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“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.”
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
/klan'd sten,'klandes tīn/ adjective kept secret or done secretively, especially because illicit. e
Why would they say that? Is it true? Do I even care?
The wild rumors ate slowly at my skin. I despised them, the secrets that failed to include me. They were the very worst secrets of all.
Or so I thought. With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, I quickly learned that the worst secrets are the ones we are forced to keep. The venomous secrets necessary for our own survival.
Issue 04 is a testament to the hidden, the hopeful, and the persistent, yearning for a delicious escape. Although this issue was originally in spired by the women who lost their bodily autonomy and persisted against all odds, the magazine morphed into a reimagining of secrets as something more complex; a source of both pain and pleasure. It is this rich dichotomy that Clandestine seeks to explore.
I am incredibly thankful to the people that helped me translate this vision onto and beyond the page. To James Landman, our founding Editor-in-Chief, for trusting me to carry on your vision of challenging the status quo through creativity. You forged a concrete community and entrusted me to be its leader. To Lily Pecoriello, my Creative Director, for your ability to awe me with your absurdity and soothe me with your infectious optimism. You push our staff to find power in the unconven tional, transporting us to a place where we can reimagine the mundane.
To Sara Frankenthaler and Courtney Huang, my Art Directors, I cannot wait to say that I am the one who discovered you. Your voices perme ate each page of this magazine, and I would not want it any other way.
To Emma Oleck, thank you for your unwavering patience and industry wisdom. You are our biggest inspiration. To my Strike team, thank you for creating a safe space to express the oddities that make us who we are. Each and every one of you has uplifted my successes, and this issue is a small piece of what each of you is capable of.
To our readers, I hope you enjoy reading the magazine as much as we enjoyed creating it. I urge you to scream the confidential, hush the nonsense, and embrace the clandestine.
Strike Out, Aliya Hollub Editor-in-Chief, Strike St. Louis
editor-in-chief Aliya Hollub creative director Lily Pecoriello art directors Courtney Huang Sara Frankenthaler operations director Jasmine Peterson founder James Landman
assistant editor-in-chief
Natalie Rubenstein assistant creative director
Sydney Greer writing director
Sidney Speicher casting director
Natalie Linares styling director
Olivia Baba photography director
Trey Hepp instagram director
Ariel Grossman instagram strategist Ali Keonig videographers
Maya Gottlieb Alice Lee photography
Rayna Auerbach Anabelle Baum Violet DeLuca Bailey Herman Ariana Kohl Emily Lapidus Zoe Pessin
Morgan Simers
Shoot Coordinators Riley Card Elena Egge
Trey Hepp Bailey Herman
Jon Oshinsky
Graphic Design
Abbey Rose
Ariell Haims
Helen Jiang Kate Sands
Morgan Simers
Katie Zhu
Chloe Wetzler
Hannah Leibovich
Myles Roven Clara Kim Ariana Kohl Lea Tucker
Lauren Speicher Matt Grossman Christine Jung stylists
Estee Eidinger
Carmen Ganado
Hannah Hollingsworth
Harry DreesenHigginbotham
Helen Ives
Myles Roven Maddie Savitch Jane White hair and makeup
Sara Frankenthaler Melissa Marks
Graphic Design
Matt Grossman
marketing directors
Julie Song Ethan Tsai sponsorship coordinators
Hannah Ginsberg
Emily Patchen finance directors
Oliver Mass Haley Mordis public relations directors
Lucie Merkatz
Eva Romanoff Biddi Solomon
public relations assistants
Sophie Keyser Gray Scherma Lana Stenmark series coordinator Ria Bakhaya Sydney Kanter
tik tok directors Meghan Barry Peyton Moore Nico Scarpelli
Editors
Hannah Hummel
Melissa Marks
Ellie Wells Editorial writers Riley Card
Tamara Dandreamatteo
Sydney Greer
Jason Lyons Brook Wang Talia Zakalik
Blog writers
Emily Bekesh
Natalie Chen
Seamus Curtin
Ava Melton-Meaux
Rosie Swidler Brook Wang
shoot c co ordinator
Trey Heeppp
John O Osskinsky stylists
She dons three layers of socks in the hope that her footsteps are muffled against the hardwood floors. As she creeps down the staircase, her traitorous foot hits the singular spot that elicits a small creak. She freezes, widening her eyes, awaiting any signal of punishment. Satisfied, she continues her descent. Her feet have just hit the floor when she feels an undeniable presence behind her. She turns, eyes catching a shadow at the top of the staircase.
