I’m bringing you this personal essay from my writing desk in Mexico City, so grateful to be back. If you’re gunning for the 3 tips on being shamelessly sexy this week, feel free to just scroll on down…

My Story 📓

In London, I speed down a tree-lined Georgian street of townhouses, going nowhere fast. My father’s comments about my creative career choices grate on me. He’s not the only person who’s awash with vague confusion talking about these things. Meanwhile, everyone seems excited that I am interviewing for a job. I need money, and job interviews are a process they can get behind. Something concrete they can cling to. But there’s no reflection of the creative life that I have built for myself in the people and the place that raised me. I feel empty.

I board a train to Wales bound for a music festival, weighed down by a giant backpack full of camping gear and an oncoming cold. I miss the little colorful corner of my writing desk in Mexico City. Sleeping on a steep incline in a wet field only dampens my mood.

Then, on my first morning at the festival, I sit down next to Bella, a friend of a friend, on a bench at a long picnic table. The sun shines through thin clouds covering the bright green valley. People in folky cloaks and crumpled linens mill about slowly. Come to think of it, the only other times I have met Bella were in Mexico City, once when she lived there 11 years ago, and once when I was living there two years ago. As her children fight over the number of French fries on their plates, she says to me,

“You know, I’ve been meaning to catch up with you. I’ve been approached by an agent, and they want me to write a book…”

Bella angles her hand over her eyes to cover from the sun, which is now burning brightly. Her words are as fresh to me as the air I am breathing in and out, dewed with valley mist. Talking to her, I feel like I am stepping across a threshold into an alternative reality. Suddenly, I am a full person sitting next to her again. I have something to contribute.

“…about my professional experience working in non-profit leadership. But after writing academically so much, it’s hard to get those deeper, personal stories out, you know? How did you do it with your books? Do you write at the same time every day?”

Her words remind me of the time in LA when my cousin and his wife took me out for a pizza dinner and ice cream in Venice Beach. “I’m related to someone who published a freaking novel? How freaking cool is that!”

Her words remind me of the time when Robin, one of my mentors and adoptive parents, handed me a small cue card at the end of her retreat. On it, she had written, “The sky’s your limit.”

Her words remind me of the last line of my copy editor’s email, at the end of a page of scrupulous edits,

“I can’t emphasize enough what a pleasure it was to copyedit Peach Tulips.”

Her words remind me of the last text I received from my old therapist in New York, Barbara, “So fun. You’ll get there. Pls keep in touch. 🥰” The same woman who coached me through the emotional breakdown of quitting my job to fulfill my dream of publishing my novel. (Love you, Barbara!)

Bella reminded me that maybe my true self, my shamelessly sexy self, is not distributed evenly everywhere. There are rooms and dinner tables of nonbelievers. But when I surround myself with the people who get it, who believe in me, or have their own visions, I am given too many blessings to count. I see the arc of a creative life stretching out ahead of me. Bella can see it also. I am grateful to her for reminding me that it was there.

Your Shamelessly Sexy Tips 💁‍♀️

Desire It 💋

“Her words remind me of…”

Think of a person, podcast story, idea, or piece of artwork you’ve come across recently that reminds you of who you want to be. Where were you when you came across it? What did it inspire in you? What caught your attention?

Honor It 🌞

“I’m related to someone who published a freaking novel? How freaking cool is that!”

Pick one memory you have when someone said something encouraging to you about your creativity. What exactly did they say? What were they celebrating? Hold their words in your heart this week, and try repeating them to yourself. No ifs, no buts, no explaining or excusing them away. Just receive.

Act On It 🎯

Reach out to someone who has believed in you and your creativity. Set up a time to hang out with them or speak on the phone. Then, actually tell them what you’ve been working on.

See you next week!

Love,

Tash Doherty

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things

Creator of The Intimacy Journal

Facilitator of Intimacy Writing Workshops

💌 ✍️

Extra Treats I’m Working On 🍬

If you want to read the novel that Barbara and my copyeditor loved, head on over to Amazon.com and get your copy of These Perfectly Careless Things, my spicy, cumming-of-age teen romance novel set in London. Peach Tulips was the old title.

What I’m currently listening to 🎶

I sang this song, one of my favorites, in front of a makeshift choir at the festival, and NOBODY else knew it! I was shocked! Still, its message seems relevant:

Keep in touch! 🥰

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Pardon my tardiness; I’m writing to you from Heathrow airport on my way back to Mexico City. My story this week is a little longer, but I’m optimistic you’ll enjoy it. If you’re gunning for the 3 tips on being shamelessly sexy this week, feel free to just scroll on down…

My Story 📓

“It’s impossible to get people’s attention these days,” my dad says to me over a pub dinner, “You can’t make a career out of viral moments.”

My shoulders shrink a bit as I look down at the table. I avoid eye contact with my brother, who is sitting opposite me and whose life choices aren’t subjected to such scrutiny.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” I tell my father, almost fighting, “I love writing. It’s about building a body of work, and that takes time. I’m only four years into my ten-year plan.”

I repeat it to myself because I have to in order to keep believing it. Even when my dad doesn’t see it, and not everyone believes it’s true. If I told you I don’t care if my parents support my creative path or not, I’d be lying. I try not to think about the things I wish they’d show me: excitement at publishing my next book, suggestions of editors to pitch next, a connection to a potential reader, or a helpful friend. It’s too painful.

That same evening, before the pub dinner, I had dutifully fulfilled my mother’s wishes to go through boxes of my stuff in the attic. She dreams of getting all the crap out of there so that they can renovate the house someday. I discover I have only two boxes up there: a big box and a small box. I dump all the old mementos that I don’t care about into the big box to be thrown away, and shove the toys and books I still care about into the smaller box. I save the smaller box, which is now much heavier but also takes up much less space.

I toss a box of CDs into the big box. On the cover of the CDs is Seamus Heaney’s calm, gently smiling face. The great Irish poet himself. These discs are him reading his own work. My dad gave it to me years ago. I had never listened to them, never even opened them, and in 2026, a CD is more of a fossil than a genuine way to listen to music. I don’t even have a CD player (does anyone?).

Yet I had kept my father’s gift to me, this box of Seamus Heaney poems. I guess, deep down, I knew I wanted to listen to them, to experience his work. It’s ironic that after all these years, the moment when I threw the CDs away was the moment I finally decided to engage with his work. Except that it makes sense at this time. This time, when I have been learning a bit of Irish. This time, when I just got back from Ireland last week, and visited the gravesite of my ancestors amongst the ruins of a 16th-century church in Kilteevogue, Donegal. This time, when I just submitted my first application for an Irish passport. This time, when I’ve been working on a piece called “Becoming Irish” on and off for months now, but haven’t managed to submit it anywhere.

A few days later, I am on a train somewhere in the UK. I open up the Store on my Kindle and tap to the most popular eBooks by Seamus Heaney. I download the sample of “Death of a Naturalist.” I tap the first electronic page and read the first poem, “Digging,”

“My grandfather cut more turf in a day / Than any other man on Toner’s bog”

“The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap / Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge / Through living roots awaken in my head. / But I’ve no spade to follow men like them. // Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests. / I’ll dig with it.”

On the final day of my trip in London, I sit down with my father in the living room to say goodbye before I head back to Mexico. I look at the books in the bookshelf. He had given me some works by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, and others that made me feel like such an academic snob when I started reading them at age 16.

I think of the years my dad put me through school. I think of these books, now secret messages, he smuggled to me at Christmas, subtly changing the course of my education. Maybe he couldn’t give me suggestions of editors to pitch next. Maybe he was never going to brag about my latest blog post to his friends. But he had given me the gift of Seamus Heaney. A creative man whose roots, like ours, were built on the backs of men and women who could cut more turf in a day than any other in the bog.

“I’m throwing out that box of Seamus Heaney CDs you gave to me,” I say, “Just because I don’t have a CD player. But I’ve just started reading his work, and I’m really glad you got that for me. That poem, Digging. It’s so good.”

“It is,” my dad says, smiling.

Your Shamelessly Sexy Tips 💁‍♀️

Desire It 💋

“You can’t make a career out of viral moments.”

Don’t let the internalized voices of other people stand in the way of what you want. Instead, identify a doubt you have about who you are, your potential to love, or your creative capabilities. Sit with it for a minute and try to separate yourself from it. Who or where is it coming from?

Honor It 🌞

“My grandfather cut more turf in a day / Than any other man on Toner’s bog”…“But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.”

Think of an ancestor or family elder who went through hardships so that you could be where you are today. Imagine yourself having a conversation with them. When it comes to your lifestyle and what brings you joy, what would they be most proud of? What would they be most shocked by?

Act On It 🎯

Reconnect to your family roots this week, or be open to messages from your ancestors. You could find some old family photos, engage with family history, or ask a living relative a question you’ve always wanted to know the answer to.

See you next week!

Love,

Tash Doherty

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things

Creator of The Intimacy Journal

Facilitator of Intimacy Writing Workshops

💌 ✍️

Extra Treats I’m Working On 🍬

What I’m currently listening to 🎶

In the spirit of tending to the land…

Keep in touch! 🥰

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Here are 3 tips on being shamelessly sexy this week, inspired by my experience going to a Little Simz concert.

My Story 📓

“My other friend can’t make it to the concert anymore,” my friend texted me. “Want to come? It’s Little Simz!”

I hesitated. I had no idea who Little Simz was. And generally, I have a rule: I don’t go to concerts unless I’m a big fan of the artist. Often, I don’t enjoy music much the first time I hear it. Plus, I don’t really listen to rap. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to go. But just to be sure, I checked Little Simz’s bio on Spotify. The first sentence read,

“Little Simz is a boundary-breaking musician and cultural curator, recognised as one of the UK’s most captivating and visionary artists.”

Gosh, I thought to myself. I’ve been living under a rock this whole time. It sounds pretty tempting, doesn’t it?

And so, that Saturday, my friend and I dipped between the drunk Arsenal supporters celebrating their Premier League win and got on the Victoria line at Highbury and Islington station. I wasn’t wearing much; the weather in London has been nothing but sweltering.

We arrived in Brixton. The landscape around us morphed from stalls of jewelers near the station to cozy two-up-two-down houses of quiet side streets to the festival barricades along the sides of Brockwell Park. “Cross The Tracks,” the festival was called. We were far beyond the West London bubble of my childhood, which I now don’t even miss. We sat on the grass and saw another artist perform beforehand, until Little Simz came on.

The drones on the festival screens panned out to about 10,000 of us before they zoomed in on her. A single black woman standing in the middle of the stage. Her band supporting her in the wings. Her hair was braided. She was wearing a white tracksuit jumper and baggy army green trousers. Thanking us, London, for being the place that had raised her. (She later took off the white tracksuit jumper to reveal an Arsenal jersey, which seemed to divide the crowd for a minute. But then again, she’s a North Londoner through and through, so people gave it a pass.)

