The very first line of Lillian Fishman’s first novel, Acts of Service, tells a secret: “I have hundreds of nude photos on my phone, but I’ve never sent them to anyone.”
Eve is a little over 20 years old. She spends most of her time thinking about what it means to be a good person. We soon discover that we have some unfulfilled desires.
“My body was crying that I was not fulfilling my purpose,” she says. I wanted to have sex, maybe with a bunch of people.’
Eve was feeling ‘so beautiful and lonely’ one night when she posted a nude picture of herself online. As a result, he meets a woman named Olivia.
They set Eve up with her rich, charming and womanizing boyfriend Nathan. Thus began the game of sex and balance of power between the three, the details of which were recorded in two thousand pages.
If you look at the daily headlines, it becomes clear that sex among the youth is on the decline. Perhaps we are going through a ‘sex crisis’ and young people are the most affected. It has been blamed for everything from the housing crisis to the global pandemic, while dating apps have also come under fire over the past decade.
But there is one place where sex is on the daily agenda, and that is literature, especially books written by women. Women writers have written many fiction and non-fiction books that openly express sexual desires. In these books, sex is not limited to a brief incident but is a topic of discussion.
This year, 28-year-old Fishman’s novel has received much acclaim. The newspaper “The Guardian” has called it a “sex masterpiece”.
Sex is taken as a serious subject in this book. It questions the motives of sex and tries to explain the meaning of respecting one’s desires, even those desires that contradict what one has learned throughout life.
Fishman has stated that ‘this is a book about coming to terms with normal expectations as opposed to sexual desires.’
This book deals with the issue that liking and disliking the opposite sex originates from the same place. I wanted him to discuss the issue in this novel which would make it dramatic and full of emotions.
Fishman wanted to write a story about homosexuality in which he told how you feel disappointed in yourself and society, especially when you are attracted to the opposite sex. This is happening at a time when sexual identity and expression are undergoing political tension.
“I think the generation before me and the people of my generation believed so much in the importance of the human race and its discovery that they would risk their lives for it,” says Fishman. In such a world, your community around identity is very important.
But part of the title of this book is how you become attracted to something that you should actually find repulsive. ‘I have resorted to sex to tell about it, but an equally good book could be written about why people want to be rich.’
During this affair, Eve finds joy and satisfaction in the fact that she no longer has to be ‘everyone’s wanted girl’. But they are concerned about what their choice says about them. Being a feminist and an opponent of the capitalist system, she cannot stop these desires. “I distanced myself from the things I loved so that I could become a different and better person,” says Eve.
In the book, Eve abandons moral values and follows her desires and realizes this herself, especially with Nathan who is accused of sexual harassment at work. For Eve, the skis is ‘the means of knowing the truth that awaits them.’
‘Acts of Service’ and ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ are two different books but are often mentioned in the same sentence. Fishman is not angry about it. She says, “I wanted the book to be philosophical, but also encouraging and fun for people to read.” So for me it’s a success that people are comparing it.”
All or nothing
If a woman in Fishman’s book believes that her body is for sex, another recent book says the opposite: stay away from sex and marriage.
Busy Being Free, based on Emma Forrest’s memoir, recounts five years after her marriage ended, in which she chose loneliness over sex. It was the same five years when Donald Trump was the President of the United States.
He told that ‘when Trump was elected president, I got divorced during that time. I was 40 years old.
The worst man in the world was now the most powerful man. And the most powerful men had shown terrible feelings for middle-aged women. So my decision was to stay away from him completely during his presidency.
Explaining his decision in the book, he said that at this age, women are said to be losing their sex appeal. In order to be selected in the group, they have to change themselves emotionally and physically. I said I will not play this game.
Earlier, Forrest’s book ‘Your Voice in My Head’ has been published and he has directed a film ‘Together’. He has lived a life based on many romantic relationships. “I have been sexually active since the age of 16,” she says. From that age I was hooked on romance, for better or for worse. I knew that this decision of mine would be something new.
It may seem extreme to think of loneliness as a legitimate choice, but it doesn’t have to be. But it seems like a good decision considering every single woman is missing something.
Forrest says that several friends tried to help him find a new parent after the split, but he was no longer interested. In the book, one of Forrest’s friends worries that she will lose herself by being alone. His mother is also troubled by this decision.
But from Forrest’s words, it seems that they have forged a romantic relationship out of loneliness. “The solitude was not only bearable, it was the best experience.” A woman can run late at night with headphones on and not be afraid of anyone.
She says she was addicted to not having sex. The longer I went without sex, the more I felt like I didn’t need it anymore. In many ways it was the best time of my life.
Despite being a book about loneliness, there are many references to sex. “It’s believed that a woman over 40 is at her peak sexually, and for me, that was true. Having this feeling and not expressing it became different things for me. Work became easier and decision making also became easier. It became easier to tell what I was going to do, what I liked in men, in love and in sex. I got to know about myself and my qualities.
