In the past couple of weeks, much of Kesha's Instagram has been giving fans reason to celebrate, despite her ongoing legal battles with Sony. Her latest post is as far from that as you can get. She reveals a new twist in her case against her record label and producer Dr. Luke, a.k.a. Lukasz Gottwald.
"I would rather let the truth ruin my career than lie for a monster ever again," she wrote, not specifying if the party offering her an out was Sony, Dr. Luke, or emissaries for either.
To recap where the "Tik Tok" singer stands at the moment, she is currently still under contract to record three more albums with Sony label Kemosabe Records, which is run by producer Dr. Luke. Kesha lost her motion to be freed from that contract. If she had won, she would not be required to work with the man she says abused her sexually and verbally for a decade, pending her case against him, which will go before the court in 2017. Though Sony has said she does not have to work with Dr. Luke to fulfil her contract, her lawyers have filed an appeal.
"Although it recognized that 'slavery was done away with a long time ago' and that '[y]ou can't force someone to work...in a situation in which they don't want to work,' the court's ruling requiring Kesha to work for Gottwald's companies, purportedly without his involvement, does just that," her appeal states, per E! Online. Dr. Luke's lawyers, in turn, call her allegations against him "lies."
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The following story was told to Refinery29. Due to the sensitive and private nature of this topic, some names and identifying cities have been changed.
When I made the decision to get a butt augmentation, I was in a phase of life in which I felt very confused. I think I was 20, and I knew I wanted to change myself. I was becoming comfortable with being gay but, all of a sudden, I felt all this pressure about my appearance. Growing up, I never cared about what I looked like because I was pretending to be straight, so it didn’t bother me that I didn’t get girls. But when I came out of the closet, everything snowballed.
The (Instant) Decision
To understand my story, you need to know about Debra. She's more than my adopted mom — I parented her more than she parented me. Sure, she provided food, shelter, things like that, but other than that we were like best friends along for the ride.
I’ll never forget when I saw Debra the first time after she got it done. I was doing a trunk show for her jewellery line at her country club, and she walks in with this giant ass — she walks in looking like fucking J.Lo! She pulled me aside and whispered, "Oh my gawd, the doctors are from Colombia and they only charged me $6,000 to do my butt!"
She also claimed the doctor had some very famous celebrity clients. I don't know if that was true, but Debra turned around and her ass was huge and amazing, and I was so jealous. I wanted it bad, even though I had never done anything to myself. So she said, "Okay fiiine, let’s go." You have to know: This was in the heat of the J.Lo butt phenomenon, and this was not Debra's first, or last, procedure.
So we drove across town to this wellness medi-spa owned by Debra’s friend Maggie. And there, in the back room, was this doctor named Patricia who was injecting all of these rich-ass women, and one gay boy, with this substance.
[She] turned around and her ass was huge and amazing, and I was so jealous.
How It Went Down
Debra dropped me off and went to the mall. I walked into the back room and it was the doctor, her nurse, and her daughter — who I think was an apprentice or something. They asked me to pull my pants down, and they sat there talking in Spanish about my ass. I understood a few words here and there.
I’ve always had a "pear bottom," meaning it’s full, but just kind of hung there. I told them what I wanted — for the top area to be filled out and perfectly round, like an apple bottom — and they decided on the injection area.
I actually loved the doctor; she was so sweet. I’m not sure if what they used on me was FDA-approved, but they made sure I knew it was permanent. They told me that it was like Sculptra, but permanent Sculptra. I can't believe I was so naive.
The substance wasn’t a solid; it’s not like they cut my ass cheek open and inserted an implant. It was a thick gel that, I think, hardens after it’s injected. They used a syringe with the widest gauge I'd ever seen. They picked the spot at the top of my butt and laid me down on a typical medical table with the paper and everything. I was awake during the entire thing; I think they numbed the skin, but I can’t really remember.
I thought the needle was going to be the painful part, but oh no, oh fucking no, "hurt" is not the word for what I felt once they started injecting this substance into me. It felt like someone was pulling a tendon under my ass, like they were shredding my butt muscles. It hurt so bad, I started uncontrollably screaming and crying. I don’t remember this, but they said I was calling out for my mom. Not Debra — I was calling out for my biological mum.
'Hurt' is not the word for what I felt once they started injecting this substance into me.
The needle was probably in there for 10 minutes, but I don’t really remember. The vial was about an inch in diameter and about four inches long, and they had to do four of those. After they finished one, they would unscrew it and pop in another one.
I almost didn’t do the second cheek. I told them there was "no way in hell," and that it was the worst experience of my life. But I thought, If I am going to go through this much pain, I might as well get it done. I didn't really have a choice; I couldn't just do one cheek at that point. I realise now that I probably should have been put out.
I blacked out during the second cheek; I don’t remember anything. When I came to, they placed cotton balls over the injection area, bandaged me up, and sent me on my merry way.
Post-Op Life
For a while, my butt was numb and I was really sore for weeks. They told me not to expose the area to really high heat for a while, not to turn on my heated seats in my car, or go to a tanning bed. Even though I can feel the stuff inside, you can't feel it by touching my butt; it's like it was injected under the muscle.
The first time I saw a picture of myself after the surgery, I remember thinking, Yesss! My ass, at the very least, looked perfect and I did get what I wanted; I have an apple bottom, and I have to wear pants two sizes bigger.
I’m 31 years old now and I got it when I was 20, so in 11 years it hasn’t gotten smaller, and trust me, there were so many times in my life when I wished it would dwindle, but it never did.
The Rumour Mill
The worst thing those first few years, besides the pain and numbness, was that I told people. I was a small-town boy and my first job in a big city was with a bunch of gossip-y fashion girls. I thought I could trust them the way I trusted my friends back home, but all of a sudden everyone knew.
It was hard — I was being ridiculed, rumours were flying. All of a sudden I was like, Holy shit, I can never let anyone know about this, and I have to deny it for the rest of my life. At this point, most of the people in my life don't know, even those that I am closest with. I've denied it for so long — how can I tell people I lied to them?
The truth of the matter is I have no fucking idea what is inside my body...it's terrifying.
The Aftermath
Everything was great for years, but then my body started to change. As I got older, I gained weight and the fat on my butt sort of formed around the filled area so that there is a divot the size of a palm on one of my cheeks. Now I don't want anyone to see my butt when I'm naked, because it’s misshapen and it kind of dips in weird places. I’m scared because I'm in my early 30s and I’ve already seen examples of how fat is going to affect my butt. I have no idea what it’s going to look like when I’m older.
Other changes have happened, too. Sometimes, if I sit for too long, like if I am driving or flying, my butt goes numb, and not a normal numb — it’s a weird numbness that I never had before I got it done. I have to constantly shift my weight from side to side.
I was worried about the material making me sick in the beginning, and then I figured I was in the clear, but now I’ve heard things that make me think I could still be in danger. The reality is that I’m really scared and there aren’t many people I can talk to about it, because I lied about it for so long. What am I going to tell people if I have to have it removed? I mean, I don’t even know if they can remove it.
The truth of the matter is I have no fucking idea what is inside my body...it’s terrifying. I know that when I expose it to tanning lamps, my butt turns bright red where it’s filled out, like the gel is heating up and warming the skin from the inside or something.
I know that I’m really lucky. Thank God I didn’t get injected with cement. Have you heard those stories? Like real cement; I could have been that person. But I was still so naive, and I had no idea how big that decision was back then. Now, I'm finally ready to see a doctor to get it checked out... I'm just really, really scared.
Editor's note: We shared the above account with Norman Rowe, MD, board-certified plastic surgeon at Rowe Plastic Surgery in New York City, and he believes that the subject was likely injected with silicone, which is not FDA-approved and can result in disfigurement and even death. He notes that the doctor, the assistant, the method of injection, and the treatment were all very unprofessional. He would consider this a "black market" procedure and urges that anyone considering buttock augmentation go to a board-certified plastic surgeon for a consultation. If you think you might have experienced a similar situation to our subject, Dr. Rowe advises seeing an accredited, board-certified plastic surgeon to review treatment options as soon as possible.
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Right before our very eyes, the mirror-framed wrath of Gigi Hadid descended upon our Instagram feeds, utilising her status of model of the moment and position as one part of world-famous BFF duo KenGi to transform the way we do athleisure. You see, Hadid's style consists of taking something high and pairing it with something low, like an overcoat you'd normally wear to the ballet, except with a pair of workout leggings and some sneakers.
Or, like the slideshow ahead will show you, a minimal crêpe de chine coat and a pair of jeans so ripped she might as well just wear shorts. This isn't a new concept, per se, but Gigi Hadid takes athleisure into a new realm. And to put it simply: we're here for it. Styling tricks à la Hadid are fast, easy, and — trust us on this one — affordable. And if that ain't enough, there's always Bella.
Because it wouldn't be a Gigi Hadid lookbook without our favourite T-shirt-and-cigarette-jeans moment.
Photo: NCP/Star Max/GC Images.
Aaaaaand boom.
Photo: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images.
There's something magical about this dress and we can't quite put our fingers on it. Hell, maybe all of it?
Photo: Neil Mockford/Alex Huckle/Getty Images.
Like a porcelain vase, Gigi stands tall in her boots.
Photo: Alo Ceballos/Getty Images.
A denim coat? Now that's something we haven't tried yet.
Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images.
We're going to let this one speak for itself.
Photo: Jacopo Raule/Getty Images.
Be right back, buying a match coat and trousers set.
Photo: Jacopo Raule/Getty Images.
Dude, just be cool.
Photo: Foc Kan/Getty Images.
This is what fashion looks like when you get to take cars everywhere. What snow?
Photo: Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images.
Are those leggings paired with a fur circle scarf? Gigi, you did it again.
Photo: Raymond Hall/Getty Images.
Backstage at Diane von Furstenberg's fall 2016 show, Gigi owns the camera (like usual) in a slip dress to give all other slip dresses a run for their money.
Photo: James Devaney/Getty Images.
Alright, you're seeing it here: Trucker hats circa Britney Spears in the early '00s are cool again.
Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images.
Post-Fenty x Puma, Gigi gives us life with a crop top, easy denim, and some booties to die for.
At a time when many of the most famous makeup artists and beauty influencers are preoccupied with the Kardashian kontouring effect, strobing and Instagram-approved notions of female prettiness, Isamaya Ffrench is a breath of fresh, rebel air in the industry. The extraordinarily talented makeup artist and illustrator whose clients include Ashley Williams; Hermes, Chanel, Selfridges, Vogue Italia and LOVE is revered for her subversion of beauty norms and exploration of unusual ideas such as Lego faces at Agi & Sam AW15 and her sellotaped lips at Junya Watanabe SS15.
