As 2023 comes to a close, I’m resharing this essay from the archives. It’s been a year since it was first published and, re-reading it, I realized that I feel less shame talking about my work these days. I think that is in part because so much of the writing I’ve been doing here has touched on shame from various angles, whether it’s cultural analysis or personal reflection, and there is some purging and processing that goes along with that.
Also, I’ve written about sex in mainstream women’s magazines and online media for something like 18 years, but this newsletter is different. I’ve found a sense of intimacy, exchange, and community with readers. There is less persona to hide behind. I guess what I’m saying is: Thank you.
Many years back, my college alumnae magazine interviewed me about my work as a sex writer. They wanted to know what drove me to report on sex and write so candidly about my own life. “My aim is to be shameless,” I said. Those words ended up in the magazine as a big block of text—right next to a photo of me wearing a high-neck shirt with a prim Peter Pan collar. My aim is to be shameless.
It is my aim. It has rarely been my result.
The result has been more akin to exposure therapy that doesn’t take: Over and over and over again, I have written about sex despite the shame.
It isn’t in this moment—fingers on the keyboard, blank page in front me—that I feel shame. In this moment, I’m free. It’s what comes after publishing. That was especially true in the wake of my book, a sexual coming-of-age memoir. Reviewers called it “provocative,” “racy,” “candid,” “wild,” and “bracingly honest.”
It was bracingly honest because I wrote it as though “it” would exist “over there.” Like my book would be on bookshelves but not at preschool dropoff or Thanksgiving dinner. How, exactly, could I tell a new circle of parent friends what my book was about in the midst of a Paw Patrol-themed birthday party? How could I look my own dad in the eyes after writing about masturbating to his porn as a teenager?
I did the former with flushed cheeks and a bit of stammering. One of the moms at the Paw Patrol-themed birthday party exclaimed, “Oh, cool,” then told me about her hobby writing dirty haikus. My dad proudly gave copies of my book to random people in his life—including his dog walker and paddleboard instructor. I had to wonder if everyone else was a lot cooler about this whole sex thing than I was.
I felt indecent introducing my work into our suburban parental existence—nevermind that said parenthood was most often brought into existence by sex. It happened more than once that a new parent friend at a playdate asked what my book was about, only for me to lose all access to words and look to Christopher pleadingly in hopes that he would answer for me.
After one such occasion, I told my therapist: “I was so incapable of forming a coherent sentence about what my book was about. I was fluttering and flailing. I felt adolescent, childish—like this pathetic, embarrassing little girl.” My therapist’s response was quick and precise: “It sounds like you’re describing shame.”
After publishing my book, people called me brave, a lot. I didn’t feel brave. In fact, when they said this, I heard: “You should be afraid.” I heard: “Aren’t you ashamed?”
Intellectually and politically, I was not ashamed. I was proud of my work and believed so intensely in the importance of writing about sex with seriousness and honesty. I knew just what it meant to say the unsayable—I was getting regular emails and DMs from young women who had told me how my book had changed their lives.
I had written toward shamelessness—a state that didn’t require any sense of bravery. I had convinced myself of this reality when it was just me and my laptop screen, and I could tap into it when I was playing the part of “sex writer” giving a podcast interview or stepping on a stage for a reading. The moment I tried to incorporate this identity into my “real” life, though, I disassembled; all of the parts didn’t fit.
“What’s the title of your book?” a new dad friend asked.
“Want Me,” I managed.
Then I made this face: 😬.
I told one of my chosen aunties, who happens to be a therapist, about my little-girl shame opposite these declarations of bravery. She smiled. “Bravery doesn’t mean that you don’t feel afraid,” she said. “It means that you do it anyway.”
I get called brave a lot. Sometimes I don’t know whether to squirm or feel good about it. I usually choose to wear it as a badge but there is often that question in my mind as to how much of a compliment it actually is. I like to think it is a good thing.
“Bravery doesn’t mean that you don’t feel afraid,” she said. “It means that you do it anyway.”
Great sentiment. And so true. I am glad you are able to dig so deep and show what you find.