Meet Our Editors: Nadia Gerassimenko

Nadia is one of our two dedicated assistant editors; simply put, Nadia is a ball of magic wrapped up into one lady. Not only is she brilliant, empathic and truly a great human being (like, literally, she's a magical fairy or something--we swear), she's been dedicated to Luna Luna for a long time now.

In her tenure with Luna Luna, she's copy-edited, written, edited, promoted and done the nitty-gritty work (like posting content), which--as any editor knows--is the most important, arguably. She keeps the whole ship moving, on a sea of glitter and stars. Really, she deserves all the pretty words and adjectives. 

We're SO lucky to have Nadia. Here's us screaming it from the rooftop. 

Nadia also runs the site Tepid Autumn, a beautiful coterie of her thoughts and work. She's also the author of Moonchild Dreams, which you should check out here.

Some her work is below:

INTERVIEW WITH LEZA CANTORAL ABOUT HER NOVELETTE PLANET MERMAID

WHICH LANA DEL REY SONG IS YOUR LIFE ANTHEM? HERE'S OURS

4 GRAPHIC NOVELS YOU SHOULD READ ON HALLOWEEN

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About Nadia: 

I like to call myself a Moonchild, poet-writer, lover of new wave and gothic rock music, horror movies and games aficionado. I was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan. However, most of my life I lived in Montreal, Canada with my parents and grandmother. And as of 2015, I had relocated to New Jersey as a permanent citizen. I studied Marketing in college and have recently incorporated the field into my everyday professional life although my main focus is still on editorial work.

Having been writing poetry and prose since I was 14 as a creative outlet, having stopped for a while, and having resumed the activity again in my mid-twenties, I realized that words impassion me and not exclusively in terms of writing words. I love reading words. I am also pedantic about proper grammar, and I enjoy the process of learning rules I'm not aware of or forgot about. I like to break them on occasion, too. Thus, I decided to give it a go...become a freelancing editor. So far the journey has been a challenging yet exhilarating and fulfilling experience. I hope to be a full-time editor some day, although, sometimes, it feels like I already am. 

On the side, I am also an assistant editor and staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. It's a wonderful online journal with very talented, intelligent, and sweet people. We write about subjects that can make one feel uncomfortable for their unconventionality, that deliver out-of-the-box thinking, and that are on a darker, edgier side. We curate pieces by writers that are deeply personal and vulnerable. More importantly, we are an open and compassionate community. 

It's not easy for artists today (was it ever?), so I like to support new and indie artists I discover and am fond of by sharing some of their work, spreading the word about them, and offering guest posts on my site. Now and then I like to blurb about works of art that left a permanent imprint in me. If you'd like to be featured on my site, please contact me, I'm always happy to oblige.

Call For Submission: Editors Wanted & Our March Special Issue

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Luna Luna is seeking two new assistant editors/curators for our 1) Intersectional Feminism & 2) Lifestyle verticals. These magical, wonderful geniuses will help us curate new voices and diversify our content and contributor base.

Our assistant editor roles are flexible; we provide the opportunity to take creative liberty as it relates to your skills. So long as you sync with the brand, or you feel you can better the brand, we want to work with you.

It is vital that Luna Luna be home to a wide array of voices and identities. We want to provide a platform to underrepresented, marginalized, underprivileged and silenced voices.

To apply: lunalunamag@gmail.com. Send us a note, a reason, a love letter, or your story. Please send specific ideas around how you can help us and how we can help you or support your vision. Be able to contribute 2 hours per week, volunteer (as all of our editorships are at this time). Communicative, social-media savvy people, please.

Also! We're seeking content for our special issue on RELATIONSHIPS & LOVE. Personal essays or features welcome. Video and photo welcome. Word count: 500-1200.  Due March 1.

