Death, Sex & Money.
I guess I'd better buy that bra.
My name is not Naomi. It’s a nom de plume to protect my identity. Though names have been changed, all the stories in Gen XXX are true. My anonymity means that I rely solely on word of mouth to grow my subscriber base, so if you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please do share with friends.
I cry throughout the entire last episode of Dying for Sex. The entire episode. I don’t cry much, not at TV. Not at movies. Commercials do not tug at my heartstrings. Once in a while I cry when I’m on a plane, but that’s because the air is thinner up there. I remember bursting into tears while watching a Michael Jackson documentary on a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles back in 2009. I felt stupid, not just because I was crying about Michael Jackson, but because my husband, who was sitting right next to me, didn’t even notice. I had married a man who didn’t even notice when his wife was crying. Or if he did, pretended not to.
I decide early on that I do not like Dying for Sex. I am totally confused about the basics of the main character’s life and find it hard to situate her in relation to, well, anything. (Her name is Molly, and she’s played by Michelle Williams.) I loathe her husband, Steve, and his stupid face. (Jay Duplass.) Her best friend, an actress named Nikki — played by Jenny Slate — is performatively wacky, and not in an entertaining way.
Then there’s the sex. Without giving too much away, after a diagnosis of terminal cancer, Molly decides to go on what her mother calls a “sex quest,” and find a man with whom she can come. (She’s only ever orgasmed alone.) As part of her process of discovery, Molly signs up for a sex app, meets a succession of guys and has some amusing adventures, including burning through a Hitachi Magic Wand from overuse. (I’ve been there.) And so begins the transformation of Molly from horny but hesitant 40-something to a no-holds-barred boss lady in full command of her own pleasure.
All this is well and good — I love a woman in charge of her sex life — but Molly’s transformation happens so quickly it’s a little hard to believe. One minute she’s giggling at the dick pics sent her way and the next thing you know she’s at a play party watching a BDSM demonstration or peeing on a guy dressed in a puppy outfit in a bathtub. After just a few episodes! Jesus Christ, I think, give me time to catch up!
But then things start to pick up and the storytelling becomes more confident, more moving. (It’s actually when Molly stops playing around on the sex app that thing start to coalesce, narratively.) By episodes 5 and 6 I’m starting to have feelings — real feelings — for Molly, thanks to a performance by Michelle Williams that goes from “very good” to “absolutely extraordinary.” I even start to feel a little affection for Jenny Slate’s character, who has finally calmed down and settled into herself.
And that monologue about the dying process in episode 8? My god. I’ve never heard anything like it on television before. It reminds of some of the things a hospice nurse told me last year, when my mom was close to the end. About the delirium. The lack of appetite. The “rally.” My mom had the delirium, and she had the lack of appetite, but, unlike Molly, she didn’t have the rally. She was too drugged up on morphine. I sort of hate that she was denied the rally.
I’m watching Dying for Sex not just in the wake of my mother’s death but in the context of my own struggles with mortality. A few weeks ago I have a routine mammogram that reveals some sort of “asymmetry” in my right breast. It is recommended that I go back for a second, “diagnostic” mammogram, and then, an ultrasound. My primary care doctor, upon getting the initial report, explains that doctors “they are super cautious — very common,” but this doesn’t make me feel any better. Neither do the constant advertisements for the breast cancer drug Trodelvy that play during the Dying for Sex commercial breaks. I guess they know who their target audience is.
On Tuesday I go back for the follow-up mammogram, which is followed by the ultrasound. During the ultrasound I turn my head away from the technician and close my eyes and try to let go of the scary thoughts racing through my head. My Apple Watch vibrates, and I wonder if it’s a message from Nico.
After the ultrasound is over I head to a waiting room for the results. A small speaker nearby is playing an acoustic guitar rendition of “Rock-A-Bye Baby” and next to me is a side table on which someone has placed two postcards, one of which reads “God Loves You.” (The other says “Do Or Die” and is accompanied by an illustration of an American flag, which feels sort of threatening.)
There is another woman in the waiting room, younger than me, who tells me that she is waiting to be called in for a biopsy. I’ve never had a biopsy and I am hoping to God that I am not about to be told I need one, but I know from friends that they hurt. A lot. I don’t tell the young woman this though. When she asks me if I’ve ever had a biopsy I tell her the truth — “no” — and then I tell her a lie.
“Friends who’ve had them say they feel like a little pinch,” I say.
It’s a weird day. A day with the threat of death and the suggestion of sex. After the mammogram and ultrasound, I come home and have a phone call with a friend of a friend named Scarlett. Scarlett is a 48-year-old divorced mother of two and tech industry executive who joined a sex app at around the same time I did but has had a much more kinky ride. As in: pleasure doms, sex parties, and gang bangs. (This Saturday, I’ll be publishing portions of my conversation with Scarlett for paid subscribers only.)
