Category Opinion

When it comes to affairs of the heart, we are all beginners. Some of us, however, at least speak with authority. Introducing Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue (2021) and the forthcoming Love in Exile (2025), whose advice caught our eye. Contact her at [email protected] for your own chance at enlightenment.

Dear Shon,

I am in a happy heterosexual relationship with a man. We have a lot in common and I love him so much. I was single till I was 30, and have a large group of close friends, some happily single, some non-monogamous, some queer, a few married in tiny registry office weddings, some cohabiting with no desire to be married.

He, on the other hand: All of his friends are exclusively straight, engaged, and preparing to have huge weddings. I went to two weddings of his friends this year, and the experience drained me, both financially and socially. Both were in the middle of nowhere—one abroad— and both required time off work. I spent the weddings awkwardly chatting to the few people I knew and my boyfriend. Most of the time I found myself sitting in the restroom with a headache. I’m not really a big drinker, and get a lot of social anxiety around new people.

All of the other girlfriends seem to know each other. I have a feeling they don’t really like me. The one girlfriend I actually connected to was dumped recently by his friend, and I found myself devastated, as she was my social life raft. But I also have my own friends and don’t see why I have to take on my boyfriend’s friends’ girlfriends. Sometimes I feel because I’m bisexual, I don’t really fit in with them. I feel too weird, too queer, and too quirky in their eyes.

Two of his friends got engaged recently, and I found myself reacting to the news with dread. We are expecting an invitation to another wedding soon. Is there any way I can tell my boyfriend I don’t want to go? I feel like a terrible girlfriend. But I just don’t enjoy them. The ironic thing is, I don’t think he enjoys them either. He just feels like he has to go.

So far this year, there have been a flurry of films and TV shows centered on Hollywood stalwarts over 40: there’s Anne Hathaway looking luminous as she falls for Nicholas Galitzine in The Idea of You; Angelina Jolie bathed in an otherworldly golden light for the duration of Maria; Cate Blanchett projecting power and sophistication in Disclaimer; and Ruth Negga stealing the show in Presumed Innocent, to name but a few.

In many, if not all, of their scenes, these Oscar-winners and nominees get to radiate glamour and sex appeal—and why shouldn’t they? But alongside such glossy depictions of middle age, I’ve also been thrilled by a new set of releases from a trio of 40-something female directors that explore the knottiness of aging as a woman—holding a mirror up to society’s unattainable beauty standards and, in certain cases, gleefully smashing them to smithereens.

The first is The Substance, Coralie Fargeat’s eardrum-bursting scream of a film, which revels in cackling at the ridiculousness of everything the world expects women to be and do. It centers on Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle, a washed-up movie star whose cartoonishly misogynistic boss (Dennis Quaid) decides that she has aged out of her starring role in an ’80s-style fitness show. The decision to replace her with a younger, hotter model breeds a crippling insecurity in her that prompts her to try “the substance,” a procedure that promises to unleash a more perfect version of herself.

What would it mean to have a foodie as president? Someone who has manned the fries station at McDonald’s in her 20s; someone who proudly describes how she dry brines her Thanksgiving turkey; someone who is such a self-described foodie that she has declared that she aspires to, in addition to becoming president of the United States, write a cookbook. We could find out soon.

Of course, Kamala Harris is hardly the first politician to use food to align themselves with particular communities, values, and traditions. Virtually every campaigner on the trail has photo ops with food, with results ranging from weird (John Kerry ordering Swiss on his cheesesteak in Philly) to weirder (Elizabeth Warren awkwardly holding a corn dog at the Iowa State Fair) to weirdest (Gerald Ford infamously eating a tamale with its husk on because he didn’t know to remove it). Harris, though, is the only candidate who doesn’t just awkwardly eat; she can cook, too, and she’s not afraid to talk about it.

When Harris cooks, it doesn’t feel like a performance. She’s not swanning around in a caftan in a news station’s faux kitchen pretending to stir. She’s detailed. She’s not afraid of a little bourbon and bacon grease. And like any true chef, she’s just the tiniest bit judgmental.

Interestingly, and perhaps counterintuitively, Harris has been relatively quiet about food on the campaign trail: She has let many others, including famous chefs, do the talking for her. She’s been uninterested in dispelling the idea that fast food is “clean” (a Trumpian philosophy) or highlighting the everyday populism of an ice cream cone (Biden’s trick to remind people that he’s young at heart). But just as there’s a difference between talking about food and cooking it, there’s a difference between using food as a political prop and doing the political work to bring policy change that would improve the food system across race and gender lines. No other presidential candidate has so clearly stood as a representation of the ancient associations between women, food, and race. And no other candidate is as poised as Kamala Harris, by virtue both of her identity and her previous political history, to affect change in food.

Content warning: This recap contains descriptions of domestic violence.