As she rapped, her eyes were steady. Beats blaring. Her smile was cheeky. Her stance was unwavering. She looked like she belonged. Humble yet deserving. Started small, yet she had arrived. So honest about who she is. Ready. My throat clenched. Tears formed at the edges of my eyes. It’s hard to describe. I just got the sense that we’d all persevere, somehow. There was something out there, much bigger than myself. She made me want to commit to my craft. Write more. Excellence. Leading. Helping others. Because this was something worth dedicating myself to.

Her voice rang across the sea of people. Her eyes glinted. Like she was shaking me by the shoulders to say:

Your Shamelessly Sexy Tips 💁‍♀️

Desire It 💋

Identify the last work of art, experience, or person who deeply inspired you. Were you moved to tears? What deeper want, need, or feeling was that pointing you towards? What was it telling you about what you want to dedicate yourself to?

Honor It 🌞

Notice how excellence already shows up in your life, or how you might already have love, positivity, momentum, and creativity.

Act On It 🎯

Pick the one thing that came to mind in “Desire It 💋”. Block out one hour this week and sit down with it. No phone, no distractions. Write, sketch, paint, perform; do whatever “commit” looks like for you. That hour is your stage.

If doing it for one hour feels intimidating, start out by dedicating yourself to it for two minutes; two minutes is the achievement, then everything else is gravy. That’s exactly how I start my writing. Once I’ve started, it’s way easier to keep going.

See you next week!

Love,

Tash Doherty

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things

Creator of The Intimacy Journal

Facilitator of Intimacy Writing Workshops

💌 ✍️

Extra Treats I’m Working On 🍬

What I’m currently listening to 🎶

Keep in touch! 🥰

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Here are 3 tips on being shamelessly sexy this week, inspired by my story about an interview I had yesterday:

My Story 📓

“So tell me about Misseducated,” the recruiter said to me across the screen. I am interviewing for a position at an online media publication. My throat clenches.

“W-Well, it’s not exactly safe for work,” I tell him. I’m proud of Misseducated, but I have written a lot about my sex life on this blog. I pause, and let the shame, the voices of unknown yet cruel others, and the fear of rejection wash over me.

“You shouldn’t have told him. You’ll never get hired here or anywhere else. He probably thinks you’re a freak.”

Yet a moment later, the recruiter nods his head,

“This is exactly the kind of work we look for,” he said, “Bold thinkers. You know, we really value independent writers.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe I am welcome here. Maybe this is the kind of place where I could be myself after all. I proceed to tell him about a new manifesto I am working on about creative freedom. We finish the interview 15 minutes over time, and he quickly invites me for a second round.

The same thing happened when I pitched to work at Clue, the period-tracking app with 10 million+ users. I told them about my spicy blog, they hired me, and then they all loved my strategic content recommendations to update their articles about period sex and period poops! Clearly, I had found my people.

It takes courage to show up as our true selves in the world. When we put ourselves out there, all kinds of critical voices can arise within us to try to keep us safe. But yesterday, that interviewer reminded me that when we do put a stake in the ground and are courageous, we immediately repel all the wrong people and work opportunities whose values and missions don’t match ours, and immediately attract the right ones.

So, I dare you to stand for something. When you do so, you’ll be surprised by all the right opportunities really meant for your mission, your boldness, and your excellence which come your way.

Your Shamelessly Sexy Tips 💁‍♀️

Desire It 💋

What is one thing you really care about, or one project you want to work on, but you worry that people will deeply judge you for speaking up about it or pursuing it? Hold it in your mind’s eye right now. Sit with whatever feelings come up. Is it shame? Is it fear you’ll be rejected? Try to identify what is holding you back from just doing it.

Honor It 🌞

Imagine yourself as the person who has put this scary project or idea out there into the world. What parts of yourself are being loved and cared for in this process? How are you showing up for yourself? Whose life might be changed for the better in a world you’ve decided to be bolder? What groups or organizations are aligned with this and might be excited to work with you on it?

Act On It 🎯

Rip off this band-aid in a small way. This could include: writing the first draft of an idea, preparing a document to share internally at work, proposing a new event in your community, or changing your bio on your social media account. Take one small step this week to express something on your heart that is closer to who you are, but that scares you or might even risk your professional reputation.

Life is short, remember that!

See you next week!

Love,

Tash Doherty

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things

Creator of The Intimacy Journal

Facilitator of Intimacy Writing Workshops

💌 ✍️

Extra Treats I’m Working On 🍬

Your Deeper, Spicier Read 🔥

This week, I updated my article, “The Best Porn Categories for Women.” I hope you enjoy reading it, and thank you in advance for giving it a click so Google will index the update faster 😈.

My Next Creative Project: Early Access Update! 🌅

It’s finally time for the big reveal! I’ve built my first online course, and I want to give a select few of my readers early access to its cornerstone module: “Writing to Rekindle Desire.”

This module follows a therapeutic writing methodology developed by Professor James Pennebaker at UT Austin. It is not basic journaling; it’s a specific, 4-session expressive writing protocol shown to help people move past emotional blocks and reconnect with their physical needs. I’ve designed it to help you (or a friend) deeply process what’s holding you back from lusting over your partner(s) endlessly and having the best sex of your life 🌶️.

The deal: I’m giving away $97 worth of course material for free to 5 people. In exchange, I just ask for your honest feedback before the full launch on Teachable.

To apply: Simply reply to this email or comment “VIP” below. If you’re referring a friend, include their email address. I’ll be selecting 5 people this week to join the inner circle! Exciting times 🤩.

What I’m currently listening to 🎶

This song inspired me throughout the creation of The Intimacy Journal. I dipped back into it this week:

Keep in touch! 🥰

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Here are 3 tips on being shamelessly sexy this week, inspired by my raging period hormones 😈🩸🤣:

Desire It 💋

You need to understand your feelings before you can know what you truly desire. I was raised in an emotionally anorexic culture, so I often don’t know what I’m feeling. Then I can’t know what I want or need either. Our feelings are signposts. We need to learn how to pay attention to them.

Take a moment to do a feelings check-in. What and how are you feeling? What’s happening in your life that could be creating them? Using this feelings wheel can help. Start in the center and branch outwards. For example, right now I am feeling eager, loving, thankful, hopeful, guilty, disappointed, hesitant, and jealous.

This practice can help ground you in the moment. Return to it whenever you need it.

Honor It 🌞

Yesterday, I felt like I wanted to punch a wall and hide at the same time. When I sat down to journal for five minutes, I managed to write some sense into myself:

“These hard moments are an opportunity to rebuild your foundation. You get to choose. What do you want your foundation to look like? Which friends? Which employment? Which lover? Which passion or life purpose? This is a moment of great transformation.”

It helped me realize that this tough time won’t last forever. I’m now proactively thinking about what I need in my next iteration of life as I gear up to launch my next creative project (read more below!).

Act On It 🗣️

With a clearer vision of your next iteration, what is one small move you can make today to rebuild your foundation and overcome what is holding you back? Will you let go of a relationship? Or recommit to a daily practice?

For example, in my next iteration, I know that I need more self-compassion. I am recommitting to my daily self-compassion practice, which I do as soon as I wake up. I know that I also need more self-belief. I will muster my courage and pursue bigger speaking opportunities, so that my self-worth better reflects that I’m an author with two published books and tools that can help people.

See you next week!

Love,

Tash Doherty

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things

Creator of The Intimacy Journal

Facilitator of Intimacy Writing Workshops

💌 ✍️

Extra Treats I’m Working On 🍬

My Next Creative Project: Early Access Update! 🌅

It’s finally time for the big reveal! I’ve built my first online course, and I want to give a select few of my readers early access to its cornerstone module: “Writing to Rekindle Desire.”

This module follows a therapeutic writing methodology developed by Professor James Pennebaker at UT Austin. It is not basic journaling; it’s a specific, 4-session expressive writing protocol shown to help people move past emotional blocks and reconnect with their physical needs. I’ve designed it to help you (or a friend) deeply process what’s holding you back from lusting over your partner(s) endlessly and having the best sex of your life 🌶️.

The deal: I’m giving away $97 worth of course material for free to 5 people. In exchange, I just ask for your honest feedback before the full launch on Teachable.

To apply: Simply reply to this email or comment “VIP” below. If you’re referring a friend, include their email address. I’ll be selecting 5 people this week to join the inner circle! Exciting times 🤩.

Your Deeper, Spicier Read 🔥

This week, I updated my article, “How to Keep a Sex Journal.” I hope you enjoy reading it, and thank you in advance for giving it a click so Google will index the update faster 😈.

What I’m currently listening to 🎶

Keep in touch! 🥰

Instagram TikTok LinkedIn

Here are 3 tips on being shamelessly sexy this week, inspired by seeing The Devil Wears Prada 2 in the cinema.

Desire It 💋

Who or what did you idolize in your teenage years? Whose poster was plastered on your bedroom wall? What attracted you to them? What did your teenage self love and desire most deeply?

I begged my parents for a subscription to Vogue Magazine when I was 16. Yes, it gave me unrealistic beauty standards and a near-eating disorder. But I found luxury fashion alluring. The beautiful clothes and the beautiful people were intoxicating.

Honor It 🌞

“Instead of thinking about your performance relative to other people, what’s really important is…Am I performing better than I did in the past? Am I learning? Am I getting better?” — Heidi Grant Halvorson, The Incredible Benefits of a “Get-Better” Mindset, 99U.

In a moment alone, think about your teenage self and give yourself a hug. Reflect on just how far you have come. Could your teenage self have imagined where you are today? How would they feel about it? Express love and gratitude towards your past self.

Act On It 🗣️

This week, do something to delight your teenage self. You could buy your favorite meal or snack, rewatch your favorite movie from that era of your life, or pick up something small from the drugstore you would have drooled over. I’ve bought myself Barry M glitter (for only £4.49!) and had a piece of artwork I made framed. Publishing These Perfectly Careless Things was an exercise in healing my teenage self and accomplishing her dreams.

Exercise your agency as an adult and have fun with it!

See you next week!

Love,

Tash Doherty

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things

Creator of The Intimacy Journal

Facilitator of Intimacy Writing Workshops

💌 ✍️

Extra Treats I’m Working On 🍬

My Next Creative Project🎨

I’m cooking up something new. I can’t tell you what it’s about yet, but it focuses on the therapeutic benefits of writing, and I’m really excited about it. More details incoming!

Your Deeper, Spicier Read 🔥

This week, I updated one of my most popular articles, “The Ultimate Guide to Having An Incredible One-Night Stand.” I hope you enjoy reading it, and thank you in advance for giving it a click so Google will index the update faster 😈.

Song of the week 🎶

Keep in touch! 🥰

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Here are 3 tips on being shamelessly sexy to bring you wonder this week, inspired by “The Unexpected Re-Entry,” a saucy new update I wrote about my love life:

Desire It 💋

“When I lay sprawled out in my blue sparkly dress and bright orange lace underwear peeking out underneath…like a male peacock”

Think about yourself as a male peacock. What parts of your body do you love most and like to display? If you were heading for a night out with a partner, do you have a go-to sexy outfit? What is it, and how does wearing it make you feel? 🦚

Honor It 🌞

“I wanted to fall off the cliff. Roll up into him. Let him drive me home at 2 AM again. Meet his aunt again. But that bottle told me: don’t do it.”

