Acknowledgments

THERE ARE SO MANY people I want to thank. First and foremost, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to my amazing publisher, Brenda Knight, who came to me with this idea and trusted me to run with it, supporting me, pushing me, and raising me up every step of the way. I want to thank all of the Cleis family as well who have been incredibly supportive from start to finish. Thank you Davey, Robin, Samantha, Julian, Sarah, Mia, and Kara for all of your unwavering patience with me and your incredible dedication to me and my work.

I also want to profusely thank my little sister, Rebecca Block, for the endless hours of support and talks and editing and organizing and restructuring and helping me to take this project from a pile of words and turn it into a real book.

I want to thank my dad, Ken Block, for the endless phone calls and pep talks and hash-out sessions. I also owe the deepest gratitude to Betty Dodson, my spiritual grandmother, who inspired and empowered me throughout this project.

Special thanks also to Jillian Eugenios, Tara McCoy, Amanda May, Jenn Brantmier, Janet Lynn Trevino, Rebekah Torres, E, Jude Schell, Dr. Joanna Ellington, Megan Andelloux, Carlin Ross, Noah Michelson, Dr. Beverly Whipple, Dr. Justin Garcia, and copyeditor extraordinaire, Elizabeth Smith.

And I want to profusely thank all the writers and researchers, both contemporary and those who came before me, for all of the books and essays and research and thinking that served as the foundation for my work. And I owe a great deal of thanks to the nearly 150 women who took the survey that I used when writing this book. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Finally, I want to thank my amazing girlfriend, Lacey Brutschy, who has been so insanely supportive and generous and kind to me during this process, talking and experimenting and over-processing with me whenever and however and wherever I wanted and needed. I love you.