Sexual Expeditions
Issue 26: Lynne Tillman is Provocative and Daring in Her Novel, "Weird Fucks"
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Lynne Tillman’s “American Genius” is everywhere lately. Every book store that I’ve visited since perhaps the end of last year has it on display. As it would, it prompted me to do a bit of research on the author as well as the books she’d written. Weird Fucks stood out to me, and I wanted to explore what this book was all about especially since the title is so provocative. There were plenty of questions I had regarding intimacy and this book, although it doesn’t necessarily suggest any answers, it does put a big focus on the superficiality that some relationships can actualize.
The title, although provocative, touches on a conversation that for many can be unfamiliar. To write so openly on a taboo topic such as sex, and to describe it in such a blunt way, had me highly invested as a reader. I was curious to know where the conversation would lead. How many of us have had strange sexual encounters, but perhaps felt limited as to what we could openly discuss due to social parameters? This book discussed the narrator’s experiences just openly enough that I was able to bear it without feeling overwhelm, all the while still pushing barriers for open discussion. Tillman’s creative intentions landed well in that regard.
The book also allows room for a female perspective in a non-conventional approach. Women are often perceived as being unable to distinguish emotional from physical intimacy, which is challenged in this book. The narrator challenges the notion that women can’t experience superficial physical intimacy by describing her experiences in a dissociative manner. Especially since they’re what she’d consider ‘weird,’ there’s very little emotional investment described in her thought process. Each interaction is what it is, without much more thought behind it. It had me asking how and when do we define a relationship as meaningful.
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In this email we’ll cover:
What’s New
Reflections
Insights
Closing Remarks
“I’d sit at the counter with hot coffee mug in hand, unable to speak, heart located in cunt, inarticulate.” - Lynne Tillman, Weird Fucks
What’s New?
Book of the Week:
Weird Fucks by Lynne Tillman
Personal Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre:
Fiction
Synopsis:
A female narrator takes us on a journey of her sexual encounters throughout the 1960-70’s.
Why We Love It:
This book has a style that I thoroughly enjoyed reading, although it’s perhaps too staccato for some readers. The style in itself could be interpreted as representative of the narrator’s feelings towards her partners - indifferent and fleeting. The descriptions of her sexual encounters also often left me wanting more, which I felt possibly paralleled the narrator’s experience too. I wanted more depth from an individual encounter, but the story leads readers to the next before any depth is realized.
Despite this one thing that stood out to me as well as the reviewer in The Skinny, is that the narrator consistently places the needs of her partners above her own. Although the interactions are perhaps at a loss for depth, she still prioritizes others above herself regardless of what they mean to her. Perhaps that can be perceived as caring thing to do, but I noticed that the male partners had the opposite approach. Their satisfaction and priorities came first. Consequently, what starts off as an adventure results in positioning herself to be used. Suddenly the adventure seems one-sided.
A book such as this considers what it means to have ‘meaningless sex’ and how that impacts us as people. Although her story is delivered nonchalantly, I do believe that the disassociation from the experience doesn’t fully remove the emotional impact. Perhaps the narrator’s dissatisfaction is implied through the writing by keeping it short. Or perhaps the relationships remained superficial enough that the memory of them remained limited. Being intimate without intimacy surely has its psychological disadvantages when it’s been too frequented?
Key Message:
Although sex is an intimate act, any suggestion of emotional intimacy is stripped from the narrator’s description. It seems to me that her recollection may even hint at regret from the way she’s disassociated, but perhaps those are my personal projections. It left me to wonder whether we have the power to decide whether or not we want to give a relationship meaning if there is physical intimacy involved. Surely to some extent physical and emotional intimacy coincide and it leaves a psychological imprint on us.
Perhaps it’s a mixture of both; although sex is physically intimate, there are many of us who are able to engage with the act in a very superficial way. I would even argue that letting people know your honest thoughts and truth is perhaps more intimate than being physical, but that’s subjective. Evidently, the narrator bares her body but she doesn’t emotionally involve herself from what I can gather, so the emotional intimacy is distinguished as separate. In that regard, perhaps it’s the act of disassociating that prevents any emotional boundaries being crossed even when physical ones are.
Reading the book, I felt that the narrator purposefully engaged sexually with men that she knew she would have no emotional ties to, based off of the tone of the writing. Perhaps it’s a byproduct of living through the 1960-70’s, but it does lead me to question how we’re impacted by our relationships and different people we encounter. Although the narrator always maintains her composure, she has to prevent over investing herself to avoid being compromised. But, I do think that as the encounters increased, the physical intimacy did impact her negatively to some standard. Even if it was just as a short-term relationship, over time I think people can become psychologically accustomed to not feeling important.
Quotes and Questions To Reflect On
Quote of the Week:
"We do not select the stories we write, we do not pick the voices. They take us by surprise and we surrender to them. They write us, they write in us, all over us, through us. They occupy us. We are, in a sense, puppets--to language, with language."
- Lynne Tillman, The Complete Madame Realism and Other Stories
Reflection Questions:
What was your initial impression when reading this book?
What decisions did the character make that you found empowering or thought-provoking?
Would the narrator’s experience have been more enjoyable had she approached the interactions such as the men do?
Are we meant to keep our physical relationships superficial if they’re not serious?
What do you think a story like this is trying to evoke in its readers?
Reviews Of The Book:
Kirstyn Smith writes about Weird Fucks in The Skinny
Insights and Inspiration
Author Spotlight:
Lynne Tillman
Background:
Lynne Tillman is a writer whose passion shines through in her work. Having wanted to be a writer for most of her life, her career has proven to be nothing less than impressive. Her writing can be found both in novel as well as essay format, and often incorporates A thread of cultural criticism.
Other Works:
The Madame Realism Complex (1992)
American Genius (2006)
Men and Apparitions (2018)
Most Recent Release:
Mothercare (2022)
Beyond the Book:
Closing Remarks
Weird Fucks is s short and nonchalant description of a woman’s strange sexual encounters. Although some of them are not necessarily strange, I do believe that as the interactions increased, the dissatisfaction became more obvious. The writing is clear, but the descriptions are short, leaving me as a reader also longing for more. Perhaps Tillman evokes that in the reader as a way to parallel that feeling with the narrator, or perhaps the writing evokes a sense of longing that we all eventually experience when our relationship needs aren’t met.
Although the feelings of superficiality is clearly portrayed in the book, there are moments where I wondered if there would be some sort of character evolution. It seems that the dissatisfaction is obvious, yet our narrator doesn’t become more intentional with the next partner. Even as each partnership is superficial in nature and she’s aware of it, yet she chooses not to change her trajectory. It explores how meaningless and shallow the encounters were for her, and perhaps that women do sometimes actively choose that for themselves.
I would argue as well though, that the subtext of the book suggests that even meaningless interactions have an impact on us psychologically. Whether it’s unrequited love, trauma, or impact on our self-esteem, there may be more below the surface than we allow our partner to know. For example, the narrator describes several of her sexual encounters in very abrupt and swift ways. Almost as a reflection of her feelings for the men she’s been involved with, suggesting that the nature of these types of relationships can only reach a certain level of depth inter-connectedly. But emotionally she’s dissatisfied as a result, proving that the personal impact differs.
It asks the questions of how we draw the boundaries in relationships of that nature. As a reader, I found myself asking the question if these encounters were as adventurous as we can make them out to be. A one-sided connection can only impress us so much before we start to feel used. Perhaps this book suggests that the the adventure is a lot less satisfactory than advertised.
Until Next Time!
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Keep living life on your terms.
June Tara
Creator of Spark Siren