Future Sex

by Emily Witt

A funny, fresh, and moving antidote to conventional attitudes about sex and the single woman

Emily Witt is single and in her thirties. Up until a few years ago, she still envisioned her sexual experience "eventually reaching a terminus, like a monorail gliding to a stop at Epcot Center." Like many people, she imagined herself disembarking, finding herself face-to-face with another human being, "and there we would remain in our permanent station in life: the future."

But, as many of us have found, things are more complicated than that. Love is rare and frequently unreciprocated. Sexual experience doesn't necessarily lead to a future of traditional monogamy--and why should it? Have we given up too quickly on the alternatives?

In Future Sex, Witt explores Internet dating, Internet pornography, polyamory, and avant-garde sexual subcultures as sites of possibility. She observes these scenes from within, capturing them in all their strangeness, ridiculousness, and beauty. The result is an open-minded, honest account of the contemporary pursuit of connection and pleasure.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Memoir, Sexuality, Essays, Womens, Relationships

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2015

About the author

Emily Witt is a writer in New York City. She has written for n+1, The New York Times, New York Magazine, GQ, the London Review of Books, and many other places. She has degrees from Brown, Columbia, and Cambridge, and was a Fulbright scholar in Mozambique. Her first book, Future Sex, about the intersection of sex and technology, was published in 2016 by Faber & Faber.

Reviews

[Morgan Schulman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've never read a book that made sex seem so depressing.

I had been hoping that this book would provide an inward glance into the sexual psychology of 30 something women in 2016. Instead, it is a decidedly unpsychological chronicle of various forms of gonzo sex. There is an entire chapter devoted to sex at Burning Man. How you feel about that last sentence is how you will feel about this book.

[Brianna]

I disliked this book but not because I found the writing bad. I don't think there is a demographic group whose sexual practices I care less about than extremely affluent heterosexual Californians who spend $500 on orgasmic meditation retreats, throw sex parties in rented lofts, and have orgies at Burning Man. The focus in this book is so extremely narrow in terms of the type of people and the type of sex it discusses. Emily Witt does not necessarily owe her audience a more wide ranging discussion or a focus on a more interesting group of people. It's extremely easy to be derisive of the type of people that the author profiles (I feel a lot of derision towards them!), but she doesn't really make any moves to humanize them or uncover anything deeper than the type of sex they are having and the mechanics of it. The dismissive part of me thinks this is because there probably isn't anything deeper. There's nothing wrong with polyamory or casual sex. But there's nothing interesting about it either. I think that's the crux of the problem. But that's me and not the book perhaps. Or maybe it's both. I think the best chapter was the one about Webcam models, I actually found that quite moving and interesting, but it was also one of the only chapters that moved outside of the books central focus on rich San Franciscans. Ultimately I'm just way too apathetic about the books subject to enjoy it much.

[☆LaurA☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

FUTURE SEX

Non so esattamente come parlarne di questo libro.
Provo a farlo seguendo i vari capitoli....pronti per il poema? Ahahaha

ASPETTATIVE:
-"I miei amici credevano con zelo quasi religioso che un giorno sarebbe arrivato anche per me, come se l’amore fosse qualcosa che l’universo ci deve per forza, al quale nessun essere umano può sottrarsi."

Quando sembra che tutto sia già scritto:nasci, cresci,ti innamori, ti sposi, fai figli e vissero tutti felici e contenti....ma daiiiii quante volte succede tutto questo in ordine così lineare? A volte prima ti sposi e poi ti innamori e il problema é che non è tuo marito quello di cui ti innamori....

INCONTRI SU INTERNET:
-"Se gli incontri su internet mi facevano sentire come se avessi la situazione in pugno e stessi raddrizzando la mia vita, andare a letto con persone che non desideravo davvero mi ricordava solo la futilità di far nascere una storia a tavolino"
-"Gli incontri su internet si erano evoluti fino a offrirci il mondo che avevamo attorno, le persone nelle immediate vicinanze, per soddisfare i desideri di un specifico istante. Ma non erano mai capaci di fornire un orientamento su cosa fare con una tale disponibilità di scelte. Mentre le persone sole potevano nutrire uno scopo recondito, dal desiderio di un breve rapporto sessuale all’anelito per il vero amore, la tecnologia in sé non prometteva nulla. Poteva portare le persone da noi, ma non diceva niente su cosa dovevamo farci."