Possible topics:

• Monogamy hardships
• Friendship hardships
• Positive LGBTQIA experiences
• Asexuality
• Being single
• Race & romance / sex
• Disability & dating
• Race & friendship
• Dating in X location
• Essays on craft (writing about sex, teaching sex writing)
• LGBTQIA challenges (social, familial, romantic)
• Bisexuality challenges
• Polyamory & open relationships
• Sexual liberation
• History of sexual, platonic and romantic relationships in a culture/era (ex., a look at Victorian-era female friendship)
• Literary/cinema roundups that deal with the topics above
• Interviews with experts, artists, etc around the topics above

When You Get Raped By Your Cab Driver, But The Police Ask If You're Sure It Wasn't Consensual

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Rape culture: when your friend is raped by her cab driver and the police question whether or not you were asking for it.

In a major metropolitan city, there's plenty of things to fear. Among them? Cab drivers. Many of us have encountered the driver who tells us we’re pretty, asks if we’re single, wants to know if we live with someone or asks for our phone numbers. It’s uncomfortable, it’s frightening, and it needs to stop. Simply put, this behavior should be illegal rather than commonplace.

A friend told me the below story:

*Mary took a cab home--pulled over by her friends--because she was inebriated. She woke in the cab driver's bed without any recollection of what happened, with her body oddly positioned on top of a towel. As an object. When she managed to get out of his apartment, go to the hospital and ask for a rape kit, she was told to wait because there wasn't enough proof it "wasn’t consensual." Mary tells me that this cab driver (who she calls Sandy), who was employed by the city of New York, wasn't convicted because the District Attorney took a rapist’s word over hers.

***

When Mary and I talk on the phone, she tells me it is crucial to tell her story in order for change to ensue, in order for the government and for everyday people to understand that a woman’s word means something, that silencing others is a sin on par with rape itself.

***

There was more than enough evidence to lead anyone to believe the cab driver was a rapist. When Mary was put into a Brooklyn cab by two friends, they explicitly asked the driver to take Mary home. Mary was inebriated, as many are when they take a cab home late at night, and so her friends made her repeat her address to the driver several times. There was no indication that Mary knew the driver or desired anything but to get home safely.

What Mary vaguely remembers is someone buying beer, and according to her police report, "pouring liquor or some substance down my throat," as she was "in and out of consciousness." What she next remembers is waking up "extremely confused" with "no idea why or how I had gotten to this location or who this person in the bed next to me was." Mary was distressed, still not sober, and panicking.

Over the phone, she told me her body was "still in pain." This is a jarring sentence to hear. Because what happened to her was real; the physical pain will eventually end, but the experience of being manipulated against your will can never be undone.

***

When Mary went to the Emergency Room at Mt. Sinai in Queens at 3pm, she sat alone for the most part, without the offer of any food or water. Two officers finally arrived at 6pm as per the Hospital’s request, and they were aggressive, according to Mary, suggesting without her memory of the incident in question there could be no prosecution.

Mary told me, "I was stunned with how poorly these men treated me in my hospital room. They pressured me to drop the case and tried to tell me it wasn’t a rape case, and that if I was drunk, that maybe I had 'gotten friendly with the cab driver' while I was in the car."

She continued, "I was so distraught, I couldn’t believe the officers were insinuating it was my fault…[they] didn’t believe anything I told them, and were being so dismissive and aggressive. I even told them I had two witnesses who put me into the cab alone with the driver...they still insisted I didn’t need the rape kit. I insisted I hadn’t gone [with the driver] by choice, that I had been taken advantage of while I was blacked out, and that it was a taxi driver who had done this…[in his] house in Queens."

Because Mary was drunk, her case wasn’t taken seriously--and this outcome isn’t news. Women have long been taken advantage of when inebriated or drugged. Despite the many victim-blaming mentalities out there, transitive theory does not suggest if one drinks, one consents to the possibility of rape.

"They said since I had been drunk I had no idea where he had taken me or what borough I’d been in," Mary said. "My doctor at Mt. Sinai was extremely upset with how they were treating me, and they called Mount Sinai’s Sexual Assault And Violence Intervention Program (SAVI) to have an advocate sent to help me and make sure I was being treated ok."

SAVI’s mission is "dedicated to validating, healing and empowering survivors and their supporters to lead safe, healthy lives through advocacy, free and confidential counseling, and public education."

Despite SAVI’s efforts in supporting Mary, the police (the only presiding power) didn’t believe Mary until she semi-remembered signage she thought she saw that night. Only then did they confirm with the location services map on her iPhone, which indicated when she’d been picked up and for how long she was in that location (his home).

