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Stassi Schroeder: A Prenup Can Be a Romantic Experience. Let Me Explain.


Basic Bride is a new wedding column from Vanderpump Rules star Stassi Schroeder. If you’re looking for advice, stop right here. But read on if you want honest, hilarious commentary on the trials of planning a wedding that millions of people will watch.

When I was younger, before I even got into relationships I thought could end in marriage, I always assumed I would get a prenup. Maybe it’s because both of my parents have been divorced three times. I don’t know. But to me, prenup doesn’t feel like a dirty word.

I know the very idea of a prenup seems contradictory to some people. They say, “Why marry if you’re planning for your divorce?” That’s not how I feel about it, though. I mean, no one goes into a marriage assuming divorce is an option. If you are, you shouldn’t be getting married. Other people say, “Just have a commitment ceremony.” But we want the same rights as a married couple. Marriage is a contract—and just like with any contract, there are rules, guidelines, and expectations. I think everyone should consider it, regardless of what you have in the bank.

People are surprised that I talk about getting a prenup so easily, but that’s how we should talk about it. There shouldn’t be this stigma about it. Prenups for so long have this sexist connotation—people think of gold diggers and things like that. Men who have a lot of money and are trying to protect it from women. That’s not what a prenup is about. It’s a mutually beneficial agreement so both partners feel safe and taken care of.

My fiancé, Beau, and I didn’t need to have a big conversation about it—you know, where one of us sat the other down and said, “How would you feel about a prenup?” He’s from a family of divorce too, so we both just knew that’s what we would do. And the more Beau and I talk about it, the more I realize we’re so in sync. We’re able to have those hard conversations. If I’m going to commit to someone for the rest of my life, I need to be able to talk about uncomfortable things like finances. I’ve found the whole experience to be romantic and sweet, in a way. We’re close enough to discuss anything. Nothing is off limits.



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1 in 16 Women Report Their First Experience With Sexual Intercourse Was Rape, Per New Study


A new study of government data has revealed a heartbreaking and maddening statistic about women and sexual assault. Per PBS, new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week notes that for one in 16 women, their first experience with sexual intercourse was forced with rape or coercion.

That number is shocking, but how did the researchers arrive at it? According to PBS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention questioned a sample of 13,310 women, ages 18 to 44 about marriage, divorce, family life, reproductive health, and more between 2011 and 2017. (It should be noted that men were not asked about their first time and women with no history of vaginal intercourse and girls 17 or younger were not included in this sample.)

Still, a horrific 6.5 percent of the women questioned said their first time having sex was non-consensual. If that number is representative, it would mean about 3.3 million women in America are in a similar position. The average age of the women at the time of these assaults was about 15.6, with seven percent of the women telling researchers they were younger than 10 at the time of the assault, 29 percent saying they were between the ages of 11 and 14, and 39 percent saying the event happened between the ages of 15 and 17.

“Quite honestly, that’s the tip of the iceberg,” Laura Hawks, the co-author on the report and a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, said, noting that if the sample had included girls or women older than 45 the number might be even higher.

As women know all too well, the effects of sexual assault are real and can last a lifetime. Thirty percent of women whose first experience of sex was rape or assault reported an unwanted pregnancy later on, compared to 18 percent of women who said they made a choice to have sex for the first time. Women forced into sex also were slightly more likely to have had abortion and problems ovulating or menstruating.

One of the reasons for the study, according to Hawks, is to inform physicians about caring for patients who may have experienced a trauma. “Any physical exam can be traumatizing for someone who has encountered physical or sexual violence in the past,” she said. Patients should be able to grant permission before being asked tough questions and physicians should be sensitive in performing genital exams.

While these numbers are tough to read, studies like this one will hopefully prove vital in helping society recognize how pervasive violence against women truly is and inspire more medical professionals and people in general to believe their stories.



