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Later in the decade, my mother dumped one of her boyfriends. He then came to her apartment one night, broke in, and raped her. As he got in bed, she was in the middle of a flashback. She cried and said "No," and he had sex with her anyway. When she tried to tell him later that what he'd done was unacceptable, he informed her that because she'd pursued him during their relationship -- because she was the one who originally asked him out -- a rape case would never stand up in court.

My mother met my dad many years after these incidents. Mom first told me that she'd been raped in my late teens, because she was considering telling her story to our church congregation, and she wanted me to know before she did that. The full stories came out during intermittent conversations in my twenties. I love both my parents with the fire of a thousand suns, and let me tell you, I've spent an unreasonable amount of time fantasizing about murdering the men who attacked my mother. I doubt I could find the first guy, but I could probably find the second, and in my early twenties I often imagined shooting him in the head. (Don't worry, Mom, I don't think about that anymore.)

Within the last few years, I started thinking about asking Mom's permission to write about her experiences and my reaction to them. I always shelved the idea because I felt that it wasn't my story to tell. Last year, the topic came up in conversation, and I finally asked permission; she said yes immediately. I double-checked her consent twice this year, and she said yes both times. Still, I was hesitant, and I only got around to it now -- for Mother's Day. I also asked her to review this piece, and to feel free to veto anything within it.

I am doing my best not to co-opt or appropriate my mother's story. But her story and her life have shaped mine, intimately -- including my views on gender issues, and my course as a feminist activist and writer. A few years ago, a widely-read Harper's article by established feminist Susan Faludi asserted that the relationship between younger feminists and older feminists is like a battle between girls and our moms. I read the article with interest, but also with a sense of displacement. As a teenager I fought with my mom all the time, but she and I rarely argue anymore, and we never argue about issues of feminism or sexuality at all. If "young" feminism is about rebelling against our mothers, then I missed that boat completely.

In fairness, my mom's not easy to rebel against. When I was 15, I asked her what she'd do if I ran off with a Hell's Angel. She laughed. "I'd probably be jealous," she said.

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I started blogging in 2008 because I wanted to write about sexuality, particularly S&M. However, I identified myself as a feminist from the start, because I wanted to make it obvious that S&M and feminism are not mutually exclusive. The conflicts of feminism and S&M have been a major theme throughout the Feminist Sex Wars. I tend to repeat myself when I write about this, so I'll just mention my favorite quotation on the matter; it comes from the German radical feminist Alice Schwarzer, who said, "Female masochism is collaboration!"

When I came out of the closet to my mom, I had been freaking out about my S&M identity for a while -- but quietly. I told my parents about my sexuality because I wanted

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