Hi, I'm Rachel Hills.
I'm a London-based (via Sydney, Australia) writer, researcher and contributor to publications including the Sydney Morning Herald, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, Girlfriend and more. I'm also writing a book about Gen Y, sex and identity. This is my blog.
I'd love to hear from you. Submit a question to my Ask Rachel column here, send me an email here, connect with me on Twitter here or find out more about my paid work at www.rachelhills.net.
I'm a London-based (via Sydney, Australia) writer, researcher and contributor to publications including the Sydney Morning Herald, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, Girlfriend and more. I'm also writing a book about Gen Y, sex and identity. This is my blog.
I'd love to hear from you. Submit a question to my Ask Rachel column here, send me an email here, connect with me on Twitter here or find out more about my paid work at www.rachelhills.net.
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Posts tagged "sex"
“Not suitable for children.” A short story about the sexualisation of my childhood.
When I was in my final years of primary/elementary school, one of the favourite shows in my class was the original recipe Degrassi. They used to screen it on the ABC in the late afternoons, alongside other such gems as Ready Or Not and Vidiot (still bummed that show was cancelled when I was finally old enough to audition, because I think I would have rocked it): ie, prime tween viewing time.
Anyway. One day, I suppose shortly after the original series had ended, the ABC announced that it would be screening a full-length Degrassi TV movie. My class - especially the girls, but I think also the boys - was in a tizz of excitement. Our favourite show! Made into a movie!
We talked about non-stop, and implored our teacher to watch this incredible, incredible TV show.
And then it happened. Or to be more precise, the scene in the video above happened. What the YouTube uploader calls “the most famous moment in Canadian TV history.” I still remember it now, twenty years later.
“Joey Jeramiah spends his summer dating Caitlin and fucking Tessa.”
We slunk back into the classroom the next day, unable to meet our teacher’s eye. And she was all, “Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting.”
It’s possible that she wouldn’t have thought the show was suitable for her 10-year-old students even before that, what with its storylines about mono, teen pregnancy, HIV, and “all the way with Stephanie Kaye.”
But there was a feeling that day that we had somehow crossed a line.
TEDxLoughborough: Understanding The Sex Myth
A couple of months ago, I gave a talk about my forthcoming book The Sex Myth at TEDxLoughborough, speaking about everything from my adolescent insecurities, to how many sexual partners the average college student has in any given year, to The Sex Myth itself: the idea that what you do in your sex life reveals the truth of who you really are.
The talk is online now, and I’d love it if you would give it a whirl (and please, share it with your friends if you like it). A couple of early reviews, which I think sum it up the good and the not-so-good pretty nicely (and amusingly, in the second case):
“A must watch for anyone who’s felt their sexual life questioned, criticized, or had themselves defined by their sex lives.” - Elizabeth, Facebook.
“A horrifying yet fascinating window into the world of insecure women with a shopping list of issues surrounding sex.” - Bokehpete, YouTube.
You are. Probably. No seriously, you almost certainly are.
My latest at Daily Life.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks tearing my hair out over my manuscript as I prepared to send it to my editor this week, picking apart the holes and despairing over how I would ever fill them.
But last night, as I moved all the chapters out of their separate files and into one big one, I experienced a moment of awe.
I did it! I wrote a book! Sure, it’s not perfect and there are about a hundred things I’d like to change about it. But there are 70,000 words on the page, and they are mostly smart and interesting. And just as importantly, they reflect the vision I had when I began working on this project five years ago.
And in that moment at 3am that seemed pretty amazing. Hell, even now, 20 minutes after I sent it off, it seems pretty amazing.
One step closer.
Now for the months of edits and revisions.
“Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights…America is at its best when we champion the freedom and dignity of every human being.” - Hillary Clinton
(via fyeahpolitics)
(via thesexmyth)
Like Hannah Horvath, I’m two weeks from book deadline, so I’ll keep this brief. In fact, I’ll just rip it straight from an email I just sent to a friend, with a couple of additions here and there.
I have been somewhat annoyed by the sex in Season 2 Girls. I feel like the first season was most realistic in its banality (some of the the stuff that happened was offbeat, but the sex was never the point of the show), but the second season has been more sensationalist.
I figured this was a response to all the praise the show got last year for its “gritty”, “unglamorous” depictions of sex, but the exchange between Hannah and her editor in last night’s episode made me think it might be something a little different.
Editor: Where’s the sexual failure? Where’s the pudgy faced liquid semen and sadness? What I’m getting here is a lot of friendship, you know, it’s very Jane Austen, but you know, we were talking about Anais Nin, you know, your life on your back. Right? That’s actually a great title. My Life On My Back.
Hannah: Okay, well I did have sex with a teenager last month, and I’m happy to talk about it.
Editor: I would love to hear about that.
Hannah: I was scared that maybe it was the kind of thing you could get arrested for.
Editor: That’s the kind of stuff we need. You know what I mean? In fact, I just had an epiphany. If you’re not getting fucked right now, make it up. Can you make it a novel?
A meta-commentary on the pressure Lena Dunham is under to make the show less about friendship and more about down and dirty twenty-something sex lives?
As well as, of course, a meta-commentary on how young female writers are asked to exploit their personal lives to get work. (See also: Hannah’s cocaine assignment from the xoJane.com parody, JazzHate.com.)
