Columns & Opinion Archives

19th-century etching depicting a crowd of "poor people" waiting to receive the smallpox vaccination. A doctor in a frock coat stands right, giving an injection to a man with his sleeve rolled up.

Pox Americana

by Deanna Isaacs August 17, 2022August 16, 2022

Last Sunday, stuffed with antibiotics, numbed by painkillers, and facing a date with an oral surgeon the next morning, I made my way to the International Museum of Surgical Science […]

On Prisons

On demand, without apology

by Anthony Ehlers August 17, 2022August 17, 2022

Stripping the right to abortion harms incarcerated women.

Columns & Opinion

Really though, how risky is choking play?

by Dan Savage August 16, 2022August 16, 2022

Windpipes are quite vulnerable to injury.

On Politics

State of anxiety

by Ben Joravsky August 11, 2022August 11, 2022

With each passing day, I get more anxious about the Democratic strategy of promoting MAGA candidates like Darren Bailey in Republican primaries. Oh, I understand the logic—it’s an attempt to […]

Columns & Opinion

What does it mean to be a cuckquean?

by Dan Savage August 10, 2022August 10, 2022

Many words describe letting your partner have sex with other people.

Columns & Opinion

A note on this week’s cover story

by Katie Prout August 4, 2022August 4, 2022

I wouldn’t remember this incident except for that it’s on film, one that my brothers have watched repeatedly, the punch growing stronger, more violent in their mind.

Columns & Opinion

MAGA enablers

by Ben Joravsky August 3, 2022August 3, 2022

For over twenty years, my centrist friends have been giving me grief for presidential losses the Democrats have suffered. For example . . . Gore’s defeat in 2000, allegedly caused […]

Image shows the Louis Sullivan-designed Getty Tomb at Graceland. It is made of buff-colored stone with an arching doorway. The gates are greenish bronze. There are leaves on the ground and a branch with autumn leaves in the foreground of the photo.

On Culture

Walking with the dead

by Deanna Isaacs August 3, 2022August 3, 2022

When Anne Ford interviewed Adam Selzer for the Reader in 2014, it was all about his job as a ghost tour leader. You didn’t have to read between the lines […]

Columns & Opinion

Pretty Boy is the finest thing, but maybe he should be set on fire

by Dan Savage August 1, 2022August 1, 2022

He engages in rough sex knowing it’s sometimes painful.

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace in a red baseball cap, trackside and talking with fans

On Politics

Biased driving

by Ben Joravsky July 28, 2022July 28, 2022

It was a mixed-message week on the homefront. Mayor Lightfoot rolled out the red carpet for NASCAR the day before she arm-twisted the alderpeople into cracking down on speeders to […]

Columns & Opinion

Your husband should meet your Daddy Dom

by Dan Savage July 27, 2022July 27, 2022

A series of hot threesomes might revive your sex life.

a protest sign held up that reads "Abortion is Healthcare"

Columns & Opinion

Beware, Illinois

by Ben Joravsky July 21, 2022July 28, 2022

Content warning: This story contains references to sexual violence. I think we can all agree that MAGA’s unprecedented obsession with truth in regard to the rape of a ten-year-old girl […]