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Three Women
Lisa Taddeo








I started this book when I moved to Paris. I remember it very clearly because it was one of the loneliest times in my life: a new city, with no one I knew. The only plans I could make were buying books and sitting in any café to read them. And this book was the first of many that kept me company. I say "kept me company" in the most literal sense of the phrase. I know it’s a cliché to say this, but this book helped me forget, for a few weeks, how miserable I felt. It drew me into the stories of three different women with whom I connected deeply in many ways.

When I read that a book was about "female desire," I never really understood what that meant. What is female desire? Why are so many authors suddenly writing about it, and why are so many media outlets echoing the topic with such intensity? Well, this essay by journalist Lisa Taddeo introduced me, in a very honest and direct way—without an academic lens or technical jargon—to the real stories of three women whose lives have been shaped by this "desire."

I was Claudia, but suddenly, I was also Maggie, Sloane, and Lina—the three women the author interviewed over eight years about their sexual lives, intimacy, self-esteem, and all the issues these themes evoke. Taddeo portrays them with precision, depth, sensitivity, and honesty, addressing topics that remain taboo for women even today. That’s why so many of us will connect with them and feel a little less alone in our own struggles.

Another thing I loved about this book is that it doesn’t aim for sensationalism or to preach anything. It simply presents these women’s stories, bringing us closer—no matter how painful they may be at times—to the realities they’ve lived. Each of them has been judged. And this is precisely what the book makes you reflect on: situations these women have faced simply because they are women, coupled with a deep sense of shame. That’s when I understood what talking about female desire truly means. It’s not just about sexual relationships. It’s about a collection of experiences, emotions, expectations, and wounds that every woman carries with her. Talking about desire also means addressing the body, insecurities, traumas, and the constant struggle against imposed norms and judgments.



Note

“It's the nuances of desire that hold the truth of who we are at our rawest moments. I set out to register the heat and sting of female want so that men and other women might more easily comprehend before they condemn. Because it's the quotidian moments of our lives that will go on forever, that will tell us who we were, who our neighbors and our mothers were, when we were too diligent in thinking they were nothing like us. This is the story of three women.”









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