Identify an experience you had with someone where you had to shield your heart and pay attention to a red flag. How did you set that boundary? Or, if you are currently in the orbit of someone with red flags, how do you plan to prioritize yourself and your needs?

Act On It 🗣️

“I had left him hanging off the end of a breakup phone call a few days later.”

Is there a conversation you’ve been needing to have with a person or a partner that you haven’t for some reason? Find a way to rip off that band-aid this week. You’ve got this!

See you next week!

Love,

Tash Doherty

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things

Creator of The Intimacy Journal

Facilitator of Intimacy Writing Workshops

💌 ✍️

Extra treats 🍬

An Update on My Love Life 💌

This week’s shamelessly sexy tips were inspired by a new piece I wrote, “The Unexpected Re-Entry.” If you’ve been missing the old Misseducated style, this is my love-life update you’ve been waiting for! I’ll be posting these updates on my blog (tashdoherty.com) from now on. One benefit of this new newsletter format is that I feel less pressure to write every week, which, so far, has led me to write more. Huzzah!

Deeper, Spicier Reading 🔥

I’ve just updated one of my most popular articles to present you with “The 4 Best Porn Categories for Women.” Obviously, my recommendations are completely biased towards the type of porn I like to watch, but I do recommend some female-friendly porn platforms so you can discover more of what you like.

Song of the week 🎶

Keep in touch! 🥰

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Here are 3 tips on being shamelessly sexy to bring you wonder this week:

Desire It 💋

“I would like to be the air / that inhabits you for a moment / only.”

— Margaret Atwood, Variation on the Word Sleep, poets.org.

Think about a person whose presence energizes you. What draws you to them? Why are they so magnetic and captivating? Hold them in your mind’s eye this week and take note of anything that reminds you of them.

Honor It 🌞

“Mistakes are chances to learn and grow. You’re enough, no matter what.”

— The Loving Parent Guidebook: The Solution is to Become Your Own Loving Parent.

Just because you made a mistake, does not mean you are a mistake. Just because you made a bad decision or choice does not mean you are a bad person.

Act On It ✍️

Do you have a dream writing project you’ve never started? Are you in the messy middle of writing your first novel? Join me this Friday in a 24-Hour Writing Sprint with the London Writers’ Salon and finally put pen to paper!

Starting at 12pm in Mexico City (adjust for your timezone), this is your opportunity to dedicate a day to your writing. Cancel your plans and set aside this time. As a subscriber of this newsletter, following your dreams is mandatory, sorry!

See you next week!

Love,

Tash Doherty

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things

Creator of The Intimacy Journal

Facilitator of Intimacy Writing Workshops

💌 ✍️

Extra treats 🍬

Deeper Reading 🔥

If you enjoyed last week’s “Honor It” offering, I wrote the full story of my temazcal experience in a piece titled, “The Gift of Self-Love.”

Song of the week 🎶

Keep in touch! 🥰

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Thank you for your patience; I’ve been navigating a rough patch. I’m trying a new rhythm for Misseducated: three shamelessly sexy tips every week to give you something you can take into your daily life.

Here are this week’s 3 tips to become shamelessly sexy:

Desire It 🕯️

What is your favorite scent? Create an opportunity for yourself to experience it this week. If you don’t know what yours is, go to a fancy perfume or soap shop and try a couple. Bring free samples home. For example, I love Jasmin, particularly the Jasmin 17 scent from La Labo, and OroNardo perfume (no. 5) from Xinū; Xinū’s stores in Mexico feel like museums of worship to scent. Do I own an expensive little bottle of either perfume? Hell no.

Honor It 🌞

Working through grief and anger, I went to a temazcal on Sunday. It was a beautiful, intense, women-only ceremony, and I left at the 3rd door, before I almost fainted from the heat. As I sat on the ground in the sunshine, chugging water, I noticed the sun reflected off one of the sequins on my sweat-soaked dress. That’s when I remembered a lesson of self-love, which I now address to you:

Act On It ☮️

“You can do it on your own terms. It’s your sexuality in the end. So, do yourself on your own terms.” — Pauline on the Misseducated Podcast, Open Relationships 101.

I’m in my cozy luteal phase, still recovering from visiting my grandma. The very idea of going on a Hinge date overwhelms me, so the terms of my sexuality this week are: rest, gentleness, and peace.

What are your terms? Define three terms of your sexuality this week, and organize your evenings to reflect them. Tell me how it goes.

See you next week!

Love,

Tash Doherty

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things

Creator of The Intimacy Journal

Facilitator of Intimacy Writing Workshops

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What else am I up to?

Extra treats 🍬

Misseducated Archive update 💌 ✍️

I’m migrating my top Misseducated articles to my blog at tashdoherty.com/writing. They get about 1,000 clicks from Google Search per month, and I want to own all my channels rather than give that traffic to Substack. Here are the new, updated articles:

1. The 4 Best Porn Categories for Women 💅

2. What is it like to orgasm on psilocybin? 🍄 🎢

3. The Ultimate Guide to Having an Incredible One-Night Stand

Podcast of the week 🎧

Burnout in Business episode (for all my solopreneurs out there). It’s because of this episode I haven’t burnt out, yet! Thank you for the recommendation, Anna-Louise (my marketing guru).

Song of the week 🎶

Keep in touch! 🥰

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Dear Wonderful Reader,

Tuesday, March 17th, 2026, marked 4 years since I freed myself from the shackles of my corporate job. Four years is a decent chunk of time. For the same duration as my undergraduate degree, I’ve been frolicking around Mexico City, perfecting my Spanish and waking up every day to the joy of being alive. How have I survived without a regular paycheck? And, more importantly, have I learned anything that’s useful to you?

It has been mostly a dream, but this quit-my-job-aversary comes at a particularly difficult time. I’ve barely made $2,000 this quarter, not even close to my personal OKR of $15k. Selling some of my index fund investments to pay my rent makes me feel like I’m failing at being an adult. Then again, I did take six months off client work to launch my second book, get it funded on Kickstarter in just 12 days, and get featured in The New York Times. Still, it’s hard to see the beauty in all that I’ve accomplished when reality is currently kicking my ass.

As you know, last week I was hit by a family emergency, causing me to fork out a couple thousand dollars more to fly to LA and say goodbye to my grandmother, who it seemed was on her deathbed. I sat with her in the hospital for five days as she went through a heart operation, reflecting on life in a mortal-imperative kind of way, while somehow helping to nurse her back to health. It was a close call. Not every day is sunshine and roses.

Sometimes those deeper, existential questions irk me. Am I really that much better off than before I burned my New York 9-5 life to the ground back in 2022? However, all it takes is a five-minute conversation with another software engineer who hates his life to knock my own sense back into me. I’ve definitely made the right choice.

I’m definitely not in the same place in this “creative career” as when I started. My direction is clearer and narrower in a way that’s motivating. I have a product to sell. I have workshops to teach. My path has a lot more shape, but it’s not easier. In fact, I’m still suffering. Yet I am following the advice of Graham Weaver, from my favorite episode of Lenny’s Podcast:

“Life is suffering, so make sure you pick something worth suffering for.” That’s how this feels right now. It’s a lot of work, but I’m much happier doing this than sending Sean a stupid, boring spreadsheet. (If you remember, in my corporate tech career, I worked with more men named Sean than with women on my teams, lol).

Here are four lessons I’ve learned in my fourth year of freedom.

1. Money still doesn’t really matter.

Yes, I’m a hypocrite. Aside from keeping the lights on and paying my rent, I still believe that money doesn’t really matter to me in my life. Through much self-reflection, I’ve learned that making money for money’s sake means nothing to me. I only make money to fund my creative projects and have control over my time. I couldn’t give a shit about owning a home. Sometimes I wish I had a bit more disposable income to travel, but that’s about it.

At the same time, the highest highs of my life cost next to nothing. Creating The Intimacy Journal in the second half of last year was pure creative bliss. Designing the pages, curating the erotic poetry, I had never felt so alive as I brought that book to life. Same with meeting up with a special group of incredibly talented poets and writers in Mexico City. Reading my work to them, experiencing their work, and feeling held creatively is absolutely fucking amazing. Enough said.

2. There are doers, and there are dreamers.

The other day, I was talking to a guy who planned to sell shoes from Mexico in the US.

“What shipping service are you using?” I asked him.

“Well, we haven’t actually done it yet,” he said, “We’re just developing the idea and exploring our options right now.”

Huh, I thought. So he hasn’t even really faced the issue, which is shipping stuff from Mexico to the US. He doesn’t know that Correos de Mexico, the Mexican postal service, isn’t permitting anyone to send more than a postcard. He doesn’t know they just digitalized their system and charge a shit ton more to send anything? Got it.

Something that continues to carry me through these years is that when I say I’m going to do something, I do it. Many people stand around commenting that what you’re doing is cool and that they’re doing it too, but then they don’t actually do it themselves.

You also don’t realize how much you will grow through this whole process. I look back, and I’m like: oh shit! I fulfilled 99% of the orders on my Kickstarter campaign. I hosted those workshops. I’ve done a lot of things, actually. And I’ve learned a lot, too. If you’ve been doing the things, you probably know a lot more than you think you know. By doing anything, you’re already way ahead of someone who hasn’t done anything at all. The same thing goes for reading books. A lot of people don’t read any books these days. Even if you just read one page of one book, that’s infinitely more than someone who just goes around saying how much they’d like to read more. Everyone talks a big game. When someone tells me about their dreams, but they aren’t actively doing them, I tune out. But when someone is doing something, even if they suck at it and they’re failing, I respect them.

3. Always be selling. Show, don’t tell.

If you bump into me on the street today, I am carrying 2 copies of my latest book, The Intimacy Journal. I have one sample copy and one copy in a gift-wrapped plastic sleeve. Why?

Well, when people ask me what I do, I don’t tell them; I pull the sample copy out of my bag and show them. I read them a line or a short poem, I show them the pages that I designed myself, and I tell them the story of how the book came about. I’m really proud of my book, and I think it’s beautiful. So I enjoy watching people interact with it for the first time.

What happens after that? Unexpectedly, they often want to buy one! And that’s when I sell them the gift-wrapped copy. This doesn’t always work, but I’ve sold about 42 copies of my book this way, which is about $1,250 USD in revenue for me (over a month’s rent!). Plus, people often add a little tip. It’s nice to have some extra cash on me. At times, it can get a little exhausting, and I feel torn or guilty if I’m not carrying copies of my book wherever I go. But I did sell 4 copies at my friend’s Christmas party. In fact, the last thing I did in 2025 was sell a copy of my book to a lovely gay man at a New Year’s Eve Party. Neat, huh? I keep track of how they pay me (Cash, Venmo, PayPal) and the currency they pay in (GBP, USD, MXN, EUR).

