What's sticky? in S-E-X

THE LIST for January 29, 2023

René Groebli, Séries “L'Œil de l'amour” 1952. Collection MEP, Paris. [ed. note: All images in this newsletter are from “Too hot to handle: the sexiest art and photography projects of 2022” in DAZED and if you think these images are a bridge too far, don’t click that link!]

Well hello there, you look very nice in that thing you’re wearing (or not wearing 😏) Please prepare for more housekeeping than usual on a post like this (apologies, but necessary).

First, a big welcome to my many, many new subscribers, over 600+ in just the past 2 weeks! If you’re a paid subscriber odds are you came to me through this post. And if you are a brand new free subscriber chances are you found me through my most recent essay that was featured in Substack Reads and/or HONEY STAY SUPER being featured on the Substack home page last week. I am so grateful for Substack’s support! But if you did come to me via Substack recommendations, you might not know what’s up with this newsletter. You can read more about me and HONEY STAY SUPER here.

WHAT’S STICKY? is a somewhat regular (monthly?) feature — a list of recommendations, organized by themes like aging, parenting, marriage and divorce, and more. About every other month one will be focused solely on sex-related recommendations like books, articles, podcasts, and so on.

In general, when it comes to this newsletter, if overt talk of sex, divorce, non-monogamy, polyamory, dating apps, dating in midlife, and anything in the surrounding sex- and relationship-adjacent neighborhood(s) offends you then I can tell you right now this newsletter will not be for you! You will not like it! If you unsubscribe it will not hurt my feelings (I don’t have any)! If you read it and hate it then angrily comment telling me how much you hate it we will both be mad (ok I have one feeling)! It’s like going into someone’s house uninvited and then screaming at the homeowner about how much you hate their stupid house and they’re like, babe, I never opened the door for you specifically to waltz on in. If it’s not for you (understandable!), simply get your coat and leave quietly. It’s fine. The customer is not always (almost never) right. We will all live. Ok, you’ve been warned!

🚨OH HO HO THIS JUST IN🚨 I just had a comment reported by a reader. Like, I literally just got the notification. The comment? “This is fucking GREAT” on one of my posts. Really? I mean, reallyyyyyy? Those are the comments I live for. If you cannot handle something this benign, I am asking you again, please show yourself out. I created this newsletter for readers who want to hear from me. This is the only place I have ever enjoyed on the internet. Please do not ruin it for me or the readers who’ve been following me for 1 or 2 or 4 years. The F word is gonna be the least of it in this newsletter, trust me on that.

Last thing — all the NYT links below have been gifted, so no need to worry about running through your free articles. Enough of all that, onto the good stuff!

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"Sexually, I was always a caretaker first" on Mad Woman by Amanda Montei (interview w/Rebecca Woolf)

This tab has been open since the day this piece popped up in my Instagram stories because the section below stopped me cold (and I do mean cold). And honestly this answer just builds and builds from there and is — as the kids say — fire. But this entire conversation is just so fantastic, so surprising, so smart and insightful, that if you don’t yell “ugh!” or “hell yes!” or “holy crap!” at least once I will give you your money back* (*I won’t).

There is an intersection to the way we mother and the way we fuck and because it feels squeamish, almost grotesque to pair them together, no one wants to have that conversation, but the truth is, in the wake of my marriage, I realized I had only ever fucked like a mom.