: The Quiet Engine of Arousal 💗

Arousal is vascular. Vasocongestion swells the clitoral glans/crura/bulbs, labia deepen in color, and the vagina lubricates via transudation. You can be physically “ready” without desire (and vice versa). That arousal–desire mismatch is common, and clarifying it can improve consent and communication.

What shapes engorgement:

• Hormones (cycle, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause)

• Stress/fatigue/anxiety (cortisol constricts vessels)

• Cardiovascular health (diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis)

• Medications (SSRIs, antihypertensives, some hormonal contraceptives)

Healthy circulation supports tissue elasticity and responsiveness over time. Regular sexual activity—solo or partnered—can help.

There’s No “Right Kind” of Orgasm—Only Your Kind

Think of the clitoral network as an instrument; different techniques make different songs:

• Clitoral ✨: Focused/localized (and often rippling outward).

• Vaginal 🌊: Usually blended; pressure on the anterior wall/internal clitoral structures; deeper, diffuse, sometimes longer-lasting.

• Cervical 💫: Deep, sometimes emotionally intense; may trigger aftershocks/tears (hypogastric route).

• Anal 🔥: Pudendal pathway; can be full-body; prioritize consent, relaxation, and lubrication.

• Blended 🌈: Multiple routes firing at once (often the most intense/durable).

• Nipple 💗: Vagal overlap; can even trigger genital orgasms without direct genital touch.

Freud was wrong: There’s no maturity ladder here. Different routes, same network.

Try this: Keep a pleasure map journal—what worked (touch, rhythm, pressure), what context helped (privacy, safety, cycle phase), what didn’t. Patterns emerge, and customizing becomes easier.

Different Clocks, Different Rhythms (A Quick Compare)

• Latency: Women often need 10–20 minutes partnered (8–12 solo). Men often spend 5–7 minutes partnered (4–5 solo). Scripts that assume the shorter clock is “normal” leave people behind.

• Refractory: Most women don’t have a fixed refractory period → multiple orgasms are possible with continued pleasure. Men do have one, ranging from minutes to days.

• Context sensitivity: Women’s orgasms are especially influenced by safety, privacy, focus, and emotional connection (men’s too, just often less acutely in the moment).

Takeaway: Align activities with actual timing (e.g., prioritize clitoral stimulation before/during penetration). Everyone wins.

When Life Rewrites the Map (And How You Get It Back)

Childbirth: Tears, episiotomy, and C-section scars can change nerve signaling and muscle coordination. Postpartum estrogen dips can dry tissues and reduce elasticity.

Pelvic surgery: Hysterectomy, prolapse repairs, or incontinence procedures can shift sensations and pressure pathways.

Trauma: Physical or sexual trauma can increase guarding, numbness, or delayed arousal. These are valid responses—not personal failures.

Recovery pathways 🧰

• Scar desensitization and perineal massage (circulation + nerve retraining).

• Pelvic-floor PT (restore tone/relaxation/coordinated contractions).

• Trauma-informed sexual therapy (safety, trust, gradual re-engagement).

• Hormonal support where indicated (e.g., local estrogen), plus high-quality lubricants and moisturizers.

Myth-bust: “Once sensation changes, that’s it.”

Reality: Nerves regenerate, muscles retrain, and maps are redrawable.

Equity Isn’t Optional

Menopause, race, and gender identity all intersect with anatomy and access:

• Menopause 🌙: Lower estrogen → thinner/drier tissue; solutions exist (lubricants, moisturizers, low-dose topical estrogen) to restore comfort and responsiveness.

• Racial inequities ✊🏾: Black women are less likely to be referred for pelvic-floor therapy or chronic pelvic pain evaluation—bias, not biology.

• Trans & nonbinary experiences 🌈: Hormones and surgeries can shift arousal patterns and best routes to orgasm. Care must be specific and affirming.

A painful truth: many OB/GYNs were never taught the full clitoral anatomy—even in residency. You’re not “asking for extra” by requesting competent care; you’re asking for baseline anatomy.

“Did I Just Orgasm?” A Quick Recognition Check

When you’re unsure, use this four-part litmus test:

1. Rhythmic contractions in the pelvis (flutters to strong pulses; vaginal walls, around the clitoris, cervix/uterus area, or anus).

2. A shift from building tension → release (sudden wave or gentle unwinding).

3. Pleasure/euphoria is distinct from the buildup (the neurochemical “ahhh”).

4. Afterglow (muscle softening, oversensitivity or warmth, emotional openness or calm).

Near-misses are real and valid: high charge without full release; mini-waves; emotional release without big contractions; internal shifts that partners can’t “see.” These are part of your nervous system learning and can become more complete with time and the right conditions.

Seek support if: difficulty or absence of orgasm ≥ 6 months with distress; new changes after childbirth/surgery/meds; pain, numbness, or hypersensitivity that blocks pleasure.