Al giorno d'oggi è praticamente la normalità usare app per conoscere gente, fare sesso online, innamorarsi di qualcuno e alla fine chiudere la storia senza mai essersi incontrati!
La cosa "sconvolgente" è che non riguarda solo i Centennials, Digitarians, Gen Z, iGen, Plurals, Post-Millennials, Zoomers (insomma quelli nati dal 2000 in poi) ,ma ricopre generazioni che il cellulare hanno imparato ad usarlo dopo gli enta.....un sacco di manaici repressi che hanno scambiato Tinder per l'ospizio.

MEDITAZIONE ORGASMICA:
-"La meditazione orgasmica rappresentava uno spazio neutrale in cui era possibile concentrarsi sul proprio corpo senza l’interferenza di una storia romantica o del condizionamento comportamentale"
-"Un orgasmo può essere superficiale. Può essere una forma di servizio come le altre, concessa a una persona per darle un senso di soddisfazione. Potevo avere un orgasmo anche durante un rapporto sessuale che non mi piaceva."

Parlare di sesso è stato ed è ancora oggi un tabù...la gente si vergogna e se si lascia andare lo fa solo dopo uno,due, tre, quattro bicchieri di vino. Invece se imparassimo a parlare di cosa ci piace con il/la nostr* partner sarebbe tutto più semplice. Qui si parla di raggiungere un orgasmo come se stessimo facendo un massaggio qualsiasi.
Ragazze....invece che fare massaggi linfodrenanti questi mi sa che ci darebbero più soddisfazioni....

IL PORNO SU INTERNET:
-"Le persone a cui piaceva il porno descrivevano il desiderio di guardarlo come qualcosa di simile ad avere voglia di guardare video divertenti con i gatti che entrano nelle scatole mentre stai compilando la dichiarazione dei redditi. In alternativa, era come andare in un caffè da soli e mangiare un pezzo di torta a metà pomeriggio"

Questo è uno dei capitoli migliori...esplora delle realtà sessuali che pochi di noi ammettrebbero di praticare o anche solo aver pensato di praticare...conoscete il BDSM?
Io ho visto dei "documentari"? Si possono definire così? Vabbè, fatto sta che fino a quel momento non me conoscevo l'esistenza, ma avrei voluto essere una di quelle ragazze 🙈

POLIAMORE:
-"La coppia monogama, un’istituzione che lei aveva sempre considerato l’unico sbocco previsto, all’improvviso assunse le sembianze di una scelta deliberata"

La società ci impone di amare una persona per volta e se possibile del sesso opposto al nostro. E se io amassi due persone nello stesso momento? Perché non posso stare con entrambi e quindi rinunciare ad una persona per me importante? Logicamente devono essere tutti a conoscenza l'uno dell'altro se no è tradimento.

BURNING MAN:
Questo capitolo era dedicato a questa "festa" sesso droga e tecno
Un rave qualsiasi

CONTRACCETTIVI E RIPRODUZIONE:
Questo capitolo affronta il tema del quanto siano obsoleti i contraccettivi di oggi e quanto poco la scienza si sia occupata di questa cosa.

Con questo ho finito il pippone e se mi state chiedendo se dovete leggere questo libro vi dico......dipende da quanto già ne sapete di queste cose....a me non ha cambiato la vita, ma mi ha dato alcuni spunti per nuovi approfondimenti.

[jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, finally; this is the kind of book on sex and sexuality that has been made for raunchy millennials like me. Time to leave The Ethical Slut behind and create a new wave of writing that honors the despondency, eroticism, and incessant need to push the limits of natural (quote-unquote) and ascribed (quote-unquote) boundaries that the younger generations are akin to have in their approach to the superfluous/conflated/exciting/instantly gratifying/messy serpent that is sexuality.