Add to that the fact that Ffrench was appointed YSL Beauté's UK makeup ambassador at the tender age of 25 last year, and it's no wonder she's often cited as one of London's most promising young creatives. Following a course specialising in 3D design at Chelsea College of Arts, Ffrench then studied Product and Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins but her interest in makeup and its transformative qualities was in fact first explored during a teenage job painting children's faces at kids parties.
Last month Isamaya teamed up with East London hotspot Bistrotheque to create a menu of culinary cosmetics which were presented at a star-studded six-course meal. We caught up with the beauty polymath to delve into her makeup bag and find out her favourite products and secret tips.
If you had just five minutes to get ready, what would you do/use?
A hot flannel and a bar of soap.
Favourite foundation and why?
Chanel CC cream because it's really light and has an olive hue rather than orange.
What's your hair routine and favourite hair products?
Is there a better place to celebrate your birthday than the "happiest place on earth"? And is there a better person to take along than your new boyfriend?
Paris Jackson seems to have inherited her late father Michael 's fondness for all things Disney. The peroxided pop princess turned 18 on April 3, and to celebrate she took her crew to Disneyland. Said crew also included heavy metal drummer Michael Snoddy, who, from the looks of it, is on very intimate terms with Jackson.
Photos of the celebration (and smooch sessions) were shared on Instagram.
A photo posted by Paris-Michael K. Jackson (@parisjackson) on
Snoody posted his own PDA-packed post in honour of Jackson's birthday.
"Happy birthday to one of the most incredible women I've ever met," he captioned the pic. "So happy we get to celebrate YOUR DAY together! Cheers to many more baby."
A photo posted by Michael Snoddy (@michaelsnoddy) on
In true Jackson form, the festivities included a dance session. Alas, Paris and her pals broke it down to 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up?" and not "Beat It" or "Thriller."
Thousands took to the streets of Warsaw yesterday for a pro-abortion rights rally. The protest follows news last week that Poland's female prime minister Beata Szydło is backing the country's Catholic Church in a call for tighter abortion laws.
Poland's laws on pregnancy termination, as it stands, are similar to that of Ireland; "A 1993 law grants it up to the 25th week from conception, but only on the condition that the woman’s life is in danger, the pregnancy is the result of criminally proven rape or incest, or the foetus is 'seriously malformed'," reports the Guardian.
The Church and Government are now proposing a reform that will rule out abortion altogether. This would mean that women in Poland who have been raped are required to give birth to the child, or forced to give birth when it could threaten their health.
These changes have been supported by the Polish Law and Justice (PiS) party, who have been pushing their conservative agenda in the country since they came to power in October 2015, according to the Guardian.
The party also plan to end state funding for IVF and bring back the requirement of a prescription for women to obtain emergency contraceptive pills.
“The life of every person is protected by the fifth of the Ten Commandments: thou shalt not kill. Therefore the position of Catholics in this regard is clear and unchanging," said Poland's Bishop, in a letter on the subject released last week.
The calls have been met with resistance from pro-choice and liberal Poles, as well as women taking to social media to post messages to the Polish prime minister with the hashtag "#trudnyokres " (meaning "difficult period"), detailing their period pains and experiences with reproduction.
"Since the government is so interested in what Polish women do with their bodies, now we're giving them the full story online," Julia Eriksson, a 30-year-old Polish expat told Refinery29, "This form of protest is a very Polish way of dealing with a problem – always with a twist."
Among the protestors out to demonstrate on the streets on Sunday were women holding coat hangers to demonstrate the lengths some will have to go to in order to seek illegal abortions, should the new legislation be passed.
"I am convinced that the majority of the Polish population is against this legislation," said Julia. "The average Pole does not think that a woman should give birth even though that might put her life in danger, of course not!"
She added: "The proposal comes from the Church and is supported by a government who might be about to commit political suicide. There are currently demonstrations in front of the parliament and Polish embassies abroad, on the internet and in the churches. A resistance of such scale can't simply be ignored."
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Wazhma Furmuli is only 27, but she’s lived several lives already.
Born in Afghanistan in 1988, Furmuli was a child during the civil war that raged intermittently for more than three decades. She doesn’t remember much of it, except for when her family left.
Wazhma was only about four or five years old when her sister was badly injured by flying shrapnel from a bomb that exploded outside their house. After that, the family decided to flee the country until things calmed down. They liquidated their assets, locked their house, and left for Pakistan, planning to stay two months. They were there for 12 years.
“Those are probably some of the least beautiful years of my life,” she said of the time.
Furmuli is one of 29 voices featured in We Are Afghan Women: Voices of Hope, a new anthology of personal stories released by the George W. Bush Institute. In it, she tells the story of how she refused to let anything stand in the way of her achievements.
Furmuli’s passion has long been education. When her family left for Pakistan, Wazhma and her siblings were able to continue their studies, which wasn’t possible back home. They returned to Afghanistan so that she and her siblings could attend college — in Pakistan, the universities were closed to Afghan refugees. And it was educational pursuits that eventually brought her to the United States. After years of studying English, she won one of only a handful of scholarships to study at Randolph College in Virginia when she was 19.
Now, Furmuli is fighting to make sure the next generation of Afghan girls have the same educational opportunities she did. "My story is not a sad story," she said. "It's a success story." And it's one she wants other girls to have. She’s on the board of the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women, which provides funds and support for young women like herself (and including herself, 10 years ago) to continue their education. Refinery29 talked to Wazhma about her experiences and what it was like following her dreams in a time of turmoil.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When I got the scholarship, the gift that I received, it saved my life. It changed my life.
You spent 12 years as a refugee in Pakistan. What was it like, living that life and trying to pursue your education?
“My father was an economist [in Afghanistan]. He had a very good job with one of the departments in the government, and then suddenly he didn’t have anything. It’s like — imagine a controller in one of New York’s companies suddenly moves to another country, and no one cares about what he knows or what he does, and he can’t use his knowledge. I’m sure it was very difficult for them to see us growing up not in the way they had probably dreamt for us.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of sexual assault in India, especially the assault of women and street harassment. It’s the same in Pakistan. And it gets worse when you’re a refugee. Because you’re not registered with the government, police are not going to protect you. You’re kind of off the grid. The only people who can actually protect you [are] your father, uncle, or brothers. Those who can physically support you when you actually face that sexual harassment when you go to school, when you go to work, or when you just leave the house.
“A lot of families didn’t let their daughters go to school because of that. Because they couldn’t protect them, or they didn’t have the time to protect them, or they weren’t as persistent as my parents. So [the girls] just stayed at home, because that was the safest thing for them to do, and I think that’s what makes me feel really lucky.
“I don’t think we would have been where we are if it wasn’t for [my parents]. We got very lucky that we had very openminded and very progressive parents.”
You came back to Afghanistan in 2004, only a few years after girls were allowed to go to school again. What was it like to come back?
“Coming back was sweet and sour at the same time. It feels great to be in a society or a community that you can call your own. Especially after living for 12 years as a refugee when you know that you’re in a limbo, you can’t go anywhere. But when you go back to your home country, the biggest thing for me was that you could dream, you could hope that some of your dreams would come true. Suddenly, we were all hopeful. As long as you worked hard, you could make something happen.”
Photographed by Chandler West
You told us that you think the American University of Afghanistan, where you worked before coming to the United States, is one of the most successful U.S. investments in Afghanistan. What’s the value of investing in education there?
“USAID has had a significant educational program in Afghanistan in the last 15 years. Today, there are 7 million children enrolled in different schools across Afghanistan, and around 3 million of them are girls. We have around 170,000 teachers, and 30% of them are female. Those are some significant numbers when you consider it’s a country with a population of 30 million. And the 7 million are the children who are now currently enrolled at schools. Millions have graduated in the last 15 years. Plus, all the private schools established in the last years, plus the American University of Afghanistan.
“I really like the investment that has been made in education, because it’s not a project that you start it, and after five years it’s closed, and your funding is over, and you’re done with it and that’s it. It’s an investment that has a longterm return and a high return. Every time you educate one girl, or educate a boy, you’re actually saving their life and changing their life for the better.
“When I got the scholarship, the gift that I received, it saved my life. It changed my life. And that’s why I will always say that, if you try to support Afghan women or even Afghan men, invest in their education."
Do you have any advice for people who care about these issues of women’s education and want to get involved?
“I have a message for young people like myself. We’re all busy, but after being involved with the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women in the last few years as a board member, what I learned is that when you have a cause that is so dear to you and you actually support it, and do something every week or every month, it feels really good. Spend a couple of hours a week and do something about it. Make a contribution, and that makes you happy.”
“For those who want to support Afghan women, or other women in the region, or any other thing, my suggestion to them would be to find a cause that you really care about and then find a grassroots organisation that supports that and try to get involved. There are a ton of those organizations. Even a small contribution, even giving up the price of your one cup of coffee a month will actually help a girl or a woman or a boy significantly.”
“I think that all the contributions that we make are going impact us somehow in the future, and it’s for the good of ourselves to do it. So that’s my message for all the millennials. Find something, and spend a couple of hours every month or every week, whichever way that works for you. It’s just going to make you happy. It’s an investment for your happiness.”
You can read Wazhma's full story, as well as that of other Afghan women, in We Are Afghan Women: Voices Of Hope, available through the George W. Bush Institute.
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Let the speculation end. Put the rumors to bed. We can now confirm that Jon Snow is...dating Ygritte.
Kit Harington and Rose Leslie have made their romance red carpet-official by attending last night's Olivier Awards in London together. The couple, who played lovers Jon Snow and Ygritte on Game of Thrones, also kissed on the red carpet, leaving little doubt as to their relationship status. And to think, it all started in George R.R. Martin's brain.
Harington and Leslie have been romantically linked since 2014, but last night marks the first time they've gone the traditional Hollywood couple route. Since Leslie, who has also starred on Downton Abbey and Luther, is no longer on GoT, it's the only PDA Jon-and-Ygritte 'shippers will be enjoying for the foreseeable future. Another reason to be jealous: We bet she knows if her former on-screen bae is dead or not.
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Diets are a lot like religions: They're all basically aiming for the same thing, but each faith has its own set of specific beliefs and practices. Then there are the sub-groups within those factions who interpret the rules slightly differently — especially when it comes to food: Legumes are forbidden during Passover (except if you're Sephardic); Islam prohibits alcohol, though Alevi Muslims may drink; Catholics were bound to abstain from meat on Fridays until 1966, when the pope was like, "Oh, go on, have a burger."
I don't say this to trivialise religious faith (okay, sorry about the pope joke). But when I think about my history with diets, nothing else compares to the fervency of my commitment. Diet was my dogma: Thou shalt not eat pasta, save for that made of rice flour. Ice cream shall be observed on cheat days only (and also your birthday, the High Holy cheat day). But the second those food rules became commandments in my mind, I, a sinner, yearned to stray. There was one rule in particular — an agnostic law, applied in every diet plan I followed: Do not — lest ye incur the mighty wrath of hell — eat after 7 p.m.
