Three Women

I'm extremely conflicted about this book. While I recognize it for the tour-de-force it has become, taking on the topic of women's desire, I am left struggling to determine the "moral" of the story. All the women who act on their desire are unhappy. Is that the moral or the reality? The portraits painted of Maggie, Lina, and Sloane are intimate in the extreme - especially in the details of their sex lives - but also more poignantly in the imagination of their desire and the ways their minds lead them captive to their relationships. This is the part Taddeo nails - much of it must be supposition, but it rings true in the things women are taught about attractiveness and their own desirability. "Maggie's destiny arrives one afternoon show more without a clarion call. It comes on cat feet, like everything else in the world that has the power to destroy you." (17) That's powerful prose and is the real asset of the book. Maggie in her neediness and openness, gets involved with a teacher at her high school. His grooming of her is predatory, but when she finally has the courage to tell, a year after the fact, the situation is turned around on her. Lina is in a loveless marriage - her husband is completely hands off - and she initiates an affair with an old high school flame she finds on Facebook. She becomes addicted to the relationship. Sloane and her husband Richard have an open marriage - mostly dictated by him, though she is complicit. She is from a background of money and privilege which alternately empowers and imprisons her. All three women have trauma of a sexual nature in their backgrounds. Mostly my takeaway is that misplaced intimacy has stunning repercussions for the health and well-being of these women. If it weren't for the negative outcomes, this might be a women's power manifesto. It might be saying more about me that I found it somewhat depressing. Kudos to Taddeo for taking it on and writing about it so eloquently. show less

Drei Frauen, drei Geschichten, drei Schicksale. Über viele Jahre hinweg hat Lisa Taddeo sie begleitet, immer mehr über sie erfahren, Urteile gelesen und sie letztlich zum Inhalt ihres Buchs gemacht. Maggie ist noch minderjährig als sich ihr Lehrer ihr zuwendet. Zunächst ist es nur die Aufmerksamkeit, die sie bei ihren alkoholsüchtigen Eltern nicht erhält, bald schon glaubt sie in ihn verliebt zu sein und kurz danach verfällt sie ihm völlig und gibt sich in totale Abhängigkeit. Lina wird als junges Mädchen Opfer einer K.O. Tropfen Vergewaltigung, doch statt dass sie Mitleid bekäme, wird sie beschimpft und geächtet. Viele Jahre später findet sie sich in einer toxischen Beziehung wieder, aus der sie aufgrund ihrer emotionalen show more Abhängigkeit und Blindheit nicht mehr herauskommt und auch nicht heraus will. Auch Sloane trägt seit ihrer Jugend Dämonen in sich, die sie viele Jahrzehnte begleiten werden und die sie lange davon abhalten zu erkennen, wer sie ist und was sie braucht, um glücklich zu sein.

Häppchenweise werden die Geschichten der drei Frauen präsentiert, immer wieder wird dadurch die Erzählung unterbrochen, was jedoch sehr gut passt, um zu unterstreichen, dass es sich nicht um Episoden, sondern um bisweilen jahrelange Martyrien handelt. Was Taddeo besonders gut gelungen ist, ist das Gedankenkonstrukt, in dem alle drei gefangen sind, ein Gefängnis, das sie sich selbst geschaffen haben und aus dem es kein Entkommen gibt. Sie sind intelligent, auch oftmals reflektiert, aber dennoch können sie nicht wie der Leser als Außenstehender ihre Lage erfassen und so handeln, wie es für ihre psychische und auch physische Gesundheit gut wäre.

Für mein Empfinden ist der Klappentext irreführend. Die drei Geschichten sind keine Schilderungen von Begehren und Lieben, sondern ganz im Gegenteil: die dargestellten Beziehungen sind auf Macht und Machtmissbrauch aufgebaut, emotional wie körperlich wird die Abhängigkeit - sei es wegen des Lehrer-Schülerinnen-Verhältnisses, wegen der einseitigen Zuneigung oder der stärkeren psychischen Konstitution – von den Männern ausgenutzt. Zwar glauben alle drei Frauen zu lieben, sind dankbar für jede Minute, die der Mann ihnen schenkt, für jede noch so abfällige Bemerkung, die sie sich als Zuneigung umdeuten, die Grundvoraussetzungen der Liebe sind jedoch nie gegeben. Es sind keine Beziehungen auf Augenhöhe, keine Ausgewogenheit der Machtverhältnisse und ganz offenkundig ist den Männern ihr Wohlergehen ziemlich egal. Ganz besonders bitter: die gesellschaftlich-soziale Komponente: die Frauen werden durch das Umfeld ein zweites Mal zum Opfer bzw. sogar zum Täter und böswilligen Lügner und Verbreiter falscher Anschuldigungen gemacht.

