Bad Sex

*Named a Most Anticipated Book by Bustle, Esquire, Nylon*, and The Millions

Intimate, thoughtful, and accessible to anyone struggling with the persistent, maddening inequities of contemporary sex. Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad

From Teen Vogue sex and love columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz, a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism that probes the meaning of desire and sexual freedom today.**

At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz s life, and in America, was in disarray. Her marriage was falling apart. Her nuclear family was slipping away. Her heart and libido were both in overdrive. Embroiled in an era of fear, reckoning, and reimagining, her assumptions of what sexual liberation meant were suddenly up for debate.

In the thick of personal and political turmoil, Nona turned to the words of history s sexual revolutionaries including her late mother, early radical pro-sex feminist Ellen Willis. At a time when sex has never been more accepted and feminism has never been more mainstream, Nona asked herself: *What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy?

• Nona s attempt to find the answer places her search for authentic intimacy alongside her family history and other stories stretching back nearly two hundred years. Stories of ambivalent wives and unchill sluts, free lovers and radical lesbians, sensitive men and woke misogynists, women who risk everything for sex who buy sex, reject sex, have bad sex and good sex. The result is a brave, bold, and vulnerable exploration of what sexual freedom can mean. Bad Sex is Nona s own journey to sexual satisfaction and romantic happiness, which not only lays bare the triumphs and flaws of contemporary feminism but also shines a light on universal questions of desire.

  Autorentext

  Nona Willis Aronowitz is the sex and love columnist for Teen Vogue. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Cut, Elle, Vice, The Washington Post, and Playboy, among many others. She is the coauthor of Girldrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism. She is also the editor of an award-winning anthology of her mother Ellen Willis’s rock criticism, called Out of the Vinyl Deeps, as well as a comprehensive collection of Willis's work, The Essential Ellen Willis, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

  Klappentext

  Named a Most Anticipated Book by Bustle, Esquire, Nylon, and The Millions

  "Intimate, thoughtful, and accessible to anyone struggling with the persistent, maddening inequities of contemporary sex." -Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad

  From Teen Vogue sex and love columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz, a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism that probes the meaning of desire and sexual freedom today.

  At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz's life, and in America, was in disarray. Her marriage was falling apart. Her nuclear family was slipping away. Her heart and libido were both in overdrive. Embroiled in an era of fear, reckoning, and reimagining, her assumptions of what "sexual liberation" meant were suddenly up for debate.

  In the thick of personal and political turmoil, Nona turned to the words of history's sexual revolutionaries-including her late mother, early radical pro-sex feminist Ellen Willis. At a time when sex has never been more accepted and feminism has never been more mainstream, Nona asked herself: What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy?

  Nona's attempt to find the answer places her search for authentic intimacy alongside her family history and other stories stretching back nearly two hundred years. Stories of ambivalent wives and unchill sluts, free lovers and radical lesbians, sensitive men and woke misogynists, women who risk everything for sex-who buy sex, reject sex, have bad sex and good sex. The result is a brave, bold, and vulnerable exploration of what sexual freedom can mean. Bad Sex is Nona's own journey to sexual satisfaction and romantic happiness, which not only lays bare the triumphs and flaws of contemporary feminism but also shines a light on universal questions of desire.

  Zusammenfassung
  *Named a Most Anticipated Book by Bustle, Esquire, Nylon*, and The Millions

  “Intimate, thoughtful, and accessible to anyone struggling with the persistent, maddening inequities of contemporary sex.” –Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad

  From Teen Vogue sex and love columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz, a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism that probes the meaning of desire and sexual freedom today.**

  At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz’s life, and in America, was in disarray. Her marriage was falling apart. Her nuclear family was slipping away. Her heart and libido were both in overdrive. Embroiled in an era of fear, reckoning, and reimagining, her assumptions of what “sexual liberation” meant were suddenly up for debate.
   
  In the thick of personal and political turmoil, Nona turned to the words of history’s sexual revolutionaries—including her late mother, early radical pro-sex feminist Ellen Willis. At a time when sex has never been more accepted and feminism has never been more mainstream, Nona asked herself: *What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy?

• Nona’s attempt to find the answer places her search for authentic intimacy alongside her family history and other stories stretching back nearly two hundred years. Stories of ambivalent wives and unchill sluts, free lovers and radical lesbians, sensitive men and woke misogynists, women who risk everything for sex—who buy sex, reject sex, have bad sex and good sex. The result is a brave, bold, and vulnerable exploration of what sexual freedom can mean. Bad Sex is Nona’s own journey to sexual satisfaction and romantic happiness, which not only lays bare the triumphs and flaws of contemporary feminism but also shines a light on universal questions of desire.

  Leseprobe
  Introduction

  In the last few days of 2016, everything in my life and in America was in extreme disarray. I was thirty-two years old. My marriage was falling apart. My father was a year out from a massive stroke that had changed both our lives. My forays into fresh pleasures had left my heart and libido suffering from overexposure. The country was reeling after that infamous election. I was constantly sniffling—from crying, and also from the sinus infection that had rudely shown up on top of everything else. I felt at sea, and not in the placid way, in the thrash-around way. I looked at the up tissues piled on my coffee table and between the cushions of my couch, and I had a strong wish to put my former life back together again, even though some of this turmoil had been my own doing. In more hopeful moments, I’d feel the elation of dispensing with fear and inhibition. I’d be grateful for this intervention and the chance to rewrite my story. But during those few days, when self-doubt filled up the lonely void between Christmas and New Year’s, I wondered: Did I really blow up a relationship that lasted a quarter of my life, just because of bad sex?

  What even is “bad sex”? It’s a cruel descriptor, both lazy and below the belt, an indictment of everyone involved. When people heard the title of this book, they assumed I would be discus…