Author: Rebecca Nagel (Rebecca Nagel)

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Media Silence & Public Amnesia — Why We Stop Talking About Elite Abuse So Quickly
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Media Silence & Public Amnesia — Why We Stop Talking About Elite Abuse So Quickly

Photo by Fujiphilm on Unsplash Epstein Series — Part 7 Every time an elite abuse scandal breaks, the pattern is the same: Outrage.Headlines.Think pieces.Public shock. And then — quiet. Not justice.Not systemic change.Just distraction. The case of Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t buried because it lacked evidence. It was buried because power depends on forgetting. Feminist theory...

Whose Bodies Are Disposable — Class, Gender, and the Economics of Exploitation
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Whose Bodies Are Disposable — Class, Gender, and the Economics of Exploitation

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash Epstein Series — Part 6 If exploitation were random, it would affect everyone equally. But it never does. Trafficking, sexual violence, and abuse overwhelmingly target the same groups — again and again: • poor girls• runaway youth• unhoused children• girls in foster systems• migrants• those without legal or social...

Political Power & Trafficking: When the State Protects Predators
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Political Power & Trafficking: When the State Protects Predators

Photo by Donald Teel on Unsplash Epstein Series — Part 4 When we talk about trafficking rings like the one run by Jeffrey Epstein, the question isn’t just how did this happen? It’s: How did it continue for decades — in plain sight? Because extreme abuse doesn’t survive without protection. And in Epstein’s case, that...

Masculinity at the Top: Why Billionaire Masculinity Breeds Sexual Violence
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Masculinity at the Top: Why Billionaire Masculinity Breeds Sexual Violence

Photo by Ruthson Zimmerman on Unsplash Epstein Series — Part 3 When people ask how men like Jeffrey Epstein could commit abuse on such an extreme scale, the answer isn’t just “because they’re evil.” It’s because their version of masculinity is built on domination. Not attraction.Not intimacy.Not connection. Power. And when wealth removes limits, masculinity...

Rich Men Don’t Act Alone: Institutions That Protect Predators
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Rich Men Don’t Act Alone: Institutions That Protect Predators

Photo by Emily Karakis on Unsplash Epstein Series — Part 2 Abuse on this scale doesn’t survive on secrecy alone.It survives on respectability. When we talk about the Epstein network, we can’t just analyze the man at the center — Jeffrey Epstein — we have to interrogate the systems that wrapped him in credibility, access,...

The Body as Currency: Power, Patriarchy, and the Economics of Exploitation
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The Body as Currency: Power, Patriarchy, and the Economics of Exploitation

Photo by Sep on Unsplash Epstein Series — Part 1 When people talk about the Epstein case, the focus is often on scandal, wealth, and conspiracy. But beneath the headlines sits a much older and uglier system: one where women’s and girls’ bodies are treated as commodities — traded, controlled, and consumed by powerful men....

Would You Rather Be Alone with a Man or a Bear?
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Would You Rather Be Alone with a Man or a Bear?

Photo by Luke Miller on Unsplash Folklore, Fear, and Feminist Lessons from Brave and Beyond Recently, the internet has been ablaze with a strange but telling question: If you had to be alone in the woods, would you rather encounter a man or a bear? Overwhelmingly, women are choosing the bear. Why? Because while a...

Queer Lives in Polish Cinema: Rural vs. Urban Struggles
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Queer Lives in Polish Cinema: Rural vs. Urban Struggles

Photo by Karollyne Videira Hubert on Unsplash The queer experience is never monolithic. It shifts depending on geography, family, faith, politics, and culture. In Poland, this reality is made visible through contemporary cinema, where filmmakers grapple with questions of identity, secrecy, and survival. Two films in particular—Operation Hyacinth (2021, dir. Piotr Domalewski) and In the...

photo of a pride flag hanging from a building in s European city
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Queer Lives, Communism, and the AIDS Crisis in Michał Witkowski’s Lovetown

Photo by Moritz Kindler on Unsplash Michał Witkowski’s Lovetown offers a strikingly unflinching portrait of queer life in Poland at the cusp of monumental political and cultural change. What struck me most while reading was not only the vivid depictions of LGBTQ+ subcultures, but the repeated references to the AIDS crisis—a reminder that this epidemic...