{"id":169695,"date":"2025-01-27T10:40:50","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T15:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=169695"},"modified":"2025-01-28T15:36:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T20:36:58","slug":"cruising-at-the-la-fitness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruising at the LA Fitness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Entryway to an LA Fitness. Photograph by Mike Mozart, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. . Licensed under CC BY 2.0<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s the tail end of January, the month of resolutions made and broken, gym memberships purchased and fitness classes left unattended. This week, we’re publishing a series of dispatches from the gym.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before the sweat, before the bench press, before the sauna, before the shower, before placing my hand around a man, inside a man, around his throat so desperate for my hand, I take off my ring. While walking up to the doors of LA Fitness, I tuck the proof of my husband into my fanny pack.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to LA Fitness franchises in Philly, in Portland, in Atlanta, in Chicago. Everywhere you go, you enter the same space: there are the same inoffensive beige carpets; the same large stock photos of the same white man and woman, who, like static, photocopied gods, with their quaint and creepy smiles, watch over you from the walls; the same words, like success<\/em> and motivation<\/em>,\u00a0floating between them. This is what we are here to aspire toward: to be successful, to be in shape, to be sculpted into something worth being wanted, something out of Hollywood, something boring, sexy, white, and American.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My own LA Fitness gyms are in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I like to do leg day at the \u201cnice\u201d one just south of the Minneapolis border\u2014they have this kick-back machine that does wonders for my butt. (When people call a place \u201cnice,\u201d they mean it\u2019s white. When they call a place \u201cghetto,\u201d they mean it has too many Black people to ignore. I prefer the ghetto. Nice has never been good to me without killing a part of me, too.) I take my upper body to the \u201cghetto\u201d location in Midway, right in the hood where I grew up, a block from where my mom and I showed up with broom and bag to sweep the glass and rubble after the righteous rage over George Floyd\u2019s murder shattered windows and scorched concrete. That was a strange feeling: knowing your city should burn, wanting it to, cheering the flames, and still showing up to clean the earth, to bag up evidence of the rage. The fuck were we doing? I digress. This ain\u2019t about that. I just wanted to give you some context: I\u2019m from here, been from here, the men in this gym are my men.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Sometimes I get off at the gym. Not get off\u2014I\u2019m never alone when it happens. Rather: Sometimes I fuck at the gym. It\u2019s not always because I\u2019m horny; sometimes I\u2019m just participating in gayness. This is the great tradition of it. Sure, sometimes, after all that sweat and effort, with all that blood awake in me, it feels good to be welcomed into a man\u2019s mouth or to take a man into mine, to press my body (weary and strong and pumped up and a little funky) into another\u2019s body (weary, strong, et cetera) and melt a few minutes under a shared shower with no names, whispering under the cover of our brief rain, tasting salt and pulling salt from each other, making something nowhere near love while hushed behind the plastic curtain. But sometimes it ain\u2019t all that. Sometimes it\u2019s just for the fuck of it, for the danger of it, for the plot, as the youth say. When I see a man I fancy from the other side of the weight room, I let my mind wander longer than my eyes. I look, but not too long. I look to see if he\u2019s trying to be looked at. There\u2019s a way he might look into the mirror, using the reflection not to see himself but to see who\u2019s seeing him. If he walks by me while I\u2019m in the middle of a set, he might walk a little too close, a faint signal that he wants to be even closer. It\u2019s not exactly flirting but more like announcing your body to a body you might want. I might bend over to pick up a dumbbell at the rack, arching my back just so. He might adjust himself, not to hide his bulge but to fluff it, summoning the blood a little lower.<\/p>\n

My husband calls him my gym boyfriend, but it\u2019s nothing like that. I don\u2019t know his name. I may have learned it once, but I never asked him again. He\u2019s more like a frequently visited location, a favorite restaurant, an old haunt. When I see him at the gym I don\u2019t bend my time there to touch him, but I do say a secret prayer that we both end up in the sauna at the same time. When we do, we do. We\u2019ve done it enough times that my husband makes jokes about it, is maybe even a little jealous (there\u2019s nothing to be jealous about, but a little jealousy can keep things hot). I don\u2019t even think my lil gym boyfriend is gay. For one, he kisses like a straight guy. He wears his chain while working out and while showering, a silver Cuban link I like to bite as his hands map his want all over me. It\u2019s giving rough trade. I\u2019ve never seen a ring, but something about him screams \u201cwife at home.\u201d A lot of them have that quality: the Somali uncle with the big grin and bigger schmeat; the bodybuilder who never smiles before, during, or after; the man I went to high school with who I know is married to that sweet girl from math class. Here, in the bland landscape of LA Fitness, there is no identity beyond the body; no naming beyond want; no closets, no coming out, just coming into the shower with me; no commitment beyond a dedication to the moment. If we want labels to matter, then what does it say about us that these men can\u2019t be queer anywhere but here? But what good are labels, anyway? What good is language when there are so many other things a mouth can do?<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an art to cruising. We have a way of doing these things. Passed down from queer to queer like an heirloom, like a virus. There\u2019s a look that isn\u2019t a look. Direct eye contact, but fleeting, a moment in the eyes: a look that looks away, a look that\u2019s meant to be caught looking. There\u2019s a nod, which is confusing because there\u2019s also another nod, one that is very much not queer, that we of darker hues trade. But to catch this other nod, you need to watch the lips and the eyes\u2014it\u2019s a nod that says not \u201chello\u201d but \u201csup?