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The CW In the Dark Review: It's a Compelling Look at the Blind Experience


The CW‘s new series In the Dark hasn’t even premiered yet, but it’s already experienced a bit of controversy. Attendees at the annual Television Critics Association gathering this winter wanted to know why the network didn’t cast a blind actress for the leading role. (The series, if you’re unfamiliar, centers on a selfish, hard-drinking blind woman named Murphy who stumbles upon what she thinks is her friend’s dead body in an alley. When detectives show up and there’s no body to be found, she launches an investigation of her own.) Nuanced roles like this don’t come around often, and The CW’s decision to cast a sighted actress, Perry Mattfeld, came after auditioning several blind performers.

But according to the show’s blind consultant, Lorri Bernson, this was the right decision. She explained at the TCAs that a guide dog for a blind lead actress wouldn’t understand the concept of filming multiple TV scene takes. (Murphy’s dog plays an important role in her story.) “If I were to repeat what I just did, even three or four times, when I repeat it’s because [the dog] made an error,” she said, according to Deadline. “He would slowly break down because he did not know what he was doing wrong.” It’s worth nothing, however, that the show could’ve cast a blind actress and just not had a guide dog in the story.

Bernson wasn’t the only person on set making sure In the Dark accurately represented the blind experience. The CW also hired a blind writer, Ryan McKnight, and a blind actress, Calle Walton, to play one of Murphy’s friends, Chloe (who doesn’t have a guide dog when we first meet her). “I’d say it’s fairly accurate,” Walton tells Glamour about the show’s depictions. “They tried really hard to stay as accurate as possible. I think they did really well.”

Calle Walton on In the Dark.

The CW

One thing In the Dark does get right is that the blind characters are completely in control. There’s a murder mystery at the center of it, but the real thrill is watching Murphy live such an imperfect, independent life. She goes out; she smokes cigarettes; she has sex—these are things we rarely see blind characters do on screen. Think about Blake Lively in All I See Is You: Her character is completely dependent on her partner until she gets her vision back. Murphy doesn’t need anyone, vision or not.

Chloe is a teenager, but she exudes the same kind of agency: She fights with her dad and goes to public school. When she gets her period for the first time, she’s embarrassed and calls on cooler, older Murphy for help. She’s a regular teenager, and Murphy is a regular woman. They’re both so much more than their blindness, and Walton is excited about that.

“Blind people aren’t just useless lumps,” she says. “We can do anything anyone else can do. We just have to do it differently. Blind people can do anything that they set their hearts on.” Adds Mattfeld, “It’s a story about a woman who is so much more than what other people would like to say she is.”

That being said, Mattfeld did everything she could to make Murphy’s physicality as realistic as possible. She frequently consulted both Bernson and Walton throughout filming. “The story is loosely inspired by Lorri,” she says. “Before filming, I spent quite a bit of time with her in her house. I watched her get ready for bed. I watched her cook in her kitchen. I learned how to text using her audio settings. I watched her use her guide dog. Obviously, that part of Murphy was a challenge enough for me, and I recognize not only did I have a responsibility but how much I had to learn.”



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Caelynn Miller-Keyes on Colton Underwood and Her *Bachelor* Experience


Caelynn Miller-Keyes wasn’t sure she liked Colton Underwood at first. “I think [I was asked what I thought] the day after Bachelor in Paradise aired, and I said, ‘Uh, not really into him. I think he’s kind of a jerk,'” she told Glamour a few weeks before The Bachelor premiered. As the season progressed, though, her opinion changed, and she was able to open up to him about serious, more personal issues—like in tonight’s episode. In a watershed Bachelor moment, Caelynn revealed on her one-on-one date that she was sexually assaulted. “It’s the most difficult thing in the world,” she told him. “It’s affected every single person in my life. It’s so painful.”

People magazine published the story about Caelynn’s reveal before the episode aired. “My life was flipped upside down,” she tells the magazine. “And even though I’ve moved on, it is something I will struggle with forever.”

