No es pesimismo, es decisión ejecutiva.

The motives behind these stories are mildly reminiscent of some of the gorier tales by the brothers Grimm, in which heroes would go on journeys where they lose fingers and bargain with the devil’s grandmother, all so parents could have a cold, hard, factual story to scare their children into not to going into the forest alone. That seems to be the purpose of urban legends: to keep kids away from strangers, deep waters, and streets at night. While Latinx urban legends are no exception, once we trace the roots of them back to their beginnings, they start to seem more like stories to scare grown men out of cheating and, frankly, women out of marriage.

A 1,000 pound bronze statue of mythological rape survivor and feared petrifier of men, Medusa, was unveiled this past Tuesday as a tribute to the #metoo movement and as a powerful statement on justice.

Let’s not forget that book banning is, fundamentally, conversation banning. So, one of the most sensible ways of honoring forbidden literature is to continue the tradition of feeding uncomfortable yet necessary conversations

I grew up on Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar, and as is the case with anyone with minimal sensitivity for masterful language and smart poetic prose, I fell in love with their work. It wasn’t a healthy kind of love, though; it was the kind of love in which I pretended not to see all the red flags and continuously reminded myself how perfect the object of my affections was, in hopes that my affirmations would make the soul-crushing bits disappear.

The cast of the irresistibly quotable cult classic The Princess Bride is reuniting for what might be the most exciting political fundraiser in 2020, and the man in black himself has been clear about who this event’s Humperdink is (AKA, the guy he would want “to live a long life, alone with his cowardice”).

There are plenty of interesting romantic leads out there for sure, as well as intriguing premises for captivating love stories, and yet it turns out that many of our heroes are rather like us: as soon as they meet someone that makes their knees rattle like maracas, their brain takes a plunge into their stomach, and it’s self-destruction and abusive decisions from there on.

I am, in fact, so hippy-dippy that I roll my eyes nearly every time I see an affirmation post on my social media. Woah. Why? Because my type of “hippy dippy” is “holistic health lover who reads psychology journals for fun and likes spinach;” more specifically, a plant lover with a commitment to out-of-the-box mental health, and affirmations, to me, are a wellness staple to handle with care.

I will be plain: the enemy is the system, and that is no abstraction. The patriarchy is not an invention of the internet; it is in every wall of the structure of our quotidian lives. As anyone who menstruates knows, though, there is a secret to nature (and, thus, evolution) that is cyclical, inescapable, and as natural as a pre-industrial era cyclone: shedding walls. So, how do (cis) men shed walls?