Bad Sex

Starred review from June 1, 2022

For people burned out by everything from political assaults against gendered and sexual bodies to online dating and reality television, Aronowitz's title will surely elicit a laugh, a sigh, and a sense of recognition. The subtitle, though, is what takes the book from the personal to the polemical--the text delivers as much of the promised truth, pleasure, and revolution as it does depictions of what is bad about the current state of sex. Her chapter titles (which include clever nods to current practices related to status, desire, and the changing guises of patriarchal power structures) do not provide a linear trajectory but help readers move from "bad sex" to "good sex," with the extensive analysis of historical information, rhetorical tricks, gendered traps, and much more. For some, Aronowitz's prose style may feel too conversational. The danger of this is that it may also feel antiquated before the subjects she covers are socially addressed and no longer in need of a compendium like this. VERDICT Arnonowitz's chatty tone and corpuscular language explodes myths in ways that will help readers clearly recognize the lies they've been fed. Highly recommended.--Emily Bowles

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June 1, 2022
A writer reflects on the breakdown of her young marriage and the history of feminism, sexuality, and pleasure. At 32, Willis Aronowitz, the sex and love columnist for Teen Vogue, decided to end her marriage. One of her chief complaints with the union was the "bad sex" of the title. In the wake of her divorce, she embarked on a journey to discover what good sex would look like for her as a young, liberated feminist living in the 21st century. These circumstances led the author to the "broader question of what cultural forces interfere with our pleasure, desire, and relationship satisfaction." She turned first to the work of her late mother, the "early radical pro-sex feminist" Ellen Willis. The author narrates her mother's life engagingly: her escape from a stifling early marriage, questioning of monogamy, and later marriage, on very different terms, to the author's father, a "husky hedonist" who "had a reputation as a bed hopper and had trouble managing his often concurrent love affairs." Pre-divorce, Willis Aronowitz often "cringed" at the thought of her late mother knowing that her daughter remained in an "unsatisfying partnership" out of fear of "stepping off the heterosexual conveyer belt" at an age when many of her peers were settling down and starting families. Alongside her personal experiences, the author digs into the cultural history of marriage and sexuality, mostly through the lens of feminism, with a focus on the developments of the 20th century. Near the end of the book, Willis Aronowitz describes a visit to an erotic massage therapist where she struggled to orgasm. At the time, she writes, she found it "impossible to parse out my own motivations from the din of characters in my head, ranging from girl bossy pep talks to radical feminist rallying cries." While the author is skilled at synthesizing large swaths of social theory and her passion for the subject is clear, the historical sections are less compelling than the personal elements. A courageously frank, sometimes uneven hybrid of memoir and social history.

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Starred review from August 1, 2022
Journalist and culture critic Aronowitz published writing about sexual exploration, nonmonogamy, and feminism; she had been raised by a radical-feminist music-critic mother and a sociology professor father. No one was more surprised than the author when she found herself, at 32, exiting a suffocating and sexually unsatisfying marriage. This is her captivating road map to understanding how this could have possibly happened. She entwines her own experiences with a meticulous analysis of society and culture to explore the larger systems (white supremacy, capitalism, the patriarchy) and smaller trends (revenge porn, hookup apps, secretly misogynist activism) that encourage intimacy to fail. The result is an exquisitely researched, joyfully conversational take on sexual oppression and sexual revolutions throughout history, as well as a deeply heartfelt memoir. She references books, movies, and elections that changed sexual history--how they affected her personally and how they effected change in politics or culture. Aronowitz's endearing commitment to journal keeping offers readers exactly what she was thinking and feeling while navigating nonmonogamy, hot affairs, divorce, casual sex, betrayal, grief, and existential disbelief, often all at once, over the last decade. This genuine and generous emotional offering is sure to make readers feel seen and heard, too.

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