The next day, the cops found the location services information to be enough "proof," so they had Mary call her rapist from the Queens Precinct. The detective asked Mary to "act like I knew we had sex, and just ask if he used protection and see if he would say anything about me being passed out to try to get him to incriminate himself over the phone, which would be recorded over the police system."

When she called Sandy, she asked if they’d "slept together," to which he answered yes. Mary told me it was painful to hear that Sandy’s admission, though suspected, was devastating. Mary had actually been raped.

"I then asked him why I wasn’t able to recall anything and he said I was passing out…the detective was writing me prompts of what to ask him so I asked if I had passed out totally, and he claimed I passed out 'during sex' and he kept saying 'don’t worry about it,'" Mary said.

If a person takes you against your will and has non-consensual sex with you when you’re incapacitated, that it is rape shouldn’t be up for debate.

Judging by the FBI’s revised definition of rape, "Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim," there should be no room for misinterpretation, and yet there is--along with shoddy police work, held up by the foundation of rape culture.

By New York state law, what Mary’s cab driver did was certainly first or second degree rape, given the mental incapacity to provide consent, along with the kidnapping. How much more real does this get?

In the end, the detective told Mary the District Attorney had dropped the case on account of there being no real proof (as her rapist simply had to say something to the effect of 'she wanted it') and that was it.

***

The reality is, many rape allegations aren’t taken seriously.

Recently, a woman was raped at the popular Happy Ending Lounge, a bar even I frequented for years as a literary host. With its dimly lit bathrooms and somewhat hidden downstairs areas, it scares me to think of the all-too-real possibility of the situation--a situation any of us could be put into. The cops, instead of taking the victim seriously, claimed she was a party girl. And, even if she were drinking and "partying," does that mean she deserves to be raped?

In 2015,  there were 851 reported rape cases in NYC (an increase from last year), with rape in car services on the upward trend. In February this year, a Brooklyn woman was raped in the back of a cab. This came at a time when Uber and Lyft drivers assaulted dozens and dozens of passengers. Mary’s case is one of many.

What happens when walking home is too unsafe? When the subway is unsafe? When taking a bus is unsafe? And when the person paid to drive you home changes your life forever?

***

Why are victims still being silenced? Is it because we teach people to wear protective, anti date-rape nail polish rather than teaching them not to rape? Rather than enforcing very real punishment for rapists? Does the problem stem from the idea that rape is only rape when it’s violent? Is it not widely accepted that rape takes various forms? On television, and in books, is it too-often reduced to compulsive desire or fantastical dominance? Or, is it much more likely we blame the victims in our smug, sexist righteousness to prosecute the whore? Are we too busy making jokes about it on TV?

Mary explained how even after going to the hospital, she felt there was no real advocacy. She felt like there aren’t enough emotional resources available quickly, and more importantly, how any support she was given paled in comparison to the poor treatment by the police. She felt she was not heard.

She wrote in her police statement, "I want help in having someone actually investigate this crime…the suspect was not apprehended and is still driving a cab around the city with no repercussions. This is dangerous for me as he knows where I live and I am very scared for my safety, and for other women’s safety. If he got away with this once with me with NO repercussions he will probably do this again and that is not acceptable. I do not understand how this does not qualify as kidnapping and rape, and I also do not understand why the case was dropped due to what the suspect told police."

Whether you are telling the story to a counselor, the news or your friend, your voice matters. Whether you are sharing this story or another one, your part in the conversation matters. As Pepper Elliott, who was assaulted at Happy Ending, said, "I really do believe social media is a powerful platform that can be a catalyst to these types of changes in perception, which eventually result in changes in behavior. I think that potentially the result of me being this vocal about my experience will at least elicit minor changes in the way those who are close to me might think or act and those changes might permeate the minds of others."