Its bafflingly protracted press-tour drama now safely in the rearview, It Ends With Us, the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni-led adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel, hit streaming services this week. How, you ask, does the film hold up a few months later? That’s just what I wanted to find out. Below, find 48 thoughts I had while rewatching It Ends With Us.

1. Ooh, foliage!
2. Is Plethora, Maine, a real place? I could google this, but I won’t.
3. Why is Blake Lively’s Lily Bloom so sad when her hair is so nice?
4. I’m sorry…is Owen from Grey’s Anatomy Lily’s dead dad? Does that age difference track? Or is this just a different chiseled, vaguely red-haired man?
5. “You’re making me nervous sitting so close to the edge.” Could that be…a metaphor for something?
6. Is this brooding, smoking man Justin Baldoni?
7. Well, he’s a brain surgeon, so we know that, at least.
8. “It’s so embarrassing, I’m obsessed with flowers”—something a human woman has definitely said out loud before.
9. I want to say that a man simply saying “I want to have sex with you” wouldn’t work on me, but…it is refreshingly direct, I guess?
10. Is it normal that I would never talk to a stranger on a rooftop this long for fear of getting pushed off?
11. I wish this scene were better-lit, I’m going to admit.
12. Wow, they found a really accurate young Blake Lively.
13. I just realized this is a flashback to the weird story Lily told Justin Baldoni about the “homeless boy” from her past.
14. I don’t hate these overalls.
15. In fact, I might have, at one point, owned these overalls?
16. Flower-shop-obtaining sequence time! I hope we get an energetically scored clean-up montage.
17. Jenny Slate is already slaying this role, and I barely know what the role is yet.
18. Birkin bag!
19. Oh, no, Jenny Slate hates flowers! How will these two carve out an unlikely friendship?
20. OMG, it’s an energetically scored clean-up montage and an unlikely-friendship-buillding montage! I’ve struck gold.
21. His name is not Ryle.
22. Like Kyle, with an R?
23. Why is he wearing rainbow fuzzy sweats?
24. Karaoke time!
25. I’m actually picking up helpful gardening tips here.
26. Jenny Slate is really rocking these intense accessories, I have to say.
27. Lily’s curl pattern is equally intense.
28. This “Date me” moment is making me think of Maeby Funke saying “Marry me!”
29. Ooh, falling-in-love sequence.
30. Hey, it’s Atlas, the “homeless boy” from high school! He’s hot!
31. Please don’t call your partner “my ladylove.”
32. Ah, Ryle and Jenny Slate have an older brother Lily’s never heard of who died when they were younger. Taking note of that.
33. Oy vey, Lily is having trouble hiding her black eye 🙁
34. Eek, Atlas/Ryle fight.
35. Can’t say I love Atlas being described as “the guy you wasted your virginity on.”
36. Ugh, back in high school Atlas was beaten up by Lily’s creepy dad after he walked in on them.
37. It’s the overalls again!
38. “Overall deal,” if you will.
39. “I’m a ripped neurosurgeon” is not the turn-on that Ryle seems to think it is (for me, personally).
40. Is this a proposal during a viewing of their friends’ new babies? Come on! Can they just have one day?
41. Oof, this is scary.
42. More deeply upsetting stuff is going on.
43. Not to play medical expert, but I feel like…the room should be cleared during a SANE exam, no?
44. Eek again, a recently abused Lily finds out in the hospital that she’s pregnant.
45. Oh God, Ryle…accidentally shot and killed their older brother? That’s how he died?
46. Baby! Her name is Emerson, after Ryle’s brother.
47. Wow, I’m extremely glad to report that Lily leaves.
48. Aw, and has a sweet farmer’s-market reconnect with Atlas. Phew!

Fall is pretty much here, and while some mark the season with apple-picking, hot cider, and various other hallmarks of #ChristianGirlAutumn, others prefer to spend it exactly the way we spent summer: parked on the couch, watching our favorite cozy movies on repeat. Whether you’re looking to have your faith in love restored by Harrison Ford, or you’re in need of some witticism from Robin Williams that will absolutely make you weep, our list covers fall’s must-see movies.

Crack your windows open for that cool, crisp air and get the tea kettle ready, because below are 20 of the best fall movies—from stories actually set in the fall, to films that just encompass or represent fall in some way—to get you through to December.

Autumn in New York (2000)

I mean…how could I not include this one? Title aside, this Winona Ryder tearjerker features many of the things I most associate with fall, including Central Park, small museums, and a woman dressed up as Emily Dickinson. We love to see it (and cry at it)! —Emma Specter

Coco (2017)

There is no one untouched by crises of mental health. And yet, when you or someone you love is struggling, it can often feel like you’re alone in the dark, searching for a light. In honor of World Mental Health Day, we are publishing a series of essays, starting today and running through the weekend, that tackle this topic through a personal lens. We hope these essays offer insight into the many ways that people struggle, and how they can come out the other side with dignity and grace.