Is it a trick of the light? Or have the repercussions of her wrongdoings taken a corporeal form?
The shadow takes the form of Him: His powerful gaze cannot be mistaken. He has come for me. She flees, her three layers of socks mercifully fulfilling their purpose.
Once free from the suffocation of home, she inhales deeply, feeling the grass beneath her shoes, the wind in her hair, and the breeze against her skin. Everything will be alright.
When she arrives, the night is at its peak. She is entranced by the bodies writhing on the dance floor. The girls wear bold makeup and scraps for clothes. The boys display sculpted chests, thick thighs, and backsides so immoral that the sight brings a rosy flush to her cheeks. Bitter alcohol flows from bottle to glass to mouth; sweet substances are passed from hiding spots to fingertips to tongue. Captivated, she nearly misses the shadow passing over her vision. Startled, she turns quickly to catch sight of a tall woman, designs inked all over her skin. The woman passes her an offering with an enticing grin. She politely declines; she knows these objects are catalysts of the reckless. She cannot handle that just yet; no–for now, she only craves one thing.
She finds him easily, and her night unfolds exactly as she desires: heated gazes, sweet nothings whispered into her ear, possessive stroking, eager fingers that find spots which send adrenaline rushing, all the while they dance through a haze of smoke, glitter, and sweat.
It feels so good—too good. She has been blind her whole existence, deprived of touch, sheltered from desire, starved of lust. The loud voice in her head that usually berates her for her actions is blissfully quiet.
Then comes the inevitable, Come to the back with me. The words skitter across her damp skin, the feel of his soft lips and the scent of his sweet breath so inviting and so tantalizing that she succumbs immediately.
As he leads her through the throng of bodies, the reprimanding voice so quiet just moments ago morphs into a tolling bell. She ignores it. It is my strongest desire to yield.
She throws herself into that unholy act, utterly lost in her bliss, that bell sounding in her head all the while. Her brain can only focus on the sensations of her body pressed against another surface—her hands gripping his backside to drive him deeper into her, the overwhelming feeling of him moving inside of her, her bare backside sliding across the tiled floor, covered with unknown liquids. And when at last that mounting pleasure shatters into intense weightlessness, she almost screams out in terror rather than rapture because it’s too much, too wonderfully intense.
As the haze of her fragmentation clears, the tolling bell muffled only moments ago sounds louder than ever, loud enough to cause her pain. But it’s nothing compared to the pleasure.
She erases all evidence of the previous night—makeup rubbed off from other bodies, slick sweat, and specks of stray glitter.
And so, as she sits rigid like a doll through the daily cleansing and purifying rituals, she does, in fact, appear clean and pure. She looks the part; she feels anything but.
A stream of thoughts rattles inside her head. The beliefs that have always guided her and defined her existence appear fruitless. She has given in to her heinous desires and her unholy cravings that are the antithesis of everything she has ever known. She is unclean. She is impure.
In a fit of momentary anger, she blames him. He is the shadow that has darkened the light. And then another thought, intrusive. But it is the other way around, is it not? He is the light that has illuminated the darkness.
Her savior has held her in chains, shackled in such a way that she has never understood what it is to feel true passion. The two sides battle in her head, causing confusion so strong that she breaks free from her rigidity and shakes her head.
Exhaustion overcomes her. Perhaps she should return to what has always been. Perhaps she should shut him out of her mind and spend the rest of her life in agonizing guilt, forever destined to repent. Perhaps she should simply give in to her desires. Perhaps she should run away and run wild. No.
Family is good. He is good. I am good.
She lies on her bed like a corpse, concealed underneath the covers as if her body must be kept secret. She keeps her eyes trained on the ceiling, for she is afraid that if she gazes too long at the shadows tucked into the corners of her bedroom, they will take the forms of things she does not want to see: him, Him, herself.