First steps: medication review (especially SSRIs/hormonal methods), pelvic exam and labs if needed, pelvic-floor PT, lubrication/moisturizers/topical estrogen when appropriate, and trauma-informed counseling/coaching.

🔒 Subscribe to unlock: landmark studies and historical milestones; side-by-side orgasm data with myth-vs-evidence stats; session-ready consent/feedback micro-scripts (Ask–Try–Check–Adjust), quick practice drills, clear referral red flags, and partner-support tips you can use.

🔒 For Birthworkers: Download Birthworkers Worksheet # 1 - Consent & Feedback Micro-Scripts featuring session-ready phrasing, the Ask–Try–Check–Adjust loop, quick practice drills, and clear referral red flags distilled from our research pack.

Okay, So What Do You Do Next?

1. See your anatomy clearly. Mirror, body-safe camera, or an anatomy app—locate the glans/hood, inner labia, perineum, and understand the internal clitoral network (crura + bulbs).

2. Track your patterns. What touch (light/firm/circular/rhythmic), what pressure/positions, what mental context (privacy, safety, fantasy), what cycle days? Keep notes.

3. Reframe expectations. If you need clitoral stimulation, you’re in the 70–90% majority. That’s not extra; that’s normal.

4. Ask for targeted support. Scripts for appointments:

• “Could pelvic-floor PT help me?”

• “Can we evaluate for hormonal changes?”

• “My SSRI seems to affect orgasm—what are the options?”

And yes—create a pleasure map. Print a simple pelvic diagram or use a secure drawing tool. Mark high-sensitivity zones (external and internal), touch styles that work, and contexts that help. It’s not indulgent; it’s data.

One Last Thing (A Friendly Reframe)

Your orgasm isn’t a pop quiz you pass or fail. It’s an integrated system—nerves, muscles, blood flow, and a brain that prefers safety and specificity over guesswork and hurry. Most women need clitoral stimulation; many need more time; nearly everyone benefits from better maps and kinder scripts. With accurate anatomy, pelvic-floor savvy, multiple nerve routes to choose from, and equity-minded care, pleasure becomes learnable, adaptable, and sustainable—across life stages, identities, and contexts.

Power note: Closing the knowledge gap is how we close the pleasure gap. Not a luxury. Not a bonus. Your body is designed for pleasure—and knowing it is both health and justice.

🔒 Download She’s Not Faking It (She’s Just Not Getting There) — a comprehensive guide for male partners on what works, when, and why.

Read Our Previous Issues:

1. Issue 1: Unlocking the Mysteries of Orgasm: A Deep Dive into the Anatomy of Pleasure

2. Issue 2: Unlocking Pleasure: Understanding the Anatomy of an Orgasm

3. Issue 3: “Did I Just Orgasm?”

When we finally arrived by ambulance, the doctors congratulated me. My son was healthy. I was healthy. With only a short hospital stay ahead, I hoped it would be like the empowering, albeit chaotic, experience I had just lived through.

Instead, my stay revealed something different: how easily bodily autonomy can become an afterthought in our medical system. I was relentlessly harassed about taking an unnecessary test that would have separated me from my newborn. When I declined, a social worker was assigned to my case. What should have been a moment for recovery was overshadowed by a system that too often prioritizes compliance and profit over patient care.

Nearly two years later, I remain grateful—both for my birth and for the clarity it gave me. My son and I are thriving, thanks to God’s grace. And I feel called to help other families navigate the medical system with dignity, power, and support. When parents are equipped with the right tools, whether in knowing what to expect or understanding their rights, and are supported by their village, everyone benefits.

Know What To Expect

The U.S. lacks a well-funded and fully staffed birthing infrastructure. While there are alternatives to hospital births, nearly 98% of births still take place in them.

In those settings, especially those operating at less than 100% capacity, interventions are sometimes presented as required rather than optional. My birth educators introduced me to the BRAIN model—a simple framework for asking the right questions about any procedure.

• Benefits: How might the recommended procedure help/benefit me and/or my baby?

• Risks: How could the recommended procedure harm/pose a risk to me and/or my baby?

• Alternatives: What are the alternatives to this procedure? What are the benefits & risks of those alternatives?

• Intuition: What is my intuition/gut telling me about this course of action?

• Nothing: What would happen if we choose to do nothing right now?

While primarily used during labor, the BRAIN model helped me avoid an unnecessary exam that would have separated me from my baby. Birth education courses can prepare you with similar tools, and I encourage every expectant parent to take them.

Know Your Rights

Birth is unpredictable, and while we expect the medical system to protect us, patients need to know their legal rights. Overextended healthcare systems sometimes prioritize hospital policy or even legislation over patient well-being.

The tragic case of Adriana Smith, a pregnant Black woman kept on life support against her family’s wishes, underscores this reality. The Patient’s Bill of Rights provides clear guidelines, including your right to clear information about proposed interventions or tests, your ability to refuse or delay an intervention without fear of retaliation or mistreatment, and/or your right to request a second opinion.

