Lisa Taddeo, your non-fiction storytelling carries so much depth. Most of my interactions with non-fiction writing have been self-help and Three Women does not tell you what’s wrong with you, if anything, it affirms it. And maybe, hey it’s not even wrong.

 

Gifted to me exactly a year ago for my birthday by my friend, Nat, she wrote to me, “I think you’d love this”. She was correct. I found myself feeling reflected so honestly and kindly. 

 

You took me through 300 pages of exactly how I will write in the next few years. This is the goal. To be able to balance that relaying of a real story colourfully, honestly and undiluted. A Journalism background does that to you; you have these stories that you want to immortalise not through reporting coldly, factually but in a careful, creative and respectful human, ‘I see you’ way. 

 

The way you wrote about desire and its politics, made me curious about your own journey. These stories clearly resonated with you, although three different journeys; and somehow connected you with Lina, Sloane and Maggie on such a beautiful frequency that these stories felt almost like characters in some other fictional story. 

 

Lina is a mother, married to a man that won’t submit. Not even, compromise. Which we all know is integral in any partnership. Unfortunately that affects the intimacy in the marriage and she’s hooked on her high school ex-situation with whom she steals kisses and sexy time sometimes at her children’s expense. I hated the cheating but oh, she made a choice for herself and her desire for once. And that was hot. It might not look how society would appreciate it but it was necessary. It kept her alive. 

 

And I always hope that people like our mothers, get to explore and tap into their desires as often as possible. That life doesn’t somehow make you less excited to explore and feel things with your body and your emotions. That heat. Lina's husband was unable and unwilling to meet her wants and she managed to somehow fulfill herself. 

 

Maggie is in high school, she has a teacher who inappropriately gets close to her and she only realises later in her older years, what the relationship was. She finds it difficult to move on in her life because of how tumultuous and obviously confusing it must have been to get that much attention from a man she respects but also equally be hidden and hide that friendship. 

 

You know what's funny? I had always thought I would be someone who has an affair with a teacher or lecturer. There is something I admired and liked about being led and dominated in that way. Unfortunately I never quite dared. Probably because I would have hated the power dynamic. And in settings like that, the older person knows better. Unfortunately, Maggie’s teacher blurred too many lines and avoided accountability when the time came. Which is another reflection of the system. Trying to be technical about things like this is so impossible. 

 

And Sloane. Sloane and her husband have an open marriage. No, wait. They swing. Which is a freedom I like and I’m curious about. Unfortunately, she only feels seen by her husband. Because this is the only person she really shares this with. But is there freedom there? You want to share that freedom and be seen by someone else, at least. I see the importance of community in her story. People who live life the way she and her husband do just so she isn’t alienated. 

 

Well, those are the three women. 

 

I struggle with feeling safe, seen, heard and understood by men. 

I don’t make space for it. 

And if it does happen, I don’t know how to move with it. 

 

I unfortunately found myself agitated by how you wrote these women’s desires adjacent to men. Are the politics of being a woman highlighted even harder, harsher and in a more hitting way, in that setting. Probably. Why? There are so many things that men are taught and ways that they are conditioned that compared to girls and women just are flat. That men are the choosers and the women wait to be chosen. Ugh. That’s so last year. 

 

I loved reading the sex scenes. Written with enough heat and warmth. Oh. It felt like these women own their sex, their experiences. Especially Lina's. 

 

My love for the book really is that you wrote their lives so beautifully. Absolutely complex. Absolutely human. 

 

Three Women represent all of us in some way and aspect. And they all have one thing in common. 

 

Which is the main desire to be seen, heard, understood. 

 

We are yet to meet all the people who will tick these boxes for us. And it’ll be exciting and fun and hot and warm. May it never be confusing. Because that sucks. And it probably will be. Because emotions and the world and politics and reality are quite complex for black and white. 

 

I linked a lot of the being desired with external validation. 

External validation and self-worth for me started in school. The bad thing they did was introduce the grading system - that you can be scored and rewarded. That ruined me. Because I currently live to work for it - to do the work, to flex my smart, to take the risk. And no it’s not always to be praised or rewarded but it’s for me to know I have done the work. When it does come, the praise, the awards, rewards. There is a track record of having been consistent, risk-taking, daring and honest to oneself. That is the prize for me. 

 

And with connections for me, I’m the same. It takes a while for me to unlock and let myself be seen. And I love unlocking and learning that people are layered. I love to win. To crack. To earn. And to be earned. And I get where the conditioning happened. We’re undoing it. 

 

I really struggled to write this because well, I just did.

 

Desire is complex. Or actually quite simple, my partner would say. My partner really is a great receiver and I love that. 

 

As for me, I’ll figure it out. I don’t know. 

 

Thank you for your work, Lisa.