If she focuses too much, the shadows seem to smother her, stare at her, whisper to her. In an attempt to curb her anxiety, she balls her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms.
But her hands have a mind of their own. They unball and begin to drift up and down her body, caressing her neck, her collarbones, her breasts… almost as if her hands share a mind with his.
She closes her eyes and she’s back in the throng of bodies, dancing through the glittery haze, his body pressed into hers. His hands slowly drift lower and lower; they find their mark at that sacred spot between her legs. She gasps, arching her back so much that her forehead almost touches her headboard.
The friction between her body and the soft sheets combined with his skilled fingers brings her to the brink of release. When she fractures into a million pieces, she imagines him inside of her, filling her with molten heat.
As the pleasure dissipates, she realizes that, in the midst of her doing, the covers have been pushed to the end of the mattress, leaving her exposed, bare. The shadows, more oppressive than ever, bear down on her as if they are watching. I know what you have done. Although her eyes are glued to the ceiling, she sees His darkened figure in the corner of her room in her periphery, His presence unmistakable.
Uncovered, a lone tear falls from her eye, staining her pillow. His shadow looms over her all the while.
She collapses inside the booth, weeping and whispering about how she wants and deserves to be punished. She has been shunned, exiled. She is no longer clean, no longer pure. She has reduced herself to a worthless shell, driven only by her primitive desires.
She balls herself into a corner. Through her tear-glazed vision, her eyes fixate on a shadow that has fallen across the wooden floor, snaking up the walls. She searches for the source; her eyes land on the other half of the booth. A shadow seems to be staring back at her, although this time, it is not Him who has come to haunt her.
She stands on shaky legs, facing the other side. Like looking into a mirror, she stares at the shadowy figure of herself. She stares and stares, rooted to the spot, as realization dawns on her.
Featuring Zoe Ademuyiwa Marcus Ding Shelby Roach David Schantz
By Riley Card
Bureaucracy keeps watchful eyes weeks of footage, corner camera every breath and sneeze recorded spools of data in iCloud shed. Captures souls of deep surveillance gaze is lovers’ diaspora intimacy of constant gaze mechanize a kiss: HD rays.
Year, date, address of every job, prowl for career on LinkedIn rests upon connect, network, view comments watching me watching you. Booty is dripping elsewhere, too OnlyFans thirst for thicc and thin refresh for a sexy room tour same audience, different allure.
Record my heartbeat, sleep and pace find new meds through tracked-app Fitness diagnose my body and mind my habits yours to find, define. Memory: one year from today SnapChat’s binge drink, filmed loneliness not well nor fit in break of night my-eyes-only, perhaps not quite.
Steady wage, hours grind for raise calculating risk-free bank account flows to Venmo of thoughtful buys no cents to spare to senseful eyes. With shirt low, ass-up, envied smile in Insta’s posts spy no discounts just funds to spend for feed’s filmed fun where followers can see I’ve won.
Watching, watchful, surveil, surveyed angles in my public private day.
Most “kitchen secrets” do not lie within the recipe of soup d’jour that customers dream about, nor in a steaming plate of penne alla vodka. As a matter of fact, it seems that food, while ostensibly the main ingredient in a chef’s career, is secondary to the kitchen atmosphere they command. Every dance with disaster and dinner shift gone awry is what makes for a truly authentique chef. Indeed, only an amateur would expect peace and quiet in the kitchen. Guests fail to pick up on the nuanced power dynamics between the plongeurs and chef de partie, let alone hear the aggressive comments exchanged behind closed doors. I spoke with two well-known St. Louis chefs: Ben Poremba and Sean Turner, who made their outlook on the culinary world abundantly clear. Cut from the same cloth, these two misfits have pursued deliciously different approaches to fine dining. First and foremost, Poremba—of Bengelina Hospitality
Group— is a pre-madonna, culture aficionado who finds preconceived, Bourdain-esque notions of kitchen culture to be “a thing of the past.” In his garish orange beanie and subtly stained chef’s uniform, he places strategic emphasis on the lack of drama in his kitchens. Then we have Turner— of Louie on Demun— a soft spoken chef whose subtle demeanor contrasts with his armoire of stories involving blood, burns, and good old fashioned kitchen banter. In learning about their experiences, I was able to peel back the layered secrets undergirding the chaos of the back of the house that diners are too absorbed by the wine list to even notice.