Witt doesn't have a perfect voice for this topic, but luckily she doesn't have to. Her flatness was compensated by the way she permitted herself to be uncomfortable, fractionally detached, emotionally distant, and altogether vulnerable when she began the task of exploring alternative sexualities and sub-cultures. I like how she arrived at the end and, after all of her relentless research and participation, she concluded that none of the things she investigated were things she herself was attracted to, turned on by, or willfully in pursuit of. Nothing was magnetizing, but everything was interesting. In this capacity I liked how she was honest, open, skeptical, yet withholding of judgment. Sexual fluidity and subversion deserve writing like this- just a tad more vitality would be nice.

[chantel nouseforaname · Rating 2 out of 5]

Luckily Emily Witt finished on a better note than she began, but it still wasn't a very good note.

This book was an interesting thought, however her execution was not the greatest. I had to put it down numerous times and return to it when I was bored enough to attempt to finish it.

Future Sex is a critically uncritical look at millennial-evolved sexuality. It suffers from being one-sided and that side is white and rich, which makes this book not really worth the read. I found it myopic, and navel-gazing.

The good - the author takes a lot of risks to find out where she stands on certain subjects, and where other small groups stand on certain subjects: kink, bdsm, monogamy, polyamory, group-sex, sex work, internet dating, birth control and more.

The bad - because she centres herself and her experiences so much, you can never really tell where the wave is going or feel like you've read a consensus on anything. She waits until too late in the book to discuss the ways that the changing environment, poverty, employment, consumerism, technological advancements, dissatisfaction with life, etc impacts and will impact future sex & sexuality for larger groups of people. She focuses on California in particular for most of the book, and doesn't have any citations or notes to share. Lastly, her first four chapters are simultaneously dull and oddly interesting due to her struggle at experimentation. You start to feel compelled to stick with it just to see what happens.

The third last chapter on Burning Man felt vapid, but did give me a few things to research to confirm my assertions. I know someone who attended Burning Man and they gave me a rundown of events that felt like Emily Witt's quote from the chapter:

"The $400 ticket price was as much about the right to leave what happened at Burning Man behind as it was to enter in the first place."

Not terribly insightful, but you can definitely catch the rich wannabe-edgy/counterculture vibes off this statement.

There was also a lot of whining in this book, which I felt could have been circumvented if she opened up the viewpoints and included external essays from other sources re: diverse experiences, rather than her recounted experiences and secondhand observations. Too many personal standpoints, next time just write a memoir sis.

[Anete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesants pārspriedums par mūsdienu cilvēku, vairāk tieši sievietes, seksualitāti, sociālo dzīvi, izmaiņām attiecību dinamikā. Šeit var apskatīt īsu video, kur autore runā par savu grāmatu.
Pēdējo 100 gadu laikā feminisma kustības ietekmē un citu faktoru dēļ ļoti ir izmainījušās dzimumu lomas, tam seko arī izmaiņas pāru attiecībās, laulība, kā institūcija zaudē savu nozīmīgo lomu Rietumu sabiedrībā, bet šīm pārmaiņām lēni kustās līdzi valstu likumi, medicīna kontracepcijas un auglības ārstēšanas jomā.
Šīs pārmaiņas un konkrētibas zaudēšana radījusi daudzus cilvēkus, kam ir grūtības atrast savu vietu dzīvē, attiecības, kurās jūtas patiesi laimīgi. Vientulība, pretrunīgas gaidas un cerības, ko liekam uz sevi, ģimeni, bērniem. Dzimumu lomas attiecībās, spēja atrast savu identitāti, izteikt patiesas emocijas tik mainīgajā un prasīgajā pasaulē, kas no vienas puses ir tik pilna ar jaunām iespējām, bet tomēr grib ielikt iepriekšējās paaudzēs izstrādātos attiecību rāmjos, tikai izmainot personvietniekvārdus, dalībnieku skaitu u.c. mainīgos lielumus.
Autore ir ne tikai dalījusies ar savu personīgo pieredzi, bet arī vākusi citu cilvēku viedokli un pieredzi par eksperimentiem ar narkotiskajām vielām, seksu, meditāciju ar seksuālo baudu, porno industriju, porno vebkameru biznesu, poligāmām attiecībām un daudz ko citu.
Ļoti daudz vielas pārdomām par savu dzīvi, laimi un sabiedrības morāles izmaiņām. Iesaku. Pozitīvs pārsteigums.
(Brīdinājums – satur daudz seksuāla rakstura aprakstus, bet no “cyber sex in future” ne vēsts).