Whenever possible, have an advocate present who can speak on your behalf if you are unable to do so.

Build Your Advocacy Village

Even when Black and Brown women have higher income levels or educational access, they face disproportionately poorer maternal health outcomes compared to white women with fewer resources. Countless high-profile Black women, from Allyson Felix to Serena Williams, have shared their own challenging birth stories and experiences with medical care.

While systemic change is essential, your own advocacy village can help you navigate the healthcare system. Your advocacy village might include your partner, family, friends, a doula, or anyone committed to understanding your birth plan and supporting you through it. They can attend classes and, in some cases, even join appointments, where they may have the opportunity to meet your care team in advance. Consider these opportunities to build out your village:

• Identify the parents in your community. Consider asking them about the resources that were most helpful during pregnancy, postpartum, and early parenthood.

• When seeking doula support, ask them how they would communicate with your care team and if they’d be willing to join an appointment before the birth.

• Talk to the elders in your family, culture, or community. Ask them about the rituals and practices they’ve experienced or witnessed around birth and postpartum.

While it takes a village to raise a child, it is equally important to have a village to support a woman as she transitions into motherhood. Though many cultural rituals and practices around birth and postpartum have been lost in the hustle of everyday life, and the lack of paid parental leave hinders caregivers’ access to space and time to heal and recover, we can rebuild and reclaim the village that our foremothers once knew—one that reminds families that they are not alone in this transition in life.

HOW? How can anyone manage and/or maintain these differentiating aspects, and it be considered a societal norm? When is there time to rest or recover? Is that rest/recovery built on functional wellness, or is it simply “playing catch-up” with negated sleep and dietary provisions? What’s the backup plan in case of illness or the need for major surgery? Is there someone who can bear the burden of such responsibility? Does the employer (workplace) or supporters/customers (business owner) realize their demand? Do the children understand/recognize the mother’s lifestyle of hectic (and chaotic) abandonment? (If married) Does the husband (or partner) understand/recognize it? More often than not, the answer is an emphatic “NO.”

The pivotal position that women of color play is usually ignored and/or dismissed until it is completely absolved. Once that proverbial domino has fallen, it creates a pattern of numerous additional fallen pieces that excel in an epic patternization of morbidity (and sunkenness). An interesting quote further explains this impending calamity: “Men are the HEAD of the family; however, women are the NECK,”—meaning, men are often presented as the logical leader and protector of the family; however, women provide the direction (and moral/emotional compass) for the family. If the neck is severed, there’s instant paralysis. In this example, women are more than a functional asset; they are the reserve strength needed to ensure the family continues to progress. But what if there’s no other person to share the accountability of life’s demands? That question is the antithesis of this article and the infallible construct of single mothers around the world. The answer is RESILIENCY, without measure or conceptualization of self.

How did the concept of RESILIENCY become so ingrained within the DNA of so many women of color? From a historical analysis, let’s look back at the most glaring viewpoint: SLAVERY. Yes, it is an ugly, nation-dividing term that often evokes sentiments of understanding or defensiveness due to conviction. Excuse the brief, graphic visualization: being beaten until only an ounce of life remains, repeatedly (and savagely) raped, having your children ripped from your hands and displaced to avoid rebellion/retaliation, forced to eat, sleep, and work inhumanely (field hand) or in violated servitude (housemaid), summoned to nurture (care for, even breastfeed) the children of your oppressor, witnessing your husband viciously sodomized (buck breaking) and whipped, with the deep lacerations further inflamed with salt and lacquer… I know, ENOUGH!

And to think, this is the Disney playback of the atrocities of slavery. Imagine the situation being so stark (bleak) that it took a Black woman’s encouragement (Harriet Tubman) for hundreds of slaves to seek freedom and escape these hardships through densely packed forests, snake-infested swampland, and dozens of protected safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She did all of this with a badly healed skull fracture (from being struck with a 5-pound bell during a vicious beating) that caused frequent migraines (an unknown term then) as well as persistent narcolepsy. Her bravery was further amassed by the single fact that she made dozens of repeated “voyages” with an active bounty for her capture—all while keeping a pistol and a small stash of opium in her satchel to calm (silence) crying babies as well as to combat the cowardice of (men) seeking to return to their respective plantations (fearing greater retribution and punishment).

