Important Updates: The Unrefined, The Science of Sex, & More...
The Unrefined, The Science of Sex, health questions, and more...
Today, I feel like I’m finally able to draw the first full breath I’ve taken in years. The English language does not possess the words to describe the long-term horror I’ve been going through battling chronic illness, one that now appears to be behind me.
First, I dealt with a monthlong battle with Bird Flu in 2020. Then, after managing to evade the virus for two and a half long years, eventually, I caught COVID-19 in mid-2022. Since then, I’ve been dealing with some rather unpleasant long-term effects.
Breathing difficulties, for starters. Heart rate and blood pressure insanity was a constant fixture. I didn’t need the heart monitor to tell me something was wrong—I could feel it. Though I frequently measured my vitals, both with an Apple Watch and an official medical device, both telling me that something was gravely amiss. My blood pressure fluctuated from dangerously high to I’m-about-to-pass-out low for no reason at all. Climbing stairs, I often felt like I was seventy years old. And don’t get me started on the exhaustion I was feeling almost every single day of my life.
I’ve kept his mostly to myself, of course, because I’m not one to use my own health problems to draw attention to myself just because I can. Better to say something only when absolutely necessary, and it’s best to say something once you’re on the other side of it all and thinking clearly.
When it comes to long-term illnesses like Long COVID and other nasty remnants leftover from the viruses we catch, most cases resolve themselves in due course. Mine took a little longer than most, judging by the statistics, but today I woke up for the first time feeling like I’d felt back in 2019, before it all happened.
Now, let’s hope it sticks, but, as
told me this morning when it comes to long-term health stuff: “When it’s over, you know it’s over.”Now, I can finally stop feeling guilty about not being able to produce as much as I wanted to and can finally enact all the plans I’ve been floating for a few years now. Needless to say, I’ll be publishing on a more regular schedule from here on out.
The Science of Sex
A brief bit of housekeeping before I discuss this publication. Some of you have subscribed to The Unrefined, which is a place where I will be publishing thoughtful and, dare I say, provocative essays about the whacky world we were all thrust into against our will when our parents conceived us.
The Science of Sex is where I publish articles about human relationships and sexuality through the lens of science, so we can better understand ourselves and our places in the world in relation to one another. We’ve been blessed with the remarkable power of science at a time when everyone’s romantic and erotic lives feel like they’re in crisis.
I say we use the gift of knowledge we’ve been given to resolve some of those problems.
Nonetheless, I’m incredibly thankful to those of you who’ve signed up as paid subscribers to The Unrefined, even as I’ve only published a few essays so far (with many more in the queue). I’ve taken the liberty of adding your emails to The Science of Sex as well, which is my main publication, and giving you a six-month free trial over there.
Consider this a thank-you gift for helping to see me through when I was unwell.1
The Unrefined
So what is this publication, and what’s it all about?
Running The Science of Sex has been great over the past 1.75 years. It’s amassed a following I never could’ve imagined, approximately 3,000 subscribers strong. While creating it, I’ve always just dumped my essays on popular culture, politics, tech, and more over on Medium.com, keeping the two separate. The Science of Sex is and will always be limited in scope, and that’s a good thing.
But Medium.com is on shaky ground these days. The changes over there have writers reeling. In the past few days, I’ve watched as people who’ve tragically sunk their entire futures in the platform are now staring down the barrel of homelessness. Words cannot express the combination of anger and sadness I feel watching it all come apart at the seams.
This is a brutal industry and while I’m thankful to have built something enduring, I’m pained at the sight of watching intelligent, talented people struggle and fall by the wayside.
and I have been working out ways to pay writers directly for their work in an attempt to stop the economic bleeding many writers are currently experiencing. We’ll let you know if and when we come up with something that works.The Unrefined will be a place for my essays, though I’m open to accepting byline essays from other writers who’d like to contribute. Originally called Ugly Essays, and still found at uglyessays.substack.com, The Unrefined is a place for the stuff that absolutely needs to be said that isn’t pretty (which is a boat load of stuff). Sometimes, what needs to be said isn’t pretty and shouldn’t be tailored to algorithms or ad agencies’ requests.
One thing I’m really, really getting tired of is this invisible whitewashing that’s going on thanks to the tech powerhouses that rule the internet. It’s difficult to see, but it’s definitely present.
Ever wonder why there are so many fitness gurus, relationship coaches, and fad-diet health nuts lurking around online?
There’s a reason for it, and the reason isn’t simply because it’s popular content. I’ve run several websites and can tell you firsthand that running an essay site is neigh impossible to make profitable. Companies like Google and Facebook dominate the ad market, and they expect each one of your essays to be squeaky clean. No foul language, not a single mention of sex, or they pull your ads.
Over the years, this has led to a glut of ultra-sanitized content that’s decidedly out-of-touch with most people. Fitness influencers and people giving the craziest relationship advice that you shouldn’t even entertain, let alone try, have become the norm while the important conversations have all taken a back seat in the name of profit.
This is heartbreaking and no doubt is the cause of so much confusion. Social media hasn’t helped much and has done demonstrable damage to the public conversation. A mass of anonymous voices reminds me of the infinite monkey theorem: it’s like an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters typing for an infinite period of time trying to produce the collected works of Shakespeare.
Sometimes, a collection of voices doesn’t produce the best results and certainly doesn’t produce a productive conversation. Here, I’d like to produce that productive conversation or at least challenge many of the assumed biases we harbor thanks to the modern digital age and its discontents.
I thank you for taking this journey with me and for subscribing to The Unrefined. From now until the end of the year, I’ll be extending the same measure of gratitude to anyone who subscribes as a paid subscriber to The Unrefined and will be granting sex-months free to The Science of Sex as a paid subscriber.
This is part of a larger move to eventually bring several publications together, some that are quietly being launched now, both my own publications and other partner publications, to give the reader (i.e., you) more for your money. I’ve been working quietly with other publications for quite some time to build a network that will allow easier access to multiple publications covering multiple topics and points of interest.
One problem with Substack is having to subscribe to numerous publications and pay a monthly fee for each. It would behoove us creators to partner together so that readers can access multiple publications for the same monthly rate they pay for just one. 2
We’re trying to make it easier on the reader.
If anyone would like to be removed from the list, just give me a shout-out at scienceofsexandlove@gmail.com.
If you have a Substack publication and would like to participate in something like this, give me a shout, over at scienceofsexandlove@gmail.com.