“Every dance with disaster and dinner shift gone awry is what makes for a truly authentique chef.”
Turner’s most terrifying kitchen memories are seared onto his body. The scar he received on his hand from stabbing himself while shucking oysters is one he carries with pride. It was the night he prepared food for the likes of Sean Brock, a 2010 and 2015 James Beard Award winner, and Kelly English, a renowned American chef. Turner then recounted the story of how he partially lost his thumb - evidently, a careless misuse of a mandolin is not to be taken lightly. In that moment, he was forced to grapple with the ramifications as the blood began to ooze on to his oil bottle. Even Cruz, the dishwasher on duty who tirelessly blew up glove after glove, was unable to successfully fit one over Turner’s muculent hand. Turner shuddered as he recalled that infamous night, saying, “That was a nightmare for me for sure.” Even on a sunny afternoon in St. Louis, Turner could still picture the tickets from years ago piling up as blood cascaded from his limp thumb.
Poremba’s restaurant memories lie within a slightly different flavor bracket, as he serves as both chef and owner of five restaurants, two retail shops, and his own label - all of which are local to the St. Louis area. His share of responsibilities leaves him with the displeasure of having to meet the needs of customers who may not share his artistic vision. When I asked if he feels the customer is not always right, he rolled his eyes, and, without hesitation, exclaimed, “I tell them straight to their face, or, well, not always.” As expected, Porembas’ façade of fortitude was on display as he continued, “Last night, we served this wedge salad that’s supposed to be picked up with your hands and eaten and a customer asked us to chop it up for them. So I did, but I told them that that’s not how it’s supposed to be eaten!” Poremba would prefer to be known as a chef who is dedicated to presentation, and not as one who is in the business of pleasing those with unrefined perceptions of cuisine.
“Turner’s most terrifying kitchen memories are seared onto his body.”
Design Matt Grossman
Helen Jiang
Ariana Kohl
Abbey Rose
Despite his intimidating presence, Poremba does not subscribe to the kitchen culture of rugged burns and scars. With a tinge of pride in his voice, he asserted, “I am very methodic with my cooking and I train my cooks to be the same way. My worst cut was from a meat slicer and I have a tiny scar on my finger.” Porembas’ body bears none of the typical markings of a chef, revealing his businessman-like approach to managing a kitchen. Conversely, Turner, in traditional chef fashion, has multiple tattoos; his most memorable is one of a triceratops. He explained, “I worked at The Royal on Kingshighway and Arsenal. We were a family; the whole staff got tattoos of a crown. I guess my version of the crown tattoo was a triceratops.” Turner’s presence is marked by an unmistakable air of non-conformity. He challenges the preconceived notion of the aggressive chef who believes his opinion reigns supreme, as there is a laid back reassurance to his personality. Turner does not bother with theatrics, he simply enjoys the act of cooking and the culture that accompanies it.
Yet there is one stereotype to which Turner is more than happy to conform. While most enjoy sipping mimosas and dipping bits of french toast in glossy syrup, Sean Turner would like to remind the world that he does, in fact, hate brunch. He scoffed and smiled, explaining, “I do hate brunch; it’s an industry thing for sure. A lot of us aren’t morning people. It’s just traumatic.” Conversely, Poremba could not disagree more, beginning, “No! I love brunch”. He continued, “You might be worn out on Sunday because you went out after Saturday night service, and then you have to wake up for brunch and people are not eating brunch leisurely.” The atmosphere he is describing is identical to Turner’s yet his blasé response is likely tied to the higher position he holds as an owner. Poremba even admitted to frequenting brunch as a customer, chuckling “I love cooking it and I love eating it!”
“I
I love eating it!”
“Well, isn’t that the very point of secrets?”