What about the transition period between slavery and the Reconstruction era? Here, Black women were the testing subjects for the most heinous, treacherous, and unethical surgical techniques and experiments imaginable, with the most extreme of this “research” being that it was all performed without anesthesia because (according to J. Marion Sims – the father of modern gynecology), “Black women don’t feel pain.” What about the battle for equality (human rights) and fair treatment during the era of women’s suffrage? Although utilized in the resistance against male-dominated inequality, Black women were still subjected to being placed at the front of the battle lines (of opposition), but then conveniently placed behind the brigade during marches and public displays of “unity.” This culminated in a frustrated Sojourner Truth penning her infamous speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?”—though it was actually rewritten in a slave-like dialect (for a newsletter publication) to evoke relatability and, therefore, garner more support. BLASPHEMY. What about during the Jim Crow era? Where Black women witnessed unprotected harassment, murder (Medgar Evers), and mob-led lynchings, the most grotesque of which culminated in the acquittal of two white men for the unspeakable beating of Emmett Till, sparking the Civil Rights movement. Speaking of that movement, all the marching and organizing that was facilitated, the boycotts and sit-ins that were initiated, the healing through sorrow (and despair) that was nurtured… from the legality and guidelines supporting Thurgood Marshall to the fearlessness of the Freedom Fighters to the non-violent movement of MLK to the unfiltered discipline of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam to the unrivaled, revolutionary tactics of the Black Panthers, Black women were the adhesive element that glued everything together. This fight for civility further transitioned into countless government conspiracies—prison pipelines, the crack epidemic, disproportionate medical assistance, AIDS implementation (genocide), and welfare constructs (no male in the household)—further illustrating the suffering that Black women faced as a byproduct of their resiliency. Even today, after success in film, television, music, and the workplace—career-typecasts of the “angry Black woman” continue to drive perceived prejudices that prevent sustained advancement (unless the subject is deemed palatable, thus becoming an anomaly or outlier).

So, with all the historical evidence negating success while highlighting disparities and hardships, how can women of color maintain their dignity and be protected from the onslaught of maliciousness against them? Better yet, what can be done to prevent the long-standing kryptonite from weakening our “superwomen”? The simple answer is PEACE. A woman having the placement of peace within her life brings a sense of comfort that ultimately unveils the protection that is always needed.

Here are five easy ways to instill peace (onto your Superwoman):

P – Prioritize: Mandate that the woman in your life (partner) be disciplined with rest/recovery and “slowing down” enough for full restoration.

E – Empathize: Continued encouragement/acknowledgement that their efforts (and hard work) are seen and very much appreciated (applauded).

A – Assist: Volunteer your time and energy to “lighten the load” while being a conduit of goodwill (benefits the household entirely). Happy spouse, happy house.

C – Communicate: Provide honest, enriched feedback to show interest in their concerns and/or beliefs (highlights that you’re understanding – from an emotional standpoint).

E – Eliminate/Express: Allow adequate time for venting frustrations—no matter how trivial they may seem (non-judgmental). This provides an instant release and circumvents the “ticking time bomb effect.”

Ultimately, this methodology can have degrees of variance. Knowing a woman’s love language or pinpointing specific stressors she exhibits are all aspects of true value and being present (within a marriage, relationship, etc.). Moreover, providing consistency (in addition to peace) presents a level of dependability that women aspire to have woven into the fabric of their lives. That consistency may come in the form of fun activities (yoga, daily walks, shared meals, continued dating, sensuality, etc.). Moreover, these consistent capabilities are incomplete without the presence of some guidance through a spiritual component. Whether it’s attending worship service, maintaining a healthy prayer life, reading scripture (together), volunteering with community groups… these acts of reverence and humility aid in the structuring of a healthy life (balance) and strengthen the ability for our SUPERWOMEN to continue saving the world.

Jason C. Arnold

My education has given me the language to understand systemic injustice, but my lived experiences have given me the conviction to fight it. Every day I ask myself: Do I want to pursue a Master’s in Public Health to strengthen my knowledge, or do I want to become a Physician Assistant, putting myself directly in the field? Both paths are meaningful. Both reflect a desire to close gaps in our healthcare system. Yet the question that weighs heavier than degrees or titles is: Where am I most needed?

I often imagine what it would mean for a young Black woman to walk into her doctor’s office and see a provider who looks like her, who not only understands her medical needs but her cultural reality as well. Too often, I search for that same reflection and come up empty. Representation matters in healthcare—not just for comfort, but for survival. I want to be that brown girl in the office who listens and advocates fiercely for African American women in systems that too often diminish them.

But my calling extends beyond clinic walls. As I near graduation, I’ve realized I don’t want to spend my life working “under the Man.” Instead, I want to build a voice and a platform for women who are overlooked, underpaid, and undervalued. I want to fight for mothers in my community who are losing jobs, struggling to provide, and carrying the invisible weight of inequities. This conviction comes not only from study, but from my own scars.

Two years ago, I experienced a miscarriage that altered the course of my life. It was a physical trauma, but also a rupture in my sense of self. My body felt as though it had turned against me. Miscarriage is often shrouded in silence, and I lived in that silence too long. Since June 30, 2023, I haven’t held a regular job—not from lack of will, but because my body and spirit needed space to heal. At first, I felt ashamed of this gap. Over time, I saw it differently. That season was not wasted. It was waiting, listening, and learning to honor grief instead of rushing past it.

