This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something--Anything--Like Your Life Depends On It

by Tabitha Carvan

By buying into the question of what the husbands think, I’m doing something that comes so naturally to me, it feels essential: I am holding myself to account. Something makes me happy, or brings me pleasure, and I ask, how does this make me look? Nice? Thin? Modest? Domestic? Caring? Invested in my relationship? Sexually faithful? Like a good wife? I put everything through a pressure test, to see if it will hold up under public scrutiny, to see if it’s okay. And if the pleasure doesn’t consider the needs of other people, and if it doesn’t attend to what other people require of me—if it’s just for me—then it will fail. No wonder so many women prefer to confine their pleasures to the privacy of their inner life, or to their supportive online communities. It’s the only way to escape the question of what your husband thinks about all this.