Die Bandbreite der Kritiken könnte kaum größer sein, von fulminanter Begeisterung bis totalem Zerriss findet sich so ziemlich jede Stimme zu dem Buch. Einige Kritikpunkte kann ich nachvollziehen, die Autorin hat nur weiße heterosexuelle Frauen portraitiert, hier klafft sicher eine große Lücke, wenn sie umfassend toxische Beziehungen darstellen wollte. Sie wird oft sehr explizit in ihrer Darstellung, ob dies unbedingt immer erforderlich ist, sei dahingestellt, auch erscheint die positive Beschreibung einiger Handlungen bisweilen etwas unpassend, auch wenn die betroffenen Frauen sie in diesem Moment so empfunden haben mögen. Andererseits wirkt alles auf mich authentisch und es werden ganz klar die Widersprüche auch innerhalb der Frauen, aber besonders die Folgen, die diese Erlebnisse für sie haben, aufgezeigt.

Nach inzwischen mehreren Jahren #metoo Debatte und zahlreichen prominenten Gerichtsverfahren stellt sich jedoch schon die Frage, welchen Beitrag dieses Buch zu den spezifischen Anliegen der Frauen liefert. Für mich ist es nicht das Buch mit der großen neuen Erkenntnis, aber ganz sicher ein lesenswertes Steinchen in dem Gesamtbild, das nochmals unterstreicht, dass die Welt überwiegend aus Grautönen in zahlreichen Schattierungen besteht und ganz sicher nicht aus schwarz und weiß. Und manchmal lohnt es sich einfach, wenn auch bekannte Fakten nochmals wiederholt werden. show less

It's so incredibly difficult to describe this book in any word other than 'awful.'

I wouldn't say that my expectations of this book were high; but it did have a lot of elements that I love, which is why I picked it up: it's dark, there's talk of an inherited house, it's set in London, AND IT'S ABOUT A CULT. Thematically, those qualities seem to be the makings of a pretty decent book (at least in my opinion). Unfortunately, that was not the case. It was full of too many point of views, absolutely TERRIBLE dialog, and shallow character development. On top of all that, for being a book with a plot that revolves around so many different things, it was SO INCREDIBLY BORING.

From the juvenile writing to the plot itself this book was a complete show more failure. I feel like it's something that Ruth Ware would've written and then completely scrapped. This was just as bad as the Roanoke Girls, which is literally the absolutely worst book that I have ever read.

Don't waste your time on this one. show less

This was a difficult read for me and during the first half of the book, the actions of Lina, Maggie and Sloane frustrated me- I did not like any of these women and the choices they were making. But as I read on, I realized that my own prejudices were affecting my reactions and I started to think about all the ways I, and women I have loved, or love, have made choices that place the needs of men above ours. And I was judging these women by the very same misogynist views that so many men, and women too, hold about other women. It was at the end a very thought provoking book - well done!

I have a lot to say about this book. The inner jacket and all the marketing materials says it's a book about women's desire. If that's the case, then through the choice of her subjects, the author is implying that women's desire is intrinsically linked with pain. One woman had a relationship with her teacher when she was a minor. Another is in a sexless marriage and has an affair with an old boyfriend who is clearly using her. The third is coerced into threesomes by her husband with disastrous results. This isn't a book about desire--it's a book about women being treated badly by the men whom they desire. That's a big difference.

The reporting here is spectacular, as is the writing. I give all that five stars. But the subject matter show more left me sad and cold. There's no hope here. I'm tired of feeling hopeless about the state of women in America. So tired. show less

Congratulations Lisa Taddeo, you have taken all the fun out of sex, you have made women's desire synonymous with rape, abuse, dysfunction, and rejection. You have subscribed to the old trope that women don't really like sex, they just do it to feel loved and safe. This is the most regressive anti-feminist book I have read this year, possibly in the past decade but I would have to think about that. By calling this a book about women's desire (not just the pathetic lurid tales of three specific females, which is what it is), you paint all women with your sad, lonely, weak, needy, passionless brush. There are plenty of women who have affairs because they enjoy it, who participate in polyamory because they find it hot, who have show more hot-for-teacher relationships in college when they are consenting adults and the affair is just against college rules, not the rules of decency. Those are stories of desire, and that is what Taddeo purports to write about. That was my biggest problem with this book, but there are others.

