Monday, fun day! The most popular day of the week for 18-to-34 year olds to watch porn is Monday. I believe—through sheer, un-researched and unfounded speculation—that this is because you have the worst sex of your life between the ages of 18 and 34, and that most of that bad sex happens on the weekend. So come Monday, come. Like you know you need to. It’s basic self-care.

Part revenge tale and part redemption song, Lizzie took years for indie darling Chloe Sevigny ( Boys Don't Cry, Big Love, Love and Friendship) and out writer Bryce Kass to shepherd to the screen. Although there were several iterations along the way, the final version of the film about the ax killer from the tiny town of Fall River, Mass., couldn't have come at a timelier moment. A film that shares a lineage with the queer true crime-based films of the '90s like Heavenly Creatures and Sister My Sister, Lizzie is a fresh take on the "murderous lesbians'" trope. The movie also fits right in with the #MeToo era, with Lizzie and her maid/love interest/co-conspirator Bridget (Kristen Stewart) literally bashing toxic masculinity in the face. Because there was no single law or policy that applied to sexual relations between women, lesbians had a wide range of experiences in Nazi Germany. These experiences were not solely determined by their sexuality. Rather, other factors shaped lesbians’ lives during the Nazi era. Among them were supposed “racial” identity, political attitudes, social class, and gender norms. Based on these factors as well as others, some lesbians (especially those who were working class) were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. In these instances, they were classified as political prisoners or asocials. Jewish lesbians largely faced Nazi persecution and mass murder as Jews. In most cases, their sexuality was a secondary factor. The Germans and their collaborators murdered an unknown number of Jewish lesbians during World War II. Before the Nazis: Lesbians in the Weimar Republic Sitting in meetings with her at the prominent literary agency where we both worked left me feeling weak. Usually never short of things to say, in her presence, I’d marvel at her ability to drain all quips from my mind, leaving my mouth bone-dry. But I knew the cliché and I refused to succumb to the stereotype of being the young, ambitious 25-year-old who screws the boss.

Greta

But even in cases when lesbians were arrested and sent to concentration camps, the records can be hard to find. One of the greatest challenges is that lesbians were rarely identified as such in official records from the Nazi era. The Nazis believed that German women had a special task to perform: motherhood. According to Nazi logic, lesbians were women and should thus be mothers. They had a responsibility to give birth to racially pure Germans, called “ Aryans .” Her husband reacted surprisingly well too, suggesting that they enrol in therapy to help both of them exit their long-standing relationship. I took this as my cue to make a commitment and said I would move to the suburbs to be with her and her three children, once her husband had moved out. First-hand testimonies, memoirs, and diaries of former prisoners reveal that prisoners had sexual encounters with each other in concentration camps. According to these sources, sexual encounters ranged from consensual intimacies to prostitution to brutal sexual assault. Both heterosexual and same-sex relationships took place in the camps.

The Nazis did not create any separate policies that singled out lesbians as a problem for Aryan procreation. Their reasoning drew on widespread attitudes about the differences between male and female sexuality. The Nazis concluded that Aryan lesbians could easily be persuaded or forced to bear children. Lesbian Responses to the Nazi Regime Various right-wing and centrist political groups, as well as mainstream religious organizations, sought to counter this aspect of Weimar culture by promoting their own version of German culture. This version was rooted in classical music and literature, religion, and the family. In some cases, these groups blamed others for corrupting German culture. They blamed, for example, Jews, Communists, and Americans. Nazi Attitudes towards Homosexuality Based on archival sources, it is clear that some lesbians were arrested and sent to concentration camps. What were some of the reasons for their arrest and detention, especially considering sexual relations between women were not illegal under the Nazi regime? There were German lesbians who took the risk of resisting the Nazi state for political and personal reasons. Some continued to seek out underground meeting places, especially in major cities. There were lesbians who joined underground anti-Nazi resistance groups or helped hide Jews. Arrest and Detention of Lesbians in Concentration CampsLOAF’s mission statement described it as a “social networking and support group for women 50 years of age and older, and their partners, whatever their age.” About a decade after the group’s founding, when some members’ health began declining, Eversmeyer was compelled to preserve her friends’ life stories before they were lost forever. More than half a century after Patricia Highsmith's groundbreaking 1952 novel The Price of Salt/Carol was released, Todd Haynes's big-screen adaptation Carol became revolutionary in its own way. The film, starring Cate Blanchett as the titular Carol, a soon-to-be-divorced New Jersey socialite and mother who falls for Rooney Mara's Therese, the shopgirl who is, as Carol notes, "flung out of space," earned six Oscar nominations, even if it was snubbed in the Best Picture category. Still, it was the first Oscar-worthy love story about a female couple in which a man does not steal focus and that doesn't end in disaster or death for the women. In fact, the novel and the film's hopeful ending offers a possible happily-ever-after for Carol and Therese.