Please reach out to the following resources if you or someone you know needs support:

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800.656.HOPE (4673)
RAINN: http://nownyc.org/service-fund/get-help/rape-sexual-assault/
SAVI: http://www.mountsinai.org/patient-care/service-areas/community-medicine/areas-of-care/sexual-assault-and-violence-intervention-program-savi/services
The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault: http://www.svfreenyc.org/survivors_emergency.html
NYS Department of Health: https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/sexual_violence/what_to_do.htm
The New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault: http://nyscasa.org/get-help/crisis-centers-by-county/

8 Women-Run Magazines We Read Everyday (& So Should You)

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

There are literally countless gorgeous, intelligent and necessary blogs/mags/collectives out there, and we hope to one day discover, read and feature all of them, but lo & behold, time is not on our side. 

So for now, we present some of our favorite magazines out there, each run, edited or funded by women. 

To get a sense of each magazine, we offer up a representative article and a personal note on why we're into them. But even that can't do them justice. Please do check out these sites. You will wake up a better human being for it.

Oh, and if you have suggestions for other magazines we should feature, please leave them in the comments!

The Establishment: We're a multimedia company run and funded by women that’s predicated on a simple, yet radical notion: the world is a better, more interesting place when everyone has a voice.
The Inevitability of Creative Jealousy

Note: The editors over at The Establishment are unapologetic, brave and consistently devoted to progressive voices. They're exemplary at publishing high-quality work rather than clickbait, which is always refreshing. Also, they're funny. We here haven't quite nailed that yet. 

Brown Girl Magazine: Founded in 2008, Brown Girl Magazine, LLC is an online publication tailored and targeted to young South Asian women living in the diaspora.
What Happens When You Write About Dating in a Culture Where Relationships are Taboo

Note: This magazine is dedicated to their demographic by always publishing really smart + service-oriented content that pushes boundaries and inspires readers. Also, I worked with Kamini, their managing editor, once upon a time. Kamini is veritably amazing.

Witch Craft Mag: Founded in 2015, Witch Craft is a print magazine and micropress with the goal of publishing work that moves us to believe in magic again.

Card of the Week: The King of Pentacles

Note: The coolest thing about this magazine, aside from its wonderful editors Elle & Catch Business, is that it really does create a sense of peace, creativity, magic and dedication to aesthetic. The tarot articles, poetry and overall vibe is a dream. It's a safe little place on the internet that makes life better.

The Slutist: Slutist is a sex positive feminist collective that was founded by Kristen Korvette in 2013. Slutist aims to uncover and undress the intersections between sex, gender, sexuality and feminism in art, entertainment, and politics while breaking down binaries of style/substance, brains/beauty, masculine/feminine, and virgin/whore. 
Great Moments in Historical Sluttery: Messalina, Excess and Disgrace in Imperial Rome

Note: Luna Luna's staff attended the Slutist Legacy of the Witch party in Brooklyn last year and we can tell you: these ladies are badass, radical, and smart as hell. We read their brilliance on the regular. 

For Harriet: For Harriet is an online community for women of African ancestry. We encourage women, through storytelling and journalism, to engage in candid, revelatory dialogue about the beauty and complexity of Black womanhood. We aspire to educate, inspire, and entertain. 
Dr. Linda Chavers on #BlackGirlMagic and the Article that Started a Firestorm

Note: This is such an important publication. Its content is always of the highest quality, really pushing readers to think--they also have a badass fashion sister site, Coloures, which is really cool (they really make fashion + beauty work well). All the content has a thread of power, opinion, race, society and gender. So smart. 

WEIRD SISTER: WEIRD SISTER explores the intersections of feminism, literature and pop culture. We feature essays, interviews, comics, reviews, playlists, secret diaries, and love letters written in invisible ink. 
Three Pieces of Feminist Advice From Jackie “Moms” Mabley

Note: We love the pop culture aspect of this site. It's always on-point. But the most rewarding thing about WEIRD SISTER is the rotation of voices: it's diverse, always sincere, and really fun to read. 

Smarty Mommies: Smarty Mommies is a website dedicated to intelligently discussing the experience of being a smart, thinking mother.
There's Hope: Clothes for Girls

Note: Our staff isn't made up of moms over here, but we sure do appreciate reading Smarty Mommies because it is a progressive blog for mothers who want to shatter stereotypes and gender roles--something plenty of other parenting sites are ignoring. Not to mention, a few of our own writers/former staff work over there, and it's nice to watch them bring the badassery to others.

