The Pulpit Presents: Don’t Tell Us To Smile

Jams for whatever your face wants to do with itself.

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Hello hello, angels of our hearts. As you know, we’re winding down our time on Medium, but that doesn’t mean our content has gotten any less brilliant. This week has some reads that are sure to get your gears spinning.

We kicked the week off with Rebecca Long’s whip-smart piece on the depiction of painful sex in television.

Despite the lack of diversity in these series’ portrayals of painful sex, the majority of women who reached out to me agree that any serious representation of vaginismus is good representation.

Next up — a detailed piece about the genderization of smiling, by Sevindj Nurkiyazova.

(Jane) Goodall went on to describe the meaning behind the scene and explained that although the smile is considered to be our “happy face,” most certainly, it originated from a defensive reflex that showed others that you don’t dare to challenge them. I remember thinking: Should I smile less?

Not that I was utterly clueless about the hazards of smiling.