#25: Thoughts on pleasure in the apocalypse

Sorry not sorry it's another think piece on the election

I’ve spent the last week doom-scrolling through many dozen think pieces on our national descent into madness. I’ve read several articles about women in the U.S. drawing inspiration from Korea’s 4B movement to swear off men entirely. Other essays were about the manosphere’s radicalization pipeline, turning male loneliness into political ammunition. There are charts about Gen-Z’s shift to conservative values, and the price of eggs mattering more than women’s bodily autonomy. I’ve seen enough takes about how these voters are just uneducated and misinformed, countered by posts warning us not to underestimate their clear intentions.

I’m loathe to sit here and pen yet another little think piece on my little Substack. I’ve been sitting on this draft, considering skipping this week’s post, but honestly my paid subscribers and my 70%+ email open rate is motivating me to push through (thank you!). And I do have something to say on how sex and reproduction have become the primary battlefield in our escalating culture wars. Between pro-natalists (weirdos) screaming about family values and MAGA men posting “your body, my choice, forever”, we’re watching a fundamental struggle over autonomy play out in real time.

As Jia Tolentino recently wrote in the New Yorker, we’re living in a stark paradox.

In the imaginary world ruled by angry lesbian socialist girlbosses, there is absolutely nothing to stop you from being a barefoot, pregnant homemaker at twenty-four if you’d like to be one. In the increasingly non-hypothetical world ruled by far-right Trumpists, the blissful servitude of women must be insured by removing their control over their bodies, and ideally, actually, by removing them from the public sphere altogether.

It’s pretty evident from the voting patterns— young men and women are moving in opposite political directions, with men voting from a place of fear about women living more freely and women voting from a place of fear about what will be forced upon them. And of course this sentiment spills over into conversations about sexuality and relationships. We kind of have two dominating narratives: the bizarre pro-natalist Handmaid’s Tale fantasy where women eagerly surrender their autonomy for the “natural order” of marriage and motherhood (hello Tiktok tradwives), vs. the “boy sober movement” framing women’s sexuality as something to withhold.

I feel so much sympathy reading about women wanting to live life without any men. I go through many cycles of cynicism after spending too much time around cis-het men and I want to self-protect as well. But I wonder if women who desire men are actually punishing themselves by writing them off entirely. I’m absolutely on board with de-centering men and for us all to stop bending over backwards to cater to fragile male egos. But I don’t know about completely denying yourself connection and pleasure as a response to patriarchal bullshit. In a way, that feels like letting them win.

Russia just voted unanimously to ban any type of media showcasing a child-free life, and China and Korea are trying and failing to push family planning propaganda to battle declining birth rates. It’s especially wild for me to watch as someone who has never wanted children. My decision has nothing to do with climate anxiety or our doomed political future but that I believe you should actually want to be a parent to have kids, and I just never desired motherhood. Interestingly, all these alarm bells about more and more people opting out of parenthood isn’t playing out in my friend group, which is overwhelmingly opting to get married and have kids (I love their kids, btw, I promise). Has there been any research done about whether birth rates are declining when you factor for class and education? Because among my cohort of upper class, college grad peers in NYC, there’s still an assumption that anyone living comfortably would want marriage and children, though this pressure isn’t rooted in archaic family values—just a sort of privileged inevitability.

So we know that the idea of women’s bodies and sexuality need to be controlled isn’t new. In fact, my own conservative family continues to yell about how a woman’s worth is tied to her “purity.” What’s fascinating is to watch those same attitudes show up in supposedly progressive spaces. Whenever a mainstream outlet publishes anything about non-monogamy, the comments section explodes with judgment that sounds exactly like slut-shaming. This post about non-monogamy from Refinery29 from literally today, for example. “No one could possibly be happy living like that,” “It’s just cheating with extra steps,” “Ew, stop normalizing this,” “What about the children?” The pearl-clutching comes from all sides.

I plan to be openly and happily non-monogamous for the rest of my life. While I’m fortunate to surround myself with people who largely get it, watching the broader cultural response to any discussion of alternative relationship styles has only made me more committed to writing and talking about it. I don’t really want to be the person that makes it their whole personality, but normalization matters, especially now. The fact that discussing non-monogamy provokes such visceral backlash just shows how threatening sexual autonomy remains to the status quo.