Many foods were sinful, but all of it became forbidden fruit after 7 p.m. (or 6 p.m., or 8 p.m. — three hours before bed was the actual rule). Depending on the diet, the 7 p.m. rule was about blood sugar, metabolism, or simply eliminating post-meal snacking. It didn't matter how much weight you wanted to lose or how you were trying to lose it — fasting three hours before bed would do it. Therefore, I could never do it.
Because of its ubiquity, I believed in this rule more than any other. If I stopped eating before 7 p.m., I knew I was thinner the next day. Sometimes, I was right, when I interpreted the rule as, "skip dinner, forever." Other times, I read the rule as, "Eat all the chips and guac you can before the sun goes down." Then, not so much. Either way, I was never able to obey the rule consistently. A few weeks of late-night compliance would pass, before I'd find myself standing shameful in the kitchen, gorging on Cool Whip by the light of the moon.
When I finally quit the diet cycle, quitting that rule was one of the best parts. At last, I was free to eat when I was hungry, even if it was 8:17 p.m.! I didn't have to atone for getting home late from work and quickly scrambling some eggs for dinner, and then collapsing into bed 10 minutes later. The movie's at 6:40 p.m., meaning we won't be at dinner until 9 p.m., so I'd better just cancel this date and — oh wait, never mind, that's insane.
Being liberated from the tyranny of the clock was exciting enough. But when, lo and behold, I did not burst out of my jeans as a result, I was pleasantly shocked. The time of day did not have an alchemical effect on calories after all. Joking aside, it felt like I'd been given back a whole third of my life. I seized the night.
Illustrated by Tristan Offit.
Two years later, though, something else came along and seized my nights back.
Nausea has always been my body's go-to symptom. Anxiety, sadness, fear, excitement — it all gave me a stomachache. Whatever the cause, it always got worse when I went to bed, and I'm used to spending nights curled up and wincing with a bottle of Pepto Bismol. However last summer, those nights became more and more frequent and severe. Pepto didn't cut it and I was sick almost every night, sometimes to the point of vomiting.
The puking set off alarm bells in my head but I hit the snooze button on them, because surely this would pass. These bad tummy phases always did. After all, I was under unusual stress, trying to finish my book. That project had me overworked, under slept, and eating not-so-intuitively. (It was odd though, how things like olive oil, tomatoes, and any kind of meat suddenly triggered my nausea like they never had before.) I developed a new nervousness around food, which had nothing to do with the size of my stomach but the acute pain inside it.
I turned in the book but the night nausea continued. That's when I finally snapped out of it, wondering if maybe my lifelong history of "bad tummy phases" was more like "a symptom." I found a gastroenterologist, who — after taking my history, running tests, and doing a thorough exam — told me the obvious truth: "Acid reflux. Classic." I think classic is the medical term for duh.
Acid reflux had never occurred to me because I thought it was basically glorified heartburn (which I'd never had). But it turns out nausea is frequently part of that icky package. Considering the circumstances and evident triggers of my stomachaches, mine was definitely a duh case.
I was heartened when, rather than simply throw pills at the problem, my doctor handed me a list of ways to manage symptoms myself. But when I looked at it, the alarm bells came back. Alongside a list of trigger foods to avoid there was a whole host of "lifestyle changes." Anyone who's ever been on a diet knows what "lifestyle changes" really means: Rules.
— Don't drink water after a meal.
— Break meals in half and eat them 90 minutes apart.
— Stop eating three hours before bed.
Just when I thought I was out.
I walked away from the doctor's office waiting for panic to hit. I'd committed much of the last two years of my life (not to mention my job and my memoir) to quitting dieting, and here I was, about to start a new one. Only this time, if I failed, it would mean a life of constant pain and maybe even oesophageal cancer.
In the face of that terrifying thought, a funny thing happened: the panic didn't come. Instead, I was bathed in relief. I was elated! I'd had a "difficult stomach" for so long that it never occurred to me I might not have to!
Only when I was given this list of guidelines did I realise how long I'd been living in two distinct states: nauseated or in fear of becoming nauseated. I'd been devoted to my newfound freedom to eat, but when I wasn't looking, food had become a source of stress again. Just as when I was dieting, eating now ruled my social life (leaving the party early to go home and soothe my tummy), my romantic life (sex and vomiting? Nope.), and my mental outlook. It's hard to find joy in the day when you're dreading every night. I don't exaggerate when I say that Xeroxed piece of paper felt like a kind of salvation.
Illustrated by Tristan Offit.
I did take the pills for a few weeks, to ease my symptoms during the transition. I learned that certain soothing foods I'd been eating to try and relieve the nausea (like avocado and peppermint) were actually triggers. I stopped guzzling ice water after dinner (and instead started sipping it before meals). And I stopped eating three hours before bed. There was no stress and no guilt. There was only instant, unimaginable relief.
Months later, the 7 p.m. rule — once my greatest torment — has become an ally. I embrace it, I'm grateful for it. I never worry about "breaking" it because it's really not a rule anymore. I do sometimes eat later at night now, but that's my decision — not a transgression. All the guidelines go out the window occasionally, because there's a special occasion, or I worked late, or the guacamole at a restaurant is just that good. When those incidents happen, I don't waste a second worrying over it. I'm not a dietary devotional anymore. I'm just trying to enjoy my life, my body, and my food.
Most days, I gladly eat dinner early. I go easy on the onions or decline a rich dessert. Sometimes I feel a little pang, wondering if I'll regret the tiramisus not taken. I never have. In fact, I enjoy the ones I do eat even more, because I don't do so with fear. I trust myself to listen to and care for my body in the long term.
This is what so many people misunderstand about intuitive eating. It's not a hedonistic binge where you eat pizza ‘round the clock because you can. It's allowing yourself to eat for you and your body — not anyone else's rules. Without the rules, there's nothing to rebel against. So you don't rebel.
Lying in bed one night, miraculously comfortable, I realised this is what they mean when they say, "It's not a diet. It's a lifestyle change." I'd gone to bed a little peckish, but opted out of snacking. That too, was a choice — and not a punishment. I didn't do it based on the false belief that I would wake up thinner. I did it knowing I would have a peaceful night ahead and a better day tomorrow.
Isn't that what we're all seeking in the end?
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He’s tackled slavery, sex addiction and the Irish hunger strike on the big screen, so few would begrudge director Steve McQueen a little glamour in his working life.
It has been announced today that the 12 Years A Slave, Shame and Hunger filmmaker has directed the ad for Burberry’s latest scent, Mr. Burberry, the first time the Oscar and Turner Prize winner has turned his hand to advertising.
The 30 second television spot (although a longer director’s cut will be available online) follows a couple’s dirty weekend in London. Sadly, there’s no sign of McQueen’s frequent collaborator Michael Fassbender, but we’re pretty sure everyone will be fine making do with the rather dreamy upcoming actor and musician Josh Whitehouse in his place. The always exquisite, Burberry regular Amber Anderson plays Whitehouse’s steamy partner in crime.
So how did the fashion house convince such an in-demand director to get behind their new fragrance campaign? (Incidentally it's a “sensual, herby, woody eau de toilette”). McQueen had this to say:
“Christopher [Bailey] is a unique human being and a real collaborator. His enthusiasm is infectious and that’s what attracted me into working with him on the Mr. Burberry project. I wanted to convey the idea of two people who are passionately in love. It’s that moment in a relationship where all you are thinking about is each other, and all you want is to be with each other.”
Throw in a soundtrack provided by Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine and you've got yourself an advertising slam dunk. Anyhow, the news certainly explains McQueen’s rather random appearance on the Burberry FROW back in January.
Watch the film:
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Yes, Andie MacDowell. It's still freaking raining. While we're delighted that Four Weddings and a Funeral had a happy ending and we recognise that London is prone to downpours, having a heartfelt conversation as raindrops spill down your nose feels a little...miserable. Nothing like a raging cold to kick off a relationship.
It's not that rain can't be sexy. Dirty Dancing 's Baby and Johnny getting it on as the rain pours is hot stuff. But guess what? They were inside, safely snuggled up in a dry, warm bed. As much as we may like to think we're the type of person who can enjoy a passionate clinch during one of this month's April showers, we'll pick cozy and comfortable over snotty and soggy every day.
However, if storm clouds turn you on, you're in luck. These romantic rainy-day scenes are a meteorologist's dream come true. Someone get these lovebirds an umbrella and a towel!
Singin' in the Rain(1952)
At least Don (Gene Kelly) had the sense to bust out an umbrella before laying one on Kathy (Debbie Reynolds). Too bad he didn't borrow her rain slicker before embarking on his legendary dance routine.
Video: Courtesy of Loews, Inc.
The Quiet Man(1952)
John Wayne's character, Sean, is so into kissing Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara) that he doesn't seem to notice he's inadvertently entered a wet T-shirt contest.
Video: Courtesy of Republic Pictures.
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
The scent of a wet cat is such an aphrodisiac for Paul (George Peppard) and Holly (Audrey Hepburn).
Video: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
9 1/2 Weeks (1986)
Once you've smeared the contents of your fridge all over each other, having a sexcapade in the rain seems pretty tame. Insert your own "slippery when wet" pun for this scene starring Elizabeth (Kim Basinger) and John (Mickey Rourke).
Video: Courtesy of MGM.
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Toto (Marco Leonardi) gets the girl (Agnese Nano) thanks to his refusal to let a downpour deter him from movie night. It's the rainy, Italian version of "Netflix and chill."
Video: Courtesy of Miramax Films.
Little Women (1994)
A sensitive, intellectual man who carries an umbrella? No wonder Jo (Winona Ryder) said yes to Professor Bhaer (Gabriel Byrne).
Video: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
"Comes a point when you're so wet you can't get any wetter." You said it, Carrie (Andie MacDowell).
Video: Courtesy of Gramercy Pictures.
Chasing Amy(1997)
Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams) and Holden (Ben Affleck) fight and then make out like two drowned rats. Get in the car!
Video: Courtesy of Miramax Films.
Sliding Doors (1998)
How is it possible that so many of these couples live in London and none of them carry umbrellas? We hope Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) and James (John Hannah) learned their lesson.
Video: Courtesy of Miramax Films.
Spider-Man(2002)
This famous kiss between Spidey (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) always gives us chills...for multiple reasons. Brrr.
Video: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Sweet Home Alabama (2002)
Melanie (Reese Witherspoon) found the perfect way to ruin a designer wedding dress.
Video: Courtesy of Buena Vista Pictures.
Daredevil (2003)
That dampness you feel on your face isn't from the rain. It's the tears that are flowing now that Ben Affleck (Matt Murdock) and Jennifer Garner (Elektra) are over.
Courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
A Cinderella Story (2004)
Today's forecast: Heavy rain with a helping of "happily ever after." Sam (Hilary Duff) didn't let the weather dampen her spirits or deter her from kissing Austin (Chad Michael Murray) in this fairy tale spoof.
Video: Courtesy of Warner Bros.
The Notebook (2004)
This scene between Ryan Gosling's Noah and Rachel McAdams' Allie is so passionate, it made the movie poster. In reality, though, you might want to check your weather app before planning a canoe trip with Baby Goose.
Video: Courtesy of New Line Cinema.
Match Point (2005)
Nola (Scarlett Johansson) and Chris (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) couldn't resist a liquidy tryst, whether it involved rain or baby oil.
Video: Courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
It's like raaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnn on your wedding day — times 1,000. Will (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth's (Keira Knightley) soggy nuptials occurred mid-battle.
Video: Courtesy of Disney/Buena Vista Pictures.
Enchanted (2007)
Princess Giselle (Amy Adams) gets her man (Patrick Dempsey)...and, probably, a terrible cold.
Video: Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
Australia (2008)
To be fair, those Aussies needed rain so badly Lady Sarah (Nicole Kidman) probably didn't mind that her hairdo and fancy flowers got drenched.
Video: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
Step Up 2: The Streets(2008)
This scene between Andie (Briana Evigan) and Chase (Robert Hoffman) is sort of like Friday Night Lights' Mud Bowl, but hotter.
Video: Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
Dear John (2010)
What can we say? Nicholas Sparks loves a good rain shower. Here, Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) and John (Channing Tatum) seek sexy shelter under a tiny piece of wood. Anyone else perplexed as to why Chan doesn't pull up his hood?
Photo: Courtesy of Screen Gems.
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Growing up in rural California, I had crooked teeth, permed hair, and a complex about being too short. Scandalous talk shows were my escape, and it was there that I first became acquainted with a certain type of woman. Everything about her was elegant: her clothes, her hair, her gestures. Men loved her. In fact, they paid her to travel around the world with them. She was the high-class call girl, and I was fascinated by her. And more importantly, I was inspired.
It wasn’t until I lost my virginity, though, that I learned I really loved sex. By that time I was a college student in Manhattan, and I’d long suffered from low self-esteem. But sex made me feel wanted, needed, and appreciated. It was intoxicating, even powerful. So when the funding for my college tuition was suddenly cut off, I had the justification I needed to tiptoe into the world of sexy work. I became a stripper.
At first, I thoroughly enjoyed the theatre of topless dancing. I loved the flamboyant outfits, the glamorous hair and makeup, and the opportunity to get in touch with my body’s beauty. Being a woman became much more fun with a newfound sense of “glamour,” and sex became even more pleasurable the better I could move. But the late nights, smoky bars, and mind-numbing conversations with patrons wore me down, and I quickly traded late nights for a daytime job as an office temp. Somehow the corporate world was even worse than those bars. Even while working for top-level executives, it made me feel dull inside. I remembered those beautiful women I saw on TV growing up, and another way of life called to me incessantly.
Illustrated by Isabel Castillo-Guijarro.
It was an obsession that took me to the office of a sharp, open-minded French psychiatrist. We talked about the courtesans of old (and modern escorts) who juggled “boyfriends” and traveled the world while being treasured for their femininity, their individual beauty, and their innate ability to bring comfort to clients. The idea of men expressing their ardor with generous and tangible financial support instead of empty words and broken promises — like so much of what I experienced in the dating world — appealed to me, and the doctor concluded I suffered from nothing more than an occupational obsession. “Explore it” was his advice, if only to settle the matter once and for all.
This was how I found myself standing in a Manhattan bordello one night. I had made the decision to take a leap and style myself as a high-priced escort. Not dabble. Not dip in and out. But truly immerse myself in learning this profession to make it my lifestyle and a career. Wearing a long silky gown, a prissy set of pearls, and kitten heels, I stood out (or perhaps under) from the tall, more modelesque girls in vampy dresses. Self-conscious about my flat chest and short stature, I worried I’d never be able to do what they did. But when one asked why I got to wear my “nightgown,” our motherly madam snapped, “Because it’s just her. ”
And with that, I learned whatever you’ve got going on, you can work it.
Overweight? No, you’re zaftig and curvalicious (you can be busy-busy as a BBW — big beautiful woman — escort if you market yourself correctly). Got that goth look, dark-violet hair, and a tattoo or two? There’s a man out there ready to worship you with his dollars. A “boring”-looking librarian (save for the saucy smirk) with an advanced degree, pencil skirt, and glasses? Oh my god, when you own that and work it — all of it — the phones will ring off the hook.
Me? I wasn’t “short” but petite. I wasn’t innocent; I was girlish. I learned to celebrate my differences. There is no “cookie cutter” ideal of beauty and character. Men who pay (and men who don’t) want to enjoy the company of an authentic, independent woman simply basking in who she is. Once I understood this my self-confidence exploded and so did my career. I soon left the bordello to work for myself as an independent companion, entertaining in my own apartment and specialising in “the girlfriend experience” as well as escorting my clients out or traveling the world with them.
Illustrated by Isabel Castillo-Guijarro.
To offer this level of companionship, I had to be at my very best. Spiritually, I had to cultivate the skills of empathy, tact, and diplomacy (and practice a lot of loving kindness). But I also had to take care of myself physically and mentally if I was going to do it for others. This expectation allowed me to hone my self-discipline and truly master my emotions. I came to love the daily rigours of maintaining myself. It meant daily exercise, watching my diet (if only to have enough energy to be a sexual athlete all night), and keeping positive and spiritually balanced. Negativity cannot proliferate for long when your patrons need you to “light up their lives.”
Once I learned to hide the sorrows I held inside, they began to disappear. This allowed me to focus on the men who were my clients instead of myself. And while it's easy to feel “drained” by their needs and expectations, there's so much room for fulfilment. Many of the men who came to me were stressed, insecure, and troubled, and it wasn't really about sex for them. If you remember this, you elevate yourself and what you do to a level that goes beyond a “transaction.”
Ultimately, escorting taught me that in order to take care of men at every level — physically, mentally, spiritually — I had to first take care of myself. It’s what allowed me to have something valuable (and for some, priceless) to share. It also granted me the time, money, and life experiences needed to write, and now I have written a series of erotic novels (The Spicy Secrets of a Jet-Set Temptress) — something I don't think I would've been able to do without the discipline I developed as an escort.
I’ve come to think of escorting as a helping, healing, and entertainment profession — not just for my clients but also for me. Yes, I worked for money, and I loved every single gift and tip I got on top of it, but I worked just as much for the life that came with it. It took me to a better place, where I could recognise, embrace, and cultivate my own uniqueness. I was an escort, but not just for the money.
Sniffs and stifled sobs erupted as 37-year-old Sharilyn Ervin spoke into the microphone. “My 12-year-old was my caretaker. She had no life at 12. She changed my diapers,” she told a panel of representatives from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Bayer Pharmaceuticals back in September 2015. “She took me to the potty. She bathed me. She had no childhood,” Ervin continued. Panel chair Cheryl Iglesia, MD, kept her stoic gaze as she brushed a single tear away from her left cheek.
It would be the only display of emotion from the panel as roughly 20 women shared similar stories of complications, injuries, and suffering related to Essure, a non-hormonal permanent birth control device manufactured by Bayer. Ervin's daughter was forced to care for her after she experienced cramping, bleeding, and a loss of bowel control after Ervin had Essure implanted, resulting in a 17-week hospital stay, she said.
Around Ervin sat hundreds of women like her, from all over the country. The women, who call themselves “E-Sisters,” had been fighting for this day for a little more than five years. Bayer stands behind its device and says patient safety is its top priority. “The safety and efficacy of Essure is supported by more than a decade of science and real world clinical experience,” says Tara DiFlumeri, the company spokeswoman.
In the U.S., around 62% of women of reproductive age are using some form of contraception currently. While two-thirds of those women use non-permanent methods like the pill, a full 25% of them choose sterilisation. Every method of birth control, every medical intervention, comes with risk, but as complaints have grown, evidence has mounted that Essure’s risks may not have been clearly communicated with patients. Some experts say there were flaws with the studies that supported the FDA’s approval of the device in the first place and that the FDA may be grossly underestimating the magnitude of the problem, Refinery29 found in this investigation.
Ahead, you’ll hear all sides of the story, starting with the women who demanded that their doctors, the FDA, and Bayer listen to what they had to say.
The Facebook Group That Started It All
Since Essure, which is a set of small metal coils placed in the fallopian tubes, was approved by the FDA in 2002, thousands of American women have come forward with stories of injuries and malfunctions related to the device. But it wasn't until the media caught on to a Facebook group called Essure Problems in 2013 that concern over the device reached a fever pitch.
In 2011, the same year she had her Essure coils removed, Angie Firmalino logged onto Facebook and created the Essure Problems group. She says on the group’s fundraising web page that after being implanted with Essure, she experienced heavy bleeding, fatigue, back pain and sharp stabbing pains in her lower left side; her physicians discovered years later that one of her Essure coils had migrated into her uterus and the other was “embedded in my uterine wall," she writes. “I started a page on Facebook called Essure Problems, to warn my friends and family about this procedure, and share what I had been through."
Members of Essure Problems interviewed by R29 felt that, in general, their doctors were not responsive to their complaints, and so they went looking for some kind of outlet. They turned to each other for understanding, finding each other online in Firmalino’s group, which has now grown to about 28,000 members over the past five years, with dozens of posts and comments being added every day. They’ve developed their own lingo, calling themselves the “E-Sisters” and congratulating each other when another woman becomes "E-Free."
“I have probably read a quarter of a million posts, day after day, week after week, month after month from women in debilitating pain, women suffering, having no one who will believe them that Essure may be the cause, let alone help them,” Firmalino said at the FDA hearing back in September. “If this were men complaining of pain, bleeding, or sexual dysfunction after having a medical device implanted in their testicles, no doctor would question the cause or hesitate to remove the implant.”
One member of the group, Lisa S., says that she felt immediate regret when she got Essure in 2008. Her lower abdomen twisted in pain as she walked out of her appointment. “I had the feeling that I shouldn’t have done this,” she says. (Lisa's lawyer's requested that we do not use her full name as they are pursuing litigation.)
Lisa says that Essure was recommended by her doctor as a permanent birth control option and would require zero downtime. To a full-time graduate student and a working mother of three, that sounded pretty good: She didn’t have time for a day off. Unfortunately though, from the day she had the device implanted, Lisa says she started having very heavy menstrual periods, and that her symptoms escalated over the next three years to fatigue, cramping, and painful sex.
