Life & Love

I never thought I would end up with a zaddy. For the uninitiated, Urban Dictionary defines a zaddy as “an attractive older man who is fashionable or charismatic.” Otherwise known as the gorgeous guys in Rolex commercials who look like they know exactly where your clitoris is. Celebrity zaddies include Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Idris

Neil MockfordGetty Images The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge made an official visit to Cambridgeshire today, where they headed to the Fitzwilliam Museum to witness the unveiling of their first official portrait together. Commissioned for the purpose of celebrating the county, the work was originally proposed by the late Sir Michael Marshall – who was

I’ve never read a self-help book before. I don’t like when people tell me what to do, and I really hate when they’re telling everyone else the same thing. Yet here I am, earnestly and soberly poring over a quiz in a self-help book about relationships, which I actually spent money on because I’m 33

When Heather, a small business owner in Virginia, walked down the aisle at her wedding in October 2015, her mother, Anna, sat in the front row smiling. Heather knew her mom as a “hippy” who wore comfortable clothes like jeans and clogs, but for her daughter’s wedding, Anna had made an exception, wearing a sequin

The man is an acquaintance. He brings me a drink. His hand glides over my ass with confidence. My stomach jumps. His lips are on mine. He says he loves me, asks me to run away with him. His car waits down the block, ready for our departure. Did he call me “mi amor”? Hours

On a spring Monday morning in Washington Square Park, 28-year-old congressional hopeful Rana Abdelhamid spoke about the future she wants for New York. “This is a historic race,” Abdelhamid told supporters. “Not just because if I win, I will be the first Muslim woman representing New York, but because we’re building a coalition that we’re

I was first christened “African booty scratcher” in fourth grade—my second year in America. It sounded ridiculous, but it pricked when my classmates would belly-laugh at my expense. This is also my earliest memory of Black America. It wasn’t white America that first outed my otherness. It was the Black American boy in that overcrowded

When the story of “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss’s arrest broke in June 1993, it simply didn’t compute for writer Molly Lambert, who was growing up in Los Angeles at the time. Why was this woman being hassled for selling something people wanted to buy? It’s a question that runs through Lambert’s new podcast, “Heidi World.”

ALLYSSA HEUZE/TRUNK ARCHIVE My body has belonged to tennis for so long. I gripped my first racket at age 3 and played my first pro game at 14. The sport has torn me up: I’ve rolled my ankles, busted my knees, played with a taped-up Achilles heel, and quit midgame from back spasms. I’ve suffered

I always knew I wanted to have kids. When I was in kindergarten, I would surround my bed with stuffed animals. When Cabbage Patch Kids hit shelves for the first time, I made my dad wait outside Kmart for 10 hours so I could have my very own baby. Even my first job was as

The dermatologist did a quick scan of my body, barely opening the back of my medical gown that ballooned over my pregnant belly. “What about this?” I asked him, pointing to a growth on my shoulder. “It appeared a few months ago.” He looked at my shoulder and smiled. “It’s just a growth from pregnancy.

Artwork by Matthieu Bourel Before she woke up drenched in sweat on the floor, Andrea thought the Zoom call was going great. What she remembers next are snippets of sensation: the coldness of the hardwood on her face as she willed herself to stand up, the nagging sense that she needed to get back to

The sun is just beginning to set on another Valentine’s Day when Serena Kerrigan, a 27-year-old confidence coach-cum-entrepreneur-cum-certified internet personality, bestows upon me an unusual gift: the diary she began keeping after her first kiss in the fifth grade. In a little over an hour, the lights will go up on her third live show—a

At the beginning of the pandemic, my editor and I used to fantasize about “the dad in the basement.” This was a father who, every morning of the pandemic, kissed his children goodbye and walked downstairs to his home office, where he worked uninterrupted all day long. He did not do Zoom calls with his

Growing up, I developed a clear idea through TV and movies how to think about trans people. I believed trans people were duplicitous; I believed they were pariahs; I believed they were worthy fodder for ridicule, but never—ever—worthy of love. But I also knew I was trans. It took me until I was 30 to

Not long after she entered graduate school, Molly* started dating Jim, a rather neurotic man who was notorious for sleeping around. He was the kind of guy who had issues with intimacy and ingrained sexism but tried to soften the blow with self-awareness. “I like you so much, but I couldn’t possibly be with you,”

Your miscarriage is “over,” however you might define that term. Maybe it’s marked physically: your body has recovered, your doctor clears you to try for another pregnancy. Maybe it’s emotional: you’re no longer crying about the baby you never got to meet every day. (Just most days.) Maybe it’s the practical reality that you’re in

We might’ve graduated from sweatpants to bottoms that actually button and zipper—well, it depends on the day, we suppose—but protective face masks continue to be part of our daily ensemble. Masks are a great way to protect yourself and those around you, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be stylish. After accumulating a 500,000-person waitlist,

For the latest installment of ELLE’s partnership with The Delacorte Review, two Iranian writers, Mahsa Afarideh* and Somayeh Malekian, spoke to women—specifically mothers and daughters—about their candid experiences and the generational trauma borne out of spending their formative years growing up in Iran. Below, read an excerpt of their reporting. There have been so many

Cunt. Whore. Bitch. These are just some of the words my fellow Moms Demand Action volunteers and I have been called over the past nine years. We’ve become experts on the nexus between misogyny and gun culture because we’ve lived it—in person and online—since the day we decided to stand up to the gun lobby.

“I believe women are hypergamous. It’s an observable fact,” my date declared matter-of-factly as we stared at each other across the abyss of Zoom. About an hour earlier, when the evening started going downhill, I began writing down the words I didn’t understand but knew I’d heard before. So, I added “hypergamous” to the list.

Sarah Cohen and Eric Hinman who live in Moab, Utah love doing outdoorsy activities together—everything from mountain biking to hiking, and even BASE jumping (jumping off of high objects like buildings or mountains and using a parachute to descend safely to the ground.) Invitae Carrier Screen invitae.com $250.00 And the couple’s next adventure might be

On the first day of class in September 2014, my undergraduate students stared at me, surprised. They were expecting an instructor who looked more conventional, more white, more male. Yet there I was, a butch-of-center Black woman, with a boyish haircut and a men’s button-down shirt, teaching their first English class at New York City

If Carli Lloyd’s career as a professional athlete could be summed up by one image, it might be the one that went viral during the Tokyo Olympics: Lloyd, on the field, alone, running wind sprints in the 93 degree heat. The U.S. Women’s National Team had just suffered a crushing defeat to Canada and after