The incident happened during Caelynn’s sophomore year of college at a party. “These situations happen when you’re safe,” she tells People. “They don’t necessarily happen when you’re walking down a dark alley. It’s when you’re comfortable and when you let your guard down.”

Viewers took to Twitter in droves and commended Caelynn for speaking out—as did Colton on their actual date. “He’s a really great guy, and he’s really grown on me,” Caelynn tells Glamour.

Caelynn, who is the reigning Miss North Carolina, was the first girl Colton kissed in the house, and they’ve had a deep connection ever since. Of course, this only grew during tonight’s episode. She says she did “extensive research” on Colton beforehand and was drawn to his philanthropic efforts. “I was hospitalized as a child and given a 10% chance of ever walking again, and I love that he works with children’s hospitals,” she says.

As she advances further and further into this competition, Caelynn admits she’s worried about heartbreak, but she’s optimistic. “I’ve had a lot of heartbreak in my life, so I would hate for that to happen again, but [you have to put] yourself out there,” she says.

To learn more about Caelynn Miller-Keyes, follow her on Instagram here.

If you’d like to speak to someone about sexual assault, don’t hesitate to reach out to RAINN’s hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673).





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In the Age of #MeToo, Will Christine Blasey Ford’s Experience Be the Same as Anita Hill’s?


A judge lauded by conservatives gets picked by the president to become the next Supreme Court justice. As he travels the path to Senate confirmation, he unexpectedly confronts graphic allegations of sexual misconduct put forth by a respected female academic. The process is thrown into an uproar—as is the nation.

Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford in 2018? Or Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill in 1991?

On Monday, once again, a woman will go before members of the U.S. Senate to accuse a SCOTUS nominee of wrongdoing.

And it’s hard to ignore that the cases have similarities even though they are playing out nearly 30 years apart.

First a refresher: Republican President George H.W. Bush made Thomas a SCOTUS nominee in July 1991 after Justice Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement. Similarly, Republican President Donald Trump this July nominated Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Anita Hill stepped forward to testify and accuse Thomas of a pattern of harassment when they worked together that included graphic porn references and other inappropriate behavior. At the time, Hill was a law professor; the head of the all-white-male Judiciary committee was a Democratic Delaware senator named Joe Biden.

Now, Kavanaugh is in the hot seat. Christina Blasey Ford, a professor of psychology, had initially asked her identity to be kept confidential when she wrote to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) alleging that Kavanaugh drunkenly assaulted her at at party when they were both in high school. Ford says she’s willing to testify to what happened before Senate Judiciary committee, which is now controlled by Republicans (but is more diverse in terms of gender and race, including four women members).

Republican Sen. John Kennedy, a member of the Judiciary Committee, says both the accuser and accused will have their chance to be heard next week, according to multiple news reports Monday evening.

Kavanaugh denied Ford’s claims in a statement issued through the White House earlier Monday: “I have never done anything like what the accuser describes—to her or to anyone,” the judge said, adding that he’d be glad to talk to the committee “to refute this false allegation, from 36 years ago, and defend my integrity.” Decades earlier, Thomas had emphatically denied engaging in the crude behavior Hill described.

Of course there are serious differences in the cases. Ford’s story recounts attempted rape, not harassment. She’s also coming forward in the #MeToo era, when there is an active conversation about believing women. (Listen to Hill’s questioning by the all-male panel, and you’ll instantly see that wasn’t top of anyone’s mind.)

Duke Professor Emerita Karla Holloway suspects that this time will be different with a Judiciary Committee whose female members include the ranking Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, as well as Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Kamala Harris of California, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

“The powerfully present women on the judiciary will temper the aggressive hyper-masculinity we saw in play during the Thomas/Hill moment,” Holloway says: “[They] are clearly positioned and comfortable with challenging and naming that kind of aggression, and I think the men on the committee are aware enough of that potential to worry over how they publicly exercise their privilege. In this case, the political divide will be more telling than gender.”

