Elana K. Arnold

“Perhaps that is where our choice lies -- in determining how we will meet the inevitable end of things, and how we will greet each new beginning.”

“Maybe they're not "real" orgasms, since they're always when I'm alone. It's like that question: If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Probably solo orgasms don't count if a boy isn't there to witness them. To cause them.”

“It's not new, our valuation of young female people for how they can serve, satisfy, and satiate. Our girls are both the platter and the meal, and we eat them up--we eat their meat, we lap up their sweetness, we covet and control and consume.”

“As long as there have been women," Mom told me, "there have been ways to punish them for being women.”