CN: Sexual assault, homicide I had a passion for serial killers in college. The topic, not the people. Armed with an investigative mind and a passion for the intersection of psychology and crime, I was seriously pondering a career in forensic psychology as a way to marry my knowledge of violent criminals with my desire […]
Liz LaPoint
Liz LaPoint is a bibliophile, sexuality researcher, writer, atheist, secular humanist, producer of The Naked Advice YouTube channel, model, wife, and mom.
Skipping America: US gun culture has the rest of the world keeping its distance
In late May of this year, while reeling from the news of the mass shootings in a Buffalo, NY grocery store and Uvalde, TX elementary school, I found myself thinking about which progressive country with sensible gun regulations I could emigrate to. A place where my husband and I could send our son to school […]
Daddy issues: Do ‘defective fathers’ lead children to reject the idea of God?
Few atheists will be celebrating their dads on Father’s Day. At least that’s the solemn judgment of Dr. Paul Vitz, psychologist and author of Faith of the Fatherless: the psychology of atheism. Published in 1999, Vitz’s book argues that absent or abusive fathers cause their children to lose trust in father figures, leading those kids […]
In praise of humanity: How I survived my brain tumor without religion
The first sign something was wrong was during lunch with friends in my senior year of high school. I was eating French fries one moment, and the next I heard my friend Mindi saying, “Liz! Liz! Why did you say that?” She looked befuddled and concerned. I had no clue what she was talking about. […]
What anti-abortion activists can learn from animal rights activists
I was once an animal-rights activist. How I got there taught me a lot about how to change minds—and how not to. As a 20-something college student roaming the halls after class, a particularly eye-catching pamphlet lying on a table beckoned me to read it. A steak lover all my life, I’d long wondered what […]
How I became a foot fetish model
When I was a teen, I happened on an article by a guy explaining his fetish for having girls kick him in the nuts. When he was a teenager chumming around with friends by the local 7-11, he’d insulted a girl who promptly kneed him in the groin. He was in agony, yes—but it also […]