Autostraddle:  Autostraddle is an intelligent, hilarious & provocative voice and a progressively feminist online community for a new generation of kickass lesbian, bisexual & otherwise inclined ladies (and their friends).
Rebel Girls: 9 Queer, Feminist, and/or Gender Theorists (Who Aren’t Judith Butler)

Note: Autostraddle is just the best site. Honestly, if you're ever looking to read progressive voices or you need to be reminded that humanity has a soul, this is the site for you. Every article is smart and fun and cool, like this one about Dana Scully, everyone's favorite investigator. 

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Lisa Marie Basile is a NYC-based writer and editor. She’s the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and keeps a blog at Ingenuex.com. Her work has appeared in The Establishment, Bustle, Bust, Hello Giggles, The Gloss, xoJane, YourTango, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and The Huffington Post, among other sites. She is the author of Apocryphal (Noctuary Press, Uni of Buffalo). Her work as a poet and editor have been featured in BuzzFeed, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, The New York Daily News, Ravishly and Bust. She currently works for Hearst Digital Media, where she edits for The Mix, their contributor network of more than 1000 writers. Previously, she was the director of content for a marketing platform, and a managing editor at a social content platform. She earned her Master's degree at The New School and attended Pace University for undergrad as well as Columbia University as one of 20 selected for an editorial workshop. She has spoken about writing or read her work at universities, such as NYU, Columbia and Emerson College. 

The Oscars Ought To Look In The Mirror

If the Oscars looked in the mirror--and the Oscars really, really need to--the Oscars would see white men. Haven't they learned anything from last year's diversity gap (and that's putting it nicely)? 

This year, the committee pulled the same nonsense. 

While the racial breakdowns are SCARY problematic, here's a tiny, tiny glimpse into just how bad it is: Creed (written AND directed by a black man) and Straight Outta Compton (starring black actors) were recognized. But it was the white men in the mix that were nominated. The white men. 

This is not a test.

It's hard to understand the bias against people of color and women that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has--considering all of the amazing art being made--but one thing is certain: they're not too concerned with changing it. 

In 2015, the Academy welcomed 322 new members to counter its diversity problem (overwhelmingly made up white males over the age of 50; in 2013, it was 93% male.) 

Are these new members making a dent?

The problem is with all of Hollywood and all of America; it's sexist. When it comes to women, the numbers are awful: 22% of the Academy are made up of women--women who are underpaid and undervalued (props to J-Law for speaking up). The Academy is blind to the fact that people of color need to be represented more (watch this excellent Hollywood Reporter roundtable with Amy Schumer, Gina Roridguez, Tracee Ellis-Ross, and more) and too propped up by its own systemic privilege to make change. So when you're looking at what happens on the outside (like the Oscars whitewash) it's a good indicator that the problem is from the inside.  

When are we going to stop letting people in positions of power make the wrong decisions? We've got another #OscarsSoWhite situation. Keep speaking up. 

Looking Forward: Luna Luna's Risky Relaunch & Our Plans For 2016

BY LISA MARIE BASILE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & CREATIVE DIRECTOR

On October 31, my staff and I relaunched Luna Luna Magazine. Actually, let me clarify: I forced a relaunch. Fed up with WordPress and its forever-glitchy plugins and crashing themes (we're a volunteer staff who operates late-night from our bedrooms, and we don't have a tech support team), I made the switch to Squarespace. I even bought a brand new URL (to hell with SEO! Just kidding, that's a huge pain point).

This overhaul wasn't conventional, at least not for a content-focused publication. But I wanted something beautiful, something that could create the magic reading experience we envisioned, and I wanted something that reflected our aesthetic. I also wanted that something to be easy for our team, since we're mainly updating on the go. Ah, such is the glamorous life of a niche internet magazine. There were plenty of others variables, and I won't pretend I knew everything, but I believe in big fucking risks that positively impact long-term sustainability.