My dentist recently told me that my gums were healthy. An unremarkable observation to most people but one that, for me, caused a surge of relief and joy. When I left her office, I wanted to text someone about what she’d said before realizing that even my best friends would only be able to pretend to care all that much about my gums.

Nine years ago, when I was 27, a dentist told me the bone levels on the lower left-hand side of my mouth had already depleted to the levels typical of a 50-year-old, due to chronic inflammation and disease. “Lifestyle factors” were most likely to blame, I was told. The lifestyle in question? Well, it consisted of sick leave from my office job, lying on a mattress on the floor of my rented bedroom in south east London (an flatpack bed frame was still in its unopened box in the corner) for days at a time, occasionally getting up to smoke a badly assembled roll-your-own cigarette or, when it was very bad, to drink my housemate’s wine in the fridge straight from the bottle before passing out in the same dank squalid spot where I’d spent the past week. No, I didn’t brush my teeth often enough. I became severely vitamin D deficient too. It’s still on my medical record. Severe depression, gender identity issues, vitamin D deficiency. It’s giving vampire, as the Tik Tok kids say.

To have survived a major depression is to be forever haunted thereafter. I’m now many years past the last episode but all it takes is a single bad day, perhaps due to hormones, or low mood in the coldest depths of January, for me to fear I am being dragged back by my ankles. Depression reveals one’s own brain to be a double agent, an enemy within. How do you ever fully make peace with it again? Like a marriage after infidelity, the trust may never be restored. Would I survive another round?

There is no one untouched by crises of mental health. And yet, when you or someone you love is going through it, it can often feel like you’re alone in the dark, searching for a light. In honor of World Mental Health Day, we are publishing a series of essays, starting today and running through the weekend, that tackle this topic through a personal lens. We hope these essays offer a little insight into the many ways that people struggle, and how they can come out the other side with dignity and grace.

I’m sitting alone on the couch, held in place by a weighted blanket my husband’s grandmother gave us. The living room is dark except for the light coming from the TV. An episode of X-Files is playing at a low volume.

My sister has been staying with us for a week this time.

Perhaps she comes to me when she’s in trouble because I’m older. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have to hide who she is when she’s around me. I don’t judge her when she spends long hours asleep. I don’t try to rationalize her paranoia or challenge the delusions that come from a combination of her schizoaffective disorder and drug use. Then again, it could be that my guest bedroom is a lot better than the rooms she’s stayed in at psychiatric hospitals and drug rehab centers.

The bottom of her pajama pants had been folded underneath her feet when she’d shuffled to bed hours earlier. But I suspect she is still awake. Even with 15 feet and a wall between us, I can sense her insomnia like I sense my own. The meds she takes to quiet her mind don’t always work. (Approximately one-third of patients diagnosed with a major depressive disorder are categorized as treatment-resistant, defined in resources offered by Johns Hopkins as “lingering depression symptoms in patients who have taken multiple antidepressants or antidepressant classes.”)

I fill a small glass with tap water and tip-toe to the end of the hallway. I knock lightly on the door. I don’t wait for a response before I push the door in slowly, a manifestation of my role as big sister, always taking charge and professing that I know how to fix things.

Last month, former president and 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump surprised many by calling for universal coverage of IVF treatment, albeit with no specific plan. The move was likely part of an attempt to win over undecided voters who had been put off by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

You might be taken aback to see Trump even vaguely associating himself with the push to help families struggling to conceive. (Trump has proudly claimed credit for installing the Supreme Court justices who formed the majority in the decision that overturned Roe—a move that has had numerous ramifications, not just for abortion but also for fertility treatments like IVF.) Let me assure you that his priority was not, and never has been, the health, safety, or reproductive agency of women. “We want more babies, to put it nicely,” Trump said at an August event in Michigan.

If you need more tangible evidence of the GOP’s stance on reproductive freedoms, look no further than the Senate, where Republicans blocked a Democratic bill to provide a nationwide right to IVF treatments on Tuesday. This marks Senate Democrats’ second attempt at passing the bill, which is known as the Right to IVF Act and was sponsored by Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth (who used the fertility treatment to conceive her children). Republican senators used their own cynical spin to justify their position: “This is simply an attempt by Democrats to try and create a political issue where there isn’t one,” South Dakota senator John Thune told reporters on Tuesday.

Try telling that to the many people whose hope for a child through IVF has been stymied by the chilling effect of the overturning of Roe. Watching Republicans try to score points off IVF discourse while increasingly passing legislation that creates medical obstacles makes me think of that Maya Angelou quote: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Maybe it’s time for all of us to believe who GOP leaders like Trump have shown us that they are—and focus our energy on electing politicians who actually support IVF as the crucial part of full-scale reproductive autonomy that it objectively is.