After Scarlett and I finish talking, I start texting with Nico, who asks me to go to a nearby fetish boutique to try on sexy outfits for him. The boutique is just up the street from the local Whole Foods Market, and because I also need ingredients for a dinner I’m making for Olivia, I agree and head out to photograph myself in kinky lingerie and buy a pack of chicken thighs and some Swiss chard.
When I get home, I send Nico the photographs — “you look great,” he tells me — and then I open up Hulu in order to watch Michelle Williams slowly die.
I haven’t had much action lately. I’ve been on at least half a dozen dates but the last man I had sex with was the French forensic investigator.
And I’m starting to hate the apps. Or at least grow tired of them. The men on Bumble whose profiles I like are either catfishing or total flakes, and the men on the sex app are either underwhelming or completely disgusting. One guy’s profile name is — get this — “Non feminist.” Among his kinks are “Extreme Degradation” and “Race.” Oh, and “No Limits.” Another guy has a black and white illustration on his profile depicting a man’s hand spreading open the lobes of a human brain, which is made to resemble the labia of a woman’s vulva. I guess he’s trying to tell women he’s sapiosexual. I think he’s just telling us he’s gross.
It’s just a few weeks until Antoine comes to visit. I’m excited, though I have a bit of trepidation, too. He’ll be in Los Angeles for 9 days, and I’ve never spent more than a total of 10 hours with him total. 2-3 hours on our first date. (Brunch and a walk around Paris.) Another 4 on our second date (dinner and sex). And then about 3 on the third. (Just sex.) He’s going to be staying with me while he’s here, which Olivia thinks is a bad idea. But I have a good feeling about it. About him. We’ve been in almost daily contact for 11 months now, with biweekly video chats, and I think it will be good for me to invite some real intimacy in my life.
This will be the first time I’ve slept next to a man in years. Years! I’m a little nervous because sleeping next to me is not going to be very sexy. For one thing, I sleep with a retainer-like device in my mouth to treat my moderate sleep apnea and sometimes it makes me drool. Then there are the night sweats, which seem to be getting worse with each passing week. It’s one thing when I wake up soaked by myself, but with a man lying next to me I won’t be able to just roll over to the other side of the bed to get away from my own wet stank.
Antoine and I are talking about what we want to do with one another when he’s here. It’s pretty simple. Eat good food, explore the city, and fuck. We’re also talking about attending a sex party together, though it’s on me to figure out how to find such a party. I’ve been casting about for recommendations and received the names of a few groups and communities, some of which require prospective members to fill out long questionnaires and intake forms. I appreciate and respect the attention to detail, and the commitment to vetting. I just hope that they let me join.
This will be the first time I’ve been to a sex party since I was in my 20s. Antoine and I agree that if either one of us gets uncomfortable at a party we’ll leave. But we have yet to discuss the parameters around what we might be willing to do, or not do, and what our expectations are. My friend Max is urging me to have this conversation with Antoine sooner rather than later. Not being clear in communicating boundaries before attending a sex party came back to bite her in the ass, so to speak, when she freaked out after she a female friend began to perform oral sex on Max’s then-boyfriend.
I haven’t told anyone this before but I think my mom had breast cancer when she died. Last summer, a little over a month before her passing, I got a call from a doctor affiliated with an assisted living home she was staying in; he reported that he’d found a sizable lump in or near her left breast. She’d been complaining of pain in her side for weeks and all of us thought it was simply leftover bruising from a few falls.
I got a sick feeling in my stomach when I heard about the lump. My mom had dementia, and was not all there, so the idea that she might have to undergo any sort of exploratory procedure filled me with dread. Would she be able to sit still for an examination? (She wouldn’t.) Would she be frightened? Would she lash out? And then what? Chemo? Surgery? Radiation? All of the above? And for what? To extend what had become an utterly miserable existence for an extremely frail 86-year-old woman?
My mammogram and ultrasound come back fine. I’m relieved. So fucking relieved! Antoine texts me in the mid-afternoon to find out if I have any updates; it’s past midnight in Paris and I’m grateful that he cares enough to stay up so late and check in.
I tell him that I’m okay. It says something, I think, that I feel comfortable enough with Antoine to have shared any of this with him in the first place.
“You are more relaxed now, I suppose,” he writes.
“I am,” I say. He hearts my message.
I send Antoine one of the photos I took for Nico at the fetish store earlier that day. In it, I’m wearing stretchy dark jeans and an incredibly expensive black leather bra with red detailing. Antoine seems surprised. “What’s this?” he asks.
“A little preview of what’s to come,” I respond. I append my text with a winking emoji. I’m feeling happy that my breasts are healthy.
Antoine sends me an emoji in return: The smirking purple guy with the devil horns.
It occurs to me that now I have to buy that bra.