By Hania Noor
Imagination offers us a plethora of worlds to explore and mould ourselves into. Although we are accustomed to believe fiction is detached from reality, conceptualizing fantastical spaces can free young people from unnecessary judgment and expectations.
See, I never really got the whole ‘birds and the bees’ talk. I guarantee that my Pakistani mother would have burst into flames if she tried to explain the idea of pleasure or anything containing the word “sex” to me. My father would willingly choose implosion instead. Most of my understanding of sexuality came through films, music, books and wildly concerning YouTube videos. That was, until one notoriously uncomfortable Grade 6 health lecture, where my teacher accepted audience questions (bless her), resulting in a 20-minute deep dive into porn.
I guarantee that my Pakistani mother would have burst into flames if she tried to explain the idea of pleasure or anything containing the word “sex” to me.
So later, when the time came, I turned to that medium. At first I was somewhat disgusted, but naturally, puberty kicked in and I adapted to the discomfort. However, even then, I was thrown off by the performance of it all. How had these two people met? Who were they?
These questions continued until the whole thing completely threw me off. I was searching for the story, plot and connection because the excitement of narrative had always piqued my interest. So, I turned to what felt safe: books. When I first sought pleasure through reading, it was like, “Okay, I think I finally get the hype!”
Books have always been a place of comfort for me—a place of escapism yet simultaneously a confrontation with my inner desires. Imagination and fiction granted me empowerment through characters with control, choice and freedom.
I found stories such as Priceless and Twisted—ones usually written by women—to be steamy, angsty and dripping in actual desire. It wasn’t just their descriptions of “the act” that I found attractive but rather the slow burn of getting there. Most importantly, the story was just as much mine as it was the author’s, regardless of whether I found it in a bookstore, Tumblr or on fanfiction websites like Archive of Our Own. I could visualize the scene and mend it according to what I needed. There, I found more than just pleasure—I found a chance to explore my curiosities and seek experiences that felt out of reach. As I further read about pleasure, I began to understand its complexities. From consent to orgasm to personal interests and safe practices, it felt like I was learning new things as much as I was enjoying them.
Books have always been a place of comfort for me—a place of escapism yet simultaneously a confrontation with my inner desires. Imagination and fiction granted me empowerment through characters with control, choice and freedom.
I found power in embracing my desires, and I urge you to ignore what may be considered taboo and to explore what pleasure means to you. It has always been yours to define and yours to own.
The Eyeopener has compiled some hot reads that shaped students’ understanding of love and sex. You may just find a read that does it for you. Take a look, and happy reading!
The Made Series, Danielle Lori
Akosua Yeboah | Year 3, Journalism
The Made is an interconnected Mafia romance series. Each book is centred around a different protagonist. At the moment, there are only three books in the series, with the fourth and final main line installment set to release in the coming years. My personal favourite is the first book, The Sweetest Oblivion, but the masses really like the second one, The Maddest Obsession. Playing into the jealousy trope always gets the job done, in my opinion. Especially when the main character is jealous because they’re in love with their partner. I think jealousy looks attractive on a man when it’s done correctly and in moderation. I also love when main characters are obsessed with their partners but obviously in a healthy way. Please do not go into this series expecting an amazing plot, it’s mediocre at best. However, the smut is pretty good, which is what people read it for anyway.
The Myth of Women’s Masochism, Paula J. Caplan
Yasmine Marouane | Year 2, Sociology
A book that shaped my understanding of love and sex is The Myth of Women’s Masochism by Paula J. Caplan. The book dives into the many struggles women face in all aspects of life as a result of the patriarchy and how we are coerced into believing that we deserve or seek out these struggles. Caplan explains the realities of women’s roles in heterosexual relationships and what positions we’re expected to fill—as well as how sex is introduced to women and the limitations we have on seeking direct pleasure in relationships and sex. I’d suggest this book to anyone who’s willing to have their eyes opened to the societal and patriarchal factors that intertwine with our personal, intimate lives.
A Certain Hunger, Chelsea G. Summers
Elizabeth Huh | Alumna, Business Management
This book follows a food critic who has sex with men before proceeding to murder and eat them. While this is an outwardly vulgar portrayal of sex, there is something about the rawness of this book that I feel is so important. Mainstream depictions of women’s pleasure tend to portray women as submissive, so it’s rare to see empowered and nuanced female characters like the protagonist in this book. Although this book plays with this subject matter in an extreme and horrific way, I believe the underlying message of exploring sex and pleasure in different ways makes for an interesting narrative. Additionally, women are constantly fed the notion of sex as a performance for the male gaze. For me, this book was the complete opposite and I enjoyed reading it so much. I am a strong supporter of women’s wrongs, what can I say?
I’m Afraid of Men, Vivek Shraya
Khushy Vashisht | Year 3, Journalism
This 2018 non-fiction work is written by a transgender author and follows the different ways masculinity was inflicted upon her throughout her life and how it shaped her perspectives on love, sex and self. Its epistolary style—in which Shraya writes in the form of letters or diary entries—provides another layer of intimacy and vulnerability that could not quite be captured any other way. As a cisgender woman, there are certain aspects of Shraya’s experiences—akin to many transgender women—which I will never be able to relate to completely. However, learning about them at 15 years old was transformative in my knowledge of love and sex. It diversified my understanding of these concepts by broadening it to be more than just myself. I think readers would gain a needed insight on the ways matters of masculinity and femininity have the power to create and destroy by reading this book. Additionally, I think it is a really important read in times of growing anti-trans rhetoric and can create compassion and dialogue.
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