Years ago, at 22, Lisa had been diagnosed with endometriosis, a disease that causes endometrial tissue to grow outside of the uterus. It is known to cause many of those same symptoms Lisa was experiencing, including heavy periods and pain. But she insists that after surgery in her 20s to treat her endometriosis she didn't have any problems — until she got Essure at 38. Almost all of the doctors she saw thought her symptoms were related to endometriosis, not Essure, but she wasn’t convinced.
Around September 2013, she found the Essure Problems group online and was shocked to see women talking about the same side effects. At that time, there were about 1,700 members. She immediately joined, becoming an admin the following year. She's now the leader of the New York Essure Problems group, one of a handful of regional offshoots that each host intermittent in-person meet-ups.
“I was in shock at first and spent time reading posts of so many women going through the same health concerns as me. The admins were amazing and informative. I immediately took an interest in helping these ladies. The support was like no other,” she says.
Illustrated by Ly Ngo.
An Epic Failure
Essure was designed as an alternative to tubal ligation (a.k.a. “getting your tubes tied”) for women who are done having children or don’t want to have children. Within three months after implantation, scar tissue is supposed to naturally form around the coils until the tubes are completely closed off, so sperm can’t reach any eggs. The draw is that implantation doesn’t require any surgery or recovery time, yet it is meant to permanently prevent pregnancy just the same. On Bayer’s Essure website, they estimate the device has been implanted about 750,000 times worldwide. The company does not share country-level sales data, but DiFlumeri told Refinery29 in an email that the total number of Essure kits sold worldwide is actually closer to 900,000 and that the “majority of these are in the U.S.”
Bayer also asserts that Essure is 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. And there's no hard scientific evidence yet to dispute that. But in addition to complaints of pain, bleeding, fatigue, and others, many of the E-sisters (and experts on their side) say that not only do their stories indicate that in practice, Essure is not as effective at preventing pregnancy as Bayer's studies suggest, but also that when it does fail, it can go horribly wrong.
In early 2010, just three months after Cecilia Bogle had the two metal coils inserted into her fallopian tubes, she found out during a routine follow-up to make sure her tubes were sufficiently blocked (called a hysterosalpingogram, or HSG test) that one of her coils was in an “extrauterine position" — meaning it was either misplaced or it had migrated. Either way, her tube was not blocked, and a few days later she noticed her period was late; 10 days after her HSG test, a pregnancy test came back positive.
Women are counselled to continue using an alternate form of birth control for the first three months after the procedure, and Bogle says she continued to take her birth control pills as recommended. To be fair, Bogle’s story represents a truth many women know first-hand: birth control can and does fail. But Bogle says she never would have expected a failure of this magnitude.
Five months after Bogle happily (though unexpectedly) gave birth to a healthy baby girl in September of 2010, her doctor recommended that she have a hysterectomy because she was having very heavy periods and other symptoms like cramping and stomach pains. During the hysterectomy, doctors attempted to remove the coil that had migrated, but could not find it, she says. Later, during a second surgery to remove her fallopian tubes, doctors found “questionable beginnings of perforation” in the left fallopian tube and were able to remove the coil, but they still could not find the right coil, according to medical records provided to Refinery29. Bogle had multiple procedures over the next few years, including colonoscopies and other GI exams, in an effort to figure out both where the coil was and whether it was causing her symptoms. Her sex life with her husband became strained. And in 2014, she was diagnosed with a nickel allergy. (Essure, like other medical devices including heart stents, contain nickel that can cause reactions in those who are sensitive.)
I am in pain every day. Some days are worse than others.
Finally in 2015, a CT scan found evidence that the fragments of her right Essure coil were located in Bogle's abdomen. To this day, she still has fragments embedded somewhere in her ascending colon and lower abdomen. Bogle continues to suffer from nausea, bloating, severe stomach, back and joint pain, and migraines. “I am in pain every day. Some days are worse than others,” she says.
“As a husband, it is hard to see your wife in pain,” Bogle’s husband David said at the FDA hearing. “Having to watch my wife go through multiple surgeries and the risks involved, it is extremely stressful and downright scary.”
Throughout all of this, Bogle has been an active member of Essure Problems. She says that the group started tallying unintended pregnancies in 2012, jotting them down into a database whenever a woman posts an incident to the Facebook group, and she took over the task from another admin in January 2015. "In our group alone, we have had 650 reported pregnancies to our group; 273 of those have been reported to miscarry. That's approximately 42%," she said during her speech at the September 2015 meeting with the FDA.
The FDA recently updated their website to reflect the number of reports of pregnancies and foetal deaths they’ve received. The website now states that the FDA itself has received 631 reports of pregnancies in patients with Essure: 150 of these pregnancies resulted in a live birth, 204 had an unknown outcome, and 294 ended in pregnancy loss, including 94 ectopic pregnancies, 43 elective terminations, and 155 miscarriages.
In all, this may not sound like a large number given that an estimated 900,000 Essure devices have been sold, by Bayer’s count. Essure’s makers stand by their promise that it is 99% effective at preventing pregnancy, comparable to other birth control methods on the market. But at least one 2014 study, published in the journal Contraception, found that the risk of pregnancy was higher in those with Essure than in women who received other sterilisation procedures, like tubal ligation or a Falope ring procedure (which is a silicone ring implanted around the fallopian tubes).
The authors of that paper also bring up some drawbacks to the procedure: “The likelihood of achieving successful bilateral coil placement on first attempt varies from 76% to 96%.” The researchers also mention the three month delay Bogle was warned about, during which women must use an alternative form of contraception. After this three month period, women are supposed to have the HSG test to make sure the scar tissue has formed and the procedure was successful, as Bogle did.
But the researchers write that “prior research has shown that some (6 to 87%) women never return” for these tests, and for up to 16% of women who do have the test, blockage hasn’t occurred after three months. The “multiple steps” involved may be why the rate of failure is higher for these women, the researchers conclude.
Ultimately, then, the question is: Are women who choose this procedure being appropriately informed about the pros and cons?
Bogle says she was only told by her physician that Essure was 99% effective at preventing pregnancy, and that as long as she stayed on her birth control for three months and came in for the three-month follow-up, everything would be fine.
According to Lisa S., her doctor told her that less than one% of women have side effects like migrations and pregnancy. Lisa S. did not have her follow-up test until five years later, in 2013, because she had too many scheduling problems, she says. “Every time I had an appointment, I would be bleeding and had to cancel,” she says. Lisa stated that she finally got the follow-up test a few months after she joined the Facebook group, and it revealed that her tubes were sufficiently blocked. But by this time, she had been having symptoms like pain, chronic fatigue, and intermittent bleeding for years, and so she decided to have a hysterectomy to have her coils removed. It took a long time, but she is now pain-free and has plenty of energy again, she says.
Photo: Courtesy of Mia Garchitorena.
The Day They’d Been Waiting For
At 5:39 a.m. on September 24, 2015, Krystal Donahue, 39, steered her blue Ford Flex through the mist of the Maryland White Marsh Mall parking lot. This was a day she and other members of the Essure Problems Facebook group had been demanding through statewide meet-ups and media posts for a long time: The first hearing on Essure at the FDA headquarters. Donahue, another of the Facebook group’s administrators, would be one of the women to speak alongside Ervin. She felt a combination of stage fright, anger, and concern that despite the hearing, the agency wouldn’t take any meaningful action to protect women.
Donahue says the Essure coil procedure left her feeling fatigued and nauseous for days afterward, and that her symptoms escalated to extreme pain, heavy bleeding, and a trip to the emergency room. She went back and forth between doctors for two years before finding one who could remove her coils, finally having them taken out on her 37th birthday. “It was a birthday gift to myself,” she says.
By the time of the hearing, the women, who were demanding an outright ban on the device, had received the attention of medical providers and researchers who shared their concerns about its safety. Hundreds of attendees, including physicians and women with Essure, traveled from across the country to see what was to become of the device.
On the way to the FDA hearing, Donahue picked up fellow E-Sister and Syracuse resident Sheila Pitt. It was the first time they had ever met in person, but the two women embraced in the parking lot. “I don’t know if I have any tears left,” Pitt said at the time.
Unlike most of the women at the FDA hearing, Donahue wasn’t hopeful that the FDA would recall Essure. She was too realistic about the political realities that could keep the device on the market. A lot of powerful people are making a lot of money from the device, she said.
Deborah Kotz, an FDA spokeswoman, says that it is not unusual to have a public hearing about a medical device, “but we certainly don’t do it for every device.” A few times a year, the FDA will conduct hearings about the safety of a device if there is a noticeable increase in adverse events. The organisation will then evaluate the post-market approval by consulting with a panel of manufacturers and physicians.
Despite the thousands of women harmed and despite all the data presented here today, Bayer and the FDA have difficulty seeing the causal relationship between Essure and our health due to limited data.
Inside, hundreds of people were gathered in a large conference hall. Two security guards and a long, red nylon rope separated the attendees from the FDA and Bayer panelists. The hearing began at 8 a.m., and for three hours, the FDA and Bayer representatives explained their findings from the pre- and post-approval studies conducted through Conceptus, the company that owned the device until Bayer acquired it in 2013.
At 11:10 a.m., speakers from the public were given the chance to present their speeches. Donahue had practiced her speech for an hour the night before. Her voice shook as she talked about the time when her pain was so sharp and intense, it caused her to spasm on a doctor’s exam table, and how she suffered from abdominal pain, painful sex, extreme fatigue, joint pain, rashes, and abdominal swelling.
“I am not an extreme case,” Donahue told the panel. “My coils did not migrate or perforate. I did, however, endure physical pain and mental anguish for two years after being implanted with Essure.
“Despite the thousands of women harmed and despite all the data presented here today, Bayer and the FDA have difficulty seeing the causal relationship between Essure and our health due to limited data,” she continued.
Donahue took her seat to vigorous applause from those who sided with her. The faces of the Bayer and FDA officials did not register any response.
Many more patients — 22 women total — testified at the hearing. Another 21 speakers included several physicians, CEOs, and women’s health representatives from Planned Parenthood and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists. Most urged Bayer and the FDA to conduct more studies.
After the hearing, DiFlumeri, the Bayer spokeswoman, said, “Bayer stands by the positive-risk profile of Essure, and we look forward to working with the FDA as it considers the Panel’s advice.”
Illustrated by Ly Ngo.
Incomplete Data: What Experts Have To Say
The “E-Sisters” were able to start the conversation, but even with their harrowing stories, it is hard to say just how risky Essure really is. And that’s the actual problem: We don’t know enough about Essure to quantify the hazards — and these unknowns have persisted since the beginning, with some experts arguing the device never should have been approved in the first place.
