But new science reveals fat isn't what's hurting our health. This Spotlight Story from TIME explores America's antifat obsession and how it is impacting our health.

    Meet Karl (the Joker), Boris (the Gladiator), Miss Winnifred Hardbottle, Buddy (the Little Whittler) and many more.

    Comprising a range of voices from both within and outside the academy, this collection draws from traditional feminisms, postmodern feminism, queer theory, and sex radicalism. It stretches the boundaries of contemporary feminism, holding accountable both traditional feminism for stigmatizing sex workers, and also the sex industry for its sexist practices.

    Features the original stories of women in the life, including writings by Sapphire, Nina Hartley, and Joan Nestle.Updated for the Second Edition: * Sex Workers' response to AIDS * Latest information on the legal status of sex work in the United States, Europe, and Asia * Growth of the international prostitutes' rights movement * Bibliography, revised to reflect a decades’ worth of writing and publishing on sex work * Resources, including activist organizations and publications—many just a Web click away

    Deany Brady tells the story of her colorful childhood in the 1930s and 40s with freshness, humor, wit, and intelligence. She is a master storyteller, following in the vigorous oral tradition of her parents and her grandmother, who told vivid family stories all through her childhood. Following the arc of her young life, Brady beautifully captures her own growth from a daydreaming child, creating mansions out of moss and sticks, and gazing at the famous people in the newspapers covering the walls, to a girl in love with language and writing, whose greatest happiness is to read all of Gone with the Wind to her mother by the wash stream one magical summer. Unusual in her Appalachian community, the young Deany yearns not only to complete her high school education but to find a way to better her own life and that of her family’s, by moving to the big city of Atlanta and hoping to gain a college education. Even as Deany’s life grows more intricate and challenging, and even as she makes her own mistakes in her urge to escape the constraints of Appalachia, she holds onto her dream of a life filled with knowledge, happiness and beauty.An Appalachian Childhood is the first half of a two-part memoir. It covers Deany Brady’s first twenty-two years. The second half, Higher than Yonder Mountain, is forthcoming. This second volume follows her grown-up life’s arc from Georgia to Miami Beach, to Park Avenue in New York, and ultimately to her life as a writer in California.

    You often hear, "There should be a law against it!" Or, perhaps just against the buyers. What do sex workers want? That's not something you hear asked very often. In this accessible manifesto, the strong argument for full decriminalization of sex work is explored through personal experience and looking at laws around the world.In some places, like New York, selling sex is illegal. In others, like Sweden, only buying it is. In some, like the UK and France, it's legal to sell sex and to buy it, but not to run a brothel or solicit a sale. In New Zealand, it's not illegal at all. In What Do Sex Workers Want?, Juno Mac and Molly Smith - both sex workers - explain what each of these laws do in practice to those doing the work. Addressing each model in turn, they show that prohibiting the sex industry actually exacerbates every harm that sex workers are vulnerable to.

    He did it three years in a row (only two others have scored 50 since) before being unceremoniously stripped of his captaincy and traded out of town, and he did it for a promising team that was nonetheless largely stuck at the bottom of the standings. So why isn't his number 22 hanging from the rafters of the Leafs' rink and his name as revered in Leafs lore as Gilmour, Sundin and Clark?You could blame it on a team that lost far more than it won. You could blame Harold Ballard and his erratic ownership. You could blame the fans, the media...Rick Vaive doesn't blame anybody. Sometimes, life just doesn't go your way. He'd know. Growing up in a household plagued by alcoholism, the gifted young hockey player took shelter in the company of his grandmother and a blind and severely disabled uncle. Rick learned quickly that there are more valuable things in life than hockey. Even after his promising coaching career stopped dead when it ran into Don Cherry in Mississauga--one of the worst seasons in Ontario junior hockey history--he still doesn't point fingers. Life is too sweet for regrets, but learning that lesson can be one hell of a ride.

    Readers will relate to Crewe’s ache at missing her mom, her nostalgia for her childhood, her frustrations at raising teenagers, and her impatience for terrible parking lot etiquette in equal measure. The book spans sixteen years’ worth of columns for The Cape Bretoner Magazine, Cahoots Magazine, and The Chronicle Herald.Are You Kidding Me?! is a side-splitting, heartwarming, Cape Breton–flavoured celebration of the little things.

    Recent years have seen a panic over "online red-light districts," which supposedly seduce vulnerable young women into a life of degradation, and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's live tweeting of a Cambodian brothel raid. The current trend for writing about and describing actual experiences of sex work fuels a culture obsessed with the behaviour of sex workers. Rarely do these fearful dispatches come from sex workers themselves, and they never seem to deviate from the position that sex workers must be rescued from their condition, and the industry simply abolished—a position common among feminists and conservatives alike. In Playing the Whore, journalist Melissa Gira Grant turns these pieties on their head, arguing for an overhaul in the way we think about sex work. Based on ten years of writing and reporting on the sex trade, and grounded in her experience as an organizer, advocate, and former sex worker, Playing the Whore dismantles pervasive myths about sex work, criticizes both conditions within the sex industry and its criminalization, and argues that separating sex work from the "legitimate" economy only harms those who perform sexual labor. In Playing the Whore, sex workers' demands, too long relegated to the margins, take center stage: sex work is work, and sex workers' rights are human rights.

