Sex columnist Maria Yagoda’s LAID AND CONFUSED is a blend of personal narrative, research, and cultural analysis exploring why the most sex-positive generation in history is still having mediocre-to-actively-bad sex, and how the so-called « sex recession » can make space for us to discover what we truly want and what actually satisfies us.
LAID AND CONFUSED:
Why We Still Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop
by Maria Yagoda
St. Martin’s Press, May 2023
(via Dystel Goderich & Bourret)
Far more alarming than the “sex recession,” the phenomenon of young people having less sex than generations before them, is that we are in the middle of a bad sex epidemic that all generations are suffering from, and no one is talking about it. In the age of swiping apps and sliding into DMs, there’s still so much bad sex. Even for Maria Yagoda, a professional sex writer who gives well-researched advice on maximizing pleasure, communicating with partners, and feeling sexually confident, most sex lands somewhere between passable and “huh.” In LAID AND CONFUSED: Why We Still Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop, Yagoda proposes that the way out of this pickle is to embrace less sex, because less sex leads to better sex. Saying no to unsatisfying sex allows us to say yes to ourselves, to make space to discover what we truly want and what actually satisfies us. And therein lies the magic. With the blend of wit, vulnerability, and expertise that has built her an avid following, Yagoda sketches a better path forward, offering research-based insights to empower readers to say yes to less sex, reconnect with themselves, and, ultimately, craft the deeply pleasurable sex lives they deserve.
Maria Yagoda is a reporter, editor, and essayist specializing in food, sex, and culture. Her popular Vice sex column, Sex Machina, explored the intersection of sex and technology and was translated into French, Italian, Greek, and Spanish. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, People, Glamour, Time, Vice, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Hairpin, BuzzFeed, and more. She lives in Brooklyn with her chihuahua Bucatina.
In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, ACT UP, NY took on the AIDS crisis with an infatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington DC and started Needle Exchange in New York; they took over Grand Central terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled—and beat—the New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. AIDS Activism in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of People With AIDS and the bigoted society that abandoned them.
Em Morales’s older sister was raped by another student after a frat party. A jury eventually found the rapist guilty on all counts—a remarkable verdict that Em felt more than a little responsible for, since she was her sister’s strongest advocate on social media during the trial. Her passion and outspokenness helped dissuade the DA from settling for a plea deal. Em’s family would have real justice. But the victory is short-lived. In a matter of minutes, justice vanishes as the judge turns the Morales family’s world upside down again by sentencing the rapist to no prison time. While her family is stunned, Em is literally sick with rage and guilt. To make matters worse, a news clip of her saying that the sentence makes her want to learn « how to use a sword » goes viral. From this low point, Em must find a new reason to go on and help her family heal, and she finds it in the unlikely form of the story of a fifteenth-century French noblewoman, Marguerite de Bressieux, who is legendary as an avenging knight for rape victims. WE ARE THE ASHES, WE ARE THE FIRE is a searing and nuanced portrait of a young woman torn between a persistent desire for revenge and a burning need for hope
Everything happens for a reason.