Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution

by Nona Willis Aronowitz

Overview

Named a Most Anticipated Book by Bustle, Esquire, Nylon, and The Millions

“Intimate, thoughtful, and accessible to anyone struggling with the persistent, maddening inequities of contemporary sex.” –Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad

From Teen Vogue sex and love columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz, a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism that probes the meaning of desire and sexual freedom today.

At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz’s life, and in America, was in disarray. Her marriage was falling apart. Her nuclear family was slipping away. Her heart and libido were both in overdrive. Embroiled in an era of fear, reckoning, and reimagining, her assumptions of what “sexual liberation” meant were suddenly up for debate.
 
In the thick of personal and political turmoil, Nona turned to the words of history’s sexual revolutionaries—including her late mother, early radical pro-sex feminist Ellen Willis. At a time when sex has never been more accepted and feminism has never been more mainstream, Nona asked herself: What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy?

Nona’s attempt to find the answer places her search for authentic intimacy alongside her family history and other stories stretching back nearly two hundred years. Stories of ambivalent wives and unchill sluts, free lovers and radical lesbians, sensitive men and woke misogynists, women who risk everything for sex—who buy sex, reject sex, have bad sex and good sex. The result is a brave, bold, and vulnerable exploration of what sexual freedom can mean. Bad Sex is Nona’s own journey to sexual satisfaction and romantic happiness, which not only lays bare the triumphs and flaws of contemporary feminism but also shines a light on universal questions of desire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593182765
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/09/2022
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	120,318
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Nona Willis Aronowitz is the sex and love columnist for Teen Vogue. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Cut, Elle, Vice, The Washington Post, and Playboy, among many others. She is the coauthor of Girldrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism. She is also the editor of an award-winning anthology of her mother Ellen Willis’s rock criticism, called Out of the Vinyl Deeps, as well as a comprehensive collection of Willis's work, The Essential Ellen Willis, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

In the last few days of 2016, everything in my life and in America was in extreme disarray. I was thirty-two years old. My marriage was falling apart. My father was a year out from a massive stroke that had changed both our lives. My forays into fresh pleasures had left my heart and libido suffering from overexposure. The country was reeling after that infamous election. I was constantly sniffling—from crying, and also from the sinus infection that had rudely shown up on top of everything else. I felt at sea, and not in the placid way, in the thrash-around way. I looked at the up tissues piled on my coffee table and between the cushions of my couch, and I had a strong wish to put my former life back together again, even though some of this turmoil had been my own doing. In more hopeful moments, I’d feel the elation of dispensing with fear and inhibition. I’d be grateful for this intervention and the chance to rewrite my story. But during those few days, when self-doubt filled up the lonely void between Christmas and New Year’s, I wondered: Did I really blow up a relationship that lasted a quarter of my life, just because of bad sex?

What even is “bad sex”? It’s a cruel descriptor, both lazy and below the belt, an indictment of everyone involved. When people heard the title of this book, they assumed I would be discussing the nuts and bolts of the sexual act: stale technique and sexual dysfunction, low libido and the orgasm gap. To me, the mechanics of sex are important but limited. I’m far more concerned with the broader question of what cultural forces interfere with our pleasure, desire, and relationship satisfaction. And I’m particularly concerned with a dilemma recognizable to many women who fuck men: sex has never been more normalized, feminism has never been more popular, romantic relationships have never been more malleable—yet we still haven’t transcended the binds that make sex and love go bad.

We have not, for instance, succeeded in avoiding dudes who don’t notice we’re having a bad time, or notice but don’t seem to care, or pretend to care but actually don’t. We continue to deal with guys who cross our boundaries in some way, transforming bad sex (or even good sex) into something shitty and murky and scary. We still often end up indulging men’s fantasies rather than our own. We’re told that being vulnerable is the key to love and lust, and yet it’s easier said than done.

Even the most sexually confident among us sometimes hesitate to talk about all this, because we don’t want to hurt our partners’ feelings or seem demanding, because we want to appear as horny as we initially advertised ourselves to be, because the length of time it takes us to orgasm will spoil the mood, because we’re physically or emotionally afraid, because too much is at stake, because we’re simply not sure what we want. We still seem to face unpleasant consequences, both blatant and insidious, when we do talk about certain things that, even in the most progressive circles, are still treated like TMI.

