Abusive relationships exist because they provide enough rations of warmth, laughter, and affection to clutch onto like a security blanket in the heap of degradation. The good times are the initial euphoria that keeps addicts draining their wallets for toxic substances to inject into their veins. Scraps of love are food for an abusive relationship.

— Maggie Georgiana Young

Adolescence is never graceful or beautiful. Our first steps are wobbly, full of stumbles and spills. Our first words are mispronounced and barely comprehensible. Our first kisses are sloppy and wet. The process of breaking sexual thresholds is far from sexy. It will be a long time until being a penetrator outgrows the feel of a grade school science experiment where I fill my paper cache volcano with vinegar and baking soda, giggling and high-fiving my lab partner once it explodes.

— Maggie Georgiana Young

Anal sex was my least favorite bedroom activity. Even through half a bottle of lube, the whole charade felt like pooping backwards. It was a negotiation token-something I begrudgingly did in exchange for back rubs and switching the television from football to Sex in the City. Anal sex was something I tolerated in order to be a cool girlfriend, because it was and still is common knowledge that that men love shoving their dicks in buttholes. Male buttholes, however, had their own rules and regulations. Everyone knew that men who allowed rectal access were gay. I didn’t question it. I didn’t analyze it. Furthermore, I only knew to treat the male asshole as if it had a grenade buried inside of it that could ignite a deadly explosion of anger, trauma, and sexual confusion.

— Maggie Georgiana Young

An eerie aspect of social media is the way the dead’s account lingers in digital space as a floating memorial. Friends post emotional farewells as if the departed will read them. But we all know that those words are for the rest of the world as if to flaunt their bond with the deceased like a new car or engagement ring. Just like any material possession that ceases production, a person’s value amplifies when they are dead. They have no future. They have no present. Their past becomes a limited resource that everyone is desperate to snag a piece of.

— Maggie Georgiana Young

As a woman, I’ve had to choose between ignoring the full effect of my carnal instincts and exploring them with a man who will abandon me. Both result in emotional isolation. It wasn’t until tapping into the forbidden grounds of the male anatomy that I realized that men are locked in their own prison. Their vulnerability frightens them as much as my confidence.

— Maggie Georgiana Young

But penetration was a big deal. They protected their anuses the way girls protected their hymen in high school, believing that allowing anything beyond their holy gates would permanently corrupt them.

— Maggie Georgiana Young

But time and time again, I saw the change in their eyes once they’d conquered me. Dehumanization always follows penetration.

— Maggie Georgiana Young

Carl’s abuse isn’t obvious. It’s not something one can even notice while it’s happening. Carl doesn’t do you the favor of punching you in the face and sending you to school with a black eye so that you have a fighting chance of being rescued. Carl doesn’t hit, scream, or molest, allowing you to know you’re being mistreated.

— Maggie Georgiana Young

Children are often like hostages under the care of authority, with spankings and groundings nudging them like guns pointed at their skulls, threatening to shoot if the wrong words are uttered.

— Maggie Georgiana Young

Dehumanization always follows penetration.

— Maggie Georgiana Young