I thought I had hit the nail on the head when I asked about brunch, yet both Turner and Poremba were reluctant to divulge what exactly makes an early morning so “traumatic.” Could there truly be a seedy drug, alcohol, and party-fueled underbelly to the restaurant world? Poremba was quick to push back against this stereotype, noting that, “This urban underbelly is fictionalized and it exists in every industry.”
are provincial midwesterners. But there is a lot of culture in St. Louis and it all goes together,” said Poremba. Turner adds, “There are people taking chances on things they believe in. It’s kind of a part of the charm that St. Louis sort of falls off the map.” The food scene in St. Louis, while accessible to Missourians, remains hidden to the rest of the country. It is my conviction, however, that food in St. Louis is a secret worth sharing.
Turner was slightly more forthcoming. He painted a picture of coworkers sweating together on the line and then hunting for bars and the best late night food shortly after the end of a long shift. Turner revealed, “People who gravitate towards this line of work do so because you find people who will care and look out for you.” Restaurants are a haven for those with traumatic pasts, many of which are riddled with addiction. He continued, “Those people bring drugs and heavy drinking, so you definitely see a lot of that.” After an intoxicating night of strenuous work, Turner enjoys salted almonds and the occasional Chinese takeout that is stashed in the back of his fridge if he is “lucky.”
Turner and Poremba could agree that one of the closest kept food secrets is the city of St. Louis. “People on the coast disregard us. They think we
Kitchens are a breeding ground for comradery. There is beauty within the ever-present oddities of those drawn to the culture. Turner commented, “You work next to one person who maybe worked at a Michellen star restaurant overseas and on the other side here’s a guy who spent the last 8 years cooking barbecue.” This type of overlap is unheard of in traditional work environments, yet is ideal for cross pollination, especially in a highly diversified city such as St. Louis. So what makes a truly good chef? Is it talent and tenacity? Cuts and burns? The quite literal and simultaneously metaphorical melting pot? Or is it the unfiltered melodrama? Neither Poremba or Turner chose to directly answer this inquiry. Instead, they counter with a question of their own: “Well, isn’t that the very point of secrets?”
“Many of his late nights end only with eggs, rice, and beans.”
Styling
Hannah Hollingsworth Jane White Collage
It was the first stare, the one that lasted a little longer than usual. It hung in the air, saturated with certainty and somehow, simultaneously, teeming with apprehension. The language we spoke was one of gestures. The glances we gave each other brought with their impermanence the intuition that we were the same, that we shared the same struggles. Nothing specific about their appearance led to my initial suspicions. Familiarity was residue on their clothes, my glances only vaguely sensing its presence. Maybe in some ways their secret hid between the playfulness of their argyle sweater and the boldness of their glasses. Maybe between the folds of their trousers that draped so effortlessly. Only their gaze proved revealing. It was the familiar melancholy in their eyes that whispered “I know your secret because it's mine too.”
The theater was packed that day. Crowds flocked to watch a Streetcar Named Desire. Everyone wanted to see young Marlon Brando, and I was no exception. I stood in line waiting to buy popcorn, surrounded by people and overlapping conversations when our gazes aligned. That initial stare softened the chaos, making all the buzzing, the swarming, and the smell of popcorn melt together into one solid background. Their stare warmed me from the inside out while the coldness of the surrounding air pricked at my skin. My anxiety–a constant companion–paused for a moment, and everything became still. For that moment, it was just us. All that mattered was their brown eyes. Their eyes. Their eyes.
I can’t remember what force broke our trance. All I remember was the overwhelming smell of butter pervading my nostrils as my head started buzzing. The excitement of the moment, the rush of unspoken intimacy was promptly followed by the weight of a sinking heart. The haphazard linens I had thrown over those faceless doubts had come falling and I was forced to painfully trace their contours.
The questions circled endlessly: Was the fire burning under my cheeks, lit by their glace, obvious? Was I defined by my longing for their stare, their touch, their love? Did all this confirm the secret I had kept tucked away? Did this mean I had failed my social duty? And what if the answer was yes? I wanted to be more than that.
Desperate for answers, and even more desperate to see them again, I looked up. Our gazes intertwined. My doubts escaped me: I wanted them. I looked away in a futile effort to avoid the heaviness of our vulnerability. It was fruitless. Our gazes were uniquely ours. The truth was inescapable. The stillness of each look made the fire within us burn brighter. I wondered whether anyone else could feel the heat, the friction, the desire. I worried they did. Would anyone be able to smell the smoke? Would I suffocate from avoidance?
