DESPERATE WOMEN

On sex scenes, Rom-coms, and the shame of wanting too much

I’ve been vacillating between whether it’s better to write the truth as fiction or write fiction into my truth.

Maybe it’s all the same thing.

But there are moments in our lives that are too fragile to be put into words at all, and I wish I could stop myself from trying. I don’t often write fiction. I mean, sometimes I guess, but usually my real life feels more batshit than anything I can conjure up in my head.

The scene below isn’t real. Or at least not in the way people mean when they ask that. It didn’t happen to me. It was something I wrote years ago and cut from City of Likes after being told, in so many words, that in women’s fiction you’re either smut or you’re literary.

At the time, I guess I didn’t want to seem lowbrow. I wanted to be taken seriously, which is hilarious, because nothing has made me feel less serious than trying to be taken seriously by people who think female desire should look and feel like a rom-com.

I fucking hate rom-coms. I always have. Since I could walk. And even more so after I could talk.

Frankly, I’d rather watch a six-hour documentary on the Holocaust than watch a woman trip over herself trying to land a boyfriend. Like, how is there an entire genre of films dedicated to making women feel as though the most important thing on earth is being validated and rescued by a man?

Disgusting.

I’d rather fuck Oskar Schindler. On top of his list.

But I digress.

This isn’t to say that I hate romance. I don’t. I just don’t like cute.

I loved the show Fleabag. LOVED LOVE LOVED! And the scene in the confession booth with the priest was one of the most well-earned sex scenes ever written. Up until the last possible moment, it was unclear whether or not the writer was going to let us have it. As viewers, we practically had to beg.

That’s what made it hot. Not the priest thing. Although, obviously, the priest thing. But also, the quiet violence of wanting something you know you can’t have. The restraint up until the bitter fucking end.

That scene understood something most romantic comedies don’t, which is that desire isn’t a hotel room full of rose petals or a candlelit dinner hosted by Chris Harrison. It can’t just be decorative. It needs to be filled with psychological tension.

I don’t think there is anything that triggers me more on this planet than a woman begging to be chosen.

I’m sure this has everything to do with my mother, who was never able to choose me. But it’s made me resent longing in general. For most of my life, longing was never romantic. Instead, it was pining for a mother, who was constantly slipping through my fingertips and into the arms of some unknown man with a terrible tattoo and a wrist full of friendship bracelets. Longing triggers my abandonment.

So no, I don’t hate romance. I hate the idea that romance is supposed to cost a woman her soul.

I don’t believe a woman should EVER have to beg to be chosen. Like, please fucking put a pillow over my face and take me out of this world if I ever start talking this kind of nonsense.

What I find hot is recognition. That moment when another person sees you clearly enough to understand the danger of touching you, and then touches you anyway.

It actually has so little to do with the actual sex. The heat is always in the buildup.

Here is the scene: