'Sex Diaries' author says people are becoming more empowered in their relationships
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What is the premise of Alyssa Shilaski’s “Sex Diaries” column and book?
Hello, I'm Alyssa Nadwarney, and you're listening to NPR's Book of the Day. For Alyssa Schilaski's weekly column in New York magazine, she asks people to anonymously record a week in their sex lives. There are stories about married people and divorced people, people having no sex, people having lots of sex. The range is pretty incredible, and the situation's enlightening. The column is called Sex Diaries, and Shilaski has put a collection of the stories that explore non monogamy into a new book also called Sex Diaries Real Life Stories of Nonmonogamy and Polyamory. She spoke with weekend edition host Juana Summers about the book and about her own sex life.
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There are headlines like The Musician Who Ghosts Three Dates in One Week, or The Woman Cheating on Her Boyfriend with Her Ex. If any of that sounds familiar, you, like I, have been keeping up with sex diaries. It's a weekly column in New York magazine collected and edited by Alyssa Shalaski. And as the title suggests, the conversation you're about to hear is focused on sex. And if you're wondering why, people People would choose to bear the details of their intimate lives to Shalaski?
You know, people love talking about sex, and if it's anything but positive, we don't do it.
She says it doesn't always go well when she asks for a diary. Like one time when she approached her pharmacist. He was gorgeous,
like looked straight out of Love Island, you know. And so eventually I said not to make it weird, but I have this column and um I would love if you would participate and it made him really uncomfortable and I I felt horrible and he called security to escort me out.
But when she gets a yes, Shilaski says she's hyper-protective of her diarists, they're always kept anonymous. And now she's turned a collection of them into a new book, also titled Sex Diaries. It's out today. One distinction from the column is that the book exclusively contains diaries from people exploring non-monogamy. Alyssa Shilaski talked to me all about it and her own experience with non-monogamy. which she described in the book as the healthiest relationship of her life.
It's true. Um and I'm I'm in a monogamous relationship now. But I was pregnant And it we were long distance. And he was my person throughout my pregnancy. And not only did I not care what he was doing when I was in New York and he was in LA, I loved him so I I wanted him to experience Great sex and joy and flirtation and crushes. I And now I know that there's a word for that, compersion, where you are Just joyful and euphoric to to see your partner joyful and euphoric and I think it's a really beautiful concept and it really worked for me.
That people should know who aren't familiar with sex diaries is that in one minute when you're reading either the column or the stories in this book, you may be reading something racy and intimate. And in the next sentence or the next page, there's a diarist talking about just the mundane parts of their life, like making coffee and feeding their cat. Why is it important that these diaries, they aren't just the sexual, physical, intimate stuff. It's more than that.
Yeah, it's the context. I mean, I always say to the diarist, um, our readers want to understand the full picture. I mean, yes, the details are fun, how they take their coffee and what's in their omelet and all that, but it's also What's going on at work? How do they feel about their body? I really want my diarist to give the full picture. Otherwise, it's so easy to be like, oh my God, everybody's having better sex than me. Everybody is having better dates than me, better luck than me, or whatever it is.
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