Sexy Spring Things
Single moms entangled in online sex work, a Korean rom-com beach read, and chocolate for the bedroom.
Keeping it to recommendations, but I’ll share something I learned this week that I can’t stop thinking about—the lower back is a center of creativity but also survival. This resonated—I increasingly feel like working on this book is killing me but also keeping me alive. Could this explain why my lower back, which rarely bothers me, has been aching lately? Creativity helps us survive, but it’s also periods of survival that produce some of the most moving art. What a fascinating tension.
Best,
Anna
Reading 📖
Do you believe in soul mates? I’m on the fence. Cassia Park has to, it’s her Korean family’s business. In One & Only by Maureen Goo, the Park women run a matchmaking service where they read a person’s face in order to identify their soul mate. But on the brink of 40 and yet to meet her match, Cassia isn’t as convinced about her own love destiny as her clients’. Until a freak bike accident introduces her to Ellis, a 27-year-old with whom she has undeniable chemistry. But then, of course her fated match enters the picture. Does she go with her heart or the fate her family has constructed for her?
I’m less invested in the love triangle, and more in the protagonist’s grief and loneliness. I started reading this not knowing she lost her mom due to a brain injury, just like I did. Also like me, she grew up without her dad. I relate to her being single and childless in middle age too.
“When people would remind me I was not an orphan because I lost both my parents, I would always bristle. Because in my mind, I only ever had one parent. My dad was a nonentity. He left us when I was only two, and while my mother raised me alone in this house, I had never felt the absence of a parent until she died.”
I rarely read rom-coms but this new release caught my eye as a summer candidate for my Korean book club (email me to get on the list). With Korean fiction leaning dark and existential, it’s refreshing to see Korean characters represented on the romance shelf. I hope there’s more to come!
Articles
👅 Sex cam spring and the stories TV tells about online sex work.
🐈⬛ Men, hide your cats from your online dating profile.
🤝 Is codependency good? Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton think so.
💻 Femmes and queers are building tech on their own terms.
😂 I am a woman in my thirties, and I am thriving.
“I have a career, a wittily named pet, a book club, a Dyson vacuum, and a red-light therapy mask (the good kind).
At home, I watch ‘Heated Rivalry’ to keep my heart rate healthily elevated, but stop early to deprive my brain of stimuli that would limit my ability to sleep—a high sleep score is a must.
I take melatonin, creatine, protein, magnesium, Vitamin D, pickles, collagen, Vitamin C, Zoloft, electrolytes, and, once a week, a probiotic named Kevin.”
Watching 📺
In Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Apple TV), Margo (Ellie Fanning) gets pregnant by accident and decides to keep it, just like her mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) did with her. But being a working class single mom is tough. Margo’s options for making money look very different than her mother’s did, for better or worse. She resorts to OnlyFans, building a following for her niche sci-fi videos. She finds child-care support from her unreliable father Jinx (Nick Offerman), who comes to live with her after getting out of rehab, and her quirky best friend/roomie.
All the characters are in the process of reinvention. It would be easy to limit each of them to a stereotype, instead they’re allowed to be messy and flawed. They’re all struggling yet the show remains light and bubbly. I deeply related to the fraught yet intimate relationship between a single mom and daughter.
A single mom entangled in online sex work is also the subject of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed (Apple TV), which I started this week. Like Margo, Paula (Tatiana Maslany) is on OnlyFans, but as a client. When the camboy she’s been seeing for months is attacked on camera, she’s sucked into a murderous spiral. Is it all a scam or is the boy’s life really in danger? With a custody battle over her daughter raising the stakes, Paula attempts to prove two can play the game, and tries to beat the boy’s dangerous kidnapper. The show is a lot more stressful than I realized, but I’m so invested in the plot, I can’t stop watching. I also adored Orphan Black and this has a very similar vibe.
Sex cam work also shows up in season three of Euphoria (HBO/Crave) as Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) reinvents herself as an OnlyFans creator. I loved the first season but stopped after the first episode of the latest upon finding out Petra Collins was never credited for shaping the show’s now notorious aesthetic. Cassie resorting to OnlyFans touches on two themes I see across all three shows—economic desperation pushing people into increasingly exploitative forms of gig work and loneliness. All three women are trying to make ends meet. But they’re also seeking the satisfaction of feeling seen.
The sexiest thing I’ve seen in real life recently was Cats on broadway. Yes, you read right, Cats. But this isn’t the original Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. It’s a ballroom remake, Cats: The Jellicle Ball.
I remember loving the original when I was a kid, for some reason I was obsessed with the song Memory (foreshadowing in hindsight). It occurred to me as a I grew frustrated with the lack of plot in the remake, I don’t recall what the original story was actually about.
Once I let go of wanting more of a story, the production became enjoyable. It’s essentially one big ballroom competition. The dancing, the singing, the costumes, the energy—it’s all sexy and jubliant. I just don’t think it needed to be nearly 3 hours long.
Listening 🎧
I’ve been single for more than a decade. This is mostly my own doing, but it’s also a difficult time to date. The dating apps used to be good, but with gradual gamification, they’ve reached an all-time low. So I was attracted to The Daily’s reporting on the topic.
Can you imagine walking into a bar and AI immediately scans the crowd to find you the perfect match based on everything it knows about you? This future is not-so-distant future as there are tech companies working on this now.
“The idea is that by analyzing all this information, they’re going to glean something about you that you yourself do not yet know. And by knowing that, you are going to be able to maybe make better matches,” says host Rachel Abrams.
More optimistic is their reporting from various singles mixers in NYC, which are on the rise, as people increasingly recognize you’ll never meet anyone if you don’t unplug and look up from your phone. I’m intrigued by these but admittedly nervous to try.
An aside—as I was listening to this my landlord’s Gen Z daughter yelled downstairs that someone in the family just got engaged. It felt simultaneously sad and hopeful.
Snacking 🍌
Magic mushrooms are hotter than ever. But as a friend who found herself consuming them often last summer told me this week, “I’ve realized their sacred.” Not everyone can afford to go on a mind trip every day (and would they want to?).
Thankfully functional mushrooms are hot now too. As the name implies, these are mushrooms that serve a function; more productive than psychedelic. I’ve dabbled over the years, mainly taking mushroom supplements for immunity, but like with any pill, I’ve never been fully convinced.
Last year, I started seeing these sleek red Happy Ending tins of chocolate everywhere—at my acupuncturist, yoga studio, Whole Foods. At first I assumed Alice only made their arousal formula, and was disappointed, it’s not really something I’m seeking. If only they made chocolate for other needs, I thought. Turns out they do. I recently tried the sleep and stress formulas and I have to say, they’re kind of perfect. Effective but also delicious enough to feel like an actual treat.
Also in the bedroom, I love this new bra I recently ordered that gives some oomph without any discomfort. Trying a new brand reminded me I was due to restock my go-to for undies. I’m obsessed with these leakproof boxer shorts.