The questions of what to do next, if there even was a next, would not end as we settled in our row. Increasingly worried that the eye contact would be all we would share, my hope was reignited when I watched them sit a few seats down. As we exchanged glances throughout the night, my uncertainty dwindled. I was confident they harbored the same doubts and desires. I just needed them to confirm it. Mid-movie I rose and asserted, in our language of gazes, that this was the last chance we had. It was bold and reckless. The anxiety about what these feelings implied for the future seemed small compared to the urgency of being known.
a moment,
For that moment it was just us. All that mattered was
Their eyes met mine; they stood up. We were no longer whispering. We made our way to the bathroom.
On our walk there, they grabbed my hand. The tension between us was a buildup of all the energy our anxieties had forged, and now, needing quick relief, exploded the moment that we touched.
I was afraid people would see us holding hands. I was afraid they would look and see straight through the glass doors I had been hiding behind. Hiding from myself. When we arrived, I scanned to see if there were feet underneath the stalls. I looked back to make sure no one had seen. Although this tactic was a survival instinct, I felt ashamed. Nothing about our moment felt wrong. I hoped they hadn’t noticed any of my guilt, and if they had, selfishly, I hoped they were feeling it too.
They pulled me in. Before the bathroom door fully closed, they kissed me.
We said nothing. The kiss was the culmination of our unspoken conversation. Never had I learned so much without uttering a word. The kiss had resolved all questions. They wanted me. I wanted them.
I now owned the secret I had carried within me forever. The secret had become identifiable; an identity, part of my identity.
Our goodbye was just like our meeting: the most heartfelt part was left unsaid. At the doorway of the theater, still crowded with people, they waved goodbye. I met their gaze one last time. Their eyes were now a bittersweet place to visit. All I wanted was to shout who I was by simply holding their hand one last time. To do it without a care in the world because I would be doing it with them.
When assigned to write this piece on queer identity I was lost on how to approach it. The LGBTQ+ community is a large non-homogeneous group composed of diverse stories and perspectives. How could I capture the experience of being queer behind closed doors? To begin formulating the piece I talked with other members of the LGTBQ+ community about their struggle with identity and sexuality. Although experiences varied widely, everyone shared a moment when they felt they first claimed their identity.
Sometimes those moments of assertion were public and other times they were internal realizations. And sometimes those “moments'' were not moments at all. Instead, they were periods of self-growth where, as they got to know themselves, they also grew more comfortable in their identity.
Regardless, understanding one’s sexuality is a nonlinear process of introspecting, exploring, drawing conclusions, and changing those conclusions time and time again. Once that identity is recognized, however, it is a lifetime of claiming it.
Navigating the already complex topic of sexuality is made even more difficult in a heteronormative society. Nothing about the systems in place makes the exploration simple. Queer folk are forced to become master jugglers as they learn to balance the strict, confining societal norms forced upon them with their own truth. The stigmatization makes meeting someone at an event more than just figuring out if there is attraction. It is a matter so much more profound than that. It can bring up feelings of shame and failure, feelings dictated by a society not built for them.
In an interview about their novel, On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Voung talks about queerness: “Queer people understand that failure is the beginning of their identity. They failed to fit in, they failed to meet the standards of hegemonic society, they failed to please their parents, to please the little town they’re stuck in and so queerness right away demands of itself a survival beyond failure. So many queer folks find pleasure through failure, through trial and error, through stumbling forward and understand failure is not death.”
Queerness is beautiful in its resilience. It looks like staring just one more time, asking the same question one more time, exploring the answer one more time, claiming an ever-changing identity one more time.
Shoot Coordinator
Elena Egge
Design by
Sara Frankenthaler Photography
Violet DeLuca
Trey Hepp
Adam Sandler movies, especially the bad ones—but I’m not going to tell you anything more than that. Why should I? Why would I? It’s a guilty pleasure, isn’t it? I’m embarrassed by it, right? Why should you know about the object—the artifact—that I’m utterly ashamed to love? Yes, the embarrassment makes me angry, frustrated, and even confused, but the alternative reality of sharing our secret obsessions is not necessarily freeing. It drags us into rough and dangerous waters.