\u201d Then there\u2019s the way you drape your towel over your lap in the sauna. There\u2019s the repeated adjusting of your junk in the sauna, too. How easily adjusting yourself becomes touching yourself. There\u2019s the open shower curtain, the performance of taking a shower and giving a show at the same time. And of course, there\u2019s showing off. Even the ones who don\u2019t want to be touched take part in that\u2014the way a man shows his body to other men in a way that says, Look at what I\u2019ve made, what I\u2019ve created, what I\u2019ve labored toward in the slow, hot hours of effort here. Look at how I am, my God. And my God, it\u2019s hot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Danez Smith is the author of four poetry collections, most recently<\/em> Bluff, a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Poetry and the Minnesota Book Award. They are also the editor of<\/em> Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes. They live in Minneapolis.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy husband calls him my gym boyfriend, but it\u2019s nothing like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1761,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68815],"tags":[67827,17667],"class_list":["post-169695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-the-gym","tag-featured","tag-gyms"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruising at the LA Fitness by Danez Smith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"January 27, 2025 \u2013 \u201cMy husband calls him my gym boyfriend, but it\u2019s nothing like that.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cruising at the LA Fitness by Danez Smith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 27, 2025 \u2013 \u201cMy husband calls him my gym boyfriend, but it\u2019s nothing like that.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-27T15:40:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-01-28T20:36:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit-1024x1024.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Danez Smith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Danez Smith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Danez Smith\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8496c3352616b1b1690a8be0d79323d2\"},\"headline\":\"Cruising at the LA Fitness\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-27T15:40:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-28T20:36:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/\"},\"wordCount\":1337,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit-1024x1024.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Featured\",\"gyms\"],\"articleSection\":[\"At the Gym\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/\",\"name\":\"Cruising at the LA Fitness by Danez Smith\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit-1024x1024.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-27T15:40:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-28T20:36:58+00:00\",\"description\":\"January 27, 2025 \u2013 \u201cMy husband calls him my gym boyfriend, but it\u2019s nothing like that.\u201d\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit.jpg\",\"width\":1847,\"height\":1847},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cruising at the LA Fitness\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8496c3352616b1b1690a8be0d79323d2\",\"name\":\"Danez Smith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aa6faeee301f022de07fe696634d0adff59f340c46343049695a9ea944cced5e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aa6faeee301f022de07fe696634d0adff59f340c46343049695a9ea944cced5e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Danez Smith\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/danezsmith\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cruising at the LA Fitness by Danez Smith","description":"January 27, 2025 \u2013 \u201cMy husband calls him my gym boyfriend, but it\u2019s nothing like that.\u201d","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cruising at the LA Fitness by Danez Smith","og_description":"January 27, 2025 \u2013 \u201cMy husband calls him my gym boyfriend, but it\u2019s nothing like that.\u201d","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2025-01-27T15:40:50+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-01-28T20:36:58+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":1024,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit-1024x1024.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Danez Smith","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Danez Smith","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/"},"author":{"name":"Danez Smith","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8496c3352616b1b1690a8be0d79323d2"},"headline":"Cruising at the LA Fitness","datePublished":"2025-01-27T15:40:50+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-28T20:36:58+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/"},"wordCount":1337,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit-1024x1024.jpg","keywords":["Featured","gyms"],"articleSection":["At the Gym"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/","name":"Cruising at the LA Fitness by Danez Smith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit-1024x1024.jpg","datePublished":"2025-01-27T15:40:50+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-28T20:36:58+00:00","description":"January 27, 2025 \u2013 \u201cMy husband calls him my gym boyfriend, but it\u2019s nothing like that.\u201d","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/entryway-to-la-fit.jpg","width":1847,"height":1847},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/27\/cruising-at-the-la-fitness\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cruising at the LA Fitness"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8496c3352616b1b1690a8be0d79323d2","name":"Danez Smith","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aa6faeee301f022de07fe696634d0adff59f340c46343049695a9ea944cced5e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aa6faeee301f022de07fe696634d0adff59f340c46343049695a9ea944cced5e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Danez Smith"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/danezsmith\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1761"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169695"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169734,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169695\/revisions\/169734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}