Isolation and the Covid lockdown gave Forrest time to think about past romantic relationships and sex. They realized that they were running after things they didn’t need. “Being a woman is about balancing that we want to have sex with a certain person and our biggest fear is having sex with a stranger against our will.”
Men, she says, were to her ‘like smartphones in which she got lost.’ Her decisions, clothes, jobs, homes were all dictated by men. She used to make the mistake of distinguishing between someone else’s desire and her own.
‘Women have probably always thought that they have to respond because that’s what they want, as if it’s a form of modesty.’ There is no need to feel desires.’
Towards the end of the book, when they start dating and having sex again, things are different. Forrest was able to express her desires openly and had the power to ‘shape sex to her desires’.
The Secret Life
In the field of literature, women are exploring their sexual desires. In Julia May Jones’ debut book Vladimir, a college professor becomes sexually attracted to a young writer when her husband is found involved in a sex scandal.
In Anna Fitzpatrick’s book Good Girl, a woman challenges her feminist views when she finds pleasure in her own suffering. In the book ‘Milk Teeth’ by Jessica Andrews, a young woman seeks to understand what she ultimately wants in love, sex and life.
Kate Brushing, 80-year-old Jane Campbell’s first book, chronicles the sex lives of 13 elderly women. CJ Hauser explains in her book The Crane Wife that she realized that she had lived most of her life against her wishes in the way that was expected of her. “I still hear those embarrassing words: thirsty, needy,” she says. These are the worst names for women.
Disha Filia’s book ‘The Secret Lives of Church Ladies’ tells stories based on the dreams of Southern black women. She told that ‘Initially I wasn’t focused on writing about sex, but I was actually writing about dissatisfied women.’
She says she could understand such feelings even though ‘he always took the right path.’ I married a man before I had children. Still, I was unhappy and dissatisfied. I was curious about the questions around satisfaction and desires. If you eliminate expectations, what’s left? Is it possible?’
Growing up in Florida, she developed an interest in the lives of tourist women around her. ‘I was curious about their sex life and at the same time I was trying to understand and accept the teachings of the Church. These teachings were against enjoyment and had an element of shame, fear and sin in them.
Even as a grown woman, I thought about these women. She wondered about their hidden desires and inner lives. He has also discussed the same in his book. The fictional book won a Penn Falkner Award and was adapted into an HBO miniseries.
What was important for Philia was to understand the relationship between sex and pleasure. “I wanted to challenge the idea that sex and sexuality are under pressure,” she says. And that we should live thinking about fear, shame and sin.
“Imagine that the first thing we are taught is that our bodies are not bad things and that they are our property.” Or that we should prioritize our own happiness? What if we were taught to prioritize our own satisfaction, not that of pleasing others?’
His characters were not taught all of this but want to be freed from these thoughts and follow their desires. “Its consequences create more complexity and confusion.”
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies recounts experiences that are unlike any other book on women’s sexuality. All these books are based on the individual experiences of women, but the common theme in them is that women want to know what they want. They strive to let go of others’ expectations of themselves and be attracted to their true desires.
Hidden desires
This is a time when this topic is tangled in tension. Over the years, Trump, the May-Too movement, revenge porn and court decisions on abortion have heightened the climate of tension around sex.
Many non-fiction books revolve around what sexual freedom means for women in a misogynistic and patriarchal environment. Desires, their expression and their pursuit are more complex than ever.
“No matter what you do, you disappoint the people around you,” says Fishman.
On the one hand, if you’re a bit of a feminist, you want to express and pursue sexual freedom. At the same time, you believe in the concepts of love and family and think that sex without passion will not bring satisfaction in life. It is a trap in every way. And I think we are all aware of that.
But today, as in the past, women are free to explore the complexities of their desires. According to Fishman, the reference to sex in literature is a means of conveying a message. “Dialogue between characters lets you say things you can’t or are afraid to put into words.”
Author Sally Rooney is an expert on it, she says. “It’s interesting to see what a novel can do and she does it well.”
According to him, compared to the 20th century, today’s writers are shy about writing about sex. ‘Some judges like Mary McCarthy taught me how you can write openly about sex. There are many important passages about sex in The Group.
Eve Babitz, who died last year, also influenced his work. Emma Forrest says that she saw sex as an art, that is, good sex is like an art. For them it is like a religious sentiment.
Philia says that in good sex writing, ‘women openly express their desires and enjoy themselves, even if it is at the expense of other people. Toni Morrison’s book Sola will always be the gold standard for me.
She quotes Garth Grenville. Grenville wrote in The Guardian that ‘Sex should be seen as humanity. The question is not why one writes about sex. The question is why one should write about anything else.
If we can ask big questions about humanity and civilization with the help of the topic of sex, it is also a source of enjoyment for writers.
“My characters were disruptive and had no regrets, so it was nice to write about them,” says Philia.
So will literature be able to maintain this desire? They hope so. “There’s still a lot to discover.”