issue v: corporeal

How do you feel about your body? How much of our feelings towards those we love—and those who feel something more complicated towards—are colonized by the limitations, the injustice, the incredible gift of the bodies we have? Civilized as we are, the realities of our bodies interrupt the fabric of our social existence, too. How are we, as a society, bound together by the fragility of our bodies and our own narratives surrounding them? 

What is it, ultimately, to be human, knowing all this? What place do our bodies have in our evaluation of our lives? 

This issue, healthline looks at how the profoundness of human existence meets the reality of bodily functions. We seek not to impose any answers, but to give a sense of what some humans have felt through, and hopefully provide the space for readers to gently and honestly approach this part of their story, too.