The Empress Book Club: I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself 😂 Cue the Marvin Gaye!
From her first spicy encounter to the invisibility of midlife women's friendships.
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Fellow Empresses, How the hell are you?
In book club happenings this week, so many questions came up reading chapters 8-10. Hopefully, some of them resonated with you…
Are you a sapiosexual? This is where a person’s brain or thoughts are the primary sexual attractor or driver. For our author, it seems this is a key one, but also after a year without touch, she is starved for the more primal feel of skin on skin. So, when we finally experience her first encounter, it’s not all that surprising that it’s a wordless one as she begins dancing with a handsome stranger on a gorgeous summer night on the banks of the Seine.
In the dating apps, she has experienced a vast array of sexual ‘show and tell’ of what the men would do for her and whether she’d like it. In all her text messaging with men on the dating apps, it’s as if she has been rehearsing, asking for exactly what she wants—so when it’s finally physically in front of her, after a bit of deliberation—she leaps. It left me asking myself…
Do I have the everyday audacity to ask for what I want?
Or do I need practice? What about you? Do you hide your midlife body or do you celebrate its visibility as the author does? Its wrinkles, its bulges, its stretch marks? Do you think you have a scarcity mindset or an abundance one when it comes to pleasure?
Have you ever felt more powerful after a sexual encounter? When you can let go of your self-consciousness, what does that allow back in? For the author, her focus shifts to her partner, and the enjoyment of being enjoyed. This is a juicy, people. Have you ever experienced the enjoyment of being enjoyed? How did it make you feel?
In the next chapter, The Assumption, the author details the Catholic narrative she grew up with; how God chose Mary for her humility— or her ability to take up less space in the world. (*Rolls eyes) She contrasts this notion with the sight of the nuns on parade during the day of Assumption—so beautiful and powerful, yet still cloistered. Watching them, they seem almost defiant and it made me wonder…
Has anyone ever questioned your right to joy? Has a partner? A doctor? Or even other women? It feels like our society constantly does this—but the very liminality of midlife for women is a chance to say—NOT TODAY universe.
In the chapter, A Moveable Feast, the author takes us on a walking tour of the homes of famous women writers, artists, and actors (below) many of whom lived in Paris around the same time and well outside of patriarchal norms. Some have plaques commemorating their existence—others, it’s as if they were never there at all.
From left to right, top: Romy Schneider, Lee Miller, and Martha Gellhorn. Bottom: Colette, Edith Wharton, and Simone de Beauvoir.
Here, MacNicol makes a keen observation: the women above are all mostly represented as isolated, prickly iconoclasts. Islands unto themselves. We often know so little about midlife women’s friendships throughout history. Furthermore, the women are frequently only rendered visible when in the company of men—Hemingway, Sartre, Delon, etc. So how do we, as women, shift this dynamic while men are still around? Is it possible to be truly culturally visible on our own terms? Or is the male gaze simply too pervasive to meaningfully subvert? The female gaze, which says I see you seeing me… and I have thoughts.
In the middle of it all, MacNicol also treats us to a lavish depiction of what it is like to experience chocolat chaud at Cafe de Flore—a truly culinary erotic feat—if there ever was one. It’s a reminder that pleasure comes in so many forms and that for a mere eight euros, you can still sit all afternoon with sweetness—people-watching, reading, or listening to music, whatever you like. It doesn't necessarily take more than that.
Lastly, here’s yet another pleasure to get you in a Paris mood for this book. How does the great Eartha Kitt make each word sound like a kiss?
For further reading, check out MacNicol’s wonderfully unapologetic OpEd piece, Men Fear Me, Society Shames Me, and I Love My Life in the New York Times. It’s a wicked-compelling coda.
All juicy stuff to ponder! Feel free to chime in below. And with that, stay tuned for more weekly commentary on this book and upcoming author chats.
Yours in Grandeur & Deep Sh*t,
PS - I am a human typo. Amnesty appreciated!
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Gotta say, I just finished the book and I agree with your first post about it: vivid imagery, but lacking in compelling narrative. More to say at a later date.