Screwed: How Women Are Set Up to Fail at Sex

When it comes to sex and desire, women are screwed.

In film, on the page, in fashion, and in everyday life, women’s desire is routinely shown as subordinate to men’s — when it isn’t suppressed altogether. Lili Boisvert argues that there is one dominant principle behind heterosexual encounters: that desire is a male phenomenon and women are merely its object. To change this alienating system, she contends, we must start by facing it head-on.

From clothing to flirting, from our fascination wit...