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A review by samarakroeger
Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution by Nona Willis Aronowitz
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
I'm not sure why I kept reading this even when I really could not stand the ways Nona talked about sex and relationships. I think the title is incredibly misleading, if eye-catching. It was trying to be too many things, without fully committing to any of them (kind of like her extramarital activities ...). I would have been more interested in a discussion of radical feminism in the last 50 years and its relationship to the patriarchy. I really would have preferred less gratuitous content about her own sex life (has she considered therapy for sex and relationship addition?).
Anyways, with the audiobook playing at 3x speed, I somehow didn't stop listening despite actively disagreeing and disliking the approach she took, so there must be something to this. She does a good job at citing and quoting other feminist writers and thinkers. I know I typically want my nonfiction to feature the author a bit more, but in this case I wanted less of Nona's personal life stuffed in. This was half memoir, half feminist thought piece, and I badly wanted it to commit more to one or the other.
Anyways, with the audiobook playing at 3x speed, I somehow didn't stop listening despite actively disagreeing and disliking the approach she took, so there must be something to this. She does a good job at citing and quoting other feminist writers and thinkers. I know I typically want my nonfiction to feature the author a bit more, but in this case I wanted less of Nona's personal life stuffed in. This was half memoir, half feminist thought piece, and I badly wanted it to commit more to one or the other.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Abortion