FiveThirtyEight, in a look back at polling surrounding the Thomas confirmation, notes that his nomination was popular with the public. Not so with Kavanaugh: Recent surveys show Americans totally split on whether he should be confirmed.

In many ways, Hill arguably helped spark the change we are seeing today. Around the time of her testimony and after, polls found many more Americans considered workplace harassment a “very serious” issue. But Hill certainly paid a price for going public. Critics didn’t believe her; some were angry at her for upending the confirmation process for an African-American judge. Biden himself told Teen Vogue last year that he owed Hill an apology for what happened in the Thomas hearings, at which witnesses who backed her up weren’t allowed to testify.

By comparison, Ford, has gotten much more support—fairly understandable given the #MeToo movement, a fast-approaching midterm election focused heavily on women, and a social media-rich environment that didn’t exist when Hill took the stand. (Social media also means more opportunities for people to troll Ford—notably including the president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., who mocked Ford and Feinstein on Instagram.

Monday afternoon, President Trump defended Kavanaugh as having a spotless record—but, as Jeff Mason of Reuters reported, “signaled he would approve of a ‘little delay’ in the confirmation process” if necessary so as to go through a “complete process.”

Asked by reporters if Kavanaugh had volunteered to withdraw his name in light of the allegations, President Trump replied, “What a ridiculous question.” Decades earlier, then-President Bush had also come to the defense of his nominee, declaring his “total confidence” in Thomas.

Holloway thinks it’s not the allegation that will trouble Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Instead, she says, “His poorly advised ‘categorical denial’ will shift the question from past conduct to present truthfulness before the committee.”

Back when she confronted Thomas, Anita Hill was attacked for her character. She was denigrated as a “a bit nutty and a little bit slutty.” So far, the GOP has not resorted that precise kind of tactic to try to defend Kavanaugh. Instead, they are turning to political process. For example, the head of the Republican National Committee, Ronna Romney McDaniel, chose late Monday not to go after Kavanaugh’s accuser, but Sen. Feinstein, the top Democrat on Senate Judiciary, for doing “a disservice to everyone involved” with how she’s handled the allegations.

If Kavanaugh’s path to confirmation will mirror Thomas’ is still a looming question. Questioning got rough for Anita Hill when she spoke publicly about Justice Thomas, and it’s reasonable to expect some of the same if Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the Senate about Brett Kavanaugh.

When she does, America will have a front-row seat to see how much times have really changed. Or how much they haven’t.

Celeste Katz is senior political reporter for Glamour. Send news tips, questions, and comments to celeste_katz@condenast.com.





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'Eighth Grade' Is Awkward, Heartbreaking, and Beautiful—Just Like Your Middle School Experience


Watching Bo Burnham’s debut feature, Eighth Grade, evokes the same feeling of hearing your voice on a recording—it exposes you and cuts to your core. The film follows 13-year-old Kayla, played by a pitch-perfect Elsie Fisher, throughout her last week of middle school. Kayla’s a pimple-prone girl so shy she wins the “most quiet” superlative at her school’s assembly. (Has any award ever been so cruel?)

But she finds her community on YouTube, where she makes little-seen videos. In them, she muses about typical adolescent concerns—”putting yourself out there” and “how to be your true self”—and becomes the fullest version of herself. She has a false bravado, the kind I remember employing as a tween hiding behind my parent’s desktop screen on Myspace. Kayla ends each video with the catchphrase, “Gucci!” in the same way I made my AOL greeting “hey sexxi biatch!” because, at the time, it felt like a “cool” thing to do.

With the threat of high school looming, Kayla decides to take some of that online confidence IRL. She approaches her crush during a fire drill and tells him she sends nudes. She forces herself to attend a popular girl’s pool party, despite knowing she’ll be miserable there. While home alone she practices giving a blow job on a banana.