[Matteo Fumagalli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Videorecensione
https://youtu.be/7KWfsb8kD4U

[Jeremy Bagai · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a much better book than I had any expectation of, even after reading positive reviews. Sure, I came for the sex and porn. (Just look at my feed.) But what no one seemed to mention was the richness of observation, the depth of analysis, and the understated wry prose.

Disclosure -- I have lived in the Bay Area, on and off, for over fifteen years. Few of the scenes and activities described were unknown to me. Yet they were all unknown to me once. This book captures perfectly the states of curiosity, unease, and excitement that come about when your world expands and you are forced to think about behaviors and relationships in new ways.

More disclosure -- I wrote and starred in a short movie about negotiating relationships and family, shot at Burning Man 2013. The same year, same Burn described in this book, where the author negotiates relationships and thinks about family. So sure, I had reason to be interested. But I also had great potential to be disappointed by cliche and sensationalism. Instead, I'm delighted.

[Brian Bushaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested in reading this book after hearing a couple of interviews with the author. The topics sounded interesting if not scintillating. The book itself, however, is another story.

This is not about the future of our societal mores or even the millennial's view of sex in culture, but rather a sometimes dull look at alternative lifestyles of the young and rich. This is a book about privilege; twenty-to-thirty-something's who can afford thousand dollar meditative orgasm classes, lofts in the Mission, and the expense of attending Burning Man.

Truly disappointing.

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Debería llamarse «Present sex» porque no cuenta nada que sea particularmente novedoso. Le sobran capítulos (el que habla sobre la historia de las apps de citas, el del OM...) y si bien tiene algunos interesantes (como el que trata sobre las relaciones abiertas) es una lástima que no haya podido sacarles más partido. La mayoría de las cosas las cuenta de oídas porque la propia autora ha experimentado en primera persona muy poco de lo que narra. Me esperaba bastante más.

[Jaclyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Future Sex is bleak and depressing. Is this memoir? Essays? It felt like it was trying to be a few different things and none of them resonated with me. The chapters/essays on orgasmic meditation and live webcams were pretty interesting though but overall I feel blasé about this book.

[Giulia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Scritto bene ma deludente in generale. Non è un saggio tecnico sulla sessualità ma un resoconto delle esperienze New Age dell'autrice, per poi concludere dicendo che:
- Tinder e simili fanno schifo
- I po*no interattivi sono una figata
- La non monogamia etica è la soluzione a tutti i mali del mondo (il capitolo si concentra nel raccontare la vita di una coppietta molto cute che vive d'aria e funghetti allucinogeni, di cui la protagonista probabilmente si è invaghita perché altrimenti non capisco perché parlare di una "corrente" portando un esempio invece che riportando dati e statistiche)
- Gli acidi ai festival sono una costante anche nel 2022 e se non li prendi godi solo la metà (in tutti i sensi)
- 0nlyfans e simili sono il futuro (e il senso di alienazione non è per niente un problema, per non parlare dell'oggettificazione dei corpi!)
- La vita sessuale dell'autrice nonostante tutto è comunque triste come quella di tutti noi.
Non mi sono trovata in sintonia con praticamente nulla di quello di cui ha parlato l'autrice, e mi è spesso sembrato un rant di una finta femminista bianca privilegiata che non è soddisfatta della sua vita. Ha parlato di molte cose di base interessanti, ma non sono state approfondite se non in modo molto superficiale e sempre dal punto di vista soggettivo di Witt. Il capitolo che più mi ha fatto arrabbiare è stato "Burning man" perché non c'entrava assolutamente nulla con tutto il resto, era solo il racconto della sua esperienza all'omonimo festival dove si è strafatta di acidi e ci ha provato con un sacco di ragazzi.
Chiaramente, la domanda che il lettore si pone alla fine è "e quindi? Il punto qual è?" .

Chiedo scusa per la recensione poco tecnica.

