After Sex

by Edna Bonhomme, Alice Spawls

Who decides what happens after sex? The last decade has seen many significant changes to the laws governing women’s reproductive rights around the world, from liberalisation in Ireland to new restrictions in the USA. After Sex offers personal and political perspectives from the mid-20th century to the present day, setting feminist classics alongside contemporary accounts. These essays, short stories and poems trace the debates and tell the stories; together, they ask us to consider what reproductive justice might look like, and how it could reshape sex.

The writers pay special attention to people — both fictional and real — who have sought control over their sexual lives, and the joy, comedy, difficulties and disappointments that entails. But above all, After Sex testifies to the power of great writing to show us why that freedom is worth pursuing — without shame and without apology.

With contributions from:
Lauren Berlant, Joanna Biggs, Edna Bonhomme, Gwendolyn Brooks, Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie and Suzanne Scafe, Storm Cecile, Lucille Clifton, Rachel Connolly, T.L. Cowan, ’Jane Does’, Maggie Doherty, Nell Dunn, Andrea Dworkin, Anne Enright, Deborah Friedell, Tracy Fuad, Kristen Ghodsee, Vivian Gornick, Donna Haraway, bell hooks, Barbara Johnson, Jayne Kavanagh, Lisa Hallgarten and Angela Poulter, Jamaica Kincaid, Patricia Knight, R.O. Kwon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Natasha Lennard, Sophie Lewis, Audre Lorde, Amelia Loulli, Erin Maglaque, Holly Pester, Adrienne Rich, Denise Riley, Sally Rooney, Loretta J. Ross, Madeleine Schwartz, SisterSong, Sophie Smith, Annabel Sowemimo, Amia Srinivasan, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Alice Walker and Bernard Williams.

Genres: Nonfiction

220 pages, Paperback

Published November 12, 2023

About the author

Edna Bonhomme is a Haitian American scholar, writer, and former biologist. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for History of Science where she is working on her book manuscript Ports and Pestilence in Alexandria, Tripoli, and Tunis which addresses the convergence of sanitary imperialism and traditional medicine during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition to her book project, she is collaborating with Berlin –based artists and writers who are using decolonial methodologies and diachronic practices in order to upend uneven power dynamics in archives, pedagogy, and science.

She completed her PhD in history/history of Science at Princeton University in 2017. Using a historical materialist approach, her dissertation, “Plagued Bodies and Spaces: Medicine, Trade, and Death in Ottoman Egypt, 1705-1830 CE,” examined the commercial and geopolitical trajectory of plague and as its direct links to commercial, provincial, and imperial policies in several North African port cities. In addition to her historical training, she studied biology at Reed College (BA) and public health practitioner at Columbia University (MPH).

In addition to her academic interests, she writes for publications including but not limited to Africa is a Country, Contretemps, Der Freitag, Jacobin Magazine, Mada Masr, and Viewpoint Magazine. She has previously taught for the Princeton Prison Initiative (2012), Drexel University (2016, 2017), and Humboldt University (2018).

More information about her can be found at https://www.ednabonhomme.com.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking collection of essays, poems and short stories. The focus was almost solely on abortion and the right to terminate a pregnancy. While there were many individual stand-out items, the focus on abortion felt slightly narrow. Some of the wider debates on reproductive justice were not addressed or only in passing, and could have been given more space.

Highlights:
Alice Walker
Sophie Lewis
Judith Jarvis Thomson
Loretta J Ross

[Angèle Chevalier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a while to read, not because I did not enjoy it, but because there is a lot to process - the debate on abortion will always be an on-going fight, one that women can’t (unfortunately) feel like they have won. This great collection of essays, poems, stories about abortion reminds us of that in the aftermath of overturning roe vs wade. Women (and I mean all who identify as women) as well as men, wherever they are, would do some good to read this. If anything, it gives extra reasons to never give up the fight.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

this took me ages to read but i think it’s the sort of book that can be put down and picked up again - can sort of actively respond to ongoing discourse that way

[Elisa Tinella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting as I expected. I wish there could be an anthology like this also for Italy or for Southern Europe.