A24

I had to cover my eyes during some these scenes because they were so relatable. When I was Kayla’s age, I told boys lies to impress them, there were so many parties I had to psych myself up to go to—parties I still have to psych myself up to go to—and I’ll admit it, I tried out the banana trick.

But there was no scene more real or painful for me in the film than when a high school boy, Riley, offers Kayla a ride home. (Warning: Spoilers ahead.) Riley’s a floppy-haired bro who’s all rib cage and skinny limbs; he wears a flat-topped hat and you just know he has weed in his glove box. After Riley drops off the other passengers in the car, he tells Kayla that it’s pretty weird he’s all the way up in the front and she’s in the backseat. How can they get a chance to talk? So he pulls the car over, joins her in the back, and asks Kayla to play truth or dare.

Shocked, Kayla lets out a meek “OK” that sounds like it was caught in her throat. She picks truth to start, and when Riley asks her how far she’s gone, she can’t even look up from her lap. Things escalate when Riley dares Kayla to take her shirt off, and she compulsively shouts out, “No!” She’s clearly been holding it in for the duration of the game.

Riley immediately stops, gets back in the front seat, and drives her home. He doesn’t push Kayla to keep playing the game, or try any other tactics to hook up. He gets that nothing’s going to happen, but that doesn’t mean he stops manipulating her. As they drive off he chastises her, saying, “Now you’re going to have your first hook up at a party with some asshole, and you’re not going to be good at it. He’s going to tell all of his friends about it, and you’re going to get made fun of and feel like shit. Do you want that? This was about you, I was trying to help you, OK?” Throughout the game, and the subsequent ride home, Kayla tells Riley she’s sorry eight times. How many times does he apologize? Zero.

A24

That subtle manipulation—boys trying to get me to do something I wasn’t ready to do—was something I encountered many times in my adolescence. There’s the time two boys offered me a shot of vodka and then started simultaneously feeling me up. When I looked uncomfortable they told me to relax because they were clearly just playing around. Or the time I stuck my hand down an older guy’s pants during a group game of Truth or Dare and blurted out that it was “hairy.” The whole group laughed; when I turned red, they all told me to chill. It’s just a game. In those moments I always thought I was the uncool one. I was just so desperate for a boy to pay attention to me that I was willing to fight through my apprehensions and do what they wanted. It wasn’t until much later that I realized they could tell how much I wanted their approval and were taking advantage of that.

Kayla and I aren’t alone in this. When I started speaking with friends about their murky first encounters with the opposite sex, they all had stories to tell. Morgan, a grad student from Washington, told me, “The boy I had a crush on convinced me to send him naked pictures of myself throughout the year. If he hadn’t received one recently, he blatantly ignored me at school and would walk past me as if I didn’t exist. If I had sent one, he made a huge deal of telling his friends how ‘cute’ I was.”

Or Shira, a teacher in California, who said, “A guy really pressured me to let him finger me. I’d never done it before and was so nervous, but I decided I trusted him. Once he started he laughed at me, telling me I should, ‘At least trim down there every once in a while.'” And Blake, a New York–based editor, who shared that, “Boys would always ask, ‘How far have you gone?’ Not wanting to sound uncool I felt pressured to lie and exaggerate my experience so I wouldn’t be overlooked.”

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Although Kayla had the courage to stop Riley when she no longer felt comfortable, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t taken advantage of. She was alone in the car, Riley is many years older than her, and her body language was very clear. Kayla was desperate for his approval—and his attention—and Riley traded on that currency to try to “get some.” It’s not an assault, but it is a boy directly wielding his power over a vulnerable girl, something we’ve discussed time and time again in the #metoo movement. And unfortunately, it’s a common experience in girlhood. It’s time we start having these conversations even earlier, with both boys and girls, about power and consent—before it’s too late.

Eighth Grade is in theaters everywhere on Friday, July 13

Samantha Leach is an assistant editor at Glamour.

Photos: A24



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