[Bookforum Magazine]

"In Witt's book, sexual problems often turn out to be narrative ones. Sexual freedom–a little sad, a little empty, a lot of pressure–announced itself in a form not unlike writer's block, 'a blinking cursor in empty space.' Despite her title, Witt's real subject is not the future of sex. her concern is an existential one: How should we live, and what stories can we tell ourselves about the lives we choose?

The great time that isn't quite being had is one of the book's central mysteries. Witt catalogues the outlandish activities she could pursue and observes how few she actually considers. Whatever free-for-all new website and apps might in theory facilitate, most people's experience will continue to be defined by loneliness and inhibition.

...That's one credible answer to why more Americans aren't having the sexual adventures they might like. Perhaps it's already a lot to ask that so many women must convince themselves they're riotously turned on by the same guy they want to have a beer with–or the one most able to help support their kids. It's only practical to try to fetishize what seems to be your most manageable choice (though there's something sick about requiring people to aspire to a state that's designed to be settled for). Why waste energy figuring out what wild, inexpressible thing you might really want, when you know you're unlikely ever to get it?"

-Lidija Haas on Emily Witt's Future Sex in the Fall 2016 issue of Bookforum

To read the rest of this review, go to Bookforum:
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/023_...

[Sunil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Miss Witt
unwittingly pits
her normie likes
'gainst cooler types
—sike.

No more Californian sex-mystics and new-money technocracy.

[noor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Future Sex contains some great insights that you really have to dig for, like picking out mini Twix baked into a stale fruit cake.

The book reads easily but is difficult to read. She reminds the reader often of her curmudgeonly personality, judging and stereotyping people, places, and things. She presents herself as supercilious and ignorant, delighting in being the grump in the corner different from "the rest of them." I felt embarrassed for her at times, and not in the empathetic way that a writer like David Sedaris evokes. She uses hyperbole to the point of being blatantly wrong, or just making for bad writing. I like how she organizes her chapters and how they build off one another. But within chapters the writing is unfocused. There are also several typos, which devalue the book even more.

Maybe this is just a reaction to her subject material. Or maybe it's because I'm from the Bay Area and have grown up with alternative lifestyles normalized. I appreciate how she puts herself out there into situations that would make many people uncomfortable. And despite her attitude, many ideas she describe promote honesty, awareness, open-mindedness as takeaways to better anyone's personal life. I also like how she pulls from history and philosophy, taking care to present many sides of a topic.

[al · Rating 5 out of 5]

emily's perspective is what the literature needs right now: a woman raised with tradition in mind, who is sexually reserved but experientially open minded, who ultimately wants to know how sex is being conceptualized today and whether our generation's "free love" bear any similarities with the 1960s. in some ways it is and in some it isn't. she does a brilliant job elucidating this and, though the title, front cover, and chapter titles are often salacious, her dry wit and objective reports make this a book you can take seriously, with a voice reminiscent of joan didion. a lot of it concerns the emotional side of these new sexual practices, which i think all women wonder about from time to time (as in the contexts of porn, polyamory, online dating, etc), and these experiences become normalized through her storytelling. she is honest. she may be slightly bitter. she tells us when she does not like the people she is interviewing. she attempts to go out of her boundaries but not to the extent that she fully sacrifices her own comfort. i enjoyed her voice, the subject matter, the profound and nuanced arguments, and the total reality of it. in her own words: "sexuality had very little to do with the sex you actually had... it was the ideation and expression of intent that differentiated sexualities."

[Chelsea Tremblay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fascinating. Not going to lie, I had to take the jacket off in my sleepy island town so I could read it in public. I don't know what I expected, but what I got was a lyrical, sharply introspective take on different aspects of 21st century sexuality. Mostly heterosexual, though definitely gender-bending and sexually fluid, and somehow the perspective I read didn't seem either rose-tinted or demonizing which is something that's easy to do with a topic like this. I'm an outsider looking in on most of these subjects though. It would be interesting to talk about it with members of the communities she focuses on to see how they felt about their representation.