Of course, sometimes bad sex, or a bad relationship, isn’t anybody’s fault. It may be caused by incompatibility, a dearth of attraction, an absence of chemistry. For some, this kind of neutral, blameless bad sex is a relatively small thing, certainly nothing to end a marriage over. For me, though, bad sex was the gateway that revealed all kinds of other truths. It was the thing that eventually exposed the desires I was ignoring in favor of society’s expectations, which led to a break in the hum of my life, which in turn forced the questions: What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy?

This book is about the necessity, but also the complexity and absurdity, of answering those questions. They’re questions I ask myself many times throughout this story, which mostly unfolds between fall of 2015 and the end of 2020. Even with very little distance from them, I think we can all agree that these years were a wild time to be alive in America, and an even wilder time for one’s life to take a sharp turn toward the unknown. This has been a time of fear and death, but also of reckoning and reimagining. It’s made me curious about other times in history that vibrated with the same transformative energy. About what I could learn from revolutionaries of the past who lived through moments when the norms of sexuality changed.

Which is why, during that low point in winter, I turned to my mother for advice. Not literally, because she had died a decade before, a few months after my twenty-second birthday. My mom, Ellen Willis, a writer and early radical pro-sex feminist, was deeply involved in both the sexual revolution and Second Wave feminism, movements that were at once in harmony and in conflict. Her specialty was documenting the collisions of the personal and political, particularly when it came to sex. So I thought her writing might contain. . . not answers, exactly, but empathy, or articulation, orsome sort of guidance. I chose a 1989 essay called “Coming Down Again: After the Age of Excess.”

“It was the best, the worst, the most enlightening, the most bewildering of times,” she wrote in the essay, about the dawn of the women’s movement. “Feminism intensified my utopian sexual imagination, made me desperate to get what I really wanted. . .even as it intensified my skepticism, chilling me with awareness of how deeply relations between the sexes were corrupted and, ultimately, calling into question the very nature of my images of desire.”

The source of my own self-doubt, I have since realized, was precisely the double-edged sword of radicalization that my mother describes. Reconciling personal desire with political conviction is, frankly, a tall order. It’s chaotic, maddening, grueling, confusing, and yet essential—an exquisite mess that propels this book’s zigzag pursuit of sexual liberation. Alongside my own intimate history and my family history are other stories stretching back nearly two hundred years: those of ambivalent wives and unchill sluts, freelovers and radical lesbians, sensitive men and woke misogynists, women who risk everything for sex, who buy sex, reject sex, have bad sex and good sex. These are stories of pleasure, peril, safety, freedom, and the muddy paths that connect them all.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Bad Sex 5

2 Status Bump 33

3 I Want This 61

4 The Vulnerability Paradox 83

5 The Vulnerability Gradient 115

6 An Old Male Revolt in a Hew Disguise 135

7 In It for the Dick 165

8 The Fallow Period 195

9 Fire Needs Air 211

10 The Real Experts 247

11 Good Sex 265

Acknowledgments 289

Bad Sex Essentials: A Selected Bibliography 291

Notes 297

Editorial Reviews

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About 'Bad Sex’ but Were Afraid to Ask. . . . [this history is] critical, and fascinating, as a framework to interpret society’s views on love and sex in the present.” 
—Jessica Bennett, New York Times

"When Nona Willis Aronowitz finally ends her marriage because of lackluster sex, she’s left with a question: Why, more than a half-century after the sexual revolution, are we still having bad sex, and what is standing in the way of our satisfaction? The daughter of prominent feminist Ellen Willis, Aronowitz is well situated for the messy work of understanding how cultural forces shape intimate desires. She deftly weaves her own story with her late mother’s writings. This spirited history paints feminism not as a fixed set of passed-down beliefs, but as an invitation to question the status quo.”
—NPR, “Books We Love”

"Cultural criticism, memoir, and social history collide in Aronowitz’s no-nonsense investigation of all that ails young lovers, like questions about desire, consent, and patriarchy. It’s a revealing read bound to expand your thinking."
—Esquire, The 20 Best Books of Summer 2022

