The conversation moved from the war on the word feminist itself — how it polls fine when you drop the label, how it gets treated like a slur or a punchline — to Zulfina’s recent essay “He Started by Rating the ‘Hotness’ of His Female Classmates. Now He’s Fined $375 Million for Exploiting Children,” and what it reveals about Big Tech’s lack of accountability and how platforms built by men continue to be dangerous places for women and girls.

The hour closed on Dana’s essay “Middle-Aged Men Keep Ogling My 16-Year-Old,” on raising daughters under the omnipresent male gaze—and what it means to protect girls in a world that still can’t tell the difference between looking and leering.

Thank you , , , , , , , and many others for tuning in, with special thanks to and for moderating like the pros they are.

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Hallie walked us through her work: portraits in oil on wood panel, digital pieces created in Procreate, and a stunning interpretation of Judith with the Head of Holofernes that stopped the chat cold, in the best of ways. We talked about what art school teaches now, why she sees AI art as theft rather than creativity, and the space between making something meaningful and making something just because it’s beautiful.

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also had personal news: his second divorce is official. He’s accepting applications for the next future ex-Mr. Winnerman.

From there, we covered a lot of ground: We talked about the No Kings general strike on May 1. We discussed Lawrence’s latest essay Stop Calling Them Billionaires. Start Calling Them Predators (and why language matters). Then the hour closed on Dana’s latest I Write Out Loud essay, Dating the “Test and Apologize” Type — the coffee date, the raunchy song from The Dare, and whether that first red flag predicted everything that followed.

(Lawrence thinks it did.)

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co-hosted this Live with founder to celebrate the new issue of The Memoirist Quarterly—and I’m still kind of buzzing from it.

Not because it was polished (it wasn’t). Not because the tech behaved (absolutely not). But because it was one of those conversations where you can feel what writing is supposed to do.

We had five writers—the two of us, plus authors , , and . Five completely different stories. And somehow they all braided together into the same question:

What do we carry—and what do we do with it?

You can read each of our stories here:

• “The Blue-Eyed Woman from Hanoi” by

• “That Bitch Let Him Move In” by

• “I came out to him. Then he raped me.” by

• “Cargo” by

• “My Dad, Dementia, and the Things We Don’t Forget,” by

None of it was tidy. Memoir never is. That’s what makes it matter.

170 people showed up on a Sunday to talk about personal essays. I can’t describe how much this moves my heart—so huge thanks to each and every one of you who showed up.

If you want to submit to The Memoirist on Substack or be considered for the June print issue, DM directly or visit thememoiristquarterly.com.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, and special thanks to , , and for moderating the chat.

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Together we put two very different dating frameworks in conversation:
mine, grounded in pattern recognition, attachment, and protecting your peace—and Ariel’s, which asks what happens when we stop treating love like a risk management problem.

Together we discussed:

• Why modern dating has become a system of risk management — and what we lose when we optimize for emotional safety above all else

• The idea that grief isn’t the cost of love — it is love, and what it means to expand your capacity for both

• How analysis can become its own form of dissociation, and why the body often knows faster than the story we tell about it

• Whether frameworks like anxious vs. avoidant attachment clarify our experiences — or quietly shift responsibility onto women

• What trust actually means in midlife: not trusting others to behave, but trusting yourself to handle whatever happens

If you’ve been dating in midlife — especially if you’ve ever felt the tension between protecting your peace and staying open to love — this conversation is for you.

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Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, and for for moderating.

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Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in!

We love you, mean it!

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We love you all—mean it!

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The conversation moved from personal deconstruction and religious trauma to practical resistance: how to recognize coded extremist language, why local organizing matters, and how communities can function as an immune system against authoritarianism.

Clear-eyed but not hopeless, Andra argued that despair is part of the strategy—and that staying informed, connected, and organized is how we survive and rebuild something better on the other side.

Subscribe to Andra here:

For Such a Time as This

A guide to decode the country America has chosen to be.

By Andra Watkins

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Longtime BFFs Lawrence Winnerman and Dana DuBois approach each episode with curiosity, candor, and just enough irreverence to keep things upbeat — even on the most dire news day. On Fridays, that energy turns into Fucked-up Friday, where the week’s most alarming stories get unpacked with equal parts outrage and gallows humor.

Today’s guest: , founder of Sick of This Shit and creator of the “Intelligent Masculinity” interview series.

Together we discussed:

• Redefining masculinity: Nick’s growing interview series on “intelligent masculinity,” focused on men who interrupt misogyny, reject domination, and actively stand with women, LGBTQ+ communities, and marginalized groups. As Nick put it: silence is endorsement.

• The manosphere vs. looksmaxing culture: From self-mutilation trends among teenage boys to “mogging,” alpha hierarchies, and the toxic pipelines radicalizing young men online.

