Mariella is an identity & culture writer whose work has been published at Bustle, Romper, VICE, Glamour.com, INTO, them., Daily Dot, and more. She was a James Beard Award-nominated food writer in a past life and a classically trained actor in a life before that. She currently lives in New York while drafting a radical queer co-parenting commune in the Bay Area.
Why You Don't Have To Go Home For The Holidays If Your Family Is Toxic
One of the toughest parts of holiday blues to contend with is the constant external messaging this is the warmest, coziest, most wonderful time of the year. For people with toxic families, this can trigger a cycle of imbuing us with false hope, only…
By Mariella Mosthof
5 People Reveal What They'd Do Differently During Their First Breakup
Once people get a few breakups under their belt, they usually realize that the end of a relationship can stir up anything from grief to an overwhelming sense of relief. But first breakups are often devastating and, if they're traumatic enough, they…
By Mariella Mosthof
How To Talk About Politics With Your Relatives Over The Holidays Without Fighting
The holidays are upon us and with them comes everything from accusations that our healthy boundaries are "ruining Christmas" to social media virtue signalers reminding you that not cutting off all contact with your 90-year-old racist grandma is the…
By Mariella Mosthof
7 Signs Of Family-Related Anxiety In Your Body To Watch Out For Over The Holidays
Depending on people's family dynamics, the holidays can trigger signs of family-related anxiety in the body as a result of the conflicting emotions that frequently arise during this time. On the one hand, all the messaging around the holidays…
By Mariella Mosthof
9 Sex Educators Reveal The One Thing People Still Don't Understand About Consent
A year into the mainstream #MeToo movement, questions about consent continue to arise in infuriating ways. From bad faith arguments, to "playing devil's advocate," to just plain playing dumb, meaningful conversations about consent have been…
By Mariella Mosthof
4 Ways Venus Retrograde Can Affect Your Love Life
For the first time in roughly a year and a half, Venus is in retrograde again, from October 5 to November 17. In astrology, Venus rules love, beauty, pleasure, and money, and it's the planet most commonly associated with how we behave in…
By Mariella Mosthof
A New Report Shows Exactly Why We Need Better Sex Ed In Schools
In an effort to better understand current trends in sexual behaviors among high school students. Researchers at the Guttmacher Institute compiled data obtained over the last five years by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a…
By Mariella Mosthof
Glassdoor Published A LGBTQ+ Workplace Guide & It's Full Of Advice For Queer Employees
Being a queer professional in a very straight workforce is always fraught. From figuring out your "work drag" to patiently explaining to your outreach team why an office blood drive is hella discriminatory against its queer employees, queer laborers…
By Mariella Mosthof
Here's What Making Your Bed In The Morning Says About Your Sex Life
A recent survey commissioned by Sleepopolis, a mattress review site, and conducted by OnePoll analyzed the behavioral habits of over 2,000 Americans based on whether or not they make the bed in the morning, and the survey bears good news for…
By Mariella Mosthof
A New Study Says Women Peak At 18 On Dating Apps — While Men Peak At 50
The next time somebody "not all men"s you, just forward them this and respond "literally all, says science." A new study in the journal Science Advances found that women peak at 18 on dating apps while men peak at 50. It's been making waves and…
By Mariella Mosthof
Women With PCOS Are More Likely To Feel Unhappy With Their Doctors, Study Finds
A recent study in the Journal of the Endocrine Society found that PCOS patients are more likely to be unhappy with their medical care than their non-PCOS-suffering counterparts. PCOS, short for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, is characterized by ovaries…
By Mariella Mosthof
Most College Students Have No Clue When A Woman's Fertility Declines
A new study published in the journal Human Fertility surveyed 1,215 students in Melbourne, Australia and found that less than half of college students know when a woman's fertility declines, while less than one in five know when a man's fertility…
By Mariella Mosthof
Here's How This Summer's Mercury Retrograde Can Actually Help Your Career
Mercury retrograde gets a really bad rap. When communication gets fuzzy, technology starts glitching, and the subway acts up even more than usual, people start to panic. So in the spirit of getting the cosmos to work for you, let's take a look at…
By Mariella Mosthof
7 Alternatives If An IUD Is Not Something Your Doctor Recommends
With the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill Justice Anthony Kennedy's seat, President Trump is following through on his campaign promise to stack the Supreme Court with conservative justices less than halfway through his first term. Among…
By Mariella Mosthof
6 Ways To Participate In Pride Without Making It About You
Pride weekend is upon us, and while for many people, it's the culmination of a month-long celebration of the LGBTQ community, for others, it inspires anxiety. If you're reasonably committed to good allyship, you may see queer folks playfully dunking…
By Mariella Mosthof
This Company Wants To Make Sure LGBTQ People Get The Same Fertility Benefits As Everyone Else
Between student loan debt, stagnant wages, and the ways in which career trajectory is structured in our workforce, it's become virtually impossible for folks to plan having kids at a time when it's medically safest and easiest to do so. Big tech…
By Mariella Mosthof
The Percentage Of Americans Who Identify As LGBT Is At All-Time High
Just in time for Pride Month, Gallup has released its annual report on how many Americans self-identify as LGBT, and the results point to an ever queerer future. In the Gallup poll's six-year history (they've been tracking this data since 2012), the…
By Mariella Mosthof
12 Menstrual Cup Users Reveal Why They're So Much Better Than Tampons
Since most of us don't learn about alternatives to pads and tampons until years and years after we start our periods, it's no wonder that folks eventually find themselves wondering: do menstrual cups work better than tampons?
For a long time, one of…
By Mariella Mosthof
9 Women Share The Biggest Lesson They Learned From Their First Adult Relationship
For better or worse, our early relationships give us foundational information about how to relate to others, which we tend to carry with us into romance. Our adult relationships can mimic those lessons, ingrain in us other bad habits, break harmful…
By Mariella Mosthof
Women Don't Feel Comfortable Discussing The Pay Gap's Emotional Fallout — And That's Part Of The Problem
Tuesday, April 10 is National Equal Pay Day, which aims to highlight the differences that persist between men's and women's salaries for the same jobs. But the pay gap extends beyond gender. There's a gap in how black and white folks are paid for…
By Mariella Mosthof