As patient complaints have increased, experts like Charles Monteith, MD, a North Carolina-based surgeon and Sanket Dhruva, MD, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, have gone back and looked at the science behind the approval of the Essure device. Their conclusions are startling: They say that there were flaws with the two studies that supported the FDA’s approval of the device all the way back in 2002.
Dr. Monteith, medical director of A Personal Choice Tubal Reversal Center, says that the pre-approval studies for Essure did not measure the risk for long-term health complications, only the risk for complications early on. In his opinion this boils down to “running an uncontrolled trial on American women as a result of the decisions that were made when the device was approved.”
The studies included data from a total of 745 women followed for five years after getting Essure. None of the women became pregnant, and adverse events “that prevented reliance on Essure for contraception” were observed in 9% of women in one study and 2.6% of the women in the second study. These included instances of perforation, expulsion of the coils from the fallopian tubes, and misplacement. Still, since no pregnancies occurred in the first study and at the five-year follow-up, Essure was deemed a successful preventative permanent birth control and was approved by the FDA.
Dr. Dhruva, whose research focuses on medical decision-making, including FDA approvals, published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine in October that looked back at the possible flaws in the pre- and post-approval study results of Essure. (Post-approval studies are common and meant to examine the results from pre-approval studies of medical devices once they’re on the market.) He found that the studies didn’t compare results against the current method of sterilization, the tubal ligation, and in fact, most of the women in the original studies weren’t even followed for the full five years. Of the 745 women included in the studies that led to the approval of Essure, only 197 were still being followed after two years.
On top of that, Dr. Dhruva writes that FDA approval was conditional on the publication of post-approval studies, but that those have flaws as well. One is still ongoing almost 14 years after approval, and another, which enrolled 518 women and followed them for five years, neglected to include those women whose placements were unsuccessful, or who underwent hysterectomy within that time, in the effectiveness analysis.
Without accounting for every person in the studies, and without including a control group who received the alternative, tubal ligation, the medical community has a difficult time assessing the true risks and benefits associated with Essure, Dr. Dhruva says.
An ideal study would take a tubal ligation group and an Essure group, follow them for at least five years, and compare the endpoint results (bleeding, unintended pregnancies, hysterectomies, and so on). “Once enrolled, you always follow. That’s an obligation taught in medical school,” Dr. Dhruva says, conceding that “it can be difficult to follow every patient,” but it’s “the goal.”
The bottom line: The limited data on Essure’s effectiveness points to “inflated success rates and deflated failure rates,” adds Aileen Gariepy, MD, a Yale Ob/Gyn who worked on the study with Dr. Dhruva.
The Reports Continue
Following that hard-won hearing, the FDA announced in February several new requirements, including new product labelling, and a “Patient Checklist” designed to help physicians improve their methods of explaining the device’s risks to patients. Most notably, the FDA has ordered Bayer to conduct a new study investigating the device's safety — although the device remains on the market.
The FDA, for its part, has been receiving reports about Essure-related problems since it was approved through its Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database, or MAUDE for short. The database is available for manufacturers, physicians, patients, and consumers of medical devices to report adverse events, such as injuries, malfunctions, or death. The reports are mandatory for manufacturers and voluntary for consumers, patients, and healthcare professionals. Depending on the severity of a case, the FDA may choose to investigate further, but confirming the reports is difficult, especially in the case of Essure.
The number of reports may be increasing due to media attention and the growth of the Essure Problems Facebook group. By the FDA’s count, between November 2002 and December 31, 2015, the MAUDE database received 9,900 reported incidents related to the Essure device, including 26 reported deaths. Most of these were voluntary reports made by Essure patients, the FDA says on its website.
Illustrated by Ly Ngo.
A Refinery29 dive into the reports found that the incidents ranged from pregnancies to much more severe issues: Essure coils have reportedly perforated amniotic sacs and induced early labor. One baby was born with underdeveloped lungs. Two women died of blood clots, one after having a hysterectomy and the other after doctors attempted to insert her Essure coils, according to the text of the reports found in the MAUDE database.
Some of the MAUDE reports contain tragic narratives. According to a particularly harrowing report that was filed in September 2015, a woman found out she was six weeks pregnant after she had her Essure implanted in 2012. Worried about the health of her baby, she consulted her doctor about the risks. She was told that the coils would “bend out of the way and they would not cause any harm to my pregnancy."
At 22 weeks, she got up to go the restroom and heard a loud popping sound, "like a balloon.” Water started trickling down her legs immediately afterwards. She went to the emergency room and found out that she was leaking amniotic fluid.
While in the ER, the doctors attempted to stitch her cervix closed, which is known as a cerclage procedure, to try to save the pregnancy, but it didn’t work. She continued to leak amniotic fluid, and a few days later tests revealed her baby would not survive, the patient stated in the report.
Back at the hospital, a doctor was removing the stitches from the cerclage procedure so she could deliver when he found an Essure coil in her vaginal tract. “What the (profanity) is an Essure coil doing in her vaginal tract?” the doctor reportedly said.
It was too late to end the pregnancy in abortion, and so she delivered the baby, whom she named Daphne, shortly after. She and her husband held Daphne in their arms until she died 15 minutes later. “I had to bury my baby because of a coil,” the patient stated in the report. “I now suffer from PTSD because of the traumatising nature in which this all happened.”
Many of the reported incidents, including the one above, are not investigated by Bayer or the FDA. If the patient or her physician doesn’t provide the actual coil, so it can be inspected, the cases are considered inconclusive. “It is not possible to determine if a device malfunctioned if the device is unavailable for inspection,” explains DiFlumeri, the Bayer representative.
Physicians who support the Essure device say that complications are often impossible to predict. “There are certain people that will have odd reactions to drugs or surgeries or an odd occurrence during surgery that’s not well-documented,” says Cindy Basinski, MD, an Ob/Gyn in Indiana and a paid Bayer consultant. (ProPublica’s “Dollars for Docs ” estimates Bayer has paid her $35,364.) “It doesn’t happen enough for us to understand how to predict it or even how to counsel patients about it.”
Despite the alarming number and nature of reports, it is important to note that some MAUDE database reports on Essure are incomplete. Some reports are duplicates. Others are mislabeled. And even up to now, some adverse event reports are mistakenly being filed under Conceptus, Essure’s previous manufacturer, by voluntary reporters. It is very hard to confirm whether each of these are valid, and truly related to Essure.
“What the (profanity) is an Essure coil doing in her vaginal tract?” the doctor reportedly said.
What’s undeniable, however, is that many of these women have a story about a complication they believe is related to the Essure device. The reports and the Facebook posts keep coming in — every day. And their stories really do raise important questions.
Meanwhile, Essure Problems has grown to become a highly organised advocacy group. And Essure has gained significant attention from the media thanks to them. Women post pictures of themselves in medical gowns, holding signs saying they are “E-Free,” after getting their Essure coils removed. They post pictures of their “E-Babies,” or babies reportedly born from mothers implanted with Essure. And they seek advice and comfort from other Essure women by posting their symptoms and personal stories.
Julio Novoa, MD, an Ob/Gyn based in El Paso, TX, spoke at the FDA hearing and said that the true number of adverse event reports could exceed over 25,000. He said that many women aren’t even aware of what the FDA MAUDE database is, so their complications potentially related to Essure won’t ever be reported.
“Data collection from Essure Problems surveys lists over 500 unintended pregnancies with ectopic pregnancies, and Essure-induced abortion rates as high as 40%. Further, Essure-related salpingostomies [a surgery to clear the fallopian tubes], salpingectomies [surgery to remove the fallopian tubes], and/or hysterectomies now average over 100 cases per month, with 11 cases being done just today,” Dr. Novoa said at the FDA hearing.
He originally joined the Essure Problems Facebook group to defend Essure, but after three days of looking into the complaints, Dr. Novoa changed his opinion. “My change of heart happened very quickly.”
In his point of view, even if these events are as rare as Bayer contends, another issue is that there is no information about what to do when something does go wrong. “We’re all in the dark with this. It’s basically trial and error,” Dr. Novoa says, adding that “there should be instructions from Bayer about how best to deal with complications.”
What Happens Now
For now, Essure devices are still being implanted. Proponents of Essure say the complaints should not undermine the device. Women should be aware of the risks and benefits of Essure and free to choose it, says Dr. Basinski. “My hope is that the FDA will support continued improvements in counselling to patients; that’s important.”
The FDA now requires that Bayer provide the agency’s strictest “black box” warning, which will alert patients of the risks associated with Essure. In addition, Bayer must develop and conduct a new post-market study that will investigate the rate of complications including injuries, pain, unplanned pregnancies, and surgery to remove the device. The public has until May 3, 2016 to comment on the “black box” draft guidance it issued in February.
Meanwhile, the push to ban the device remains. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania, is leading the ban on Essure with his bill, the “E-Free Act.” The bill would require the FDA to withdraw its approval for Essure. On December 10, 2015, Fitzpatrick addressed Congress on behalf of the women harmed by Essure: “Their stories are real, their pain is real, and their fight is real,” he said.
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Face creams, haircuts, shampoo, mascara, waxings — our beauty routines do not come cheap. Though we'd like to think we do pretty well for ourselves when it comes to our regular maintenance, let's just imagine for a moment that money was not a factor. We'd surely upgrade a few things here and there. Okay, we'd upgrade A LOT of things — and book a spa getaway to the Maldives, stat.
It's true that money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a Kylie Jenner wig and a fancy facial — or better yet, your own personal facialist to accompany you on that tropical vacay. Life in the top tax bracket is full of primping, pampering, and procedures. Of course, we don't think all of it is totally necessary, but it's still fun to daydream about a world where money is no object and the La Mer flows like wine.
Ahead, we break down 15 guidelines for living the beauty high life, courtesy of our favourite celebs.
Change Your Hair 50 Times A Year
We feel really (and we mean really) on top of our game if we hit the salon every few months — and usually that's just for a trim or a colour touch-up, not a whole beauty overhaul. But if you're Kylie Jenner, visiting your hairstylist — or, rather, having your hairstylist visit you — seems to happen as often as we go out to brunch.
Harper's Bazaar calculated that Kylie switched her look 51 times over the course of 2015. The mag also brings up the possibility that more transformations have gone undocumented — though we somehow doubt that, considering that fam's selfie obsession.
Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
Take Time (A Lot Of Time) For Manicures
But Kylie's hair isn't the only thing she’s constantly switching up. Kris Jenner urged her daughter to always have a fresh manicure — and she takes her advice very seriously.
“My mum always drilled it in my head to have nice, pretty nails...” Kylie Jenner told People. “I get my nails done every week. I’ve sat literally for four to five hours doing them. I used to spend so much time doing the craziest artwork.”
Though, we’re sure she allowed herself a few Snapchat breaks.
Photo: BFA/REX/Shutterstock.
Have A Standing Monthly Appointment With A Facialist...
