writer suzy exposito on bisexual dating amid the gender wars and our summer makeup recs
monthly recs #51
Each month, we ask a writer to share what’s on their minds and in their open tabs for our monthly recommendations. This June’s guest curator is Suzy Exposito, an award-winning Cuban-Belizean journalist and illustrator. She was raised by ex-club kids in Miami and is now based in Los Angeles. She is the assistant editor at the L.A. Times’ Latin culture vertical, De Los. She was previously the founding Latin music editor for legendary rock magazine Rolling Stone, where in 2020, she became the first Latina to write a cover story (an interview with Bad Bunny). She served as an executive consultant on the 2023 Netflix series “Neon:” a comedy detailing the ins and outs of Miami’s music industry. Her work has also been featured in Vanity Fair, ELLE and Vogue, and once upon a time, Rookie Magazine.
Happy Pride Month! It’s been over 15 years since I started dating as a bisexual — for me, that means pursuing the same gender and those across the gender spectrum — and I am so burnt out on dating. Cooked. Sautéed, even.
I started to feel this way about a year into the pandemic, as the unraveling of our social fabric also undid many of the compulsory scripts that we once followed. As our mortality felt more pronounced than ever, for many people in my city and age group, so did their queerness.
Yet where others began looking for freedom, I started to see a cage. More people around me were dabbling for the first time in non-binary, non-committal non-monogamy. They were not the same queer people I grew up with, danced with, or took the streets with; and the worst of them behaved like tourists. But who was I to judge my new community members in the throes of their second puberties? Even if I was getting hurt and discarded in the process?
At 35, I’ve grown weary of being a home for wayward queers to hang their hats while they figure out who else they want to be, or do. I worry that my bisexuality will always signal a permissiveness to others that precludes my peace. I try not to overthink it anymore: I just want to be a fríkitona in the safety of a committed partnership. I want to start a family. I want to foster a cute artistic home with my child’s paintings on the walls.
Where others might see a cage, I see a certain freedom in writing a new script for myself as a queer parent. And I refuse to do it alone; but in 2025, the landscape for a single woman like me now feels so fraught.
I know that gender relations were never that great! (I graduated from the New School with a minor in gender studies, so I can say that!) But if dating culture in the States has shown me anything, it’s that no corner of our society is safe from the clutches of conservatism. Today’s dating apps are akin to yesterday’s Home Shopping Network, where humans are cynically sorted by brand and everybody wants to get the most bang for their buck. (Read that as you will.)
Contrary to popular opinion, cis men are not the only lonely people in this world, but they do garner the most sympathy for it, and therefore get away with shocking amounts of harm and exploitation while ducking behind said loneliness. We have devolved so far back into the Dark Ages that even young queer people are cosigning conservative beliefs: that thin is back in, trans women are boogey-women, and bi women’s bodies are forever tainted by the mere touch of men.
Today it seems as if the concept of gender and/or sexual fluidity is no longer an exciting prospect for self-discovery in our community, but a threat. Nowadays, I look back on my sexual curmudgeonry in 2020 with sort of misty-eyed nostalgia. To quote Lexi Featherston, Sex and the City’s ill-fated party girl well past her prime: “No one’s fun anymore. Whatever happened to fun?”
suzy exposito’s
1.
is a Substack brimming with beautiful LGBTQ love stories from people of all ages, genders, and nationalities. It was founded by writer and New School professor , who was my boss and beloved mentor at Rolling Stone. I read it and I feel hopeful.2. Harron Walker is a stellar writer and dear friend of mine who just released a book of personal essays called Aggregated Discontent. She recently published an excerpt in New York Magazine about the perils of dating straight men as a trans woman, and the exhaustive amount of social calculus it requires. It’s called “Men, Explain Things to Me!”
3. Last month, I interviewed the Latina bi-con Kali Uchis about writing a pop record while parenting. She hosted a record release tea party-turned-ballroom competition in LA, where there were house mothers and moms with their incredibly stoked children in attendance. It made me think about what motherhood can look like for those of us who are part of the queer community… and it’s quite glamorous!
4. Did you know that Feeld (the dating app) has a magazine? And that it’s actually very insightful? I get a kick out of reading the blog from time to time, even if I only got attention from couples and kinky D&D bros on the app.
5.
is ’s newsletter unpacking the bizarre state of heterosexual relations in the 2020s. (I also liked when she wrote about KoRn.)paid subscribers can scroll down for more recs from Suzy, including her “Goth Yeehaw” playlist and the app she says you should dump Co-Star for
more from us
6. Furkot is a useful app if you’re planning a summer road trip. It makes it really easy to figure out your route, plan your stops, and find interesting things to do. And for inspiration, a few road trip movie suggestions: Thelma & Louise; Paris, Texas; Daytrippers; and Y Tu Mamá También.
7. Ugo Paulon’s shoes are fun, summery, and sustainable — think wood beads, strappy sandals with a signature spiral detail, and patterned mules.
8. Thinking about how to document an upcoming family vacation? For inspiration, we recommend the work of Larry Sultan. Sultan, an influential American photographer, created a series titled Pictures from Home, which includes works referred to as "Untitled Home Movie Stills." Sultan rephotographed and enlarged single frames from 8mm films his parents had shot of family vacations three decades earlier. View some of his photos here and here, or go see his work in person at the Met.
9. Makeup can double as an extra layer of sun protection — think skin tints like those from Ilia and Tower28, ciele’s liquid blush, or SPF-infused eyeshadow and lip gloss from Supergoop.
10.
has a great back catalogue of recipes that feel unfussy yet interesting. This pavlova would make a great dessert for a summer dinner party, and if your CSA box is full of zucchini, she’s got you covered.
you’re invited: rituals of sound with layla rehana and sebastian mullaert (NYC)
The award-winning wellness and luxury resort in Mexico, Palmaïa: The House of AïA (from our January’s monthly recs) is bringing an intimate, one-time-only live concert, with renowned electronic artist Sebastian Mullaert and vocalist Layla Rehana to Tribeca, New York on Wednesday, June 4, from 3:00–5:00PM. passerby subscribers get exclusive free access to this evening*. RSVP here.
*Seats are limited. Reservations will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis until we reach capacity.
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1. So many of the pop/electronic girlies are being accused of reheating Madonna’s “Ray of Light” nachos these days — like FKA Twigs, Erika de Casier and Addison Rae, who I profiled for ELLE in May — but I think the sound that people are really craving lives in. . .