In an era of "fertility for all" and dominated by Mom's Clubs and helicopter parents, Silent Sorority reveals the difficult business of rebuilding a life when infertility treatments prove fruitless.

“The Silent Fraternity takes this controversial issue to the Edge of Ugliness. This book is extremely intense and sections are extremely raw.” “Growing up, I always thought that the church, the Southern Black Church, was supposed to be the safest place on earth. Well, what a wake-up call.” Revenge, an airborne virus, can travel with a ravaging force that causes catastrophic damage. It can cause overwhelming, irreversible destruction to the life, lifestyle, and well-being of an individual or to a large group. Dexter B. Cavanaugh III, a well-dressed pit bull in a three-piece designer suit disguised as a successful legal gladiator, has a severe case of this disease, and he doesn’t want to be cured. On the contrary, the potency of his internal condition continues to grow day by day as it feeds on his relentless focus to seek justice. He is on a mission to get revenge for the death of his best friend, Patrick—a mission that is also fueled by a cultural plague that has been perpetuated in the Black Church for decades. His death would not be in vain. Dexter is complicated. The anal-retentive, overachieving, perfectionist as well as four of his close comrades have no shame in admitting that they definitely have their share of issues as a result of their provocative and tumultuous pasts. In his journey of seeking redemption, he confirms that sometimes you have to make someone go through hell and risk losing everything to get it. No one attacks a member of The Silent Fraternity without repercussions, even if he is hiding behind the sacred cloth. Hell hath no fiery like hurricane Dexter. This was personal, very personal. The Silent Fraternity, a moving account of a controversial yet unspoken social issue that has been brewing for decades. This book burns through a wide range of emotions.

Speaking from and to the growing movement among academics to become involved with 'socially-engaged' work, this volume presents first-person case studies of attempts to fix serious ethical problems in medical practice and research. It highlights the critical difference between the pundit approach to bioethics and the interventional approach - the talkers and the doers - and points to how abused and damaged the doers often end up. Chapters cover a diverse set of topics, including the troubling influence of for-profit businesses on public health policy, the politics of exposing histories of unjust medical research, the challenges of patient rights' work in sexuality and reproduction, collaborations between NGOs and academics, methods for changing entrenched yet harmful medical practices, engaging public policy through educating governmental leaders, and whistleblowing. The trending interest in the interplay of academia and advocacy and the growing importance of 'socially-engaged' work by academics make this a timely and much-needed resource.

This edited collection examines conflicting assumptions, expectations, and perceptions of maternity in artistic, cultural, and institutional contexts. Over the past two decades, the maternal body has gained currency in popular culture and the contemporary art world, with many books and exhibitions foregrounding artists’ experiences and art historical explorations of maternity that previously were marginalized or dismissed. In too many instances, however, the maternal potential of female bodies—whether realized or not—still causes them to be stigmatized, censored, or otherwise treated as inappropriate: cultural expectations of maternity create one set of prejudices against women whose bodies or experiences do align with those same expectations, and another set of prejudices against those whose do not. Support for mothers in the paid workforce remains woefully inadequate, yet in many cultural contexts, social norms continue to ask what is “wrong” with women who do not have children. In these essays and conversations, artists and writers discuss how maternal expectations shape both creative work and designed environments, and highlight alternative ways of existing in relation to those expectations.

A brilliant exploration of the natural, medical, psychological, and political facets of fertility When Belle Boggs's "The Art of Waiting" was published in Orion in 2012, it went viral, leading to republication in Harper's Magazine, an interview on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, and a spot at the intersection of "highbrow" and "brilliant" in New York magazine's "Approval Matrix." In that heartbreaking essay, Boggs eloquently recounts her realization that she might never be able to conceive. She searches the apparently fertile world around her--the emergence of thirteen-year cicadas, the birth of eaglets near her rural home, and an unusual gorilla pregnancy at a local zoo--for signs that she is not alone. Boggs also explores other aspects of fertility and infertility: the way longing for a child plays out in the classic Coen brothers film Raising Arizona; the depiction of childlessness in literature, from Macbeth to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; the financial and legal complications that accompany alternative means of family making; the private and public expressions of iconic writers grappling with motherhood and fertility. She reports, with great empathy, complex stories of couples who adopted domestically and from overseas, LGBT couples considering assisted reproduction and surrogacy, and women and men reflecting on childless or child-free lives. In The Art of Waiting, Boggs deftly distills her time of waiting into an expansive contemplation of fertility, choice, and the many possible roads to making a life and making a family.