I made a frightening decision to change our editorial focus and voice too. This is to say that I had push-back as well as major support. A lot of tense G-chat debates and in-person conversations. A lot of excellent points made all around. A lot of weighing clicks versus craft. A lot of wondering if Luna Luna Magazine was repetitive, redundant, messy, wonderful, necessary, unique or impactful.

Joanna (our managing editor and the one I've worked most closely with for the better part of a year+) wanted to ensure the magazine's success in practical ways: consistently publishing content, making sure our pageviews were growing. I too wanted that, but I struggled with the things that tended to make things clickable. I refused to let Luna Luna Magazine become yet another Click This Headline magazine. All things said, Joanna's eye for strong and shareable content has meshed beautifully with my stringent (aka relentlessly pushy) creative direction. (My boyfriend called me the 'witchy Anna Wintour', oh god.)

Intermission: No, for real, props to the Luna Luna Magazine team for being absolutely badass. 

Part of the risk of relaunching this October was in cutting a portion of the kind of content we published. We had started as an edgy, darker arts & culture magazine in the summer of 2013, but we slowly became a daily feminist touch-point. The majority of our content focused on women's rights and feminist first-person essays. I loved this, and meeting so many incredible women and writers did things for my life that for which I am endlessly indebted. Our pageviews skyrocketed.

However, I fell and felt deeply out of touch with our content. I wanted to keep writing about women, but reduce any one niche focus in order to do more of everything: art, culture, the original occult vertical, confession, intersectional content and even bad feminism. We don't want to be perfect; we're explorers. 

We were also publishing so much that I couldn't edit (9-5 jobs, am I right?). I couldn't work with my writers closely and I couldn't go through with a fine-tooth comb to find the voices and perspectives we hadn't published already. I felt that there needed to be a way for me to connect with my writers as much as our readers. After all, Luna Luna, as I envisioned it, was always a community for dialogue and opinion from the inside out. It was about creating a space for readers and writers to be friends, supporters and dreamers together. 

Maybe I'm an idealist. Maybe I'm lacking a sense of entrepreneurialism. But no. I've worked in rigid corporate content institutions, and I've worked at startups where growth at lightspeed (sacrificing quality) was the dominating factor. I've written for clickbait paychecks and I've written beautiful essays that will probably never be seen again. And time and again, I come back to that which makes me proud, makes me uncomfortable, makes me feel I've collected a menagerie of perfect words. 

Balancing that obsession with beauty and slow growth with the way the internet works is a struggle, I won't lie. After all, we want to be able to sell ad space on our new site. In my day job, I'm all SEO and headlines, but at Luna Luna, I can and will take the time to finesse it. 

Since we relaunched, our bounce rate reduced by over 50% - a beautiful thing. Our older site (lunalunamag.com) had more pageviews of course (three years' worth), but people were leaving. Was it the site design? The content? We don't know. Now people are sticking around. Our return visitor rate shows we're building a beautiful community. And our top-viewed articles show that our readers are still coming for the art and staying for the intimacy. This is an area we'll continuously work on.

We have a long way to go. We have to pay our contributors. We have to build a more diverse editorial staff. We have to develop our regional focus (starting with NYC), and we have to do community work. We want to work with organizations, host readings, host speaking series, and throw networking parties. We want to grow sponsorship relationships and make a difference for people on and off the site. This takes time, money, discipline and vision, and we definitely have two of those things. You guess which. 

Our goal is to fundraise for our writers this year, to say thank you, to sell ad spots, to steadily publish beautiful content that is unique and sometimes imperfect, to balance the light and the dark. We aim to balance the markers of actual real world site growth with a continued focus on selectivity and calculated aesthetic development. Those secrets we will keep, but we hope you'll come along. 

And so, I leave you with some of our most popular content pieces as we ended 2015:

13 Aesthetically Beautiful Literary Journals To Submit To & Read

This Is Why My Love Life Has Always Failed

Seeking Arrangement: On My Brief & Failed Attempt at Becoming a Sugar Baby

Stop Saying "I Have A Boyfriend"

James Deen & The Crisis of Media-Appointed Feminist Heroes

40 Books Published in 2015 That Should Be on Your Shelf

A Catalogue of Scars

A Conversation With Poet Megan Falley About Lana Del Rey

Why I Stopped Shaving All of My Body Hair

How Megan Duffy Played A Victim In A Film, But Is No Longer A Victim In Real Life

BY MEGAN DUFFY

Last New Year’s Eve, I went on a 2nd date with a guy I’d met through a close friend. He’d asked that mutual friend for permission to romantically pursue me, and after I asked "are you sure he’s not a psycho?" my friend assured me he was a "great guy."