Internal humiliation is only half of the equation. It is true that our pleasures are condemned by a jury of the mind; they are not given a trial, nor are they presented before a panel of our peers. Instead, we instinctively police our own joy. We authoritatively partition pieces of ourselves. Perhaps we are influenced by the general unpopularity of the fixation we’ve discovered we enjoy. Or maybe we keep our enjoyment a secret to intentionally avoid becoming a part of the mainstream. Ultimately, there is a strange paradox in having guilty pleasures: we find ourselves dissatisfied with satisfaction.
and its contained existence offer the individual an opportunity to hide in plain sight. The greater harm is the misrepresentation of the individual that is caused when guilty pleasures are revealed. They can be, at times, shockingly inconsistent with the façade one presents to the world. I still believe they are insignificant, but when we are coerced or forced to reveal ourselves, we lose the ability to be ourselves exactly as we’d like to be. The interpretation of the individual is adjusted and a private truth, however small, irrelevant, trivial, or cartoonish, is made public. It is my belief that there is a liberating aspect to protecting pieces of the self from others. Preserving oddities that would otherwise be contested and purged if not for their maintained seclusion.
The guilty pleasure, you see, gives us power to reconcile the uncertain, insecure, and contradictory pieces of ourselves. You should be yourself; there are advantages, however, to being strategic in what you reveal and when.
I don’t feel less myself when hiding my guilty pleasures. I feel as though I have vast secret knowledge, ready to use in a moment of crisis. By keeping guilty pleasures in the dark, we are demanding privacy, secrecy, and power for ourselves. We become complex. We maintain control.
What I am defining as guilty pleasures, I should clarify, are the superficial, kitschy objects that bring us an embarrassed joy. Guilty pleasures, though, tend to function more as signifiers rather than as actual likes or dislikes. They are heuristics that cause us to draw outrageous and narrow-minded conclusions. What do we think about the person who confesses on the first day of class to a crowded classroom that their guilty pleasure is celebrity gossip? How do we evaluate peers who reveal that they can’t help but love the Kardashians or some off-brand house–lodge–beach combo show where a bunch of young
hot singles talk about being hot and young and single (probably in British or Australian accents)? We worry about guilty pleasures and label them as such because they push us into a void of vulnerability. We hand over authorship of our own story to the masses when we admit to our once-protected indulgences.
Even though guilty pleasure rhetoric is entirely subjective, it is worthy of conversation or, at the very least, to serve as the subject of a magazine photo shoot. So what do we do about these special little interests and obsessions? There’s nothing wrong with what we’ve come to categorize as guilty pleasures: the music you listen to, the movies you watch, the food you eat. These are not indications of moral rightness; rather, they are hyper-personal. As such, we should be selfish in our indulgences. We should embrace the strange pleasures we can extract from unusual, embarrassing things because it is rare and beautiful and special and great. And if something brings you a surprising, albeit somewhat embarrassing sense of joy, why do you need to share it with anyone? And why should anyone want to know?
Pleasures become ‘guilty’ when we imagine what would happen if others found out about them. We have convinced ourselves that others need to know that we are in on the joke of our own joy. I am embarrassed by my guilty pleasures because of you. Maybe it is immature to place the blame of my own insecurities on others, but I believe I am being justifiably petulant. Like any insecurity, this feeling is rooted in fear. I’m terrified of the revelation of my guilty pleasures for two reasons. The first is unforgiving and disappointing; I’m worried about what you will think of me once you know them. The second, though, is stronger and passionately selfish. Once you know, once you are aware of the joys I keep secret, can I continue to enjoy them? This is my problem with the guilty pleasure as a public spectacle, as an ice breaker, and as a point of pride. I don’t want to sacrifice my love for something for the sake of honesty, especially contrived and unwanted honesty. I demand privacy. I want to keep my guilty pleasures secret. I want to embrace my undisclosed delights and reject your need to embarrass me.
So if you read all the way through this hoping to learn my guilty pleasures, I’m very sorry, but it’s not going to happen.