This is a true story: when I was a teenager, my family lived on the same street as the esteemed English fashion designer, Sir Paul Smith (he was knighted by The Queen years before). I only saw Paul Smith on my street a couple of times because he wakes up at 5am every day to go swimming. But one time, I ran into him and asked how he was. He immediately said to me,

“I’m excellent, thank you. I’m just picking out the furnishings for a new shop we’re opening on Albemarle, in Mayfair. You might like to go check it out.”

His words left an impression on me. He’s perhaps the most famous designer of men’s clothing in the world. His clothes are on billboards. He has shops in Tokyo and on Melrose in LA, and he’d been designing collections at Paris and Milan fashion week for longer than I’d been alive. As a 16-year-old girl, I wasn’t exactly his target demographic. And yet, here he was, imploring me to check out his new shop on Albemarle. I never forgot that he said that to me. And believe it or not, I did visit that new shop a few months later. And I liked the furnishings.

You’re not an obnoxious guy standing there with a big sign that you’re flinging around at a car depot. Don’t do anything tasteless. But if someone asks you what you do, or what kind of things you write, it’s about 1000x cooler to show them a beautiful book that you’ve created yourself than just about anything else.

4. Focus on one thing at a time.

One thing that has changed my life in the last year was deciding to focus on only one project: The Intimacy Journal. The world is a wide, complex, and distracting place, and each of us only has a limited amount of energy each day. When you work on 5 different projects, that energy is spliced out in 5 different directions. It leaves you too discombobulated and distracted to rise above the noise. And you need to do everything you can to rise above the noise because you’re competing with everyone else for people’s attention. If you put all your energy into one project, you have a chance of breaking out of your little bubble of people and reaching escape velocity.

Yes, I still wrote the odd article and kept up with my newsletter every week. But I concentrated all my energy into the journal. The launch. The Kickstarter campaign. The printing. Yes, I became a significantly simpler and boring person, but everything was more defined, and I found I made a lot more progress faster. My friends came back from the summer holidays, and I already had the first printed sample of the book to show them! A project like The Intimacy Journal is like a pillar. Once I got this book done, it opened up so many other revenue streams, including workshops, collaborations, podcast interviews, books, and audiobooks. I got a photo of me holding the book in the New York Times. Things just happened because I sat down and got that book done.

Whenever you feel that tug, that desire to ship this thing out into the world, and you’re excited about it in a deep way that makes you come alive, you just have to fucking do it. Because, like Elizabeth Gilbert talks about in Big Magic,

“Trust in the miraculous truth that new and marvelous ideas are looking for human collaborators every single day…Let them know you’re available. And for heaven’s sake, try not to miss the next one.”

The idea is yours for now. And if you don’t do it, the book, the song, the poem, whatever it is, will find another human subject to occupy soon. You’ll lose it, and you’ll wish you did it yourself.

I hope you found these lessons insightful, thought-provoking, and maybe even helpful. I seem to have driven home the point of being a doer rather than a dreamer here again a bit more. If that echoes what I shared in my list of lessons from last year, that’s because it’s proven to still be true.

I also hope that when I write to you again this time next year, I’ll have survived and thrived through this emotional rollercoaster and this dip in my bank balance.

Don’t forget to do something fun today!

Love

Tash

p.s. Visit tashdoherty.com for more writing, where I will be moving my guides and more SEO-focused articles shortly 👀

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Dear Wonderful Reader,

The money dwindles in my bank account. My grandma is dying. I have to sell my investment stocks and ETFs to pay for these flights. Hit by a “family emergency” when I have the least wiggle room. I gave up my Soho House membership, which in hindsight seems like an irresponsible and pretentious expense. Today is also my four-year anniversary since I quit my job in New York to pursue this creative life. I’ve spent 95% of my days since then extremely happy. No regrets. Yet two books published, workshops being taught, a feature in the New York Times, and a mention in Vogue isn’t much comfort when my client pipeline is dry.

This is a hard moment in my journey. Yet, I still have you, my lovely reader! Thank god you’re still here. We’re all still here, somehow. Today, I have something special for you. It is one of my favorite images. It is an image that sustains me in these difficult moments of life, and being a human on this planet. I wrote it when I returned to San Francisco from my friends’ betrothal. A former tech minion, I have seen the bridge many times. But something about that day was different.

Thank you for the opportunity to edit this and give this a little more love and polish. I will keep this in mind when I get on a plane tomorrow, and sit at my grandmother’s bedside. Things are hard, but this is keeping me going. This is a gift. This is my gift for you,

Love,

Tash

The Golden Gate - Friday, October 3rd, 2025 🌁

On Sunday, I was sitting in a quiet, dimly lit cocktail bar with an old friend. She’s very rich now. She told me she’s going to have five children, but not give birth to any of them herself (surrogacy). Now, that’s money. She’s getting engaged to her equally wealthy partner. Together, for her engagement ring, they’ve found an extremely rare jewel that naturally changes color with the light. If it’s a yellow light, the jewel is dark green and brown. If it’s a normal light, it’s purple and pink.

I chuckled to myself as she told me this story. Living in Mexico City as a writer, I don’t have even close to that level of wealth. Yet I smiled to myself because I think I feel just as rich. Earlier that same day, I had gone to Crissy Field in San Francisco with the rest of the wedding troop. It was the final send-off before my friends’ honeymoon in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As I sat on some picnic blankets on the grassy sand, and munched on the last of the feta salad, and cookies, and ham, and chips, I looked out over the Golden Gate Bridge.

I had never taken a good look at her from that angle before. Of course, she’s a she. I found myself turning away from the bustling group of millennials and gazing at her. I looked at her long and hard.

If you’ve been to that part of the world before, you know how insanely windy it is through the Marin Headlands. But she stood there. Unwavering. So tall. So strong. So majestic. Her goldenness was a burnt umber, crimson, brick-colored. It is funny to realize that I always thought of her as golden herself, not thinking that it’s the place she inhabits. But the light there is golden too. It’s just enormous. The swell of the bay in green-blue-grey waters. The clouds dipping through her, spreading out into pools of sunshine over the grassy banks of land behind her. The smooth hills glowing. Her curved nature hanging perfectly still. Straight upright. Unflinching. There.

Looking at her, I felt myself expanding. I felt I saw myself in the somewhat distant future. I’ve made it. I am taller than I am now. I have grown beyond in ways that my current little human self cannot even imagine. In the future, I am taking up space. I am moving. I am powerful. I make an impact. This is all culminating in something. I’m going somewhere, even if I don’t know where yet. Even after a week of stress and dealing with the printers and fear and self-doubt and worry, despite the treachery of the waters surrounding her, and the giant freight-bearing boats that passed beneath her, and the roaring, unrelenting wind, she stood there. Graceful. Whole. She had stood there all these years. Made a small scratch in the greatest force of erosion of all: time.

That’s all to say, I laughed when I recounted this all to my friend. Here she was, chasing a rare stone around the world for her engagement ring, and I just sat on a beach and looked at a bridge for an hour. My riches were free. I was just as transformed, just as inspired, just as contented, just as driven, and moved. It was moving, that experience. Maybe I saw something of myself in her, that bridge. Maybe at times she might underestimate herself, whereas anyone looking at her could easily see her excellence, how exceptional she was. Or maybe she knows her worth. Through her very existence, she is strong. Her strength, in that sense, is never to be questioned. Her talents a given. Her energy, immense, radiating out from all aspects of her everywhere, as she let the giant waves and ships pass beneath her like it was nobody’s business. Choosing not to lower herself to small problems that were literally beneath her. And the space she took up. The space that was meant for her to inhabit. So anchored and grounded by nature. I felt grateful to just see her, to receive her energy.

I couldn’t look away.

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Listen to my grandmother’s story on the Misseducated Podcast:

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More Stories about my Grandmother from Misseducated

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Hello Wonderful Reader,

The mother-daughter bond is just about the last thing I wanted to share about this week. I only wanted to give you a taste of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven because next week we’ll be working with another poem by her in a “Fantasy”-themed Intimacy Writing Workshop (which I’m very excited to teach!)

Join my "Fantasy" workshop!

I found her poem “Marie Ida Sequence,” and I liked Part I. But once I sat down to illustrate, I got the message: she’s talking about her mother, their resemblance, and her love for her. Her mother, Ida-Marie, who died of uterine cancer when Elsa was only 19 years old. Her mother, who had suffered from mental illness and spent time in a sanatorium in Stettin, Germany (theartstory.org). Her mother, who had been stuck in an abusive, violent relationship with her father, and contracted syphilis because of him (Elsa blamed her father for her mother’s death).

I’m not going to lie, the complexity of it makes me feel a bit better about myself. I’m going through a difficult time with my own mother. I am trying to accept her for who she is, while she cannot do the same for me. My boundaries are met by her silence. I’m still an afterthought in her web of family gatherings, always wanting everyone to be close while still not really knowing what closeness means. It’s fucking complicated, and not fun to think about.

Still, the clear images in the poem captivated me. The slate-green eyes, the copper hair. Maybe that’s what writing is about sometimes. Facing the dark shit. Processing the stuff we’d rather not look at. In fact, in the research from UT Austin that I base my workshops on, they say that there are more mental and physical health benefits from writing about your most traumatic and difficult experiences than from writing about neutral topics.

So, here’s to facing our shit.

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Join my next Intimacy Writing Workshop!

Theme: Fantasy 🧚✨

Next week on Thursday, March 12th, I’ll be collaborating with the wonderful sex-positive podcast, Honeydew Me, for an evening of writing about our intimate fantasies. We will be using a poem by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Join us!

Write with us!

Marie Ida Sequence

By Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927)

(Gesture of soul—action-:architecture —evolutionary)

I.
Mine flaunting dress—mine copper hair—
Thou—purple—dark— — 
Slate iris— forehead wide. 
Mine lips—as shaped and chiselled after thine— 
The nose is not—mine nose is aquiline— 
like tower—thine is short,

Thine hands—so imminently lovely— 
Frail—faintly dimpled—tapery fingertips— 
To worship—they are not the hands of me— 
Nor chaste as thine ponder mine lips.

Mine scarlet heart—mine slate-green eye— 
copper-sprayed star— 
Are thine—profound—! 
—Learned mine eyes what never thine eyes lit— ! 
Desire incarnate—erected fit 
Cradle for thine soul.

Nay—fundamentally I am thine root— 
Gyrating dizzying and high 
Upon that bloodcrest—mating a galoot 
Of steel and flame—making thee die.

Source: The Little Review, 1920. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵

Four Prompts To Go Deeper ✍️

For 20 minutes, write a memory, a reflection, a letter, or whatever comes:

1. Explore the physical similarities you have with your mother, and what they say about you.

Inspired by: “Mine lips—as shaped and chiselled after thine—”

2. Write about your most vivid memory of your mother.

Inspired by: “Cradle for thine soul.”

