SESTRA
Sisterhood
Maddy Atmore Rachel Carstensen
Alex Casteel Ellena Christiansen Grace Iyer Genevieve Lawrence Ada Lawson Gregory Manoukian Tashana Mithen Ellery Seither Layla Tahmassebi Elle Wilson Appearances by: Ari Cooper Pierson Phelan Stephen Ouellette Zachary Johnstun Alex Casteel Tucker Wasuta
Based oN Illustrations by Ilse Valfre Poems Alessandra Mesa Photographs Ian Rosenzweig Art Director Natasha Zedan
Welcome to the first issue of Sestra! Featuring real (super) girls, the goal is to create a space with no advertisements, no paid content, no secret message disguised as deodorant ads. Sestra is a style magazine, not a fashion one. Instead of emerging having been told how to dress or what’s in when you finish perusing, you should take what you like, leave what you want to, and learn a few tips and tricks along the way. Gone are the days of the butch 90’s feminist and 70’s hippie feminist, now you can do both. Be on one end of the scale one day and the other the next. While putting the magazine together, I doubted the imposition of my taste a lot, but that’s a part of making art and I hope that what I’ve constructed here is true to myself. I want to thank the wonderful people I had helping me and the source for a lot of the inspiration the magazine was drawn from. I discovered Ilse Valfre’s fashion illustrations a few years ago and loved that we shared hispanic backgrounds and a love for fashion. More recently, she’s grown into quite a star and the clothing she designs are superb. I want this to be an extension of that, an adding of texture to her drawings and a new kind of Valfre girl, sestras.
Natasha Zedan Zoltanaa
Flowers come in all shapes and sizes and colors. How is it we can take their pink and red and orange hues but not their purples or their blues? "Natural" lipstick colors are just as synthetic and "unnatural" hues can be found in nature. Meeting in the middle, the natural conclusion is that everyone should be wearing all color lipsticks as a means of injecting their lives with more color and taking another aspect of their appearance into their own hard clenched fists. Lipstick is hardly a corrector and mostly an ornamental component of makeup, begging the question "Why the gendered notion?" Entirely self-expressive, lads should be lining up down the block for Drake's new shade, right alongside the ladies. ~N
An Ex Girlfriend Publication
I Thought You Said You Loved me, I Must've Misheard You
An Ex Girlfriend Publication
I Looked Hot Today, You Missed Out
An Ex Girlfriend Publication
Orange You Glad I Didn't Go Bananas?
This is Not a Book Review of "This is Not a Choose Your Own Adventure Book; Love is Not Constantly Wondering Whether You're Making a Huge Mistake" Life is one huge Choose Your Own Adventure Book, except it's harder to turn back a few pages and choose better this time IRL than it was in your childhood adventure series. That nuance of fear of making a choice you can't take back is what perpetuates the conflct faced by the anonymous author of This Is Not a Choose Your Own Adventure Book. The mysterious Portlander circumnavigates his relationship, taking it significant day by significant day. Some misadventures funny and others plainly hurtful, he constructs their relationship the same way you live one, allowing his honest question to be asked several times, mentioned in the subtitle: Love is Not Constantly Wondering If You're Making a Mistake. As easy to get through as a front to back reading of any Choose Your Own Adventure Book, the author's craftiness and specificity paint an intimate portrait of their relationship. The cheeky parallel to waking up as an an insectuous alien, made via illustrations and captions, is poignant and topical. I found this book in Powell's local author section, a very cool discovery. I highly recommend that you ask your local bookstore if they do something similar, as it's exciting to read about familiar geography, or just to see how writers in your area are unique and special. We can't all love Fitzgerald and Plath. N
2. Using a big, dense brush, apply a light teal eye shadow all over the eyelid
1. Start with a bare face and a good attitude
3. with a smaller, very dense brush, apply navy along the lashline and use a liner blush to make a flicked end
4. Apply your glitter freckles using coconut oil and loose glitter (cosmetic grade is technically best, but because the glitter is away from your sensitive zones; mouth & eyes, it isn't vital)
K, We'll Teach You to J A Guide by the Best Joint Roller I know (Mr. Anonymous) Tips n tricks Practice with cheap rolling tobacco, even if you don't smoke them, it'll help you find a technique that works for you Ask Wiz Khalifa (or the internet in general) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmrA09F86A0 Don't use colored or glossy paper for filters, but any other thick paper works)
1. Roll your filter, this comes first because it’ll be easier to roll a well structured joint with it already in the paper (also, a filter is highly recommended to avoid losing or wasting weed). There are pre-indented filters that are easiest to start with, they guide you in how to fold the filter securely. 2. Grind your weed, find a grinder that provides consistency you like, but a grinder is helpful for achieving a uniform density, making a uniform joint easier to achieve. 3. Hold the open joint by the filter and distribute the weed on the paper, making sure it’s nearly straight. The weed should be a bit more abundant at the end and smoothly taper to line up to the top of the filter at the base. 4. Roll the paper in from the tip first, making sure not to lose the tension, which will be vital to keeping the filter in and the joint together. A good way to do this is to tuck the corner of the paper around the filter and then roll the paper over it, securing it in place. 5.Get Lit.