Writing Sydney Greer Design Courtney Huang Sara Frankenthaler
collage by Morgan Simers
When the news broke, I was sitting on the boat dock at my sleepaway camp. Despite never having more than a bar of service, buried deep in the woods of the Adirondack Park, I watched the dreaded message appear on my locked phone. Serenity seemed to shatter all around me, leaving nothing but a tiny glowing notification hovering on the otherwise empty screen. Thunderstorms are frequent in the mountains, but I had never felt the ground rattle through every ligament in my body.
This torrential downpour was just the beginning. History had regressed, this time unfathomably backward. The stages of grief were instantaneous.
Denial. This overwhelming storm will pass. They always do, right?
The grounds pool with water and the rivers flood, but the sun always breaks through, restoring peace and order. We are in control. We WILL take back control. The Supreme Court opinion had been leaked months ago - they must have changed it, right? WRONG.
Wishful thinking.
Anger. How the FUCK could they do this to us? In 2022? How DARE they force us to choose between their lives and being criminally prosecuted?
I felt anger for those who cannot afford transportation costs to reach safe states. Anger for those who will be forced to have children that serve as a constant reminder of their trauma. Anger for those who know they cannot raise a child and wish to avoid subjecting a child to a life of hardship. Rage erupted inside of me. I felt powerless, but not nearly as powerless as so many other women.
Bargaining. Well, maybe this is temporary. It will be overturned again. All around the world people will call out the United States for our backward momentum. Protests will persist. Court cases will carry on until finally the ability to choose is rightfully re-turned. If we just make them see our pain. Make them see how this CLEARLY violates the separation of church and state. If they understand that this is not a Christian country, that basing morality in the word of the good Christian God is NOT American. Maybe then.
Depression. My children may never know a world where the right to an abortion is guaranteed. The endless work to expand access to abortion services, especially to minority groups who, when presenting health concerns, are regularly invalidated by medical providers. All for nothing. The count- less hours spent walking patients into clinics, protecting them from the vile, degrading words of ignorant protesters, for nothing. All because a group of men decided it was immoral.
removing a right to privacy
Well, what’s moral about
Acceptance never came. How could I possibly accept that, in an instant, a right for which people had been fighting tirelessly for over six decades was just gone? My gaze drifted over to the teenage girls in my care, some of them as old as 15. Without access to their phones and the internet, they would have no way of knowing that a right previously guaranteed to them was no longer protected. How could I possibly break this news to them? That they will grow up in a country where they no longer have control of their bodies.
These young women look up to me as an inspiration - their safety net of trust and acceptance. My heart instantaneously detonated, faster than the grenade sent tumbling down from the high hill of the Supreme Court. Do I tell them? Explode the bubble of safety formed in our wilderness oasis and reveal the tragedy of their female futures? Or do I simply leave them in the dark? What they don’t know won’t hurt them, right?
Of course not. There is no solution. No right answer, no clear path. Just one more moment for the history books to recount female suffering. One more moment for men who can never know the heartbreaking sacrifice of seeking an abortion to claim they know better than the women who have. Our voices seem to scream into a soundproof abyss, our cries muffled by the suffocating patriarchy. No healing, no progress. Just pain.
My campers were just the beginning, though. How would millions of women, many of them minorities lacking access to adequate healthcare, survive in a world where they no longer have this essential right?
22 million. NPR estimates that about 22 million women no longer have access to abortion following the overturning of Roe. That is more people than live in the entire state of New York. These 22 million women will now have to decide whether they will risk criminal prosecution, unsafe backroom abortions, or carrying children to term for which they simply cannot care.
In the state of Missouri, not only is receiving an abortion now illegal but crossing state lines to receive one is criminally prosecutable. Once able to access almost a dozen abortion clinics, residents of Missouri must now cross over into Illinois to find merely one. I am barely scratching the surface of the turmoil that the decision has inflicted and will inflict upon the women of Missouri, and other states like it. States wherein women are now forced to make unimaginable sacrifices for the sake of a law that will never impact the majority of those who wrote it. States like Missouri, wherein women will surreptitiously subject their bodies to mental and physical traumas, in efforts, ironically, to protect themselves.
Statistics from NPR, "66 clinics stopped providing abortions in the 100 days since Roe fell."