If you want to live like an angel (looking like one probably has a much heftier price tag) or at least have skin like one, you need to up your facial game. Blonde bombshell Candice Swanepoel told Harper's Bazaar that she religiously gets a facial with extractions once a month.
Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images.
...Or Perhaps, A Weekly One
Once you enter the Gwyneth Paltrow beauty-sphere, facials every seven days are in order. The Daily Mail reported that out of Miss Goop's £14,000 monthly (!) beauty budget, a large portion goes to weekly facials and skin treatments. Her top picks: £1,500 microdermabrasion, electronic muscle stimulation, an oxygen-mist treatment at Tracie Martyn in New York, and an £300 apple stem cell facial at Sonya Dakar in L.A.
But she'll really try anything when it comes to beauty — her words, not ours. "I’m open to anything," she told The New York Times. "I’ve been stung by bees. It’s a thousands-of-years-old treatment called apitherapy. People use it to get rid of inflammation and scarring. It’s actually pretty incredible if you research it. But, man, it’s painful. I haven’t done cryotherapy yet, but I do want to try that."
Photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic
Slather La Mer —Everywhere
Chrissy Teigen is undoubtedly one of the most down-to-earth celebs — but that doesn’t stop her from going over-the-top when it comes to her beauty routine. In a recent interview with Allure, the mum-to-be admitted to rubbing La Mer The Concentrate (a serum that costs £335 a pop) all over her pregnant belly to prevent stretch marks — something she and her fam are prone to, but that she says hubs John Legend could "care less about." She also admitted that she is “25 minutes late to everything because my lotion regimen is that long. I put it everywhere.”
Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images.
Get Twice-Weekly Eyelash Touch-Ups
Whoever laughed at Jessica Simpson back in the day (Chicken of the Sea, anyone?), certainly isn't laughing now. The singer turned entrepreneur has a net worth of £105 million, and she knows how to spend it. She's obsessed with her eyelashes and has extensions, which she refreshes bi-weekly for a whopping £350 a pop, reports TVNZ. That is over £36,000 a year on lashes, people.
Photo: Desiree Navarro/WireImage.
HaveA Celebrity StylistCut Your Hair
If you like your jets as private as your islands and you rarely sleep in the same country for more than a few weeks at a time, you probably aren't getting your hair done at Supercuts. According to Therichest.com, Angelina Jolie is a fan of hairstylist Rossano Ferretti, who charges a staggering £1,100 to sit in his chair for a trim — the steepest rate in the industry.
Photo: Jason Merritt/Getty Images.
Upgrade Your Face Cream
Speaking of Beyoncé, the queen's makeup artist Sir John divulged her product situation to The Cut. Expensive creams are obvious for the uber rich (Kim Kardashian's go-to moisturiser from Guerlain costs ££295 a pop), but Bey's makeup man advocates using eye cream, which is typically more costly and comes in smaller quantities than other skincare products, all over the face. (He says eye cream absorbs better.) And face creams on the body (same deal). Just think how often you'd have to replace your products with this system...
Photo: Al Bello/Getty Images.
A LOT Of Time
Sure, you might find your regular 20-minute manicure tedious and long (you can't even check your phone!). But if you were Kate Middleton, you'd be blessed with the patience of a princess and be able to sit calmly (probably with perfect posture, right?) for an hour-plus without feeling like you missed something on Snapchat — and she's not even getting nail art à la Kylie. When the Duchess gets her nails done, she opts for a 60 minute "signature royal manicure" from her go-to lady, Marina Sandoval— which we're guessing is usually some sort of pinky nude. The Daily Mail reports that the £100 treatment includes a hand soak and massage using natural oils from South America.
In even more 1% nail news, HuffPo reported that Beyoncé paid £600 for the gold nails she sported in the Mrs. Carter World Tour promotional video — and that actually seems like a small sum compared to £175,000 black diamond manicure Kelly Osbourne got for the 2012 Emmys. Yup, £175,000. #yolo.
Photo: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images.
Have A Personal Tanner On Call
It goes without saying that if you were super rich, you'd have a personal trainer. But Rihanna doesn't always like to get her butt kicked in the gym — and that's when her personal tanner comes in. Say what? For those times when RiRi isn't in the mood to work out, it is rumoured that she has a personal tanner who she pays £550 a day to airbrush her bod and contour her thighs and abs to look more defined. Jaw on the floor.
Another fun Rihanna fact: The singer also has hairstylist Ursula Stephens on call at a daily rate of around £2,000, according to the Daily Mail.
Photo: JB Lacroix/WireImage.
Have A Makeup Routine That Takes No Fewer Than 50 Steps
During a master class lead by Kim Kardashian and her makeup guru, Mario Dedivanovic, earlier this year, her glam man demonstrated a makeover on Kim that "requires 40 separate creams, blushes, powders, and gels, applied in over 50 steps, and costs £850 in products, or nearly £1,200 with tools," reports Racked. Wowza.
Photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic.
...Or What About Daily?
Madonna (who was rumoured to have spent £50,000 on an at-home cellulite-removal machine) is a long-time devotee of facialist-to-the- stars Robin Peck and her signature oxygen facial. So much so that Madge has brought her along with her on tours so she can receive the treatment every single damn day. (It is also rumoured that she bought one of the oxygen facial machines to have at home for £1,000.)
Photo: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic.
Let Some (Or A Lot Of) Lasers In Your Life
Jennifer Aniston is "obsessed" with laser treatments, reports Therichest.com. Her preferred laser facial peels away the top layer of skin, the goal being a younger-looking visage. It is not the most pleasant situation (there's discomfort and redness), but it's a necessary evil for the 1%. No pain, no gain, right Jen?
Photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic.
Try Anything — & We Mean ANYTHING
Bee venom, sheep placenta, human placenta, leeches, bird poop — these are just a few of the balls-to-the-wall ingredients the richest of the rich put on their face in the pursuit of youth and beauty. Though she has quite a pared-down makeup regimen compared to some of her counterparts (ahem, Kim K.), Victoria Beckham is not afraid of trying out-there ingredients to get glowing skin. The Mirror reports that the former Spice girl has dabbled in treatments of the nightingale dropping, venom, and afterbirth variety.
Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage.
Bathe In Bottled Water
If you feel like you need to rinse off after reading that last slide (sorry!), why not head over to the Hotel Victor in Miami to bathe Serena Williams -style in 1,000 litres of twice-purified Evian water sprinkled with Gerbera daisies? The world's most expensive bath is offered exclusively in the penthouse suite (which you can book for a starting price of £3,000 a night) for a going rate of £3,500 a dip. The Daily Mail reports that Beyoncé and Britney Spears have also soaked in this might-as-well-be holy water that is meant to "revitalise the skin and purify the senses."
Photo: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic.
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It's official: Anthony Vaccarello is succeeding Hedi Slimane as creative director at Saint Laurent. Vaccarello will start the major new role immediately, and he'll have to work pretty fast, as his first collection will debut in October during spring 2017 Paris Fashion Week.
Slimane's departure, which was confirmed on Friday by Saint Laurent's parent company, Kering, wasn't completely out of left field. Rumours circulated for the past two or so months about his imminent farewell, and about the high possibility of Vaccarello subsequently taking the reigns.
"His modern, pure aesthetic is the perfect fit for the maison," Saint Laurent's CEO, Francesa Belletini, said in a Kering statement released this afternoon. "Anthony Vaccarello impeccably balances elements of provocative femininity and sharp masculinity in his silhouettes. He is the natural choice to express the essence of Yves Saint Laurent."
Vaccarello launched his eponymous line in 2008, with very sexy, cutout-ridden, often asymmetrical LBDs as his signature staple. Before launching his own label, the 36-year-old designer spent time at Fendi. Three years ago, the Belgian-bred talent joined Versus Versace as a guest designer, and in September 2015, was bumped up to creative director of the edgy Versace offshoot, which has become known as an incubator or rite of passage of sorts for talented, buzzy-but-still-indie designers. To wit: Jonathan Anderson and Christopher Kane have both spent time there prior to making their respective industry ascents.
This morning, all signs pointed to the fact that Vaccarello was Slimane's heir apparent at Saint Laurent, when Versace sent out a statement about Vaccarello's departure from Versus. "While I'm sad to see him leave the Versace family, I wish Anthony Vaccarello tremendous success with his next chapter," Donatella Versace said in the statement. "In the past several years, I have worked with three great young talents on Versus Versace... I'm proud that Versus can be such a remarkable global platform for emerging design talent."
Vacarello's aesthetic, as evidenced in his own label as well as his Versus collections, makes a whole lot of sense for the saucy, '80s-referencing Saint Laurent era Slimane ushered in. And apparently, Vaccarello thinks pretty highly of his predecessor's approach to design, based on an interview in Harper's Bazaar 's latest issue released today (obviously conducted well before Vaccarello was officially in at Saint Laurent). "I have a lot of respect for [Slimane], doing what he believes in. He doesn’t give a shit. I think [his work at YSL] is great," Vaccarello told Bazaar.
It's been an exceptionally robust round of creative director musical chairs in recent months, especially at some of the most significant, venerable Parisian houses. The upper-management creative changes have included sort-of-surprising appointment of Vetements' Demna Gvesalia at Balenciaga, another Kering-owned brand. But we're still waiting to find out where Alber Elbaz and Raf Simons, the former creative directors at Lanvin and Dior, respectively, will land. (And whom Dior will tap for the very high-stakes role of helming the house in Simons' absence.) So, anticipate the shuffling of big talents at top-tier labels to continue for the foreseeable future.
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Actress and androgynous style icon Ruby Rose is having one hell of a good run these days. Catapulting into the spotlight after her breakout turn in Orange Is the New Black, the Australian stunner is starring in the spring campaign for Ralph Lauren's Denim & Supply, is the newest spokesperson for Urban Decay, and will soon hit the big screen (with bold jade-green hair) in the new reboot of the xXx film series.
But things haven't always been so amazing for the talented Aussie. Rose has struggled with depression in the past; back in 2013, she bravely opened up about her depression on Twitter after cancelling a series of tour dates to take care of herself. Three years later, to the day, a fan reminded Rose of her past postings concerning her struggles and Rose did something remarkable: She took the opportunity to repost her past tweet on Instagram alongside a powerful message of hope.
"A fan just tweeted this to me," Rose wrote. "What a wake-up call...I'd be lying if I didn't say it shook me up." Admitting that she had "hit a rock bottom" and "didn't know what to do" when she originally penned the tweet, Rose expressed amazement at where she'd ended up. "I'm just feeling reflective because I chose to fight and I thought it meant I'd be able to live. I DIDNT think it meant I'd be able to live my dream. I DIDNT think it would result in this extraordinary life I get to be a part of now. [sic]"
And for those struggling with depression, Rose writes, "It just makes me wonder how many others are days, hours, seconds away from realising their worth."