In the African American community, conversations about reproductive loss are rare. Too many women grieve quietly, carrying pain that is never acknowledged. That silence is its own harm. Studying reproductive and community health has shown me how critical it is to break that silence not just for myself, but for others who have felt invisible in their pain. I believe storytelling is a form of care. By sharing my experience, I create space for others to heal. Education gives me frameworks for understanding disparities, but my story gives me a reason to never stop fighting.

This fight has taken other forms, too. At the Dayton VA Medical Center, where I last held a full-time job, I experienced discrimination during pregnancy. I was not given the accommodations I needed to continue working. For two years, I have been building a case to advocate for myself. It has been exhausting but also empowering. I have learned what it means to stand against systems larger than myself. If I can advocate for myself, I can advocate for women in my community who feel silenced or powerless.

These experiences—education, miscarriage, discrimination—are not separate stories. They are threads in the same tapestry. They have prepared me to bridge lived experience with professional expertise, to combine faith with public health, and to step into the world not just as a student or provider, but as a voice for justice.

I have been blessed with opportunities that affirm this calling. Through the Elizabeth Yox Scholarship with Dayton Right to Life, I’ve served as a summer intern, expanding my knowledge and community connections. At Kettering College, where I am pursuing certification as a Community Health Worker, I am learning to meet people where they are—to bridge healthcare systems and the communities they overlook. This work is rooted in West Dayton, Ohio, where maternal health disparities are not abstract statistics but lived realities for my neighbors, friends, and family.

So, when I reflect on God’s timing, I see how it has been shaping me all along. The delays that frustrated me, the heartbreaks that nearly crushed me, the long nights balancing motherhood, school, and grief—all of it was molding me into someone who doesn’t just dream about change but creates it.

I do not yet know whether my next step will be graduate school or clinical practice. What I do know is this: my mission is to advocate for African American women in healthcare and beyond. I want to fight for mothers navigating invisible grief, for workers facing discrimination, and for young women who deserve to see themselves reflected in their providers.

Waiting has taught me patience, but also power. I no longer see waiting as wasted time. It has been my training ground, preparing me to be a mother, a student, a community health worker, and above all, an advocate ready to serve.

Thank you for creating space for voices like mine, and for giving me the chance to share not only my story, but also my vision for collective healing and justice.

Sincerely,
Tia Jones

Tale: I lay back as the woman hovering over me uses my own “Satisfyer” toy on me. There was no nervous energy. No anxieties about my body. Just remnants of too many mixed drinks, excitement, and a friend outside the door listening. I listened, too. Listened to my wetness and eager kisses. Listened to my joy and weeping. Listened…to me. My insides went haywire after that night. As if all parts of my nervous system were rewiring and reconfiguring…every story I’d ever been told.

There’s a rushed, yet slow and proper, yet scandalous work that is happening when Black women decide pleasure isn’t owned, but rented. And that “the first of the month” is every day. In my experience(s) to date, it’s not an arrival, but an excavation. Whether through journaling, therapy, or deep breathing, I’m tasked with unearthing the parts of me that my upbringing, fears, and faith buried. I am now tasked with writing this essay in a way that I hope illuminates my journey. The tenderness of it. The rage. And the curiosity about the parts in me…that can’t wait to bloom.

I know I’m not alone.

In fact, while the pleasure landscape for Black women is expanding, there are still existing structures that are too narrow—still secrets we harbor and desires we hoard…to keep peace. We cannot broach reclamation without first raising history. This nation’s appalling track record of slavery, labor, and the ongoing treatment of Black women’s bodies and flesh contributes to sexual and reproductive health inequities. And? Disparities in our pleasure (Wilson, 2021). As a result, some Black girls, women, families, and communities choose silence rather than discussing and embracing our sexuality (Hammonds, 1994; Thorpe et al., 2024). We choose comfort rather than disclosing the backshots we like, cum we swallow, and legs we’re between. This work of exploration, agency, and ecstasy—what many scholars will refer to as pleasure-mapping—is not self-inflicted terror. Instead, it’s a radicalized and wayward practice of joy (Hargons, 2025; Thorpe et al., 2024).

Tell: Reckon with your roots. While it doesn’t feel good, I’m choosing to name all the waters that have traveled through my soil…and to my foundation. Compulsory heterosexuality. Homophobia. Biphobia. The Black church. Self-hate. People-pleasing. This combination has comprised my history and been my default performance. But it doesn’t mean they’ll be my permanent story.

Tale: There’s nothing like the feeling of fresh, soft, and warm bedsheets. There’s nothing like being in them alone and realizing that…when Paul D told Sethe in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”, “You your best thing…” he was right. I am my best thing.

Much like us, pleasure doesn’t exist in a box. Aside from the patriarchal and heteronormative expectations to constantly center romance and men, there are other measurable, material, and tangible things to foster whimsical and orgasmic delight. For me, it’s been the recognition of triggers and a more regulated nervous system. It’s also been using my voice, dancing in the mirror, admiring my body, leaning into community, and setting boundaries.