3. Write about the ways in which you and your mother will always be interconnected.

Inspired by: “fundamentally I am thine root—“

4. Write about what you wish you could say to your mother but can’t for whatever reason.

Inspired by: “(Gesture of soul—action-:architecture —evolutionary)”

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven herself was an exceptionally interesting woman. I don’t have time to go into it too much here, but give her Wikipedia page a read. Her “elaborate costumes both critiqued and challenged the bourgeois notions of feminine beauty and economic worth. She adorned herself with utilitarian objects like spoons, tin cans, and curtain rings, as well as street debris that she came across.” (Wikipedia) Yes, spoons are jewelry, friends.

I hope this invitation stirred something deep within you and inspired you to process it, as hard as that may be. Which writing prompt resonated with you the most? Let me know. I read and respond to every DM I get!

Sending love,

Tash

p.s. I’m sharing more updates on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. Follow me!

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Introduction

“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” — Irina Dunn, 1970

I heard about the movement of decentering men on TikTok. With zero expectations, I decided to try it out for a month. It was October 2025. I was sick of dating apps and about to publish my second book. I’d been single for three years, but this was something different. I’m here to tell you everything about it and share all the reasons why I’m never going back.

I wrote this article to give us, women, a blueprint for how to be the main character in our own lives. Our mothers and grandmothers couldn’t teach us this; they depended on men (financially) to survive, and had to center them accordingly. This article is not about hating men; it’s about unlearning the ways that the patriarchy has trained us to prioritize making men happy. This pressure comes just as much from the women in our lives (aunties, influencers, our mother), as from men. After all, it was my mother who let my brother get away with never doing the dishes after dinner.

Starting this process for the first time scared me. I was worried that if I stopped trying to date men, I was giving up on my dream of becoming a mother. Yet as I began to decenter men, I realized that my idea of motherhood was purely a fantasy. Facing the reality of motherhood, those statistics scared me much more. In this article, I will cover everything I’ve learned from the internet, economists, and my own experience, so that you can decide whether decentering men and trying it for a month to start is right for you. Let’s begin!

What does it mean to decenter men?

Decentering men means focusing on our own needs, desires, and dreams rather than prioritizing men’s feelings or validation. We believe our needs matter just as much as a man’s needs. We take our dream jobs, move to our dream city, and live fully without waiting to be “chosen.” If we do want a relationship, we believe the right man will support us in being our fullest selves. We are complete without a man, marriage, or motherhood, and our life choices, careers, and bank accounts reflect that. We respect other women’s decisions without judging them harshly either way.

In our lives, we can decenter men in big ways, such as by staying single forever, or small ways, such as following feminist creators on Instagram over trad wives. We seek content that promotes our right to choose, not content about women being controlled or subservient to husbands. It’s okay to want marriage and babies, but decentering men helps us see our people-pleasing tendencies and assess whether we’re getting a good deal. We only give what we are able and willing to give.

Why did I start decentering men?

I started decentering men just before I turned 31; the same age my mum was when she gave birth to me and became financially dependent on my dad forever. I had been living independently, yet, like many women, I felt that constant, sneaky, underlying pressure to “find a man” so I could have babies one day. The “manxiety” haunted me from coffee shops to house parties to bars (all the meet-cute spots). I’d built an amazing life for myself, and was about to birth my second book into the world. Yet, deep down, I believed I wasn’t enough without the stamp of some dude’s approval. I listened to Raye, wondering what the hell was taking my husband so long to find me. I had swiped through a million men (probably) in my dating app “career.” But as my thumbs ached, I considered a new possibility:

“What if I just…gave up? Well, not forever. Maybe I can just give up trying to find a partner for a month and see what happens.”

So that’s what I did.

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How to Decenter Men while in a Relationship

Negotiate a Better Deal

“I can’t mop the floor with my uterus.” — Professor Corinne Low, Having It All

For women in a heterosexual relationship, centering your man can have devastating consequences. Of course, it’s okay to care about your man, but you still need to take your own feelings and needs just as seriously as his.

In her book Having It All, Dr. Corinne Low, professor of Economics at The Wharton School, points out that while women have gained economic and job equality since the 1970s, men have not faced similar pressure to take on household and childcare chores equitably. This leaves many heterosexual women with two full-time jobs: their day job and housework (plus childcare). The reality is shocking: “Women in heterosexual marriages who are the primary breadwinners do almost twice as much cooking and cleaning as their male spouses” (Low, 2025). Gay and lesbian couples do not face the same inequities in the home, by the way. It’s gender-based bullshit.

Low challenges us to ask ourselves, “Am I getting a good deal?” Essentially, in your relationship, are your needs prioritized as much as your male partner’s? This could mean advancing your career, getting enough leisure and sleep, balancing household chores, protecting your happiness and wellbeing, managing commute time, and maintaining social support. The list goes on, and Professor Low wants to make sure you are not just happy, but ideally optimizing your personal utility on what matters most to you. She suggests you plan time in your schedule for leisure, whatever brings you the most long-term joy and fulfillment. Is it a massage? Brunch with the gals?

To test this, Low suggests asking yourself: if you got a job opportunity in a different city that would give you a 50% pay increase, but it required your partner to take a 20% pay cut, how would you decide whether to move? A woman decentering men would advocate for moving. Or if one of your kids is sick, how do you decide who stays home? Decentering means demanding a balanced household.

Please, whatever you do, don’t give up your apartment that’s a 15-minute commute to your work because your male partner is quitting his job and going on a “find-himself” sabbatical. Don’t get spun up in his chaos. And if you find yourself wondering whether to prioritize your career or your husband’s, Low encourages us to imagine that the gender roles were flipped. Would he ever give up his apartment for your sabbatical?

If your male partner remains useless around the home, and you’re sick of your job, commute, and living situation,

How to Decenter Men while Single

1. Pick your starting time frame.

I recommend giving it a month to see how it goes. You can always extend if you’re enjoying it.

2. Prioritize yourself and your close friends.

Delete the apps and stop dating. Decentering men means not trying to find a partner at all. For example, I stopped flirting with the random guys at parties, hoping they’d sleep with me. Instead, I’d catch up with the person I came with and deepen my female friendship. If a man talks to you at a bar, that’s fine, as is getting introduced by friends. But you’re not putting yourself out there. You can still prioritize platonic friendships with men, the gays, and the theys.

You can also dress in a way that doesn’t revolve around the male gaze, because you no longer give a fuck. Wear what makes you feel happy, exuberant, comfortable, and loving your life. Try to disentangle what you think you should wear to please men versus what you actually want to wear. It’s a thornier topic that I’ve written about before, but it’s worth paying attention to.

3. Prioritize your schedule and your needs.

In a life where your needs matter, prioritize your gym classes, sleep schedule, mental health, self-love, and prep time for work meetings. This is easier said than done, because if your life has been anything like mine, you may struggle to identify your needs. Growing up as the eldest of four children, I rarely owned anything that was just mine, and I internalized that my needs didn’t matter. Three years of therapy and two years of regular ACA meetings, a 12-step program for Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, have helped me learn to identify my needs and believe they matter (and that’s improved my self-esteem).

Decentering men is about respecting your own time, energy, and space, not bending over backwards and screwing up your night of sleep for someone who probably sucks and won’t commit. Noticing our feelings is crucial; they alert us when our needs are being compromised or boundaries are crossed.

Try to do regular feelings check-ins: “What am I feeling right now?” You can and should be feeling multiple things at any given time. Use a feelings wheel to identify your emotions in the moment, or even do a needs check-in: “What do I need right now?” I could write a whole other article about this, but if you’re interested in learning more, I recommend reading The Loving Parent Guidebook. The book will teach you how to be your own loving parent, including things like:

4. Talk about anything else.

The world is a wild and wonderful place. You could talk about getting that bag, your dream holiday to Alaska, world domination plans, or perfecting your lemon cake recipe. Personal growth comes in many forms. Instead, you’re ruminating again about your inconsistent, alcoholic, man-child situationship. Your friends are probably bored of hearing about this walking piece of trash, but they’re just too nice to tell you!

When I was younger, I used to like getting all excited with my female friends about whoever in high school we were trying to kiss. Now I’m just sick of it. I have left women’s groups and avoided people hung up on literal losers. Do yourself a favor: notice what percentage of your time you spend talking about men. Then…stop talking about them and talk about anything else instead. It’s more interesting, and your friends will thank you for it later. Trust me!

5. Meet the humans in front of us.

Many of us were raised to put men on a pedestal. For example, if I met a hot guy, I’d give him tons of attention and make him feel as comfortable as possible, while building a fantasy that he’d solve my not-enoughness. Decentering men means seeing them as the flawed humans they are. Fantasies be gone. This means chatting briefly with a hot guy, thinking nothing of it, and moving on without letting him disrupt your foundation.

The ACA problem spoke to me: “[We] became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable relationships.” I’d get hooked on men who responded to texts inconsistently, mistaking anxiety for butterflies. Instead, as we decenter men, we can focus on one ACA promise: “We will choose to love people who can love and be responsible for themselves.” This means matching a guy’s energy. Don’t change your schedule for the guy who never confirmed date plans. Match the inconsistent texter’s energy by responding inconsistently because you’re busy with better things to do. Don’t reorganize your schedule for a guy who would never do the same for you. Notice when they don’t respond to your message. That signals their level of interest and respect for your time. Set boundaries with them and stick to them. I’m a fan of blocking people to get them out of my psyche. Decentering is our chance to reclaim energy that should never have been given to these men in the first place.

6. Build financial independence

“Women are brought up to think that a man is a financial strategy. You get married, and that’s it. And that is fatal, utterly fatal.” — Cindy Gallop, Design Matters Podcast.

According to Amanda Holden in How to Be a Rich Old Lady, there are levels of financial independence: “not solely relying on a man or partner for money,” and “not needing to rely on a job for money” I.e., you have enough money invested to live off the interest those investments generate. The second level is much harder to achieve, but once your 401(k) and savings generate enough income to live on, you can retire.

Financial independence is more important for us than ever. Why? Because “[marriage] is offering less value to people than it once did,” where marriage is defined as “a contract to protect women who specialize in home production” (Low, 2025). Back in the day, when we were housewives and weren’t allowed to hold high-paying jobs, we had to rely on men financially to keep us alive. Now, with our own financial resources, we have the freedom to leave whatever living situation or relationship we no longer want to be in. And remember, even if you love your career, “Do not let anyone convince you that fulfillment, passion, or caring is a substitute for money” (Low, 2025). We still need to be paid for what we are doing.

I briefly lost all my freedom and became financially dependent on my then-boyfriend at the beginning of the pandemic. I wanted to leave the situation, but without my own money, I got stuck and had to endure hell until I signed another job contract. It was not fun, and I don’t wish that experience on my worst enemy. I now live by Amanda Holden’s motto: “[Each] of us has two jobs: the job we do, and the job of marketing ourselves to make as much money as possible while doing it” (Holden, 2026). Or as Cindy Gallop puts it,

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7. Face the true costs.