Rose shared her message of hope and gratitude after depression on Twitter as well, reminding her followers that no matter how one may feel, we all deserve a little happiness — an important reminder for anyone battling depression or anxiety.
Sending love and light to everyone who feels down right now, in a funk.. Alone.. Not worthy.. We ALL deserve to be here. You are worthy.
A few months after sporting cornrows in Anguilla (which Bieber himself admitted was misguided), the pop star is at it again. His culturally appropriative hairstyle of choice this time? Dreadlocks. And many fans are unsurprisingly displeased.
@justinbieber you damn white boy stop being problematic and get rid of those dreads THANKS
It's especially problematic given that Bieber's locs (and Miley Cyrus', while we're on the subject) are being touted as hip and trendy, while stars like Zendaya have faced ignorant remarks and criticism for wearing the exact same style. (Who can forget Giuliana Rancic's remark that Zendaya's locs "must smell of patchouli oil or weed?") In the words of Amandla Stenberg, “Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalisations or stereotypes where it originated, but is deemed as high-fashion, cool, or funny when the privileged take it for themselves.”
Zendaya gets dreadlocks & she "looks like she smells like weed" Justin Bieber does it & its "trendy" & "different" pic.twitter.com/MOOausDx5V
Dreadlocks in particular carry much weight and significance to people of colour. (More on that here.)
Bieber was quick to defend Kylie Jenner's cornrows back in July, so it doesn't come as that much of a surprise that he'd sport these. Still, Bieber — or at least the people behind the Bieber machine — should have known better before adopting a style without offering any form of context or credit. "Fashion and hair integrate, and we are all inspired by each other’s art forms. But when you are inspired, it should be noted,” Diane Bailey of SheaMoisture has told us.
What do you think of Bieber's new look? Let us know in the comments below.
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Selena Gomez will soon be making the transition back to the small screen, albeit this time in an executive producer role.
The former Disney Channel star and current “Hands to Myself” singer is developing a drama series described as a “Latina Empire,” Deadline reports. Presumably that refers the current ABC megahit show and not a pre-Colonial matriarchal society in Latin America, but that sounds equally awesome.
Freeform will bring producer Aaron Kaplan and Gomez together to tell the story of an 18-year-old woman in her primarily Latino neighbourhood. She is, naturally, destined for greatness. The series was inspired in part by an idea Kaplan had while attending The Zimmer Children’s Museum Discovery Award Dinner last November. At the dinner, Ana Cobarrubias, a Los Angeles high school senior, gave a speech about making a difference in the East LA neighbourhood in which she grew up and transcending expectations that society had for her as a young woman. The speech, viewable here, drew a standing ovation. Cobarrubias will serve as a consultant on the project.
While no other details are known, the series is currently searching for a writer.
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A couple of special moments came, as they always do, during the Snatch Game. First, RuPaul asked Gigi Hadid the age-old question: Would you rather hang out with drag queens or supermodels? Gigi answered correctly, for the record.
Gigi also sought a little backstage knowledge, but RuPaul doubted her readiness.
What we don’t see in these moments are the three consecutive kimonos during the Madonna-themed Snatch Game. Also, an amazing Carol Channing during the panel segment.
Though Gigi was the unquestioned winner of the show, the real stopper was the godawful impression of Nancy Grace. Who knew it was possible to make the author of such hashtags as “#BoxOfInfants ” so howlingly unfunny?
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The back room reminds me of the backstage areas inhabited by struggling bands. The floor is sticky, the couches are sagging, there are garishly lit mirrors surrounded by a clutter of makeup and hair tools, the tiny fridge smells of mould, and there is a discarded pink thong on the floor.
By way of contrast, out front, the club is ostentatious, artificially glitzy, with polished stages, polished poles, a big shiny bar and velvet-lined, rented rooms at the back.
It’s late on a Tuesday afternoon, and the place is deserted save for a few customers – all male. There is no sign of whooping, coked up groups of stags stuffing tenners into girls’ knickers... yet. I’m told they come later on.
“Yeah, it’s dead at this time. This place gives me the creeps early on. It feels a bit like a church, like you have to whisper so not to disturb anyone. It livens up a lot later.”
This observation comes from Amelie* a young woman I interviewed at length for my book, Generation Z: Their Voices, Their Lives. Amelie is 19 and by day attends a top university in Bristol and studies sociology. By night (though not every night) she strips at a club, in a different town to her university – the place she is showing me around today.
I found Amelie interesting as she was quite candid about the strangeness of straddling (pardon the expression) two worlds that are so different – and the challenges that can bring. Although stripping isn't sex work, and sex work is something she has no interest in doing, she acknowledges that she operates within the wider sex industry – something that carries a social stigma. As a result, she hasn’t told any of her family, friends or university peers about her work and tells them she is babysitting for a well-to-do family across town instead. By her own admission, the deception is the most stressful aspect of her double-life – but this doesn’t entice her to come clean.
“I quite like what I do, and I really like the money and some of the perks"
“I quite like what I do, and I really like the money and some of the perks. But I do think I would get judged or even shunned by a lot of people I know. I think students can be some of the most judge-y people I’ve met. And I have no idea how the university would react – that worries me the most.”
Though more people are both buying and selling sex in the UK, society maintains a generally unforgiving view of those who do – forcing most workers into lives of secrecy and double agency.
“Definitely,” she agrees, as we smoke cigarettes next to the river the next day. “There is a cliché that all women doing sex work are doing it to pay for drug habits. I’d say it’s far more common now for girls to be doing it to either support families or education fees, like uni, or whatever. There are at least a dozen girls at the club I know for definite are in some sort of education. Luckily I haven’t met anyone yet from my actual uni.”
Across the country in another, less affluent town, I met another woman, also 19, called Melissa*. Unlike Amelie, who seemed to have had a relatively stable life, Melissa’s has been beset by hardship. She tells me that she was given up by her mother as a baby, spent years in care homes, ran away aged 15 and had a number of abusive relationships with violent men.
She was desperate to go back to school, get some qualifications and train as a nurse, but her lack of a permanent address or bank account has made financial assistance tricky to obtain. So in an attempt to realise this goal, she turned first to stripping and then to escorting. She estimates it will take her a year to save the money for school, and admitted the lifestyle around her work made it difficult to save.
“I couldn’t survive, let alone save, waitressing or doing bar work, so I started stripping with a mate."
“I couldn’t survive, let alone save, waitressing or doing bar work, so I started stripping with a mate. I absolutely hated it. It got really aggressive and scary, especially at weekends. Another friend had been doing some escorting with an agency, and made really good money, so I tried it. Sometimes it is OK, and sometimes you feel like you are losing your mind, but in this job, money just evaporates. I really don’t know where it goes. I guess it’s fair to say you party a lot to forget about it.”
Accurate statistics and insider information is difficult to obtain on the sex industry, for the aforementioned reason - people involved tend to be secretive about it. However, research done by Swansea University suggests that as many as one in twenty students are involved in the sex industry, whether its stripping, escorting, webcam work, or most recently, websites like Sugar Daddy and Seeking Arrangement.
The latter websites are imports from America and are growing in popularity here – particularly with the student population. In America, they are so popular in the student community, there are actual statistics that tell you which universities have the most “sugar babies” in ranking order – and it seems the UK is following suit.
The Seeking Arrangement site has a Sugar Baby University page, specifically designed for young women seeking “assistance” with higher education fees – and over two million students have signed up. Though there is not a breakdown of membership according to country, a number of UK students I talked to have used the site.
Though these sites certainly don’t market themselves as escorting sites – more of a way to “hook up” hot young things with rich, mostly older dudes – its fair to say that there is the possibility for them to be used for these purposes.
Cheryl, 20, who attends UCL, stumbled across Sugar Daddy thinking it was a dating site, and liked it’s USP – “rich, attractive men.” She was surprised at some of the “offers” she received almost immediately (i.e. cash and gifts) and admits to being tempted.
But here’s the rub – though I have interviewed dozens of young women (mostly in some form of education) who subscribe to these sites and will admit to exchanging some sort of sexual activity for money or gifts – few see it as prostitution.
The veneer of respectability afforded by the glossy websites plus their clever marketing both normalises and glamourises being a member. As Charlotte, a 20-year-old student explained: “Arrangement websites (she’s a member of several) are nothing like streetwalking, or being pimped out. It’s just a bit of fun on the internet and an easy way to meet nice men and maybe make some money.”
Though Charlotte’s view seems to be the commonly held one amongst women who subscribe to these sites, I spoke to a female police officer, who specialises in vice and vociferously disagrees.
“Women who work, say, through escort agencies probably have a higher degree of protection. Most decent agencies will have screening processes against dodgy clients and security and what have you, to protect the women. There is no such protection on these arrangement websites. You’re young, naïve, agree to meet someone, probably don’t tell anyone – and have no idea who it is you're meeting or about protection if it goes wrong. They’re a dangerous idea.”
When I shared this view with Charlotte, she explained: “I’ve been doing this for a year and it’s been great. Absolutely no problem. And it’s everywhere. I saw the website being advertised on a massive billboard near the Westfield Centre a couple of weeks back. I’m sure they have screening processes for weirdos, anyway.”
As the popularity of these sites grow, particularly with the UK student population, it is worth reviewing how safe they are. The recent prosecution of serial rapist Jason Lawrance, who used Match.com to find victims highlighted the potential dangers of meeting strangers in cyberspace.
Arguably, people using sites like Sugar Daddy and Seeking Arrangement will be less likely to voice concerns about members or share bad experiences, because of the often-secretive nature of belonging to them.
Despite the well-documented potential dangers and difficulties of operating in the sex industry, all the women I spoke to described their decisions around work as borne of economic necessity – quite simply they had been unable to survive financially before entering the industry.
Sex work is only going to continue to be an appealing option for those (and by no means just women) who wish to have a higher education...
We now live in a country where it is so astronomically expensive to get educated, that unless you come from money, young people are leaving university saddled with huge debt – and that’s if they manage to make it through the course.
This is grossly wrong, but a fact of life for this generation and probably future ones. As a result, sex work is only going to continue to be an appealing option for those (and by no means just women) who wish to have a higher education but want to find a way to make ends meet or ameliorate the crippling debt.
The real scandal should not be the students who strip, escort, webcam or make arrangements with wealthy people – but the system that has created such vast numbers of them. Most of the student sex workers I spoke to were less about scoring Jimmy Choos, and more about making rent.
They had chosen it over a job in an office, bar or supermarket because it paid better. But as Amelie points out: "With tuition fees, rent, food, clothes, travel, books and no financial assistance from home, I simply couldn’t manage on a minimum wage job. Believe me I tried, but the option was stripping or dropping out."
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