"There was T herself: a fit, sexually charged woman with an easeful life, well married to a man whom I'd describe the same way. There was the news that Gen X women, which T was, were having the best sex, and a lot of it, as reported by Montreal journalist Mireille Silcoff for The New York Times Magazine. T and I were discussing that article"
"I was miffed the Times story-cover line "The Joy of X"-had ignored my generation of boomers like stale crumbs left on the table after a lively dinner party. "Who says boomers aren't having sex constantly?" I'd said to T. "You should write 'What Is Sex,'" she said before we parted. Our walking conversations were mostly about writing and reading-we were former colleagues and followed the work friend's rule of rarely straying into the private."
T declared she was done with penetrative sex despite being fit, sexually charged, and well married. Gen X women were described as having abundant and fulfilling sex, prompting tension over generational representation and feelings of being overlooked by boomers. A narrator recalled an unresolved prompt to define literature decades earlier that precipitated a prolonged bedbound period. The narrator recalled consensual sex with a young professor, asserting personal agency and rejecting the framing of abuse. Learning and sexual curiosity were linked as opening and enlivening. The question 'What Is Sex' resurfaced, prompting introspection about definitions, desire, and identity.
Read at The Walrus
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