YOU SHRUNK ME! Last time I saw you my body shrunk so small I fit in your hands. and that's where I've stayed. I shrunk (so small) I fit on your hands like Alice did to get to wonderland I had a G.I. Joe Kung Fu grip on your palm wrinkle and held on to you, the way you smell, flashes of your teeth, your soft eyes, without you noticing I’m still small and I’m stuck here for the time being.
Frida painted herself Even with two bows on her head like periwinkle ears over her unkept brow she is far from mousy Aggressively woman with deep face bones an assertive chin creating crevices with hair in all the right places over her shut lip bright red like her nails she painted herself.
Written by: Alessandra Mesa
Don't Pierce your Ears at Home but if you do, do it like this
'
~N
soak the needle in alcohol and/or sterilize it with heat. If heating the needle with a lighter, match, or other open flame, be sure to hold the needle above the visible flame, as the heat will work just as well to sterilize but it won’t react with the metal, which will cause impurities and inconsistencies in the metal. Make sure the needle is relatively thick and extremely sharp. If the needle guage is too small, you may have trouble inserting the earring later. This could also be replaced by a safety pin if you want to leave it in while it heals, then trade it out for an earring.
Ice the ear to taste
Make a mark with pen or marker to make sure placement is satisfying before piercing
have a drink and a smoke to calm any nerves
Stab your ear! If changing the jewelry afterwards, make sure you sterilize it the way you did the needle. Soak your piercing in salt water (non~iodized salt only) and don’t fumble with it too much, your hands are germ hangouts.
THE CONDOM FAIRY
Presents
Reflections on Silly Proceedings by the CDC
Let's take a moment to celebrate the fact that it's 2016 and we've come so far. Women being badasses is no longer novel, it's a trope and women are allowed to talk about sex and drink in public. Except, we're not. Or at least not supppsed to drink at all according to the CDC. A recent report they've released advises all young women to avoid alcohol as it could apparently lead to pregnancy or STDs. Last time I checked, a bottle of any liquor didn't come riddled with infection or with temperature controlled sperm holders. So how can this be? The CDC has decided that it is in a position to convince young women that they are baby receptacles first, people second. They don't outline how drinking can lower sperm count in men and present just as many health issues and equal chance for unintended pregnancy and STD transmission. How about women just enjoy themselves as they see fit and do research on the relationship between pregnancy and alcohol if they decide to be mothers. Besides the obviously sexist exclusion of male advice, the CDC is supposing the goal of all women is to have children. First of all, not all women can even have children, and the ability to child bear is not indicative of womanhood. By making the generalization that all women should
or have to have children, they normalize the stressful process of balancing a career and a family, as a "woman should" and placing further rules on how she is supposed to enjoy her free time. This table was unecessary, all alcoholic beverages already come with a warning from the surgeon general that women who are expecting shouldn't drink. Women shouldn't get raped. They shouldn't abort babies who get raped. They shouldn't have sex, they especially shouldn't have risky sex. They shouldn't put themselves at risk because they could possibly be putting themselves in a risky situation that might be dangerous to the life she may accidentally make. This underlying message is potentially toxic to young women everywhere and an institution looking out for the public's health like the CDC shouldn't be poisoning anyone, mentally or physically. N