There was beautiful writing about subjects that might make some people uncomfortable. Which is my favorite kind of book.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Holy cow, what an excruciating read...and at the end, I don't know anything that I didn't know before. (She doesn't bother to source her information, which is either a journalistic oversight or a sign that she didn't do any actual research). There's nothing new here.

Here's what would be truly interesting: An appendix containing Ms. Witt's expense reports. She does go to some truly strange places, but reports with a jaded tone that makes all of them sound uniformly tiresome.

If you're interested in a 'personal journey' book (a la the execrable "Eat, Pray, Love"), this book might interest you. If not, I'd recommend Mary Roach's "Bonk" for information, insight, and humor on the same topic.

[Francesca · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

Viaggio e riflessioni interessanti su come la società oggi vede e vive la sessualità, tra nuove tecnologie, vecchi tabu, ecc.
I capitoli 1, 8 e 9 sono quelli che ho preferito, in particolare ho trovato lucide e veritiere le conclusioni dell'autrice, benché possano sembrare un po' "deprimenti" (di base è il nuovo contesto sociale, che scivola tra i due opposti di eccesso o bigottismo senza mettere al centro la/le persona che è triste, e non solo in tema di sesso, anzi).
Le altre parti per me sono state un po' così-così, per me almeno, forse perché avulse dalla mia realtà.

A volte ci vorrebbero più libri che senza il rovinoso "politically correct" mostrassero le cose come sono.

[Diletta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A parte gli ultimi capitoli troppo piacioni (sopratutto quello del Burning Man) e l'universo lbgt appena sfiorato il libro della Witt è qualcosa di sicuramente molto interessante. Il suo approccio narrativo (in equilibrio perfetto tra l'autobiografico e la statistica) e l'interesse verso l'evoluzione del linguaggio sessuale rendono Future Sex qualcosa di certamente non grandioso o illuminante, ma di sicuro preciso e puntuale (e appunto, i primi capitoli perfetti).

[William Koon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have seen the future...and this is pretty bleak. Much of the book is pasted together from articles previously published. I have never read a less interesting book about sex. Very. Disjointed.

[Irene Jurna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Toen mijn niet-relatie voor de zoveelste keer uitging, begon ik me opnieuw af te vragen: ‘Wat voor seks en relaties wil ik?’ Ik herkende me in de dertigjarige schrijfster Emily Witt:

‘’I was single, straight, and female. (…) For now I was a person in the world, a person who had sexual relationships that I could not describe in language and that failed my moral ideals.’’

Ik had gehoopt te lezen over Witt’s persoonlijke zoektocht, maar Future Sex bleek meer een journalistiek verhaal. Jammer, want daarmee verloor het voor mij diepgang en werd het een makkelijk leesbare verzameling essays over porno, anticonceptie en polyamorie.

Een prima instap-boek voor wie de term ‘sex positivity’ nieuw is.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I had not chosen to be single but love is rare and it is frequently unreciprocated. Without love I saw no reason to form a permanent attachment to any particular place. Love determined how humans arrayed themselves in space.”

Technology changes everything. It changes how we meet people and it changes how we interact with others. There’s more sexual fluidity and experimental sex than in the past because of both changing ideologies as well as the ability to remain anonymous online if one chooses to indulge in one’s fantasies. Whatever you fancy you’re likely to find it. However, society still expects people to couple up to have families. Author Emily Witt writes: “If every expression of free sexuality by a woman would be second-guessed, it left men as the sole rational agents of sexual narrative. The woman was rarely granted the heroic role of seducer. If a woman pursued a strictly sexual experience, she was seen as succumbing to the wishes of the sovereign subject.” We live in a rampant rape culture. Women also get slut-shamed for wanting and pursuing sex. Can someone subsist outside of a monogamous relationship? Does everyone need to be part of a couple? This book strongly suggests that it’s not essential although how far outside the cultural norms must one go to be happy? Witt explains: “I supposed that since then I had been nonmonogamous in the sense of sometimes having sex with several different people within a specific period of time. As I said this both the idea of counting people and the idea of grouping them within a time frame seemed arbitrary. This was just my life: I lived it and sometimes had sex with people. Sometimes I wanted to commit to people, or they to me, but in the past two years no such interests had fallen into alignment.” Future Sex reads as a fascinating sociological study on sexuality that delves into orgasmic mediation, internet porn, webcams, Burning Man and polyamory. Witt combines personal experience with research and reporting in a darkly amusing, honest and real manner. Witt investigates sites I’d barely heard of: Chaturbate; Porn Hub; Kink.com; Fetlife. She attends an orgasmic mediation workshop [looked up on YouTube and there are tutorials] and travels to Burning Man. She interviews tons of people such as polyamorous Google employees, the founder of OKCupid, a 19-year-old webcammer as well as a woman who creates female-centered porn. Witt doesn’t make a spectacle of what may be absurd. Instead she writes analytically, astutely with brevity and a sharp edge.