“Within Bad Sex, Aronowitz introduces readers to fervent sluts and ambiguous wives, radical lesbians and liberationist lovers, all to discover how we reconcile ourselves and our desires in this time when both are under assault.”
—The Millions

“Part memoir, part history of pioneering feminist figures, Bad Sex is an attempt to make sense of feminism’s failure to, as the singer Self Esteem puts it, prioritize pleasure … Aronowitz is exceedingly well-read, and her book is stuffed with wisdom gleaned from her elders … These historical sections are unfailingly illuminating.”
—The Atlantic

“Part dishy sex diary, part feminist spark-notes, and part polemic for a sex-positive future, Bad Sex chronicles a series of Aronowitz’s sexual escapades after she ends her marriage ... Bad Sex is breezy and fast-paced … [Aronowitz’s] delight is an antidote to a nihilistically glum attitude that’s fashionable today. . . . Where else to start if not with the promise and potential of some better, freer, sexier future? It’s no ending, but perhaps a rigorous feminism can still begin where Aronowitz does: I want this.”
—Book Forum

"Part memoir, part history, and part cultural criticism, Willis-Aronowitz traces the lineage of sexual inequities from the nineteenth century to the present, pairing a historical deep-dive into misogyny, feminism, and consent, with the author’s own journey toward sexual and romantic liberation amid the backdrop of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy."
—Electric Lit, "Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2022"

“Bad Sex does what more sexuality books should do: prove that our politics can be horny as hell.”
—Hazlitt

"Everybody's always talking about sex, but Nona Willis Aronowitz is truly saying something about it in Bad Sex. More than the act, this book touches on our conflicting narratives around pleasure, fear, hope, honesty, and at times, family. Aronowitz invites the reader into a conversation we may want to shy away from, but does so with so much enthusiasm and curiosity of her own we can't help but follow down another rabbit hole or into another memory. All roads are littered with jewels in this gorgeous exploration of humanity and desire."
—Ashley C. Ford, author of New York Times bestseller Somebody's Daughter

“Bad Sex is Nona Willis Aronowitz's deft exploration of the triumphs and the unfinished work of both feminism and the sexual revolution. Deeply informed by intellectual and familial history, Bad Sex is intimate, thoughtful, and accessible to anyone struggling with the persistent, maddening inequities of contemporary sex. Willis Aronowitz looks to the groundbreaking work of her mother for insight, yet has written a book that will surely inspire and enlighten the next generation of politically and sexually aroused feminist thinkers.” 
—Rebecca Traister, author of New York Times bestseller Good and Mad

“Aronowitz’s chatty tone and corpuscular language explodes myths in ways that will help readers clearly recognize the lies they’ve been fed. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal (starred)

“…an exquisitely researched, joyfully conversational take on sexual oppression and sexual revolutions throughout history, as well as a deeply heartfelt memoir… This genuine and generousemotional offering is sure to make readers feel seen and heard, too.”
—Booklist (starred)

"Courageously frank."
—Kirkus

“An intelligent and disarmingly honest book about sex, love, marriage, radical feminism, the yearnings that echo across generations, and the true meaning of sexual liberation.”
—Amia Srinivasan, bestselling author of The Right to Sex

"As a writer, and editor and a chronicler of modern life, Nona Willis Aronowitz has charted a distinctive space for herself and her work. With her new book Bad Sex, she explored her own life and family history and delved into the past to create a comprehensive work about what sexual freedom can mean and the contradictions that complicate it."
—InsideHook

“A revealing personal and historical exploration of the disappointments, rewards, and ambivalence women experience when they explore sexual desires and relationships that challenge societal expectations about gender, race, class, and love. Well-researched, candid, and at times painfully perceptive.”
—Stephanie Coontz, author of A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s
 
“With Bad Sex, Nona re-centers sexual agency in feminist history—and in her own life. This is not only a brilliant and evocative personal memoir, it also examines the critical goal of sexual liberation since long before the feminist second wave.”
—Susie Bright
 
“Fascinating.”
—Erica Jong

From the Publisher

★ 06/01/2022

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

Library Journal

2022-05-11
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.

Kirkus Reviews