My Best Bangers for Your Thankgiving Phone Time
Alternative title: How to Talk to Your Heterodox Relatives About Mankeeping this Holiday Season
I did it last year, and I’m doing it again—taking Thanksgiving off by giving you a list of recommended articles (of mine, of course) to read while you have some down time. And yes, there is a section for free articles too! (Also, annual subscriptions are 30% off through Friday!)
Anyway, if you’re looking to read some fun stuff this holiday weekend, look no further than my recommendations:
FREE
I have some free articles, and some paid articles that have since become free. Here are my favorites of 2025:
DOGE Is About Sex, my seemingly-crackpot (but oh-so-real) theory that a lot of the right-wing excitement over DOGE and slashing “bullshit jobs” is actually about getting laid
Why Some Women Get Obsessed with The Red Pill, about my own foray into red pill content in my twenties and how it can surprisingly hook women
Men Aren’t “Worthless Until 30” where I attempt to myth-bust the idea that women are rejecting 20-something men en masse for being too young
Substack’s Pricing Model is Fine, Actually, a defense of the Substack pricing model and a rebuttal to the idea that we need “bundled mags” or “pay per article.”
The 90s Weren’t That Great, my anti-nostalgia argument published as a guest post on Slow Boring
It’s Time To Retire the Term Toxic Masculinity, my debut on GQ
I’m a Weeb for Ireland, my guest post for Noahpinion
Sex/Relationships
The Gender Wars are Class Wars, on the “gender wars” and how they are often the result of upper middle class women and lower middle class men talking past each other
The Problem with Being a Straight Woman is You Have to Like Men, my antidote to the mankeeping/heterofatalism craze
The Incel Gorillas, not exactly human sex and relationships, but sex and relationships nevertheless.
My Permission to be Horny, in which I examine my own sexuality (and that of many, albeit not all, other straight women) as it relates to things like aggression, passivity, dominance and submission
You Don’t Like Women, You Like Boobs, on a certain subset of men who want a feminine woman, but find all non-physical/sexual manifestations of femininity stupid and annoying
Sex with Your Husband Isn’t Labor, about where I draw the line vis-a-vis “invisible labor.” AKA: having consensual sex with your spouse doesn’t count.
Want to be a Tradwife? Go To College, about how a college degree will help, not hinder, a woman’s marriage prospects (even if she’s traditional).
Fashion and Beauty
How to Dress as a Hands-On SAHM and Not Look Frumpy, my guide for SAHM fashion, with an emphasis on fall-winter 2025 trends
You Look Better When You Try Hard, my defense of “trying” and how most of us will not look like fashion insiders or quiet luxury old money people by putting less effort into our appearance
My Husband’s Guide to Elevated Dad Fashion, or a fashion guide for dads and men who want to be comfortable and still look good
Funny Personal Essays
The Friendzone is a Teenage Rite of Passage, which includes two personal essays about times I was on both ends of the “friend zone” in high school.
I Am The Female Bad Husband, about how I relate to the lazy husbands in stories about “invisible labor.”
How I Kept a Job for 3 Years Without Working, about, well, a fake job I had where I had no work
I Was Extorted by My Neighbors for $2000 another true story, unfortunately
Parenting
You’ll Kill Marauders, But Will You Change a Diaper? about dads (or future dads) who fantasize about enacting violence to protect their family, but aren’t willing to put effort into the help their family realistically needs in the modern age
Pit Bulls and Children Don’t Mix, my argument for why you should adopt literally any other type of dog if you have children
Your Enemy Isn’t Feminism or Capitalism, it’s Not Being Rich, about how many frustrated modern-day moms might be happier if they were aristocrats
Culture/Social Dynamics (General)
Gen Z is Right about the 2010s. They’re Wrong About Why about nostalgia for the 2010s, what it gets right and what it gets wrong.
Don’t Get Sucked Into the Thoughtful Gesture Industrial Complex, about the rise of “boo baskets” and elaborate children’s birthday parties, and the new ways social media makes us believe expensive grand gestures are necessary.
The Loneliness Epidemic is Our Revealed Preference, about how many of us are choosing loneliness and re-shaping society.
When Finding the Odd Girl Out Becomes Female Bonding, or the phenomenon wherein a group of girls/women team up to oust one misbehaving member
Men are Delaying Fatherhood to Boyboss, about how men have a say in their desired number of children and often don’t want more kids than their wives do
Politics
The Answer to the Birth Rate Decline: Do My Favorite Thing, or people’s tendency to evangelize for something they personally want in order to “fix the birth rate.”
The Democratic Party Needs to Do Something, and it Isn’t This, on the claims that the Democratic Party is pointlessly resisting an “obvious” solution to our problems
On Despair Signaling, or the urge within political discourse to be the most pessimistic person in the conversation
Other Substacks
I would be a dick if I didn’t at least link to a few other Substack articles I enjoyed recently—it’s not just about me, right? (I mean, this is my Substack, so it is!) But anyway, here are some other articles I’ve enjoyed this year, some of which have been linked in Many Such Takes before.
- wrote Nobody Wants a Monster Girl, examining why monster-fucking fantasies only seem to be popular with straight women (and certainly not with straight men). Very fun/interesting read!
A surprisingly fascinating and topical read from Theology Substack by
, about Gen Z Christian women pretending that finding Jesus made them hot.- ’s humorous call to dads to help their wives with Christmas cards
- ’s data-driven thoughts on how to find a good romantic partner.
- ’s call to writers of books to stop writing books like movies.
- ’s defense of the boss bitch