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'Pleasure and care and devotion can exist in abundance'

Plus: the 'polycrisis,' golden retriever boyfriends, a compelling defense of Ursula, and more.

Tracy Clark-Flory

May 5

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The scene on my desk as I write this newsletter.

Oh my. This week, we’ve got some extremely dumb commentary from the manosphere, as well as some extremely smart commentary about the “polycrisis.”

To the links…

Here’s to the student journalists at Columbia, who need protection. Read Clara on solidarity and campus protests. Also, Jesmyn Ward says: “This here? This gleeful hatred? This violent dehumanization? This roiling violence? It’s familiar. It’s embarrassing. It’s shameful.”

Andrew Tate, who I’ve written about before as the personification of the manosphere, took to X to declare: “Sex is for making children. Any man who has sex with women because it 'feels good' is gay.” In response, Matt Bernstein declares satire dead and translates this sexual logic: “It is gay to be straight.”

Brandy Jensen considers the “polycrisis” and why we can’t stop talking about non-monogamy. So many parts I wanna quote, but if I had to choose one:

Sex has often been a matter of “somehow” in my life. My own desires tend to come as a surprise. Whatever knowledge I have was gained through experience, my needs formulated in the act of articulating them. I often find myself confused when people want to have a discussion beforehand in which everyone says exactly what they like and don’t like, as though desire were something to satiate rather than create.

Whoops, I actually can’t choose just one: “Perhaps it will always remain too earnest, too unbearably uncool, to admit you might believe that pleasure and care and devotion can exist in abundance. I believe it.”

The poet Hanif Abdurraqib persuasively defends… Ursula from The Little Mermaid:

She tries to liberate those around her from their own fantasies about a world that has no interest in serving them well, a political framework I believe we could all learn from. I don’t agree with her tactics (I don’t believe in offering binding contracts to teenagers), but the motivations are inspirational to me.

I missed the Baby Reindeer discourse while on vacation, but promptly binged the whole thing upon my return. I loved how rich and multi-layered it is, but I also appreciate Kate Manne’s question: “Why did Martha have to be fat?”...