--review by Amy Steele

published here: https://entertainmentrealm.com/2016/1...

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

not as good as health and safety. remarkable how dated a lot of this commentary now feels. sorry to emily witt but now reading both of her books i’m like here’s someone with an incredible capacity for prose who otherwise adopts the personality and interests of men she is sleeping with

[Mel Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously I feel flat and depressed after reading any zeitgeist book about love, sex or relationships. I didn't want to read it at all but we are discussing it on The Rereaders, and I wanted to get it out of the way before Valentine's Day: another cultural artefact that reminds me of my complete failure as a sexual being.

Some of the chapters here have the lively observational feel of long-form journalism – for me the chapter on porn was the most cohesive and successful, though I also liked the chapter on Witt's foray into a weird 'orgasmic meditation' cult. Others felt more memoiry, which made me dislike them although I identified with Witt in some ways, and she has a knack for writing precisely and with immediacy, which gives her prose an exhilarating, ride-like feel (especially in the chapter about Burning Man).

Some chapters felt perfunctory, especially the chapter on birth control. And the polyamory chapter focused on one group of people, becoming more about their story than about the breadth of polyamorous relationships. They sounded like dickheads TBH.

San Francisco recurs in what Witt identifies as a synecdochical way: as a palimpsest of different ideals of sexual freedom, from weirdo hippie idealism to the technologised individualism of today. A recurring theme is how technology allows people to find sex partners, discover the kinds of sex they like and manage their sex lives – including performing sex acts for a living.

I obviously am unable to treat sex with any future-focused optimism but the technology side of it is interesting.

[Esther · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this was gonna be much cooler but instead it talked abt orgasmic meditation?!? Some chapters were more interesting but it overall a very cis/het/white interpretation of modern sexual culture? The author was speaking to her own experiences as a str8 white lady but come on! This book felt like it was being edgy and cool (and I did like the bit abt a chlamydia exposure- let’s destigmatize STIs pls and thank you) but a whole chapter abt having sex at burning man????? Sooooo much cooler stuff out there dammmmmm where was all the GAY sex, kinky sex, sex between not str8 white ppl?

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

“No wonder people hate Burning Man, I thought, when I pictured it as a cynic might: rich people on vacation breaking rules that everyone else would suffer for it they didn’t obey. The hypocrisy of the “creative autonomous zone” weighed on me. Many of these people would go back to their lives and back to work on the great farces of our age. They wouldn’t argue for the decriminalization of the drugs they had used; they wouldn’t want anyone to know about their time in the orgy dome. That they had cheered at the funeral pyre of a Facebook “like” wouldn’t play well on Tuesday in the cafeteria at Facebook.”

This throws up all sorts of provocative and controversial questions around sex and relationships. This is a depressing, funny, enlightening and entertaining journey, though possibly more than anything else, this is messy and exhausting. It all just seems like so much effort for such fleeting or shallow rewards, and probably more than anything else makes me relieved that I’m not single and having to battle through this soul destroying landscape.

When you think about it seems a tad hypocritical and let’s face it, totally ridiculous to hear Christians or indeed any other misguided religious zealots cite porn as damaging to woman’s rights or status in society, especially for millennia no force or establishment has done more to restrict, shame, punish and torture women than Christianity or many of its affiliates, offshoots or close brands.

More often than not, it seems that in a bid to try and simply their lives and relationships through variations of “responsible hedonism” many in here are in fact complicating them in the long-term. This also reminds you that often those who proclaim answers the loudest are actually more lost than anyone.