“Men want children like how children want puppies” — The women of Reddit

I’ve always said I wanted children, but these four months gave me time to face the reality of motherhood. Ignoring the cost of raising a child, it’s estimated that “[women] lose half a million dollars in lifetime earnings, on average, just by becoming mothers” (Holden, 2026). So I’ll be poorer and not able to sleep in on Sundays? I realized that my life as a single woman is pretty amazing, and I need to think long and hard about whether I am willing to give this up.

Patriarchal inequalities extend far beyond cleaning your male partner’s stubble out of the sink. For example, “daughters take on far more caregiving than sons, with deeply uneven emotional, physical, and financial costs,” and “women over fifty who are forced out of work to care for aging relatives lose an estimated $324,000 in wages and retirement savings” (Holden, 2026). Facing these realities, it appears we may have to decenter our brothers just as much as our romantic partners.

Our culture has taught us that we must find a man to “save” us, but the facts show us we’re the ones saving them. Living with a man creates massive emotional and physical labor for us. One woman on Reddit swore she would never live with a male partner again; her last three partners only increased her housework while eating all her food. That makes me mad just thinking about it! Low gives an example of a married woman who can’t get two seconds of peace, while her husband swims a couple of times a week. One finding that fascinates me is “Divorced mothers sleep more than married ones” (Low, 2025).

Men benefit from women taking care of them and others disproportionately, which is why decentering men may even be good for our health. The deal that I’d most likely get as a mother freaking sucks, and looking at the facts, being childless at 50 looks pretty great. I haven’t given up on wanting children; I just think either outcome could be great for me. In fact, I looked up the definition of “spinster” and learned that it means a woman who is too old to get married, who historically spun yarn. She looks pretty peaceful, doesn’t she? I’ll have what she’s having.

The “Not All Men” disclaimer: I can hear you saying, “But, Tash, not all men!” There is a spectrum of weaponized male incompetence. However, I’m not very optimistic. Even my friend with a lovely, competent boyfriend, who sleeps in her own room in their apartment, has to remind him to scoop their cats’ litter box. We have not yet mastered getting men to take household chores as seriously as they take their jobs, for obvious reasons. So even if you’re not doing the chore yourself, you’re still managing the household by remembering and asking him to do it.

8. Try on alternative lifestyles for size.

“Is it absolutely possible to pause and question whether marriage really is for you, whether children are for you, whether even relationships really are for you. I’m absolutely ecstatic about the fact that I’ll die alone. Fantastic!” — Cindy Gallop, Design Matters Podcast

Decentering men has empowered me to identify which parts of my lifestyle I am not willing to compromise. For example, as I turned 30, I realized that I really enjoy my life in Mexico City. However, it’s common here for people to move to the faraway suburbs once they have kids. I wondered whether this was a lifestyle switch I was willing to make. Then, I met a woman living in the suburbs with her husband and three kids at a Christmas party. She spends an hour getting her kids ready, then a 45-minute drive to get into the city. I thought to myself: Oh, hell no!

There are many hybrid and alternative lifestyles you can explore. For example, you could sleep in a separate room from your male partner, or maintain your own separate apartments. You can have a child on your own. Leading research on fatherhood from Dr. Anna Machin shows that children need father figures, but these do not need to be the biological father or from a romantic relationship. Father-figure relationships are built on interacting with the child to nurture them while also challenging them to try new things and develop independence. An uncle, family friend, or your chosen family can fill this role.

Also, have you ever been attracted to a woman? Given the inequities around housework (and not to mention, orgasms), it’s a good reminder that “The lesbian is an evidence-based decision” (Low, 2025). There’s nothing that decentered men more in my life than exploring dating women.

So, think to yourself: where do you want to live? Which city or suburb? Could you survive an hour-long daily commute, driving future kids to school? Your time and happiness matter, and a lot of that depends on who you are and your lifestyle. In the words of Annie Dillard,

9. Avoid excessive people pleasing. Take up space.

Growing up in London, I was raised to believe that my worth depended on how helpful and useful I could be to other people. I never realized I was automatically doing the emotional and physical labor to keep the peace and make sure men felt comfortable. This came from a real fear: the men in my family could get angry, be aggressive, and shout at me.

But times have changed. I’m an adult now. I no longer accept aggression from men, and I’ve been learning that I have inherent worth as a human being. I don’t have to be extra helpful in order to be loved. If men at a family function are sitting around drinking beer, I don’t automatically get up to help with dishes.

Believing you have a right to your own space and time is a fundamental aspect of decentering men. These moments seem tiny, but they add up to being treated as a full person. For example, one friend mentioned that she feels selfish for buying a cookie from a bakery and sitting alone at a table to eat it and read a book. This is a small but classic example of how we, as women, are trained to center men and others over ourselves constantly. As patrons of a business, we deserve to sit and read in peace.

I’m not encouraging you to be an asshole. I’m encouraging you to tone down being overly people pleasing and taking care of others from 150% of the time, abandoning your own needs, to about 90% of the time. It’s not our job to be helpful all the time and fix everything for everyone else. Take the rest of this day to try to notice examples in your life where you are over-performing as a people-pleaser. See if you would be willing to let other people sort it out and let it go. You might be tempted to step in, but the trick here is to do nothing.

10. Exercise your reproductive rights

“Reproductive capital carries economic power.” — Professor Corinne Low, Having It All

We decenter men by taking control of our reproductive health. We get to decide whether or not, and if and when we want to be pregnant, if we want to have periods, and what medications we want to put in our bodies.

I’ve had the hormonal IUD for 9 years and I love not having periods. I don’t even have tampons or pads in my house. Many women prefer their natural menstrual cycle and resent doctors for prescribing hormonal birth control pills as a band-aid for health issues. This opinion is valid. On the other hand, I am part of “the silent majority”: I’m one of the women who has been on hormonal birth control for ages, I’ve been extremely happy with the results, and I’d rather not have a period ever again.

The birth control methods that are the most effective for preventing pregnancy are the IUDs (the Copper is non-hormonal, but can make your periods heavier) and the implant. They’re more effective than condoms and pills because they’re already in your body, so you reduce all the human error (e.g., the faff of the condom slipping off). Still, it’s always best to double up on methods because human error is a real risk. You can use a fertility tracker like Kegg to identify your fertility window.

11. Prepare to be called “selfish” (my favorite tip!)

Once you stop being overly helpful to everyone, it’s only a matter of time before someone calls you “selfish” for prioritizing your own needs. My mother called me selfish for asking for a guaranteed bed after traveling for 15 hours from Mexico to London. This is a small price we must pay for being reformed doormats. People won’t like that we’re asking for what’s fair and necessary, refusing to let others benefit from disrespecting our boundaries. But soon enough, they will learn to live with it.

What are the benefits of decentering men?

I didn’t realize just how much decentering men benefited me until I briefly redownloaded the dating apps in mid-January and started looking for a partner again. Suddenly, all my previous anxieties about needing to find a man quickly flared up again. So, I went back to decentering for my own health and sanity. Sometimes you don’t know how peaceful your life is until it’s disrupted.

Here are the main personal benefits I’ve gained over the last four months, aided by the work I’ve done in therapy and 12-step programs:

• More positive self-talk. I used to feel bad about myself when I saw a happy couple on the street because of abandonment issues from my childhood. Since I stopped looking for a partner, my most self-critical anxieties have melted away.

• Conversations with men that are more grounded in reality. I don’t dip into fantasy-land like I used to. I realized my fantasies were a way to deflect from the reality of my life. Decentering men has taken pressure off every interaction. I can still feel vaguely disappointed when I learn that a cute guy has a girlfriend, but I’m not bending over backwards to impress him. I find my interactions with men to be more neutral or positive overall, and not a reflection of my worth. We meet, we interact briefly, and then we move on.

• More goddamn peace and quiet. After growing up in a crazy house with three siblings and four animals at one point, my life is more peaceful now. If I need something, I pay for a man to do it, e.g., my taxes or an Uber. Thank you, capitalism, I guess.

• I am the main character in my life. As much as I love Raye’s music, I’m not waiting for my future husband to show up. I’m investing in myself now and the future I want.

What are the drawbacks?

• I haven’t had sex in four months, but this is typical for me. I published my second book during this time and had other priorities than my love life.

• Sometimes I feel more lonely, yet I usually fill this void by seeing more friends.

• I do miss intimacy. There’s only so many cuddles I can get from petting all dogs everywhere. But even then, my decreased level of general anxiety still feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s helped me decide that if I do want to bring someone into the fold of my life, they better be kind.

Conclusion

“Women are sold the concept of love is self-sacrifice. Yeah, well, it’s going to be hard, but if you love them enough, you’ll make it through…This is where we are all sold a bill of goods when it comes to love. It is not true that sex sells. It is absolutely true that love sells.” — Cindy Gallop, Style Like U

This moment is the only moment we truly have. Let’s invest in it, and not in some fake future that requires a man to complete it. Our grandmothers didn’t have bank accounts. Today we have options for financial independence and freedom they could only dream of. We can feel grateful.

I like to listen to music while cooking, but eat in silence. A couple of months ago, I was anxious. What if my hypothetical future husband likes listening to music while he eats? I should learn how to compromise now, I thought, because eventually I’d have to give up this quiet comfort.

This is ridiculous hypothetical thinking. With my therapist’s help, I realized that I deserve to enjoy my current reality without expecting it to change. These small needs might seem superficial, but they matter. We shouldn’t count down to the day when our needs get deprioritized. We shouldn’t curb our happiness today, believing that we’ll need to give up our freedom tomorrow.

Instead, trust that your future self will advocate for what matters to you; she will negotiate a good deal. No more shrinking to serve other people. Our self-worth and happiness are far too valuable to compromise.

We don’t have to decenter men forever. Start today. Try it out for a month and learn what you truly want. Good luck!

💌 ✍️

Decentered Misseducated Stories 💌 ✍️

1. How To Host A Naked Party 🎉 🌿

2. Say It While You Still Can 🩵

3. How I Almost Became a Scientologist 👾

4. The Secret Superpower of My Menstrual Cycle 🩸

Initiation ☄️

You’re headed to CDMX this weekend, and you’re horny as hell. Sure, you want to know where you can fill up on some completely unspicy tacos al pastor. But you made a fatal mistake: you bragged to your sad roommate, Sarah, and your boring coworker, Brian, about your trip. Now your Google Maps is flooded with their billion useless touristy recommendations. Yellow stars. Pink hearts. What does it all mean?

Don’t worry, friend! It’s time to shit, shower, shave, and scroll through the city’s raunchiest destinations. Pick your place based on who you’re trying to bang. And, dude, maybe don’t wear those dorky flip flops? You’re in the largest city in North America, not your mom’s backyard. It’s go time!

Activation: CDMX Date Spots 📍🗺️

Oropel, Roma Norte. Gagging for an artsy trust-fund kid? Teleport straight here from Brooklyn. Oropel means “tinsel” in Spanish, but there’s nothing Christmasy or cringe about it: only elevated, understated hipster cool. Don your Salomons, cross-body fanny pack, 90s-resurrected jeans, and tats to fit right in. Queer-friendly 🎨 🤑 🌈.

