“I saved hundreds of nude photos on my phone but never sent them to anyone.” Thus begins Lillian Fishman’s (New York, 1994) first and explosive novel, The Favors (Reservois Books). “A sense of urgency and disuse” will result in sharing one of these nudes online and starting an addictive relationship with a powerful and dominant man and his submissive lover. A hidden high-voltage erotic triangle that raises questions about power, sex, and feminism.
Filled with overly explicit scenes, the novel is a violent hymn to sexual debauchery (Fishman is a fan of Eve Babitz and Annie Ernaux, and it shows), and its author is well aware of the provocation of its plot that seems to unfold. A fantasy devised by the most rotten heteropatriarchy: oh!, a lesbian who dumps her girlfriend to submit to a male-dominated trio. In the novel, the main character, Eve, returns again and again to the libido triangle she is dependent on, even though she feels uncomfortable, enslaved, and guilty for not being a good feminist.
“I always wanted to talk about something that was disturbing that I felt in the air, and the thing I avoid the most: How patriarchal culture has such a powerful effect on everyone, we criticize it no matter how much we criticize it on an intellectual level,” Fishman explains. . “We can talk about all these values we want to live by, but that doesn’t remove the enormous weight that history and culture continue to hold. It is something that affects the public and the most private.”
charm and discomfort
The novel is, in a way, a response to a fundamental idea that permeated Fishman’s entire education and marked his generation in a special way, entering the midst of the MeToo boom and into the fourth wave and twenties. . Feminist in complete burning. “Eve dislikes everything heterosexuality stands for, and especially the type of man Nathan is. But society has placed a charm on her. And it doesn’t magically disappear just because the politics of the moment criticize her. That’s why she’s deeply uncomfortable with her own sexuality.” says.
“You have to eroticize equality,” Gloria Steinem said decades ago, something Fishman wasn’t quite compatible with. “I am one of those who think that inequality of power is a tremendous erotic power. Sex is a unique space, a place where a very special freedom occurs. There are very few situations with a similar level of sincerity and provocation. For this reason, sex has different rules than those that apply in social life.
Like most women of her generation, the protagonist grew up accepting her gender as something women should do and whenever they wanted, and sexual freedom as a feminist pillar. However, in applying it, she feels that she is settling in “an ideological trap like she would have had to face 50 years ago, but on the contrary.” Fishman revolves around this idea throughout the novel without reaching a definitive conclusion. «We live in a world where we believe casual sex can be great for anyone, this is one of the greatest achievements of the second wave of feminism. But just because you consent to a relationship doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you. It is assumed that only what goes against our will can harm us, or vice versa, what we want will do us good, and this is not true. What you want can also harm you.
politically incorrect
The truth is that at a time when public speaking more than ever revolves around what sexual relationships should be, what is and is not acceptable, and consent, there are few writers who choose to research – almost all too young – in the fictional dynamics of power, politically inaccurate encounters. and obsessions. An example is Raven Leilani’s harrowing debut (1990) Brillo (Blackie Books). Considered by critics to be one of the best debuts of the past year (even Barack Obama had it on his famous reading list), the novel is about a young black woman surviving in New York’s greatest precariousness as a rider. He begins a relationship with a white, married, upper-middle-class man, which he eventually settles in with his wife and their adopted daughter, a 12-year-old black girl. With the high-tension erotic and occasional masochistic affair, the brutal inequality between two lovers in Brillo is the erotic engine of an ultra-problematic relationship.
Something similar was suggested by Emma Cline in the stories collected in Papi (Anagrama), almost all of whom are young women thirsting for male approval, who parade between misplaced middle-aged men and stories of dark desires in a post-MeToo world. and self-destructive urges. It’s a theme that will be all too familiar to fans of Ottesa Moshfeg, another of those young writers who, since my year of rest and relaxation (Alfaguara), has not ceased to portray miserable and human depravity in her books.
Source: Informacion