Our first date was to Disneyland and seemed to go well. We kissed but I didn’t spend the night. On NYE I was loaded into a big limo with his closest friends and shuffled from party to party. He was my kiss at midnight but didn’t really talk to me much until the party was dying down and the sun was coming up.

Him, his best friend, and his best friend’s girlfriend and I, as well as the evening’s leftovers, landed back at his house around 9 in the morning. He made bacon for me/us and insisted I have a cocktail while he then did a bunch more cocaine. Having been up all night, and now drunk, I was tired and said I needed a nap. As I started to pass out he carried me off to his bedroom. I told him I wanted to just sleep but he was already aggressively pulling my clothes off and grabbing at me. My protests were admittedly weak, and since it was clear there was no stopping him, I tried insisting he put on a condom, to which he laughed and said something like "that’s cute" and then just shoved it in. It hurt a lot. He didn’t seem to notice the water coming out of my eyes.

I convinced myself that even though this wasn’t how I wanted our first time to be, I probably would’ve ended up having sex with him eventually anyway. And I’d been nude in a hot tub at some point in the evening so surely to him it seemed like I was asking for it. Some people don’t understand the difference between nudity and promiscuity. He was supposed to be a great guy--after all, my friend who introduced us said so. He’d even asked permission to ask me out. That meant he liked me, right? Maybe he was really excited, and this was probably just a misunderstanding. Also he was on drugs so I was he didn’t realize he was hurting me. I didn’t want to cause a scene, especially not with his friends in the next room. I wanted to be cool. I wanted to be tough. I was stronger than this.

So I took it like  an adult.

But it went on for hours. I would pass out and wake up to him shoving it in again. Each time hurt worse but I kept my composure. I attempted a few times to get up and leave, using the excuse that I needed to go home to feed my cat, but he’d pull me back down saying he wasn’t done with me yet. I considered that maybe I was inside of a bad dream. After about four hours when he wasn’t coked up anymore it finally stopped. I felt humiliated having to face his best friend who knocked on the door to suggest the group of us spend the afternoon ordering pizza and watching movies. I wondered if he had any idea of what I’d been experiencing, or if this was something normal in their world.

He let me leave to go home to feed my cat as long as I promised to come back.

When I got home I cried in the shower while cleaning my wounds. I shouldn’t have gone back, but I did. I desperately wanted to be comforted, like I was a girl he’d actually liked and hadn’t meant to hurt. We spent the afternoon and evening cuddling on the couch with his friends and his friend’s dog and he was nice to me. I felt soothed.

I continued dating him for half a year, partly because I was in denial that I’d gotten into a bad situation and wanted to feel like I had some kind of control over what’d happened and partly because the injuries he caused me led to so many infections (over $300 worth of medical bills AFTER insurance) that I couldn’t sleep with anyone else even if I wanted to. Also, every time he would be rough with me he’d justify it as passion and/or excitement, saying things like, "I’d been waiting for hours to do that." This was always followed by some gesture of kindness. Like one night when, while under the influence of a mixture of adderall, cocaine, and MDMA, he bit my arm so hard I started to cry. The next day he took me to meet his mom for the first time. It calmed the terror I felt and replaced it with a feeling of being cared about. I put on a sweater with long sleeves.

I found myself craving those kind moments like a drug. I needed them to feel good about myself, and about what had happened/was happening. I started thinking maybe something was wrong with me--that I was too sensitive, or I just bruised easily, or was a prude for not enjoying rough sex. I also thought that it wasn’t his fault my body was so delicate that I kept getting so sick, and that previous relationships had made me feel afraid to be vulnerable. Given my life experiences and age I didn’t believe there was any way I’d find myself in a relationship with a bad guy. That’s something that’s supposed to happen when you’re 23 and don’t know any better, right? Not to a smart successful feminist in her 30s.