And tha’ts what this moment is really about. The men who are feeling disenfranchised right now, watching their position as the “superior” gender wane, aren’t just angry about losing political power. Whether conscious about it or not, they’re mad that women are increasingly able to live freely and get exactly what they want. They want to control not just our bodies, but our time, our energy, our minds. They want us to serve them, cook for them, raise their children, and have no identity beyond their needs.

Pursuing hedonism and living a life of pleasure becomes resistance. When my anchor partner fully supports me pursuing romance and connection outside our relationship because it makes both our lives richer— that’s an act of defiance against a system that demands women’s sexuality exist only in service to men. When we create spaces to discuss sex and relationships honestly and without shame, that is actively pushing back against these misogynists. I can definitely see why women want to be boy sober— they want to refuse to let their bodies become bargaining chips in someone else’s power game.

The right loves to depict feminists as killjoys who spread misery under the guise of liberation. But we’re actually fighting for our ability to form relationships that fulfill us rather than just fit society’s expectations. When we fight for the freedom to decide what we do with our bodies, our fertility, and our sexuality, we’re fighting to experience pleasure on our own terms. We’re watching them lose their minds over abortions while women increasingly opt out of traditional paths. The right frames this as a crisis of values, but really it’s a crisis of control. They’re realizing that shame doesn’t work like it used to, and women are finding ways to live and love that exist completely outside their framework of acceptable behavior.

In the wake of this election, I’m thinking about—among many other things— how many spaces for sexual freedom and autonomy we might lose. We’re already seeing the groundwork being laid: attacks on abortion access, gender-affirming care, comprehensive sex education. The right isn’t subtle about their endgame. They want to eliminate any possibility of sexuality existing outside their narrow, controlled framework.

I’m not feeling a lot of hope these days, but here’s what does give me hope. Every time mainstream outlets post about childfree living or sexual autonomy or women not conforming to society’s standard of beauty or alternative relationship formats, even when the comments are a dumpster fire, it means that the conversations are happening. People are seeing different possibilities for how to live and love.

I write about pleasure and autonomy not because I think everyone should live exactly as I do— that would just be another form of prescriptive bullshit. I write and speak openly because every time someone realizes they have options beyond the standard script of exclusivity—>cohabitation—>marriage—>babies, it creates a tiny crack in the wall of “should.” Every time someone chooses authenticity over obligation, and lives unapologetically on their own terms, it makes it easier for others to do the same.

They want us isolated, feeling shameful, and preferably pregnant. Let’s keep building communities that celebrate autonomy, keep exploring relationships that expand rather than constrain us, and keep finding joy in all the ways they say we shouldn’t. That feels like a proper fuck you to those who want to take away our power.

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Q: People are pretty judgey about non-traditional relationships, even in spaces with seemingly open minded people. How do you handle the pressure to conform to traditional values?

A: So often it’s the same people who say “my body, my choice” who also are shocked and judgey about non-monogamy. I’ve learned that the pressure to conform doesn’t always come from conservatives. Sometimes it shows up in progressive spaces or from a sex positive friend saying “I could never” in a way that drips with judgment, and also probably envy. Sometimes it’s more subtle, like when people imply that non-traditional relationships are just a phase before settling down “for real” or when people assume that you’re non-monogamous because you don’t like your partner enough.

Many of these same people horrified by consensual non-monogamy are living in a world with rampant cheating without acknowledging it. Somehow consensually opening a relationship is looked down upon but widespread dishonesty and betrayal isn’t.

What helps me is remembering that most of the judgment comes from people who have zero frame of reference and limited imagination of what relationships can look like. Sometimes when someone reacts with horror to non-monogamy or being child-free by choice, they’re really saying “I’m uncomfortable questioning my own choices.”

The more we can normalize these conversations, the harder it becomes to maintain these judgey responses.

1. I enjoyed Anora, a movie about an Uzbeki-American sex worker from Brighton Beach (Southern Brooklyn represent!) from the same director behind the Florida Project, another excellent movie.

2. Hasan Minhaj’s latest Netflix special, Off With His Head helped me realize that wow, all of us children of immigrants really had exactly the same childhood.

3. Just finished Miranda July’s new book, All Fours, which I initially picked up because of this article about how this book inspired middle aged women whispering in their group chats about rethinking marriage and monogamy. But it is so much more than that. She’s so weird and I love it.

   

   

   Took PTO yesterday specifically to spend a self-care day in Flushing, and went out of my way to get these mashed potatoes shaped like Lord Rabbit, a Chinese folk deity from Beijing. Worf.