Shannon Bradley-Colleary

"Are there any side effects to going off the pill?" I asked Dr. Frankenweiller, my OB/GYN.

"Yes," he replied, "Pregnancy."

And he was right. One month to the day after going off the pill, I was pregnant. I blame it on deciding to practice abstinence.

Let me backtrack.

My father...

"The thing about being murdered," writes William Langewiesche in this May's issue of Vanity Fair, "it usually comes as a surprise."

The same can be said of date rape. When I awoke that bright spring morning of March 21st, 1986 in a pensione in Venice, Italy, I didn't expect the...

"Don't let your life be all about men the way mine has been," my mom said on the long distance line as I sobbed about my latest tortured love affair circa 1991.

I was startled by her self-clarity. I didn't know she knew that men were the monkey on her...

Several years ago, during an interview with a homeopathic doctor for an ailment of mine, she mentioned she still breastfed her 5-year old son. I backed out of her office like she...

There's a great new article in May's O Magazine called "How Old Do I Look?" It features four women from age 42 to 81 and divulges what kinds of aesthetic work they've had done, from Botox to face lifts.

Revolutionary.

It was so refreshing to look at their...

I have one daughter who is an avid tomboy. She loves Star Wars, trading baseball cards, shooting paintballs and wearing clothes only from the boy section of our local Gap kids. She is beautiful, if I say so myself, but hates to get any attention for her looks. She likes...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one MOST traveled by... 1991 New Haven, Connecticut. The reputable Longwharf Theater and a production of the classic William Inge's Picnic. I'm cast as one of the leads, Madge. The pretty, small-town girl who falls for a...

Women scare the ever-loving crap out of me. I'd rather go five rounds in the cage with UFC fighter Allistair Overeem than be subjected to one cup of coffee with a passive-aggressive mom who doesn't like the food I gave her kid on a play date.

I really pissed a...

1. Throwing your expensive bachelors degree in journalism out the window to pursue acting despite everyone's doubts will be the best thing that ever happened to you. (Portraying wild and dangerous characters helps you find your voice)

2. Failing to...

The problem with being a mom in L.A. is that we're celebrity magnets. Stars -- who spend their lives jetting to location on the Seychelles where they down copious amounts of Cristal Brut "Methuselah" and Magic Mushrooms while having meaningless (albeit it mind-blowing) sex with fellow ridiculously gorgeous...

"I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me." -- Jimmy Carter

Freakin' Jimmy, man, he lays it out there.

I've had this fixation on Gavin DeGraw who's a singer-pianist no one...

The 40s are good. You're too old to be a young fool and you're too young to be in Depends.

In my teens and 20s I never felt beautiful enough. I thought I was too skinny, too flat-chested, too pointy-chinned, too hairy-thighed, and I had no...

I'm not political. But the whole Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke kerfuffle and Obama's excoriation by the religious right has me steaming. I'm a social liberal who supports Planned Parenthood and Naral. Here's why...

My daughter Clare almost died in utero. My placenta started to fail at 34 weeks gestation, two weeks...

My old hairdresser is gone. The one with booze on her breath who inadvertently dyed my blond hair black, then blamed it on my anti-depressants, then had to strip my hair of all it's color, burning my scalp and leading her to pull out a veritable washtub of red wine...

As many of you know I've been seen at 26 years of age and 46 years of age naked round the world the last several weeks. Starting with my first naked post Am I Really Fat? which was also published here in The Huffington Post. Followed shortly by...

I posted nudes of myself taken 20 years ago for my Huffington Post article "Am I Really Fat?" which drew an ego-boosting amount of attention. I think the reason the article was popular (okay, it was the naked pictures, but there was also ...) the idea that we...

I find myself in the arms of a 6'2" god of a man we'll call Atlas. What would my hubby say if he knew? "You go girl!" Because my husband hates to dance. And because I'm in a gay nightclub on Leather Weekend in Palm Springs, and Atlas doesn't play...

I've been the same weight for approximately five years. 140 lbs. Sometimes I'm up to 143, sometimes down to 137, but almost always exactly at 140. I am 5 foot 6 1/2 inches tall. I'm 46. So let's shark about the internet and find out if I'm really fat ...