Bad Sex--Review

Lately I have been attempting to publish pieces in varied literary magazines. One thing that recurred when reading the submission rules for these publications is that a blog post counts as a publication. That is, if one has published an artcle/opinion piece in a blog, and the magazine requires that any submission has not been published elsewhere--the existence of the blog post technically disqualifies the submission. Therefore, I have not been writing here.

However, I will begin again to post book reviews at least--unless I believe that I might want to publish the review elsewhere.

I've been reading, as is my wont.  It was family lore, and true, that when I was a kid my mother had to harass me to get me to read.  As long as she was alive she would marvel that I had become a reader since it had been pulling teeth to get me to read when I was a child. Lately, I've gone on an Ann Patchett tear. I've read now nearly all of her books and her two essay collections. (One of her lesser known books is called Taft and it is terrific. I inhaled it one week this past spring).  

But I am not writing about Taft or Ann Patchett with this blog entry.  I am writing about a book called Bad Sex written by Nona Willis-Aronowitz.  I should have known about her famous mother, but did not.  Ellen Willis, I learned, was a feminist in the early days of the 60s feminist movement.  Her daughter penned the book Bad Sex.

This, to me, was a startling book. Of course I was born during the Truman administration, and the author was born during Reagan.  I have more in common--in terms of generation--with her mother than with the author.  It will be interesting to learn how the author's contemporaries feel about the book.

My thoughts.

I did my share of frolicking when I was a young 'un. However compared to Ms. Aronowitz I was a monk. If she is the norm, I am in another world in terms of slow dancing.

Second, if this book had been written by a man he would have been pilloried mercilessly.  She discusses her affairs in detail. She does not boast so much as describe, but if a man were to describe the sundry activities that the author enjoyed, he would be dubbed a capricious and inconsiderate satyr.  

I liked her openness about sex because it,  implicitly and sometimes explicitly, criticizes the puritanical and counterproductive repressive attitudes about intimate activities that bring people joy and are, I'll opine, salubrious. 

She presented historical context in many of the chapters and I found that informative. I did not know much about Emma Goldman and knew nothing of the author's mother.  The author's discussion of the origins of the free love movement was unfamiliar to me and, I suppose, was left out of my high school history books.

Her discussion of the tension between polyamorous activity and jealousy was important to include. The part about how Goldman and Willis and Aronowitz herself had trouble reconciling their politics regarding non monogamy with how hurt they felt when their lovers took on other lovers--even when the dalliances had the partners' consent--made sense to me. 

If the book had as a goal moving the mainstream, forget it.  I thought about my parents reading the book and hurling it against the wall. And many of my contemporaries would be outraged at her, so what attitude about multiple lovers and "boning" (her word used often) this fellow or that. It can liberate those inclined to explore whether monogamy is a healthy social construct--but my guess is that 75% of the people in this establishment where I am typing the blog, would dismiss the book before the first twenty pages were up. And I live in one of the bluest of the blue states. 

My take away is that the politics of challenging the status quo in terms of sexual attitudes is important to consider and yet these politics run into a wall of natural human responses when people fear that their partners might leave them for more excitement or more whatever with another. 

While the book is called Bad Sex, there is a good deal of good or at least pleasurable sex described. 

Do I recommend the book? It was a slog at times. The book is 288 pages but I thought I had seen it was 281. When I got to 281 and there was more I was disappointed.  But if the author is anything like what is the prevailing norm of those born in the 80s, it exposed me to a culture and a set of attitudes far different to those of my generation.