Ultimately, it’s been making my “secret” life not so secret at all…and making attempts at living more authentically. Adrienne Marie Brown would call this part of Pleasure Activism, a radical politics of healing and happiness for Black women to have more life-enriching experiences and desires rather than life-threatening ones, and serve as a path to liberation (Brown, 2019). If we, as Black girls and women, are to really feel safe and free, then I’m sure both Adrienne and I would beg of us to ask ourselves the following: What would it look like…if our lives really had pleasure equity?

Tell: Reckon with your pleasure. I’m realizing more and more that pleasure requires presence. And I cannot access presence if I do not access my breath and a slower way of living. This has proven difficult. If I am to index what feels good currently, then I am to put myself first and at the top of my to-do list daily. In reckoning with my own pleasure, I am also reckoning with my own safety. And facing the music that, to me, sounds like…everything is a threat. Speaking or writing my truths into visibility is inherently teaching me…to be legible to me. And only me.

Speaking the truth about pleasure also means speaking the truth…about fear. Fear that what we like will be rejected. Fear that who we like won’t be accepted. Fear…that we’ll be alone. The spaces many of us find ourselves in—our churches, friends, families, and communities—are often operating as both a refuge and a boundary. A place that holds love, intimacy, and fierce care. And? A place that holds weight, expectation, and pressure. As a result, our relationships with these spaces, along with our sexual image and identity, are both a home…and a battlefield. Currently, I am navigating where I stay…and where I leave. I am wayfinding what wisdom I let go…and what I keep. I’m in uncharted territory trying to unclench my anxieties and release negotiation…so I can grab self-devotion and liberation instead.

Tale: Recently, I’ve been trying (and sometimes failing) at approaching my dating experiences differently. I’ve been asking myself, “Does this please me?”. In a recent interaction with a man who I so desperately wanted to please me, I found myself at a crossroad that I’ve been at before. Do I stay for the sake of the sexual action/tension and accept the breadcrumbs given to me? Or…do I decide that I actually won’t reward low effort and that pleasure is all around me? Do I use this as an opportunity to evaluate and manage my expectations and standards? Do I…leave?

I write this from one wannabe wayward woman to another…there is no perfect path to defining what “waywardness” looks like to you. There are only the steady and consistent attempts of finding y(our) answers and being honest. For many of us, these attempts rub against the very resistance that is filled with the stereotypes, caricatures, extremes, absolutes, dehumanization, repression, and violence that flattens our evolving lives. But hope is not lost. Again, pleasure is expanding. And research is showing that we are documenting more nuanced definitions and ways of embodying our pleasure and sexual identities (Thorpe et al., 2024). This includes: joy, alignment, liberation, emotion, and connection. Naming our pleasure, what we want, how we want it, where we want it, and who we want it by…is as legitimate and complex as any other political act in this country.

If this essay hasn’t done anything else, I hope it is a micro-sized liturgy for practicing “yes” and “no” even if you stutter. Practicing truth-telling. Practicing permission, experimenting, and trying on…everything. And above all…practicing forgiving yourself for the parts you may have shut down because someone told you…to shut up. To the secret lives of every wannabe wayward woman reading this right now, I hope after this… y(our) pleasure isn’t so secret after all. I hope it’s no longer a prize but a protest. And? I hope that actually…it’s not rented…but owned and NEVER bargained.

Final Tale: The little girl that could…became the woman who chose herself. Over…and over again.

Yours in Pleasure,
Adia R. Louden

REFERENCES

brown, a. (2019). Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. AK Press.

Hammonds, E. (1994). Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality. Differences, 6(2-3), 126-145. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-6-2-3-126

Hargons, C. (2025). Good Sex: Stories, Science, and Strategies for Sexual Liberation. Row House Publishing.

Thorpe, S., Dogan, J. N., Townes, A., Malone, N., Jester, J. K., & Hargons, C. N. (2021). Black Women's Pleasure Mapping. Journal of black sexuality and relationships, 7(4), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1353/bsr.2021.0008

Thorpe, S., Malone, N., Hargons, C. N., Dogan, J. N., & Jester, J. K. (2022). The Peak of Pleasure: US Southern Black Women's Definitions of and Feelings Toward Sexual Pleasure. Sexuality & culture, 26(3), 1115–1131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-021-09934-6

Wilson, D.R. (2021). Sexual Exploitation of Black Women From the Years 1619-2020. Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity, 10(1) Article 13. https://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/jrge/vol10/iss1/13

This article is brought to you by:

The Labora Collective 🌱

Where innovation meets advocacy. Where your voice shapes the future of women’s health.

Who We Are

As a scientist of color, it can be a kiss of death to get involved in disparities research. It is easy to get pigeonholed into an area of science that is historically neglected, underfunded, less objective, less rigorous, and not quantifiable. It is a soft science. Prominent physician-scientists do not build careers on soft science. No serious institutional commitment is placed toward solving issues of disparity, not like the effort placed into decoding the human genome or finding a cure for cancer—the serious work of serious scientists. Deans of medical schools do NOT do disparities research.

