Thank you so much for stopping by and for commenting. Your piece has sparked many great conversations in my life both online and in person. It is a brave piece. I am so glad you wrote it and I got to read it.

What a lovely and thoughtful essay about the dangers of being a person who is noticed and made the object of unwanted (and creepy) kinds of attention. I’m so glad to that our essays are in conversation with one another.

I want to say that the essay began life as a submission to a Full Grown People’s anthology Love and Sex 101, where it was titled “Striking the Match.” It was written as a literary (or so I hoped) meditation on the different ways I have experienced desire in my life, coming to rest on this moment, when I find myself the one who desires rather than the desired one for the first time. FGP sent it to Salon, where it got the title you read it under (which reframes the whole piece in a way that I think is very problematic), as part of promoting the anthology. I agree with you, and with Susanna, that if the point of the essay had been to talk about my plainness, using my husband’s lack of attraction to my body, then it falls short. But I didn’t write about the “battles,” as you say, because there aren’t any. We had to have the conversation we had, and then we moved on to being happy and adjusting in the ways we needed to adjust. Mostly, in the way that means I am usually the one to “strike the match.”

Anyway, thank you for letting me respond here to your thoughts on the essay, and also, Jodi, I love your piece and hope you won’t mind if I share it.

Sarah

Yes! And I guess that’s why I’m grousing. I grew up “the redhead” as compared to “the cute one” (my sister, my best friend), so I know a bit about standing out too — and the interesting experience of having the pendulum swing from “haha!” to “hey baby” at times. I would have loved to look like she does — so it’s all relative, which I suppose is part of her point.

THAT is why I love you.

I didn’t even think to google her husband, though I googled her as soon as I finished reading the essay.

And I don’t know if she’s being coy about reality so much as just very much reflecting her point of view. It’s a bit contradictory within the essay itself. She’s trying to use her husband’s lack of desire for her to make a comment on her plainness but still gives us two examples of men who find her greatly desirable.

The headline doesn’t do her any favors. . . but you’re right it would have been a stronger essay if she would have written about how she battles with the imbalance of desire in her relationship.

But your issues with the essay are kind of why I felt compelled to respond. I was kind of annoyed with the boo-hoo nobody notices me and wanted to be like here’s what it likes when you are always noticed.