Almost as infuriating was Taddeo's claim she was using the actual words of her subjects. There are many reasons I don't believe her, and they start with the first story about her mother getting followed daily on her walk home from school by an old man who jerked off while walking down the lane behind her. (That is some talent even in a young spry guy. I imagine its hard to walk and masturbate simultaneously.) She says her mother told her that the man's penis was long and skinny. Because her mother is not identified as crazy, I am going to assume that when she shared this story she did not provide descriptions of the penis. Who would describe an abuser's penis to their child? I raised my child in a sex positive home, I talked about sex openly. And it would never have occurred to me to describe a penis. I am also someone who was raped in college when I was very drunk, and I talk about that too because I think it is instructive for many reasons. In talking about my rape it would never occur to me to describe the physical attributes of my rapist's penis. Obviously I was not present when Taddeo talked to her mother, but I feel pretty certain about this.

There is another reason I don't believe Taddeo is using her subjects' words. I lived in Fargo for two years right after the Knodel trial. I was in an Executive Director position with a college in the area. (Weird coincidence, someone who had been on the team I led testified at the trial, and she was mentioned by name in the book!) My students were mostly from the region, many of them from West Fargo High and a few from Sheyenne High (it was brand new so we only had one or two graduating classes from there.) I have not one speck of doubt that none of my students ever talked like this version of Maggie with her flowery metaphors and Deep Thoughts. Even the Theater, Literature and Classics majors did not talk like that, and they had been educated at a decent liberal arts college. Maggie has nothing beyond a high school education (unless you count the single year at NDSU where she flunked out) and she thought Twilight was great literature. North Dakotans are efficient and plain-spoken people. People with PhD's thought it was pretentious when I used the word "whom" or "alumna." None of them would say that the taste of beer on someone's breath is the taste of desire. None. For all the women there is a lot of discussion of the tastes and smells of things, and they are things normal people don't say. The worst was when Taddeo wrote that the wine at Lena's gathering "tasted like pool sneezes." Nope. She might be telling her version of their story, but she is not using their words to do it. The disconnect was worst with Maggie but it was still clear that none of those women said 90+% of the things with which they are credited.

In the end she told her version of the stories of three women who were victims of abuse, and who assessed their worth by whether particular men wanted to fuck them. Maggie was almost certainly the victim of abuse at Knodel's hands. Even if he never laid a hand on her, the manipulation evidenced in his notes to her is at least as abusive as the sexual acts. That said, she was drawn to daddy figures and had already had an affair with another adult male who took advantage of her instability. I am not blaming her at all, but she has issues that predate the abuse by her teacher and which were almost certainly exacerbated by that event that she needs to address. Lena was too sad to even consider, with her drama queen aches and pains that magically disappeared when she was having sex with an intellectually porous man who could not have cared less about her. Her poor kids. It was so uncomfortable to read about her begging a man to have sex with her even after he made clear he was not interested. Nothing she did was about sex, it was about self-hatred. Maybe that stemmed from her rape and things she didn't deal with. Some of the issue surely rested there, but there were other things too. To me it seemed Taddeo abused Lena by even working with her. Lena was constantly looking for people to whom she could tell her story -- the storytelling was part of her pathology. I suspect at least part of that was because she wanted people to know that a man found her sexually appealing, but in general she was a deeply lonely and entirely self-involved person who got off on attention of any kind. Giving her this soapbox is like giving fentanyl to an opioid addict. And Sloan. That was heartbreaking. A smart, talented, beautiful woman who spends her life deploying her sexuality only for the pleasure of her husband (she is largely incapable of orgasm according to the book) because she has craves adoration. It broke my heart.

That is the story of female desire? As a female who has entirely sexual and sensual desires, and has friends who also have real desires, I assure you it is not. It is a perpetuation of the second wave feminism "women are victims" falsehood that keeps healthy women feeling nothing but shame and otherness with respect to their own sexuality. (Andrea Dworkin and her "all heterosexual sex is rape" garbage.) There is a story to be told about women being unable to find happiness and a sense of self worth without the validation that comes from inspiring an erection. (That is good and pleasant validation, but God help anyone for whom that is the only source of validation.) This was a sad and misleading book that preyed on the despair of three women, and provided no context for any larger truths to emerge, no scientific method. I feel like like I just hid in the bushes and looked through my neighbor's window. Man this is tawdry. show less

So much of what I liked about Three Women is bound up in recognising aspects of my own life in those depicted. Lisa Taddeo articulated some things that in almost 50 years of living, I've never found words for. A terrible unifying thread across the three women's stories was the myriad betrayals of trust, big and small, all of them endured. And yet there is great joy in their stories. The incandescent joy of being given the gift of pleasure. The painful joy of loving. The big problem I have with this book is its lack of diversity. The women are all cis, white, able-bodied and (mostly) straight. There are some queer elements with one woman engaging in sex with other women as well as men, but those occasions felt performative. That woman show more presents outwardly as straight, she doesn't really inhabit a bi identity. So it was all very hetero-normative for me. Overall, I think it's an important contemporary portrait of female desire, but readers should bear in mind that three women cannot ever be truly representative of half of the planet. show less