The polyamory chapter was particularly interesting and I could obviously understand and relate to their plight up to a point, but then it just got to a stage where I felt it started to embody all of the ugliest and most bloated traits of America and to a lesser extent the western world – listening to rich, entitled brats, who are never ever satisfied with all that they have, forever seeking more upon more trying to fill that void and then using pseudo-spiritualist and philosophical language to dress it all up and try to intellectualise your nauseating narcissism and insatiable greed. For god sake grow up and try and act like an adult.

Unfortunately some of the “gurus” she meets, are all too typical of those who tend to seek out power over others, they will always wash up in politics, religion and other positions of serious power, and all too often these are highly toxic or seriously damaged people, who if not mentally ill, will always place their own ego, enrichment and career interests above everyone and everything else, no matter the external costs.

So Witt digs deep and looks long and hard both within herself and out there at the world she seeks out, and although there are times when she writes really well, making some excellent points, there are also some lulls where we seem to hit dead ends and messy conclusions, but then isn’t that what the real world is like anyway?...So a lot of really good stuff in here, but also not always clear, coherent or as concise as you would like some of it to be either.

[Rafal · Rating 3 out of 5]

To w sumie jest dość fajna książka, ale masę rzeczy jest w niej nie tak.

Zacznijmy od tytułu. Jest nieadekwatny do treści. To nie jest seksualny Homo Deus. Nie dowiadujemy się, jak seks będzie wyglądał w przyszłości, tylko jak wygląda już teraz; ale uwzględniając wpływ nowych technologii na seksualność społeczeństwa i komunikację w kontekście seksu.

Autorka opisuje więc tantryczną sektę praktykującą Orgazmiczną Medytację, współczesny przemysł porno czy seks-kamerki a także poliamorię czy odloty na narkotykowo-seksualnych festiwalach. To wszystko jest bardzo ciekawe; nawet punkt widzenia autorki jest czasem dość oryginalny, ale same zjawiska nie są niczym nowym; myślę, że słyszał o nich każdy ksiądz z byle parafii, że o zwykłych konsumentach seksu nie wspomnę.

Dodatkową wadą tej książki jest stylistyka. Sprawia wrażenie stylistycznie niedopracowanej, co przejawi się tym, że przemyślenia były czasem zbyt zawiłe. Bardzo często przekaz tracił spójność, stając się dość miałkim słowotokiem, w którym chyba nawet autorka się gubiła.

Ale to nie jest tak, że nic z tej książki nie wyniosłem. Dowiedziałem się na przykład, że wśród różnych orientacji seksualnych są także ekoseksualiści, czyli ludzie, których seksualnie pobudza natura. Jeżeli ekoseksualizm nie wyklucza "tradycyjnych" orientacji (hetero-homo-bi), to chyba mogę zaryzykować, że się uważam za ekoseksualistę. Natomiast na pewno nie mam w ramach tej orientacji skłonności sado-maso. Gdyż - czego także dowiedziałem się z tej książki - jest wśród ekoseksualistów sadomasochistyczna subkultura, która praktykuje swoje skłonności między innymi poprzez bieganie nago przez pokrzywy. Auć.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hilarious, moving, and informative combination of memoir and journalism. However, I understand that it would not suit the preferences of many readers. A quick way to discern whether or not you have a chance of liking this is your reaction to the fact that the dust jacket features a blurb by Tao Lin. This is also a good way to anticipate the general style of the memoir sections - however, that's not to say that the text is in any way formulaic.

This is one of the best texts I've read from whatever movement has come after postmodernism (Hypermodernism? Metamodernism? Who knows!). It's just a whole lot of fun.

I recommend it to anyone who likes Lin or July or others of their kind, and/or who wants to understand something of the state of the young person's experience of sexuality and sexual options in the contemporary Western world.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this thinking it was Middlesex LOL. Some sections were fascinating and thoughtful but others were less interesting and I'd drift through them over weeks, forgetting what the hell was happening. In particular I found the second half much better - if you are reading I would just skip the 'Orgasmic Meditation' chapter altogether !! Too California. Back to scifi from now on