• Nick Fuentes and the “mothers, whores, or nuns” worldview: Breaking down the misogyny baked into far-right rhetoric and why confronting it directly matters.

• The SAVE Act chaos strategy: How voter ID restrictions, passport delays, and documentation hurdles function as modern poll taxes designed to create maximum confusion and disenfranchisement.

• Tariffs, the economy, and cost-of-living reality: The Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s tariffs, skyrocketing grocery prices, and the myth that red states are “cheaper” to live in.

There were also side quests involving beard grooming ASMR, MacBook emoji hacks, rebranding celebrations, and a spirited reclamation of the phrase “big melons.”

Because it wouldn’t be Fucked-up Friday without at least one absurd detour.

Learn more about Nick Paro and Sick of This Shit:

Sick of this Shit Publications

Hey y'all, welcome to Sick of this Shit and I'm Nick - I'm using poetry and Live discussions to discuss the intersections of politics, veteran's issues, men's issues, mental health, technology, and so much more.

By Nick Paro

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Longtime BFFs Lawrence Winnerman and Dana DuBois approach each episode with curiosity, candor, and just enough irreverence to keep things upbeat, even on the most dire news day.

Every Thursday, Dana hosts Fine Feminist, a weekly feminist killjoy takeover where dating discourse, gender politics, and whatever fresh nonsense the news is throwing at women get pulled apart in real time.

Today we welcomed of Her Side of the Lens, a Sacramento-based memoirist and former full-time food & beverage photographer writing boldly about purity culture, sexual reclamation, and growing into her power after divorce.

Together we discussed:

• Growing up in evangelical purity culture — saving herself for marriage, being handed turtlenecks instead of therapy after abuse, and how shame shaped her early understanding of sex and womanhood.

• Late-adolescent awakening — divorcing young, entering the dating world for the first time in her mid-20s, navigating desire, consent, naïveté, and the messy empowerment of exploratory sex.

• Reclaiming pleasure in a political moment — why “casual” sex is never truly casual, how survivors are processing the Epstein era reckoning, and why Anna chose self-imposed celibacy to center her body, her writing, and her voice.

• Writing memoir in real time — weaving past trauma, arranged courtship, and present-day cultural reckoning into a three-pronged narrative that refuses silence.

It was candid. It was funny. It was uncomfortable in all the right ways.

Read and subscribe to Anna here:

Her Side of the Lens

Irreverent Explorations of my life post-divorce as a Purity Culture Trad Wife Reject with a high drive for curiosity, love, and making it on my own.

By Anna Wick

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Longtime BFFs Lawrence Winnerman and Dana DuBois approach each episode with curiosity, candor, and just enough irreverence to keep things upbeat, even on the most dire news day.

Every Thursday, Dana hosts Fine Feminist, a weekly feminist killjoy takeover where dating discourse, gender politics, and whatever fresh nonsense the news is throwing at women get pulled apart in real time.

Today we welcomed of Love Me Like a Robot, a New York–based Substack writer known for her data-driven, deeply analytical approach to modern dating — and for going on more dates than 99.99% of women (her math, not ours).

Together we discussed:

• Radical self-auditing in dating — why Lana texted 13 men who dumped or ghosted her to ask for honest feedback, and what she learned from their answers.

• Filtering vs. “giving men a chance” — FaceTime screens, punctuality tests, texting expectations, and why emotional leakage is the red flag more women should trust.

• Choosing and feeling chosen — why real connection requires mutual enthusiasm, how “settling” backfires, and what finally shifted before Lana met her now-boyfriend.

Read and subscribe to Lana here:

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If you’re able, please consider supporting the show with a paid subscription—now with 50% off monthly and annual subscriptions!

• Paid Subscriber: $4/month or $40/year

• Founding Member: $188/year

This isn’t corporate media. It runs on community.

Thank you , , , , , and the nearly 600 others (!!!) for tuning in. Thanks to Karen Marie Shelton and Yanni Hamburger for moderating our Whatever and YouTube chats.

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Longtime BFFs Lawrence Winnerman and Dana DuBois approach each episode with curiosity, candor, and just enough irreverence to keep things upbeat, even on the most dire news day.

Today we welcomed of The Female Body Politic, a political women’s historian, author, speaker, and Substacker extraordinaire.

Together we discussed:

• The power of financial boycotts—especially from women, throughout U.S. history—and steps to take to make an impact.

• The potential devastation of The Save Act, now rebranded as The MEGA Act, because what can’t Trump and co “make great again?”

• Her latest book, Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress—and her forthcoming book tour!

👉 Subscribe to Lorissa’s Substack here:

The Female Body Politic

The Female Body Politic explores the past, present, and future of women's participation in American democracy.

