This week, the editors revisit writer Sarah Nicole Prickett’s “Serious Sex Battle,” published in February 2018.“A preference for death over captivity spurs radical movement,” Prickett declares in her virtuosic, gimlet-eyed essay on a woman of inordinate strength. “Serious Sex Battle” is a feminist genealogy, but it’s also a strong theory for how to outmaneuver reactionaries. Legerity is essential; so is an alert refusal of your enemy’s terms. As Prickett argues, “The heroine we need is against the hero. The antagonist. She remains outside.” David VelascoONE A WOMAN OF INORDINATE STRENGTHBeyoncé
I first met Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt in the mid-2000s, while I was working at SAGE (“Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders.” SAGE originally stood for “Senior Action in a Gay Environment,” which I preferred. Who doesn’t love the naughty ambiguity hanging around that word, Action?)At SAGE I worked with Gay Liberation Front cofounder Jerry Hoose on two panel discussions about the activism inspired by the Stonewall Riots. The apocrypha generated by people who claimed to be there drove Jerry crazy, and he told me that there was no realer deal than Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt. Jerry was so proud of Tommy’s
We’ve supersized our capacity to ship stuff across the seas. As our global supply chains grow, what can we gather from the junk that washes up on shore?