    We start innocently enough: reading a journal about finding oneself -- a journey across America to recapture and understand a young woman's history as she prepares for a new life.Along the way, we are alternately voyeurs and witnesses, learning the details and daily grinds of a worker in the sex trade -- an exotic dancer, on her last cross-country tour of the clubs that have been such an important part of her life. Well written and powerful, Strip City becomes, about midway through, the journal of a soul. It asks why we do what we do, what it means to say one is a feminist, and how to understand (with eyes wide open) an industry that is both liberating and degrading -- a job in some ways like many others, yet one ultimately corruptive of our very dreams, nightmares, fears, and desires. Strip City is not a tell-all, although it tells much. It is one woman's attempt to come to terms with her past: to glorify the dance and not to victimize, preach, or pass judgment on the dancers or to mystify the work, the audience drawn to it, and (most of all) the toll on the women themselves. It is both painful and funny and cathartic for both writer and reader. Most of all, it is a very moral tale, honestly told, deftly written, and exhibiting neither shame nor undue pride: an American tale, filled with pop culture images that remind us, over and over again, of the roles a prosperous, bountiful nation has allowed to (or forced on) women. Strip City provides us a dazzling, glitzy, and devastating meditation. ( Fall 2001 Selection)

    The adult industry is riddled with pitfalls and dangers. Erotic labor is often emotionally demanding, draining, and complex. It can be hard to know who to turn to for advice on keeping yourself safe and sane. Lola Davina, former stripper, dominatrix, porn actress and escort, provides the life skills you need to prosper: · Shattering myths, such as thinking you need the “perfect” body· Creating financial freedom so you only work when you want to· Avoiding bad behavior, bad decisions, and burnout· Cultivating boundaries in an often insane industry· Learning to love your work!Thriving in sex work means having a healthy body, mind, heart, and bank account. No matter your job title or gender, whether you’re independent or work for someone else, if you want to succeed in sex work, this book is for you.“I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH! Lola Davina brings the insight, advice and compassion that only a centered, wise, experienced sex work veteran can cultivate and gather: her insider knowledge makes this book a powerful ally to any sex worker who wants a better life. Fierce, smart, pragmatic and loving — I can’t recommend it highly enough.”—Carol Queen, PhD Author, founding director of the Center for Sex & Culture

    Each year more than 800,000 women and children are lured, tricked or forced into prostitution to meet an apparently insatiable demand, joining an estimated 10 million women already ensnared in the $20 billion worldwide sex trade. To date, most research on the subject has focused on the various issues that propel these women into the trade, but little has been investigated, or written, about those who trigger the demand?the “Johns.” In this hard-hitting expos?, Malarek unmasks the kind ofmen?and organizations?that foster and drive the sex trade, from America to Europe, Brazil to Thailand, Phnom Penh to St. Petersburg and Costa Rica. The Johns is a chilling look into a dark corner of the world that these men have created at the expense of countless women and children.

    It had been the hideout of a fugitive known as the Bushman—real name John Bjornstrom—who had been arrested the previous winter after raiding cabins in the area for supplies.Shortly after the cave was discovered, and before it was imploded by local authorities, author Paul McKendrick was able to explore the nine-hundred-square-foot bachelor pad. Its elaborate construction left the impression that the occupant was more than just a common thief with a preference for uncommon living arrangements.Nearly two decades later, McKendrick set out to better understand what led the Bushman to the cave. The Bushman’s Lair is the culmination of numerous interviews, reviews of RCMP and court transcripts, declassified us government files and McKendrick’s own adventures in the Shuswap. The resulting book follows Bjornstrom’s circuitous path: a child of Romani refugees raised by nature lovers from Norway; a bizarre, top-secret us government program that recruited individuals with supposed psychic abilities; an investigation into the infamous Bre-X mining scandal that led to an alleged hit list; and an ardent mission to safeguard vulnerable youth from abuse.While some mysteries remain unsolved, McKendrick’s exploration of Bjornstrom’s story is an unexpectedly moving and unforgettable account of a man who decided to pursue a quest with boundless commitment.

    Join the horn-honking, signal-flashing, wheelie-popping pair as they endure painful bee stings, painful snakebites and (when they talk to girls) painful humiliation.

    We want to be successful and liked at work, to have opinions about politics, art and literature as well as, well... Kanye West. We strive for more and more Instagram followers rather than working on our real relationships with real friends. Happiness has become just another thing on our to-do list. This book is for any woman aspiring to better herself and live more happily.This modern Englishwoman tells you how to be a gentlewoman; from knowing how to use a power drill, to making your bed every single day and never eating lunch at your desk. She will take you on a first date, to a party where you should ask someone 'what they are into' rather 'than what they do' and to a dinner party where you should always arrive 11 minutes late. She tells you how to be mysterious, flirtatious and to dine alone, the right way to approach weddings and how to host a kitchen supper (with beer) the end of the night, for a birthday, for a smart date, never asks how to get home because she always knows. How to be a Gentlewoman presents a clear and compelling strategy for navigating life today with charm, care, confidence, consideration and control. Each chapter will include relatable,personal anecdotes and examples, and each will end with a relevant and irreverent list of 'gentle rules'.Rather than killing it, slaying in your lane, having to be a girl boss or not adopting the subtle art of not giving a f**k, this book teaches you the incredible female power of being gentle in a brutal world.