Read me at The New York Times Magazine
I spent five months talking to married people about *intimacy*
I’m in The New York Times Magazine today!
If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve been speaking to married people about sex since late last year. My Times Magazine piece is now up, and provides a window into the lives of several women— and their male partners— who are pushing back against a long history of compulsory sex in marriage. As a result, many of these couples are rethinking limited definitions of intimacy, and exploring the nature of marriage itself. The piece also explores Americans’ changing attitudes toward sex, relationships and monogamy, as well as how parenthood influences desire.
I have lots more to say on all of this. For now, I want to thank everyone who spoke to me for this piece. This was by far the biggest journalistic effort I’ve undertaken. And to be clear, this piece is not an argument for or against marriage. Rather, it’s an effort to document the lives of women who are married, but trying earnestly to push back against a long history of sexual “duty.”
Thousands of words did not make it into the finished story, and I’ll be publishing some of that research and material here in coming weeks.
I also want to acknowledge all the women who wrote to me while I was researching this story, who shared the trauma they’ve experienced in their marriages. This story is meant to offer a counterpoint to a long history of women being forced, to varying degrees and in different ways, to have sex with husbands whether they want to or not. But that history is short and not over. Marital rape was only criminalized nationwide in the US in 1993, so consent in marriage is very new, and many states still don’t uphold these laws. Approximately one third of women report having 'unwanted sex' with their partner, usually out of a feeling of obligation. Global statistics on intimate partner violence are still staggering.
Many today, however, are rethinking basic cultural assumptions about heterosexuality, long-term partnership and desire. While we’ve heard lots about open marriages and polyamory, there’s been little exploration of what happens when women go through periods of rethinking what they want, much less the pressures women face to perform in their marriages.
So, I’m really grateful to have the chance to bring these conversations to a broader audience, and I couldn’t have done it without all of you. Thank you to everyone here for your continued support of my work—support that not only sustains this newsletter, but helps me move these ideas beyond our community.
Check out the piece, and let me know what you think. I hope you’ll share it, too, in your group chats or on social media. You can also grab a print copy of the magazine (the Modern Love issue!) on newsstands (or wherever they sell paper-copies of things these days) this weekend.
As an asexual woman who is getting divorced for that reason, this piece is very, very important to me. I haven't even finished reading it yet, I'm just so glad it EXISTS and someone is asking the questions.
It’s a great piece.
It’s real easy to, after watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy for example, think you aren’t having “enough” sex, and to assume that there is such a thing as a “normal” or “healthy” amount of sex (and to feel like you are failing at it). I love that these conversations about asexuality and celibacy and consent and heteronormativity are happening.