Alright, time to cough up the dough

Reina here and I have some questions.

Has my writing ever made you feel like a badder bitch?

Has it made you feel sexier and you know it?

Has it ever put more swing in your step, more bella in your faccia, more pop in your pussy?

Have you ever read it while jacking off?

Okay no wait really, I’m totally curious about the last one — have you ever read me while masturbating?!

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, darling readers, you owe me and my main bitches here at Feministing some cash.

You owe us cash because we do this work for free.

Why do I do this for free, you ask, when I could be getting big dollars drafting the Penthouse centerfold?

Because guys, the work we do is important.

The work we do here is so important! Dearest darlingest reader, I cut my feminist teeth here at Feminising, whatever that weird little expression means, first as a wee little reader back in the day (okay, 2011 — I’m a baby) and now as a wee little writer. In a world still resistant to the very existence of feminism, and often resistant to the very existence of women, in a world saturated with feminism that begins and ends with leaning in, in a world where really smart, ethically-driven, sassy, spirited, hopeful feminist analysis remains hard to come by, Feministing helped school little me in what it meant to think like a feminist: to speak loudly, but thoughtfully; to critique, but constructively; to be angry, but hopeful. Now that I’m writing here, I am so pumped to be learning from and with the rad people on this site, and I’m so pumped that you’re here, too.

The kind of culture and content enabled by this ragtag little structure we’ve got here — both from the encouragement and snark in my inbox, and for the way this solidarity ripples out through our work — makes my heart frequently feel like a big brass band.

I bet you’re feeling that percussion section.

But guys, here’s the thing: We’ll be kaput if you don’t hand over a little cashola.

Because — and this will surprise you seeing as my prose spits dollar signs — we don’t have any money.

We’re pretty goddamn broke. We bring the known universe fresh feminist content on the daily while also having day jobs. We need to pay to maintain this website, we need to pay a little baby stipend to the goddess who does our social media, and folks, we sure as hell should pay me.

This is where you step in.

Dearest reader! Remember all the lovely feminist times we’ve had together? Like that time half the Feministing crew put critiques of sexual culture on the map in New York magazine, or that time I caught dick in a headline and then a lot of people clicked on it and felt things about patriarchal sexual hierarchies, or the time I was fingered on top of a wash machine and we all learned about connectedness and everyone had lots of good feminist fun? Also once our heads floated away like helium balloons because yippee! We had done away with street harassment!

Those times were fun! I want to have more of those times. I want our little gay babies to live in a world of beautiful feminist discourse brought to fruition by the power of the written word.

So won’t you pretty please put $5 on Feministing?

If I could I would lean over and you could put the fiver right in my cleavage. As it is, you can donate to us here. If you email me saying you donated (but please nothing sexually explicit — I’m already on Tinder) I will send you one (1) virtual heart (“<3″) for your viewing pleasure.

Please donate! Cough it up! I love you!

Okay, now you can return to touching yourselves to my witticisms.

Reina Gattuso is passionate about empowering conversations around queerness, sexual ethics, and social movements with equal parts rhapsody and sass. Her writing has appeared at Time, Bitch, attn:, and The Washington Post. She is currently pursuing her masters.

Reina Gattuso writes about her sex life for the good of human kind.

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