I never intended to fall into that trap.

I wanted to be taken seriously. As a black woman, scientist, and doctor who loves to wear door knocker earrings, tight skirts, and blonde extensions, I knew I had to be meticulous, disciplined, and above reproach. So I focused on just that.

I double majored in chemical and biological engineering AND biology at MIT. And if that was not enough, I threw in a minor in biomedical engineering. Serious, right?

If that was not enough, my next stop was Harvard Medical School—not the regular program, but the rigorous love-child between MIT and Harvard called Health, Sciences, and Technology (HST).

And If that still wasn’t enough—not serious or good enough—my next stop was to go back to MIT for a PhD and a degree called Medical Engineering and Medical Physics. Sure, that doesn’t even really sound like a real thing. It sounds like I got a degree in math, with a side of more math, a helping of engineering, and finally some medicine sprinkled on top. Serious enough?

My dissertation project involved characterizing projections made by metastatic cancer cells that allow them to “talk” to the endothelium. Endothelial cells are the cells that make up your blood vessels. These projections were cool. We called them nanochannels, and I loved studying them. You can think of them like the little hairs on your arms, but much, much, much smaller. We measured them, counted them, and characterized thousands of these structures. Very tedious, but very serious. No one could say this wasn’t quantitative or concrete, was fluffy or imprecise. It was taken seriously, and by association, so was I—blonde extensions and all.

The nanochannels represented everything I thought I needed to be as a scientist. They were measurable, quantifiable, and completely removed from the messy complications of human bias and social structures. Under the microscope, these cellular projections didn’t care about my race or gender. They simply existed, waiting to be counted and characterized with mathematical precision. This was the kind of science that commanded respect, the kind that opened doors and secured funding, the kind that would make people take me seriously in rooms where I might otherwise be dismissed.

But even as I spent countless hours in the lab, meticulously documenting these microscopic structures, I couldn’t escape a nagging awareness of the larger patterns around me. The lab itself wasn’t immune to the dynamics I was trying to avoid through my research. I saw how ideas were received differently depending on who proposed them. I noticed how some students navigated adviser relationships with ease, while others hit invisible walls. I observed how opportunities—funding, conference panels, mentorship—seemed to flow unevenly.

Still, I told myself: focus on the work. Be excellent. Let the data and credentials speak.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was studying cancer cells’ ability to communicate and invade healthy tissue while remaining willfully blind to how other invasive processes were operating in the very institutions where I worked. But that kind of thinking felt dangerous, too close to the “soft science” territory I was determined to avoid. Better to keep my head down, focus on the data, and let my credentials speak for themselves.

Years later, as I would discover, all those accomplishments—the dual degrees, the prestigious programs, the rigorous methodology—were indeed serious. They opened doors and earned me a seat at tables where few people who looked like me had ever sat. But what I didn’t understand then was that getting through the door is only the beginning. What happens next requires a different kind of preparation, one that no amount of academic achievement can provide.

The nanochannels taught me how to measure the unmeasurable, how to bring scientific rigor to complex biological processes, and how to look for patterns in seemingly chaotic systems. These would prove to be exactly the skills I needed for the work I would eventually embrace, though I couldn’t have imagined it at the time. The methodology I developed studying cancer cell communication would later help me understand how toxic ideas spread through institutional cultures, how bias operates at both conscious and unconscious levels, and how systemic problems require systematic solutions.

But first, I had to learn that sometimes the most serious science of all is the kind that examines the systems we’re embedded in, rather than the ones we can observe from a comfortable distance.

“Mommy, I want to protect everyone in the whole city by becoming a police officer.”

My husband was on speakerphone for a business call when my son said this. We both went quiet. It wasn’t the first time he’d brought it up, but something about that morning made me realize we couldn’t keep redirecting the conversation.

How do you explain institutional violence to a four-year-old?

How do you tell a child who sees himself as a future protector that the very institution he admires might one day see him as a threat?

When Daddy Left Town

The day before, my husband was heading out for a business trip. He knelt down to our eldest son—four years old—and said those familiar words: “You’re the man of the house now. You need to take care of your siblings and your mother.”

My son thought about it for a second. Then he said: “No, I can’t do that. I’m still little and I need Mommy to take care of me.”

Good for him, I thought. He wasn’t buying into that particular script.

But the next morning, as we drove to school, my daughter announced: “I’ll take care of Mommy while Daddy’s gone!”

It’s funny how early these patterns show up. My daughter is already sensing that caretaking is her territory. And before anyone jumps on me—no, this isn’t about dismissing all traditional values.

It’s about noticing what our children pick up without us explicitly teaching them.

The Conversation That Stopped Me Cold

That’s when my son made his announcement about protecting everyone by becoming a police officer. For weeks, he’d been talking about police cars and badges, about catching “bad guys.” My husband and I had done what parents do—changed the subject, suggested other careers, distracted him with other topics. But that morning, I decided to engage.