NIV Bar, Condesa. Sugar daddies for the win. Friday and Saturday, 11pm onwards. Pro tip: Quit your job and brush up on your pádel and golf skills before you go. One cocktail will upgrade you to homewrecker on a flight to “mantenida” (kept woman), via a beach trip to Acapulco. Wake up in your new mansion in Bosques de Santa Fe, a gated suburb with armed guards that traps the rich people in, as much as it keeps the commoners out. It’s the nightlife-to-wife pipeline. You’ve been warned 😬.

Caimán / TRAMPA / Hule, Condesa. The best dating spots when you’re clueless about the cooler speakeasies. Sample the same flavor of young Mexican “fresas” (upperclass snowflakes) from Las Lomas. Make sure to poke a hole in the condom while he’s talking about his family’s estate in Valle de Bravo, so your kids can be featured on Sucesión, Season 20. Don’t be fooled: he lives with his parents, and soon you will too, after you give up on your “progressive” ideals of feminism. Stop paying for stuff! You’re making life unnecessarily hard 💎💅.

Tlecān, Roma Norte. TimeOut’s third-best bar in North America is now overrun by equally horny gringos just like you! Discuss the “authentic” pre-Hispanic vibes over a mezcal with Brett from BCG and Connor from McKinsey. Then cross that threesome off your bucket list ✅.

Balagán, Juárez. Avoid this place. You’ll meet 25-year-old divorcée José Marco Treviño de la Treviño, a “norteño” (northerner) from Monterrey, armed with his daddy’s Amex. But don’t expect to bang! You’re not his cousin/type. Instead, head to El Ayer, Roma Norte. Pick the next “chilango” (Mexico City local) finance bro you can find. Ten cocktails deep, you’ll be putting whoever’s whatever into your orifices in the back of an Escalade all the way to Interlomas. No need to Uber when you’ve got a chauffeur 👨🏼‍✈️ 🚔.

Sports World, Condesa. Cruise on through, gays. This is the official sister gym to Equinox in WeHo. Forget the towel altogether and go get ‘em, queen. Trashier alternative: Smart Fit, Reforma 222. Straight version: Síclo El Parian, Roma Norte for a sweaty spin class in the dark 🏋 🧖🏽‍♂️.

Departamento, Roma Norte. Snag a vanilla banker with bottle service. Run by the cartels, this nightclub is known for Rohypnol with your rum and Coke. A dab of fentanyl with your blow. Careful! Gay equivalent: SIC, Juárez 🕺🏻❄️.

Parque Pentathlón, Roma Sur. Stop by the afternoon pickleball courts to find a frisky foreigner who is too nomadic to commit to anything 🥒🎾.

Pronovias CDMX, Polanco. If you’re Lauren Sanchez reincarnated, and your lip filler stretches as long as Rodeo Drive, go here to pick out your husband and wedding dress after you’ve gone full “buchona” (cartel wife aesthetic). They might seem laid back in Latin America, but trust me, you can’t escape the Mexican culture of matrimonio 💍 💒.

Koti Wellness, Condesa. Syphon off the sperm of a startup bro and spiritual narcissist as you sweat in the sauna. This is your chance to show off all the torture and financial turmoil you put yourself through at Barry’s. Take your new bae to the cafe Espíritu Sano, Condesa, for an antioxidant smoothie after, so they can bore you to death with their Burning Man stories before you bang 💦🔥.

Haab Project, Condesa. Pick up an expat who can’t speak Spanish and is avoiding taxes, while soaking up all the “rich history.” It’s casual dating only before he jet-sets off to his crypto mine in Siberia. Make sure he’s a member so you can enjoy the rooftop bar. Finding-yourself-in-Mexico first date approved ✈️ 💸 💀.

Hermanos Koumori, Condesa / Metta Running House, Polanco. Rich, athletic hotties who spend more on running gear than the average local salary. The ultimate Type 2 fun for those who are fit and want to fuck. At 7,350ft, the altitude will kick your ass. Let the Prince of Pemex sweep you off your feet after you faint. Follow the Koumori cult on Strava 🏃👑.

Huerto Roma Verde, Roma Sur. Are you healing from the sickness of capitalism? Head here to find yourself a washed-up Tuluminati wearing rags on the edge of “clothing optional,” sprinkled with undiagnosed mental health issues 🌿 🔮.

Parque México, Condesa. If you’re even remotely Catholic, you have to be extremely careful walking through this place. You might just trip over some cute dude’s French bulldog and land with an engagement ring on your finger before you can pronounce his name properly. It’s “Gerardo.” Good luck with that 🦮🌳.

Miscellaneous last resorts. Swipe on Bumble if you want to meet a local with a foreigner fetish, or Hinge to meet the rich Whitexican of your bank account’s dreams. Revuelta Queer House, Roma Norte, the epicenter of the dating scene for a “romantic” queer meet-cute-fuck. Sungay Brunch, if you want to relive your boozy dartying days. Or take your chances “metreando” (the last car on the metro) for sketchy night cruising 🏳️‍🌈 🫣.

Terrible date ideas (Do not attempt in any way, shape, or form): Visiting Frida Kahlo’s House, Coyoacán, unless you want to date a semi-retired woman from Arizona named Karen. Going to Chapultepec Park. Tinder. Churros or ice cream. Mariachi in Plaza Garibaldi, Centro. Dating a waiter from Quintonil or Pujol, Polanco (trust me, I’ve tried that and it backfired). Trajineras in Xochimilco, unless you want to be trapped on a boat getting serenaded post-rejection. Hidden gems that aren’t so hidden that you think are “unique experiences” 🙅‍♀️.

Fuckery Achieved 🏆

Got your spot in mind? Perfect. Now, get the hell out of your Airbnb! You’ll be bragging to your basic friends back home in no time, so even more of them can come here and #gentrify. You’re welcome! 💪

More Rejected Work from Misseducated 💌 ✍️

Hello Wonderful Reader,

Today, I’ve chosen a special erotic poem and writing prompts for you to explore secret anticipation. So grab a pen and paper, set aside 20 minutes to journal, and let’s get started.

Moonrise

By H.D. (1886-1961)

Will you glimmer on the sea? 
Will you fling your spear-head 
on the shore? 
What note shall we pitch?

We have a song, 
on the bank we share our arrows— 
the loosed string tells our note:

O flight, 
bring her swiftly to our song. 
She is great, 
we measure her by the pine-trees.

Source: Poetry Foundation. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵

Four Prompts To Go Deeper ✍️

1. Write about the anticipation of waiting for a lover to arrive.

“Will you glimmer on the sea?”

2. Write about a time when you stayed up all night with someone.

“on the bank we share our arrows—”

3. Write about the music, meals, or delicious things you made with a partner.

“We have a song,”

4. Write about a place in nature that expanded the depth of your love.

“She is great, / we measure her by the pine-trees.”

About H.D. (1886—1961)

Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her father, an astronomy professor, hoped she would become the next Marie Curie, but she chose poetry instead.

In 1911, she set off for a short trip to Europe with Ezra Pound, and only returned to the United States four or five times before her death. Openly bisexual with many lovers (including the novelist Bryher), H.D. became a leading voice in the Imagist movement, whose poetry focused on sensuality, precise images, and emotion.

In 1933, she traveled to Vienna for analysis by Freud, hoping to process her trauma from WW1, her paranoia about the rise of Adolf Hitler, and her sexuality. Freud encouraged her to write about her traumatic experiences, advice which shaped her work. Decades later, we now know that expressive writing about our more personal experiences is good for us and genuinely aids healing ❤️‍🩹.

Here are other quotes by her that I love (source here):

Hire me for an Intimacy Writing Workshop! ❤️ ✍️

After my sold-out workshop at Soho House, I am now looking to teach intimacy writing workshops to women’s groups, writer’s groups, corporate ERGs (Employee Resource Groups), and wellness communities. If you organize a group like this, or know somebody who does, please reach out! You can respond to this email, comment, or send an email of your own to misseducatedtash@gmail.com. I can’t wait to hear from you!

I hope you enjoyed this invitation! Reply and tell me which writing prompt resonated with you the most? I read and respond to every DM I get!

Sending love,

Tash

p.s. I’m sharing more updates on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. Follow me!

💌 ✍️

More From Misseducated 💌 ✍️

Hello Wonderful Reader,

Today I’ve chosen a special erotic poem and writing prompts for you to explore your too-muchness and wild expansiveness. So grab a pen and paper, and let’s get started.

Desert Pools

By Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)

I love too much; I am a river
   Surging with spring that seeks the sea,
I am too generous a giver,
   Love will not stoop to drink of me.

His feet will turn to desert places
   Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,
Where stars stare down with sharpened faces
   From heavens pitilessly blue.

And there at midnight sick with faring
   He will stoop down in his desire
To slake the thirst grown past all bearing
   In stagnant water keen as fire.

Source: Poets.org. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵

Four Prompts To Go Deeper ✍️

I’m going to be honest: not everything about this poem resonated with me. I couldn’t figure out who she was talking about when she said “His feet.” Was it Love’s feet? Or was it her ex-boyfriend’s feet? I guess we’ll never know.

The rest of the poem might be about loving someone who didn’t realize how awesome you were. Still, the line that really sang to me was the first one:

So delicious. So juicy. So, I’ll keep it simple.

1. Describe yourself as a river. Where do you flow? What animals and plants grace your waters? What are you like?

“I am a river.”

2. Write about someone who was too small to handle you and your capability of loving them.

“I love too much;”

3. Tell me about your sheer expansiveness and limitless power, realized or imagined.

“Surging with spring that seeks the sea”

4. Write about someone you were devoted to, yet who never gave you the pleasure or care that you deserved.

“I am too generous a giver,”

About Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

She was an American lyric poet who was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her 1917 collection, Love Songs. I featured one of her poems for the “Awakening” chapter of The Intimacy Journal. I like that she uses rhyme to brew momentum in her poetry, but it’s not predictable all the way through. Here are my favorite quotes from the mystery poem I featured in the journal:

I hope you enjoyed this invitation! Reply and tell me: which writing prompt resonated with you the most? I read and respond to every DM I get!

Sending love,

Tash

p.s. I’m sharing more updates on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. Follow me!

💌 ✍️

More From Misseducated 💌 ✍️

Hello Wonderful Reader,

Tell me about someone you loved but who held you captive. That’s the question that haunted me when I discovered this 1916 poem…

Sweet Torture

By Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938)

Gold dust in your hands was my melancholy;

I spilled my life over your long hands

My sweetness remained clinging to your hands

Now I am an empty amphora of perfumes.

How much sweet torture quietly endured

When, stung by the shadowy soul of sadness,

Knowing about deceptions, I spent my days

Kissing the two hands that shaped my life!

Source: Scribd

Four Prompts To Go Deeper ✍️

“How much sweet torture quietly endured”

1. Write about a connection with a partner where you couldn’t separate pleasure from pain.

“Gold dust in your hands was my melancholy;”

2. How has someone you loved kept you small?

“I spilled my life over your long hands”

3. Write about all the time you devoted to a person.

“Now I am an empty amphora of perfumes.”

