The Social World

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• Paean

  1 min read

  A woman on the street stops me in my tracks.

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  Paean

• Paying for it, revisited

  2 min read

  In my moments of greatest pain, what I want isn’t sex — it’s sex I’m paying for. What the fuck is that about?

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  Commercial sex

• Room full of talent (three paeans)

  2 min read

  Three women, one room, and work I’m not getting done.

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  Paean

• Paean

  1 min read

  Where am I supposed to look when she crosses her legs?

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  Paean

• A paean

  1 min read

  An unremarkable woman on the train. Except.

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  Paean

• Creep shot

  1 min read

  Twenty minutes, three feet, and not a single glance.

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  Paean

• A rookie mistake

  4 min read

  Thinking someone could just explain away my compulsive sexual behavior was the first of many things I got wrong. The list of things I got wrong is long.

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  My mother

• Creep shot

  1 min read

  I wouldn’t like her. But she’s fun to look at.

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  Paean

• Sex work

  2 min read

  Among the dozens of women I encountered, what struck me most was the enormous variety — and what that taught me about sex work as a category, not a thing.

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  Commercial sex

• Trainers*

  1 min read

  Two women at my gym who make working out genuinely dangerous.

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  Paean

• A study in brown

  1 min read

  Every shade of brown, from boot to lip.

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  Paean

• Addicted to what?

  3 min read

  It wasn’t the sex I was addicted to — it was the endless, shimmering promise of it, glowing on screen after screen.

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  Commercial sex

• Love and desire

  2 min read

  Desire is to getting as love is to having. And getting is always better than having.

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  Marriage

• Creep shot

  1 min read

  I saw her on the subway. I couldn’t not photograph her.

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  Paean

• Milf

  1 min read

  A married mom, a lurker, reaches out. And now I’m left wondering: what happens when I help someone see possibilities their partner doesn’t want to see?

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  Marriage

• Creep shot

  1 min read

  The underside of a thigh on the subway.

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  Paean

• Hot and cold (her part 2)

  5 min read

  She picks up where I left off — with all the details I left out.

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  Dating

• Hot and cold (part 2)

  3 min read

  Ice, wax, and a splayed 20-something — and then a pause to reckon with everything that means.

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  Dating

• Hot and cold – her side of the story (part 1)

  4 min read

  V tells her side of the story, starting with bourbon, buttons, and a text at 10:01.

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  Dating

• Valentine’s day

  1 min read

  I’ve finally learned not to give my wife a blender on Valentine’s Day.

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  Marriage