A guide to designing your own tarot spread First, determine what you'd like to learn. Would you like to be reflective on your changing sense of self? Maybe you'd like a new perspective on a previous relationship and various aspects of it. By designing your own spread, you can ask specific questions of your deck and make a place for each of them to be answered Decide if your reading will include reversals. Sometimes, if you need really specific information you can read them as you choose (you can look at the card before it in the deck or read it as the opposite of it's normal reading) Figure out what shape you want the spread to have. Circular readings are infinte, and don't take progression into account which can be useful for different questions about the same subject. Triangular or straight spreads indicate movement from one to the other. Look for shapes in nature you might want to call back and reference for tarot spread shapes. keep your deck's energy stable by cleansing it with sage or crystals often and don't impurify it's energy by sharing it and passing it around. N
Real sex Talk
BY LAYLA
I have always been the type of person that is constantly in my own head. I question everything, think all the time, and analyze every part of my life down to the smallest and seemingly insignificant aspects of it. Normally, I love this about myself. I can see details in situations that make everything exponentially more interesting and impactful. However, it can occasionally be pretty detrimental to my ability to act. Recently, my ever active brain has obstructed my ability to exercise my sexuality. I haven’t had sex in about 5 months. Over summer I became aware of the fact that about 90 percent of the sex I’ve had has been mediocre at best. I’m sure much of that comes from my own insecurities and from my less than fantastic choices in partners, but regardless, sex has never been a physically pleasurable experience for me. Now don’t get me wrong, I love sex. I generally love doing it, talk about it incessantly, have educated myself extensively about every conceivable aspect of sexual activities, and use sex as the central focus for many of my projects and papers. The problem is, that I love the idea of sex more than I have my actual experiences. A few months back I read an article describing the complicated realm of women’s sexuality within the larger scope of society. Something that really stuck out to me was the analysis of the present day sexual liberation of women that is happening within a male centric society that still objectifies and devalues women. Even though women themselves may be confident and in charge of their bodies and sexualities, that does not always guarantee that their partners are respectful and reciprocal. And yet sexuality for women is promoted in much of present day feminist ideology. Reading that article induced a bout of nausea that truthfully has not yet left me. I started to think, how many times in my sexually active life have I felt unsatisfied and ignored by my partner and not said a word? How many times did I start having sex and a minute in decide I wasn’t feeling it but let my partner continue to use my
body as a means of providing pleasure? Why is it, that after having terrible sex with somebody, I continued to do it again and again regardless of how little I enjoyed each experience? How could I call myself a sexually confident woman if every time I actually had sex I wished I was doing something else and wasn’t doing anything about it? And more importantly, why is it that I didn’t feel like I could say anything? These questions ultimately led to a big question that has remained unanswered for quite some time. Why do I have sex? If it isn’t a pleasurable experience, if I not only dislike the activity but occasionally myself while I am having it, and if I don’t feel emotional attachments to my partners, then what are the incentives behind my choice to engage in sex? And what does it mean about the value I attribute to myself if I am confident and happy when I am sexually active regardless of whether it is actually pleasurable or not? If I am choosing to have sex in order to be a "confident feminist woman", then there might be a real problem with the way I am living my life. My inability to understand why I only put up with disrespect and mediocrity in the bedroom and why I have continued to knowingly subject myself to it has caused me to be unable to seek out sexual partners or even really feel sexual for quite some time. This not only has affected my sense of identity, as I consider myself to be a very sexual woman, but has also affected my view of past relationships and ability to create new ones. I suppose that the only way to answer my questions is to get out of my head and into a bed, but I guess I am waiting until I am sure that I feel comfortable enough with myself to speak out when I need to. Hopefully I can get to that place soon.