4. Write about what a former lover took from you.

The Backstory 📜

Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938) was a Swiss-Argentine Modernist poet, teacher, and playwright. She took her own life at 46 when her breast cancer reappeared, inspiring this quirky tale:

I am obsessed with all things Alfonsina. I can’t wait to share more of her work with you. Here’s an extract from her daring poem “Hombre pequeñito,” with my English translation:

What else have I been up to? 🚀

• I finally launched my online shop!

• Today, I am giving The Morning Workshop at Soho House in Mexico City on the theme of “Discovery,” using one of Storni’s poems in a featured chapter from The Intimacy Journal.

• I published a new article on my other blog about The Tuluminati.

• I’m sharing more updates on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. Follow me!

Reply and tell me: which writing prompt resonated with you the most? I read and respond to every DM I get!

Sending love,

Tash

💌 ✍️

More From Misseducated 💌 ✍️

Hello Wonderful Reader,

Today, I’ve chosen a very special unpublished poem and writing prompts for you to explore the power of forbidden love. You’ll discover why the poet never published this work in a second. So grab a pen and paper, and let’s uncover some of your juicy secrets…

Evanescence

(unpublished, 1920s)

By Angelina Weld Grimké (1880 – 1958)

You are like a pale purple flower

In the blue spring dusk . . . . . .

You are like a yellow star

Budding and glowing

In an apricot sky . . . . . .

You are like the beauty

Of a voice . . . . . .

Remembered after death . . . . . .

You are like thin, white petals

Falling

And

Floating

Down

Upon the white, stilled hushing

Of my soul.

Source: Aphrodite’s Daughters: Three Modernist Poets of the Harlem Renaissance.

Your 4 Writing Prompts on Forbidden Love 🩵

1. Write about any secret lovers you haven’t told anyone about.

You are like the beauty

Of a voice . . . . . .

Remembered after death . . . . . .

2. Write about a fragile love that the world tried to take away from you.

You are like a pale purple flower

In the blue spring dusk . . . . . .

3. Write about falling for someone you weren’t supposed to.

Falling

And

Floating

Down

4. Write about the small miracles that brought you and a forbidden lover together.

“You are like a yellow star”

The Backstory 📜

Uncovering the unpublished poems of Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958)

I first heard of Angelina Weld Grimké while researching for The Intimacy Journal on poets.org. I discovered that she was a journalist, teacher, playwright, and poet, and an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance, but much of Grimké’s intimate poetry remained unpublished during her lifetime. Why? Well, works like this week’s featured poem from the 1920s, “Evanescence,” were about same-sex relationships. This was culturally forbidden at the time. I ended up featuring two of her poems in The Intimacy Journal, because it was impossible to pick just one!

Diving deeper into erotic poetry, I found a book that centered on Grimké’s work, called Aphrodite’s Daughters: Three Modernist Poets of the Harlem Renaissance. This was written by Professor Maureen Honey, who recently retired from The University of Nebraska-Lincoln after a 40-year career! She is 80 years old, and naturally, I sent her an email.

She responded that, indeed, Grimké’s unpublished poems are the most erotic, and unfortunately, there is no published collection. It seems like somebody needs to publish these poems! 😂

A Quick Update From Me 🚀

When I’m not sinking my teeth into some juicy, erotic poetry from the 1920s, I’ve been working on setting up my online storefront, which should be done this week. In the meantime, if you want your copy of The Intimacy Journal, DM me on Instagram. Plus, next week, I’m giving my first external paid workshop at Soho House in Mexico City! I’m terrified, but in a good way. I think we will have the workshop inside, not by the fabulous pool, unfortunately:

I hope you enjoyed this erotic invitation! Reply with your reflections. I’d love to hear them.

Sending love,

Tash

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More From Misseducated 💌 ✍️

Hello Wonderful Reader,

Welcome back to Misseducated! I’m Tash, and today I’ve chosen a very special erotic poem and writing prompts for you to explore nature and your body, and how they interconnect. So grab a pen and paper, and let’s get started.

North Wind

By Lola Ridge (1873 – 1941)

I love you, malcontent

Male wind—

Shaking the pollen from a flower

Or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.

Blow on and over my dreams. . .

Scatter my sick dreams. . .

Throw your lusty arms about me. . .

Envelop all my hot body. . .

Carry me to pine forests—

Great, rough-bearded forests. . .

Bring me to stark plains and steppes. . .

I would have the North to-night—

The cold, enduring North.

And if we should meet the Snow,

Whirling in spirals,

And he should blind my eyes. . .

Ally, you will defend me—

You will hold me close,

Blowing on my eyelids.

Source: Poets.org. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵

Here are your four writing prompts:

1. Write about your sick dreams that you might be too ashamed to tell anyone about.

“Blow on and over my dreams…
Scatter my sick dreams…”

2. Start with any of the phrases that use ellipses and write your own story about what you wish the wind would do to you.

“Throw your lusty arms around me…
Envelop all my hot body…”

3. What would you have tonight if you got your way?

“I would have the North to-night—”

4. Take features that you find attractive in your partners and pair them with your favorite places in nature.

“Great, rough-bearded forests…”

About Lola Ridge (1873-1941)

She was an Irish-born New Zealand-American anarchist and modernist poet, and an influential editor of avant-garde, feminist, and Marxist publications. I featured one of her poems for the “Nostalgia” chapter of The Intimacy Journal.

Keeping the love flowing...(A quick update from me)

Ever since I created The Intimacy Journal, I have become OBSESSED with erotic poetry written by women. Many works are in the public domain by poets who lived around a hundred years ago. When I read their work, everything clicks for me. I’m really enjoying the process of sharing and illustrating their work. It’s poignant. It’s dreamy. It’s delicious. And, it’s hot! I’m excited to see where this takes me.

I know that some of you still want your own Intimacy Journal. Sorry that I have been slow to set up my online storefront since we finished the Kickstarter campaign. I’ll hopefully have that up and running in the next week or two. In the meantime, please respond to this email or comment if you want your copy, or DM me on Instagram.

I hope you enjoyed this invitation! Reply with your reflections. I’d love to hear them.

Sending love,

Tash

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More From Misseducated 💌 ✍️

“I’m not enough,” I think to myself, as I pass a couple in love on the street. “I could never have a relationship like that. I’m not worthy. Even if someone liked me, they’d just get bored eventually and move on.”

“I’m not enough,” I think to myself as I hit publish after writing an article all day. “I should have 5,000 subscribers by now. Then maybe my voice would matter.”

“I’m not enough,” I think to myself when I am mentioned in The New York Times. “That’s not a real feature. It’ll only count when I get a full-spread in The New Yorker.”

“I’m not enough,” I say to my therapist, trembling and crying in front of my computer screen. It is right on the surface of my psyche, and in many ways, it is fundamental to who I am.

Each time I achieve something, the goal post is suddenly flung out further in front of me, unreachable again. I do my best to achieve, achieve, achieve. Yet I metabolize my accolades and awards before I even get a second to enjoy them.

My therapist tells me to work on my anger towards the adults who failed me in my childhood (who will remain anonymous). I know I feel angry, but I don’t know how that relates to this core belief about my self and my worth.

That evening, I sit down on the crumpled corduroy green chair in my living room. I scroll back through the last three years of my text messages and rummage through decades of my memories. Those voices say to me:

“Everyone thinks you’re a bad person.”

“You’re so selfish.”

“If you think I’m favoring them instead of you, it’s probably because you think your work isn’t enough.”

I remember that last phone conversation. I saw red and told that person I needed a break from them. Then I didn’t speak to them for almost three months.

I realize that since I started therapy, even if I didn’t believe I am enough, I’ve been acting as if I am. I’ve been telling people not to treat me disrespectfully anymore. I’ve been telling others that my needs matter and my feelings are real. When people say things to try to tear me down, I don’t accept their insults or tolerate their behavior. I stop believing outwardly that I deserve to be shouted at. But these most subtle and insidious beliefs are different. People bury them way down in there: a parent, a teacher, someone you trusted in your childhood to take care of you.

I pull out my journal and delve deeper into this filth and arguing over the years. Then a new idea suddenly pops into my head. Maybe it was never about believing that I wasn’t enough. Maybe this other person is projecting their own pain and feelings of worthlessness onto me. Reinforced hundreds of times through our arguments over the years. Perhaps this is more about them, their opinions, and judgments of themselves. Perhaps this has nothing to do with me.

Something in me is changing. Deep down inside myself, I find this large, jagged shard of glass, black and glinting. I wrench it out of me. I cut open the parts of me that had tried to heal over and around it. This monster, this cancer that had never been mine. I will not carry it around anymore.

I look up from my text messages, and in my journal, I write: These are projections of low self-esteem. It has nothing to do with me or my worth. I’ve been carrying their belief about themselves as if it were a belief about me for decades.

I look up at the clock. It is 11:47pm. In 13 minutes, it will be December 5th, 2025, my two-year birthday in ACA, my group therapy program for Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families. It has taken me two years of deep self-reflection and analysis to yank out that shard of glass. The new, empty wound leaves a void inside of me, slowly healing.

In our next session, my therapist asks me what I am going to do with this information. I tell her I am not sure. Yet over the next few days, things begin to reveal themselves and unravel. The load I am carrying feels lighter.

“I am happy for them,” I think to myself now, when I’m at a party, and I see a couple. “Look at them, so deeply in love.”

“What a beautiful book I have made,” I think to myself when people ask me what I do, and I pull out a copy. “I can’t wait to mention the designs, inspired by the architectural details of Mexico City.”

Get your Intimacy Journal!

“It’s amazing!” I think to myself now, when I receive my first payment for books I have sold. “I can pay at least a couple of months of my rent!”

“They must be hurting,” I think to myself now, when someone says something vicious to me. “This is unacceptable and has nothing to do with me.”

Perhaps the difference is only in my mind, but it does alter how I see the world. I realize I do not want to be living any other way. That this life, of writing and creating, my chosen life in Mexico, is the best life for me. Art. Architecture. Writing. Poetry. Film. Flowers. This is a real and beautiful way to live. I have conviction. I have pride. I feel like I am getting closer to the woman I have always dreamed of becoming, sitting in that beautiful office with the white walls, the ornate plaster fastenings, and the tall windows. And an Eames chair or two.

The people in my childhood who tried to keep me small and break my spirit are dead to me now. I do not wish they were dead, but I am not waiting for them to die before I let myself live. I am living now. Not entertaining their viciousness. Not playing it low and small so that I don’t threaten them with my brightness.

Some core beliefs about ourselves take 31 years to change. Four years of therapy. Two years of reparenting myself in ACA. Two years to wrench out that shard of glass. But here I am, in Mexico City, writing, creating, living the life I’ve always dreamed of. I am enough.

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The Top 5 Misseducated Articles of 2025! 💌 ✍️