And to be honest, it wasn’t all bad. We got along pretty well, and there was an electricity between us that sometimes felt magical. Sometimes the sex was fun and I would initiate it, (though I was never able to finish). We were spending every weekend together, often with his friends who were warm and kind to me and I liked them a lot. Some would reiterate what a great guy he was while expressing their hopes that I wouldn’t break his heart like the previous women in his life had. We would make dinner together, and had a TV show we were watching. The more I opened up to him the better he treated me. There were a lot of things I liked about him--like that he was smart and funny and talented and seemed to work hard and would bend over backwards to be there for his friends. We never had any arguments. I stopped questioning whether or not he was a good person and began to trust him.

Then one Saturday afternoon, he showed up at my house and told me that he had to end things because he didn’t have feelings for me. He told me he’d known when he met me that he was never going to love me, that he had been telling friends that since the beginning, and that this game he’d been playing with me had gone too far. He cried three times before I did, swinging back and forth between sobbing like a scared child-victim, and a vicious evil stranger. I kept telling him it didn’t make sense, asking him to tell me what was really going on. Why would he take a girl he didn’t like to meet his family, or ask her out in the first place, especially with the fanfare of asking for permission? Instead of answering he’d spin the conversation in another direction, feigning sadness, or pulling out more waterworks. In one derailment he just started to cry about how his roommate wouldn’t let him adopt a cat. This went on for an hour. I felt so confused and scared and knew there was a giant missing piece he was leaving out. It was the most emotionally violent experience of my life. The bruise, still on my arm from his bite a month before, stayed for 2 more weeks after he was gone. I had to look at it in the mirror everyday. Regardless of whether he was gaslighting me or being "honest," I finally had to admit to myself that I had been in a relationship with an abuser. 

It turned out what actually happened is he’d hooked up with another girl the night before, and rather than admit to being a bad guy (and arguably a cheater), decided to attack me and negate our entire relationship. Once I found out the truth I started doing research on him (as well as ex-girlfriends of his that I knew about), It turned out his ex-girlfriend before me, a girl whom he and all his friends referred to as a "crazy bitch" (and who I’d been assured was out of the picture), hadn’t really been an ex yet when we started dating. I discovered he had a history of gaslighting, cheating, and being physically violent with women he had dated. He’d label them as "crazy" when they reacted to his mistreatment, and then manipulate them into believing it was somehow their fault. He was definitely not the good guy his friends all believed him to be.

I wasn’t going to be a victim anymore. I got the chance to stand up to him two months later, calling him out on his abuse of not just me but other women as well. I made sure it happened in a public place with people around. The scars were still going to take some time to heal, but I finally felt empowered. 

So when I was offered the role of Mandy in the upcoming film "Holidays," a girl who is tortured and abused by her New Year’s Eve date, I immediately said yes. While Mandy doesn’t make it out alive, in real life I continue to heal and am living a life full of amazing people, good work, and fulfilling adventures. I’m thankful for everyone who’s been a part of it. And I donated a portion of my paycheck from the project to Planned Parenthood. They do a lot of good work saving vaginas from harm. 

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Nurturing a body of work that encompasses film and television, Megan Duffy has not only carved her own path in Hollywood but her career continues to evolve with exciting and challenging projects.

Megan garnered attention for her standout role as "Lucie" starring alongside Elijah Wood in the remake of 1980’s horror thriller "Maniac," which debuted at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Her next film "Holidays," directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer and produced by Kevin Smith will be released in 2016. 

A former professional dancer as well as music video producer, segueing effortlessly between the big and small screen, Megan has had guest starring roles in some of primetimes most popular shows including "Criminal Minds," "How I Met Your Mother, “Mad Men" and "Gilmore Girls," and has appeared in over 50 national commercials. She was the recipient of the "Best Guest Actress in a Comedy" award at the 2015 Indie Series Awards for her role as "Piper" in "Dating Pains," and will next appear on the show "Pretty Vacant" from Maker Studios. 

A native of Enfield, Connecticut, Megan currently resides in Los Angeles.