When the best option is to let go of the life you planned for yourself and find a new path, a world of possibilities can surprisingly open up. Learn whether it is time to let go, and if so, how to move through your grief and find your way forward in The Next Happy. If you believe, you can do anything. Although well-meaning, these intended words of inspiration can make us feel like failures. The reality is that no matter how positive our outlook or how tenacious our approach, our dreams simply do not always come true--and there is nothing we can do about it. After multiple fertility treatments and years of hardship in her pursuit to have a child, Tracey Cleantis was forced to face this reality head-on. Yet, through this process and her work counseling hundreds of clients through the loss of their goals and aspirations, she discovered one simple truth: Sometimes there comes a time when the smartest, healthiest, and sanest thing to do is to let go of the original plan in order to find a new way forward toward happiness. And with this critical shift, a world of possibilities opens up to us. New, tangible dreams take shape. In The Next Happy, Cleantis offers a roadmap for that journey, teaching you how to: face the possibility of letting go of a dream that isn’t working; accept and face sadness, anger, and shame; understand the true reasons why you wanted what you wanted and the real-life causes for why you didn’t get it; and ask the questions that will let you move on and set realistic goals for finding a new way forward. With down-to-earth wisdom and humor, this enlightening counterpoint to the popular self-help notion to “follow your dream, no matter what it takes” provides the guidance and support to help you make the decision of whether it is time to give up an impossible dream, and if so, move through your grief, and discover the next happy.

The use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) is on the rise in our culture as an alternative for couples facing infertility issues and single women desiring to have children. Is it right – morally, ethically, biblically – to engage this new technology? Are there some aspects of ART that are more acceptable than others? Outside the Womb: The Ethics of Reproductive Technologies addresses the whole issue of “making life”, providing valuable information, both theologically and scientifically, for Christian couples to reflect upon as they consider the various fertility treatments.

An original vision for redefining American manhood in an age of anxiety and an era of socioeconomic change, Heroic Fraternities examines the impact of the "frat film" genre (invented by Animal House) on ideas about "real" men and "real" fraternities that permeate the culture, and led the news media to increasingly equate the supermajority of fraternity men with the outrages of a few. The ugliest cases have sparked a drive to Abolish Greek Life, even though studies show rates of misconduct don't change when fraternities disappear. Common sense suggests that young men are struggling to build balanced adult male identities in a world where campus leaders call for them to be "less bad" and activists acknowledge male allies with #notallmen. The irony of the abolition movement is what they seek to destroy is also one of the more certain routes to save America's men from the alienation of a society in crisis. Fraternities are uniquely positioned to address soaring rates of substance abuse, anger, and despair by providing men with the support, friendship, and multiple role models they need. Examining fraternity life in the SEC, ACC, and Big Ten conferences, this book presents reasons for hope--and heroism--at all colleges.

Cristina Archetti started researching childlessness after being diagnosed with "unexplained infertility". She soon discovered that, although involuntary childlessness affects an increasing number of women and men across the world, this topic is shrouded taboo and shame. This book is both a first-person reflection about the existential questions posed by involuntary childlessness and a readable account of the way the silence surrounding this topic is socially and politically constructed. Revealing the invisible mechanisms that, from the microscopic details of everyday life to policy, make up the structure of silence around childlessness, Archetti demonstrates what it means not to have children in a society that is organized around families. Through a prose that mixes analysis, excerpts of interviews, media fragments, and evocative writing, she develops a new language of feeling-in-the-body fit for the twenty-first century and exposes the devastating effects infertility has on relationships, identity, health and well-being, in societies that fetishize parenthood. Childlessness in the Age of Communication draws upon a range of disciplines and fields including sociology, health, gender and sexuality studies, communication, politics and anthropology. It is a book for all those interested in childlessness and innovative qualitative research methodologies.

An exploration of the self-fulfilling lives of people who, by chance or choice, have no children of their own • Investigates the life choices people make around having children and alternate ways of finding purpose in life • Based on a global survey and more than 50 in-depth interviews with childless and childfree women and men aged 19 to 91 from different cultures and walks of life • Enables readers to place their own circumstances in a larger context as they gain insight in the worldwide trend of people who lead a self-fulfilling, childless life Not having children is on the rise in many countries across the globe. August 1st has been named International Childfree Day, with a Childfree Woman and Man of the Year Award. Yet being childless is a subject not much talked about--the focus tends to be on having families and raising children, in rural, town, or city life. Let’s talk about not having children, about what people like us do with our time, about how we spend our money, and--most of all--how we find purpose and fulfilment in our lives. Never attracted to family life herself, Lisette Schuitemaker began openly discussing why people didn’t have children and how that was for them, resulting in intimate conversations with childless women and men and surprising insights. Inspired to delve further, she interviewed non-parenting people aged 19 to 91 across the globe. She found that no story was like the other and that many had been waiting to be listened to with sensitivity. She heard stories across the spectrum, from exhilarating to painful, from people still on the fence to the childfree who have always known starting a family was not for them. Complementing her interview findings with a worldwide survey and recent research, the author paints a rich picture of the individual lives of childless and childfree women and men. This book is for everyone who has not gone the way of parenthood, who has close family or friends who lead self-directed lives without offspring, and for all those who are still contemplating this essential life choice. The stories in this book also testify that not having children of your own in no way means the joys (and trials) of children pass you by altogether. This book shows that it is ok to celebrate not only the parenting way of life and the children who come to those who love them, but also those who are brave enough to follow the lesser known path of non-parenting.