“There are many ways to protect people,” I said. “You don’t need to be a police officer to do that.”

He disagreed. With four-year-old certainty, he explained his reasoning. Police have cars with sirens. They have badges. They stop bad people. He’d seen it on TV, in books, in all the simplified narratives we feed children about how the world works.

“I know that’s what you see on TV,” I said, “but the reality of what police do is more complicated.”

He was listening now, really listening.

“Yes, they help certain people,” I continued, checking his face in the rearview mirror. “But certain people they hurt.

And sometimes that hurt can be more devastating than the help they provide, depending on what communities you live in.”

Four years old. He’s four years old, and I’m having this conversation.

But when I think about the world he’s growing up in, I know I can’t wait.

Teaching History at Pre-School Drop-Off

“Why do they hurt people, Mommy?”

There it was. The question I knew was coming.

“Do you want to know where the police came from? Like, how they started?”

He nodded, his sister listening too.

“A long time ago,” I began, “when there was slavery in this country, there were groups of people whose job was to catch enslaved people who ran away seeking freedom. These were called slave patrols. They would hunt people who were trying to be free.”

His eyes got wide. We’d talked about slavery before, in simple terms. But this was different. This was connecting the past to the present.

“The police we have today grew from those groups,” I said. “And any institution—any big organization—that starts from that kind of violence is going to be inherently violent unless people work really hard to change it. And that work hasn’t happened.”

“But what about the good police?” he asked.

“There might be good people who become police,” I said. “But the system itself, the way it was built and the way it works, that’s what we’re talking about.”

He sat with that for a moment. Then: “What about riding in an ambulance?”

The shift was so sudden, so perfectly childlike. “What about firefighters?” my daughter added. “Can we be firefighters?”

I actually laughed. Here we were, having just discussed slave patrols and institutional violence, and they’d moved on to firefighters. This is childhood—holding both the weight of history and the lightness of possibility in the same conversation.

Why This Matters Now More Than Ever

Some of you might be wondering why I’d have this conversation with a four-year-old. Here’s why: the alternative is what I grew up with. Sanitized stories about American democracy, about “liberty and justice for all,” that never matched what I saw and experienced.

Those false narratives aren’t just wrong—they’re actively harmful.

They’re what allow a president to deploy military against American cities. They’re what enables the Supreme Court to sign off on the harassment and arrest of American citizens for immigration infractions, reasoning that it’s “not that big of an inconvenience” since they’ll be released once authorities verify their citizenship.

Think about that. The highest court in our land just said it’s acceptable to arrest Americans and sort out their citizenship later. This goes against everything American democracy claims to be about—the idea that freedom has inherent value, that it can’t be taken away without legitimate cause.

When the Supreme Court sanctions this, they’re showing us exactly whose side they’re on. This isn’t a glitch. This is the system working as designed, rooted in those origins we don’t like to discuss.

I’m not going to raise my children on the myths that made this possible. The stories that paint over violence with pretty words about freedom. The lessons that teach compliance over conscience.

This Is About More Than The Police

This conversation in my car wasn’t really about the police. It was about the entire challenge of raising aware children in a country that often rewards ignorance. It was about recognizing that parenting is political, whether we acknowledge it or not.

We can’t just worry about organic milk and screen time anymore. We have to think about raising children who can see clearly in a world designed to obscure truth.

Every part of what we do, every story we tell, every difficult conversation we have or avoid—it all happens in this current moment. We can’t pretend otherwise.

An Invitation, Not an Answer

I don’t have perfect answers. That morning in the car, trying to explain slave patrols while navigating traffic, I was very aware of my own uncertainty.

❇️ How do you preserve some innocence while telling necessary truths?

❇️ How do you instill hope while acknowledging harm?

❇️ How do you raise children to be both safe and free?

I think about my son pivoting to EMTs, finding another way to help. I think about my daughter’s declaration that she would take care of me, and how that same fierce care might one day change things. I think about all of us parents, driving our children to school, fielding questions we never expected.

We’re all just doing our best, trying to raise children who understand reality but aren’t crushed by it. Children who know the truth about where we’ve been but can still imagine better. Children who have the tools to build something different.

My son wants to protect everyone in the whole city. That impulse—to protect, to serve, to care for community—is beautiful. Our job is to help him find ways to honor that impulse without joining systems that might harm him or others. Our job is to tell him the truth in ways that expand rather than limit what he thinks is possible.

And maybe, if we do this work honestly, our children will grow up to create the institutions we’ve been waiting for—ones that actually protect and serve everyone, built on foundations of justice rather than control.

That conversation on the morning drive to school? It’s far from over.

This is exactly why we’re launching Roots and Wings—a space for these conversations.

Yes, we’ll cover the everyday parenting stuff, but we’ll also tackle these bigger questions.

Because raising children today means grappling with both. It means giving them roots in truth and wings to imagine better.

Join us. Because none of us should be having these hard conversations alone.

What difficult truths have you navigated with your children? Share your stories in the comments below.