Being trapped in a box for 10 days can mess with your head a little — Visiting America during the pandemic made me feel like I was about to have sex with everyone; family and friends kept asking if I’d been tested and demanding I wear protection if we were to meet. I’ve lived in Korea for most of the pandemic — a place where all…

Just don’t be an asshole. — The news loves its fear porn. “Young Couple Goes Abroad. Has Fun.” is not a juicy title for an article. But “Young Couple Murdered in (insert far off scary place you’ve never been).” Now that! That’s a fuckin’ story. People will click that, read that, shit their pants, and then…

Educate them now or the metaverse will. — *originally published in Lustery POV The first full-time job summer job I had was digging through VHS copies of ’70s romcoms looking for boobs. Today, a seven-year-old googling how to make a fruit salad will stumble across more nudity than all my hours of pause, rewind, pause, rew — Oh…

It wasn’t an accident. It’s your true colors. — When I was twenty-six I moved into an apartment with an acquaintance. It was in a city I’d never been to, in a country I’d never visited, and I knew no one but him. Let’s call him Harry. Harry was a friendly guy — one of those giving sort of…

Are people lying, delusional, or just racist? — Russia kicked off a war of aggression. So did America. Arguably twice. Russia is killing civilians. So did America. By the hundreds of thousands. Russia bombed hospitals. So did America. So where is the condemnation? The outcry? The sanctions? The boycotts? The consequences? Russians are invaders. Americans are liberators. Ukrainians…

The world doesn’t seem to give a damn about sex-positivity. — My parents were more close-mouthed than open-minded. My birds and the bees conversation happened when I was very young. My mother asked, “What does the bird say?” And I said, “Tweet-tweet!” And my Dad asked, “What does the bee say?” And I flapped my arms, ran in circles, cried, ‘BZZZZZ!’. …

How a streaming platform became a pseudo-cam-model website. — *originally published in Lustery POV I didn’t know what Twitch was until recently — and, even now, I can’t figure out why Twitch is. I know how it functions. It’s a platform where people watch other people do stuff. Not ‘kinky’ stuff. Just stuff: talk, play games, cook, dance, shop…

Moving to China with no plan wasn’t the best plan. — Jennifer shoved another vinegared cucumber in my mouth. “You’re bad at chopsticks,” she told me. Her name wasn’t really Jennifer. I wasn’t really bad at chopsticks. I chewed, swallowed, and explained: “I know how to use chopsticks. I’ve just never used these metal ones before.” “Mhm.” She shoved another cucumber…

Fiction writing online is never going to be profitable. The problem isn’t the platform. — There are two hard truths that online fiction writers never want to admit: Almost nobody is reading fiction online except other writers. Most other writers are only following/reading for a quid-pro-quo. The writing community has a staggering number of follow4follow campaigns, share for share, and scratch-mine-scratch-yours arrangements. We keep feeding…