By Lorissa Rinehart

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• Paid Subscriber: $4/month or $40/year

• Founding Member: $188/year

This isn’t corporate media. It runs on community.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in. Thanks to Karen Marie Shelton and Yanni Hamburger for moderating our Whatever and YouTube chats.

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I talked about launching my new project, I Write Out Loud — a daily memoir practice with audio, built around the idea of letting personal writing live in public.

I shared my most recent essay, “My Dad, Dementia, and the Things We Don’t Forget,” and how different it feels to build something so intimate in a new corner of the internet. It’s vulnerable work, and it feels that way.

Dana DuBois | I Write Out Loud

My Dad, Dementia, and the Things We Don't Forget

Read more

2 months ago · 10 likes · 1 comment · Dana DuBois

Then our guest joined us from Minnesota, and the conversation widened fast.

writes multiple Substack publications, including HUSH: Highly Unapologetic Sensitive Humans, which recently exploded after one of her notes went viral. What pulled us in wasn’t just the growth — it was the clarity behind it. The work comes from lived experience and emotional intelligence, not branding strategy.

We talked about Minnesota not just as a place, but as a kind of moral weather system. She shared what it’s been like living amid increased ICE activity, including a moment at a local park when unmarked vehicles began circling families and kids. The fear was immediate — and so was the response. Neighbors opened their businesses as warming centers. People brought food, water, hand warmers. No coordination. No spectacle. Just people showing up.

One story stopped us cold: two women detained by ICE who helped save the life of an agent having a seizure — and were handcuffed again afterward. When asked why they helped, they said simply: because he was human. We stayed with that moment, not to dramatize it, but because it says something essential about dignity that no policy memo ever could.

We also talked about sensitivity — how being labeled “too sensitive” as a kid often turns into the very skill set that lets someone notice harm and respond to it. What was once framed as weakness now shows up as awareness, attunement, and refusal to look away.

We closed on a very Gen X note when she named Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All” as the most Gen X song of all time — a reminder that self-worth is not fluff, it’s the starting line for caring about other people.

Thank you , , , , , . Thank you to Karen Marie Shelton for moderating The Whatever chat and for being a mod on our YouTube channel.

We’ll be back bright and early on Wednesday for The Daily Whatever Show with our guest from Blue Amp Media (BAM).

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We set the tone for today right out of the gate, with Lawrence recounting a weekend highlight involving nose-hair waxing, Milwaukee pliers, and the strange relief that comes after voluntarily doing something that sounds far more painful than it is.

People may come for the news and political analysis, but apparently they stay for the friendship—and the grooming anecdotes.

From there, we shifted into two big announcements:

💙 An Open Letter to Defend Democracy and the First Amendment

We talked about an open letter of demands spearheaded by Blue Amp Media in response to the recent arrests of journalists and activists, including Don Lemon.

Lawrence laid out why the arrests were such a serious First Amendment warning sign, how clearly they’re tied to voter suppression ahead of the midterms, and why simply posting outrage online isn’t enough anymore. The letter calls for charges to be dropped and urges people to add their names as a way to turn collective concern into real political pressure.

Read it, restack it, and if it resonates: Add your name to the list.

✍🏼 Introducing the I Write Out Loud project.

I Write Out Loud is a new home for my creative nonfiction writing, past and present. It’s a singular, beautiful space for my work, in my own voice, and out in the world. I consider it my act of creative defiance. Our world may be burning, but we still should—no, we must—keep sharing our art, words, music, power, all of it.

I plan to share a new one (nearly) every day for at least 88 days—and then it will live on as the forever home for my work.

My first essay is a brand new one, called The Men Who Still Open Me, and it went live this morning.

Announcements out of the way, we welcomed our very special guest, , host of The Bob Cesca Show and co-creator of Trek Politics with Mary Trump. Bob, who is a good friend of one of our favorites, , brought warmth, humor, and depth to the conversation.

Bob wove together Star Trek lore, political allegory, and the very real stakes of living and speaking openly under an increasingly authoritarian climate.

He also talked candidly about Mary Trump’s courage, the toll of being in the direct line of fire of her uncle’s power, and the broader anxiety so many of us carry now about visibility, retaliation, and accountability.

The conversation ranged from “ favorites to oligarchy, gun violence, and the dangers of unchecked wealth, always circling back to the same question: how do we keep showing up, telling the truth, and protecting each other?

We closed on a lighter note, asking Bob our favorite Gen X question. His answer,“Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” felt just right for a morning that balanced humor, fear, resolve, and the strange comfort of shared cultural touchstones.

Thank you , , , , Jason Odell, , , Rachel @ This Woman Votes and for moderating The Whatever chat. Have a great weekend everyone!

We’ll be back bright and early on Tuesday for The Daily Whatever Show with our guest

We love you all—truly!—mean it.

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