Laura: We're often told to follow our desire, to chase what we want. But what if the very act of wanting something, especially as a woman, is the most dangerous thing you can do? What if your desire isn't even yours to begin with? Sophia: Dangerous? That's a really strong word. I usually think of desire as this raw, authentic, maybe even empowering force. The idea that it could be dangerous is... unsettling. Laura: It's the central, unsettling question at the heart of the book we're diving into today: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. And this isn't a novel, which is what shocks a lot of people. Taddeo is a journalist, and she spent eight years—eight years!—and drove across the United States six times to embed herself in the lives of her subjects. Sophia: Wow, eight years. That's not just research; that's a huge chunk of a person's life. That level of commitment tells you these aren't simple stories. Laura: Not at all. The book opens with this beautiful, haunting quote from Charles Baudelaire about how you see more looking through a closed window than an open one. He says, "In that black or luminous square life lives, life dreams, life suffers." And that’s what Taddeo does. She puts us outside the window, looking in on the intimate, messy, and often painful desires of three real American women. Sophia: So we're positioned as voyeurs from the very beginning. That's a fascinating and slightly uncomfortable way to frame it. Laura: Exactly. It immediately brings up the theme of the gaze, of being watched. And that idea is absolutely central to the story of our first woman, Sloane. Her life takes this concept to a breathtaking extreme.

Sophia: Okay, so tell me about Sloane. How does her story embody this idea of being watched? Laura: Well, on the surface, Sloane has the perfect life. She's beautiful, poised, and runs a successful, chic restaurant in a wealthy coastal town with her husband, Richard. They have this idyllic property with Cotswold sheep roaming around. It's the picture of success and happiness. Sophia: I'm already sensing a 'but' coming. The bigger the picture, the more cracks you can find. Laura: A very big 'but'. The arrangement in their marriage is that Sloane has sex with other people—men, women, couples—and her husband, Richard, watches. Sometimes he's in the room, sometimes he watches on video later. Sophia: Hold on. He watches? Okay, my mind is racing with questions. Is this for him? Is it for her? Is this some kind of modern, liberated arrangement, or is something else going on? Laura: That is the million-dollar question that the book wrestles with. Is this truly her desire? Or is she just performing for her husband's pleasure? It feels like her supposed sexual freedom is still entirely framed by his gaze. Sophia: Right. It's like her desire only gets to exist within this very specific container that he has approved. It's a kind of permission slip. That doesn't sound like total freedom to me. Laura: Taddeo explores that ambiguity so well. Sloane herself seems to believe it's her desire. She picks the partners. She seems to enjoy the encounters. But the narrative is filled with these little details that make you question it. For instance, the book describes her as someone who constantly assesses herself, who wants to be the "kind of woman" who is desired. Sophia: So it’s a performance of self, not just a performance of sex. She’s playing the role of the desirable, sexually adventurous woman. It’s like being the director and star of a movie, but the only critic who matters is the one sitting right next to you. Laura: That's a perfect analogy. And the pressure isn't just from him. The book includes this incredibly tense scene where Sloane is confronted by Jenny, the wife of a man she slept with. And Jenny spits at her, "You’re the woman. And you let this happen." Later she repeats it: "Don’t you know you’re supposed to have the power?" Sophia: Wow. So even when she's supposedly in control, she's being judged by another woman for not controlling the situation 'correctly.' She's blamed for the man's actions. There's no winning. Laura: There's no winning. She's trapped. She’s being watched by her husband, who wants her to be wild, and judged by other women, who want her to be tame. Her desire, whatever it truly is, is caught in the crossfire of everyone else's expectations. It's a gilded cage, but it's still a cage. Sophia: That idea of being judged is one thing when it's happening behind the closed doors of a marriage, even an unconventional one. But the book takes a much, much darker turn when that gaze becomes public, right? What happens when the whole world is watching and judging? Laura: That’s when the story shifts from unsettling to truly devastating. And it takes us to our second woman, Maggie.

Laura: Maggie’s story is the one that generated the most discussion and controversy when the book came out. She’s a seventeen-year-old high school student in North Dakota who gets involved in an alleged relationship with her married English teacher, Aaron Knodel. Sophia: Okay, alarm bells are ringing. A seventeen-year-old and her teacher. The power imbalance is enormous from the start. Laura: Staggering. And Taddeo doesn't shy away from the details that make it feel so real and so manipulative. He doesn't just pursue her; he frames their connection as this epic, forbidden romance. He gives her a copy of her favorite book, Twilight, and fills it with handwritten Post-it notes, drawing parallels between them and the book's eternally bonded characters. He even sprays his cologne on the pages. Sophia: Ugh, that's so creepy. It's grooming, but cloaked in the language of teenage romance novels. He’s using her own desires and fantasies against her. Laura: Precisely. But the real story, the one that speaks to the book's core theme, is what happens after. When the relationship ends and becomes public, the town doesn't rush to protect Maggie. They turn on her. She's ostracized. The book describes how she's called a "whore" and a "fat cunt" by people in her community. Sophia: That is just infuriating. He's the adult, the one in a position of authority. How could anyone see it differently? I know the book got some criticism for how it handled this story. Laura: It did, and I think that's because Taddeo's journalistic approach is so unflinching it's uncomfortable. She doesn't just tell us Maggie's side. She shows us the system that disbelieves her. She describes the counter-protest organized by Knodel's students, holding signs in his support. She shows us the Knodel family driving past, with Aaron displaying a smug expression. Sophia: So she forces the reader to witness the social machinery of shaming and disbelief in action. It’s not just about one bad man; it’s about a community that chooses to protect him over a vulnerable girl. Laura: Exactly. The book forces you to sit in that uncomfortable reality and ask why. Why are women's stories, especially young women's stories about desire and abuse, so easily dismissed or twisted? Taddeo’s eight years of research really pay off here, because she captures the texture of that dismissal. Sophia: That makes so much sense. The book isn't just about Maggie's desire, then. It's about the town's desire to believe a certain, more comfortable narrative—the one where the respected family man is the victim and the teenage girl is the predator. The aftermath is what reveals the true ugliness. Laura: The aftermath is everything. Maggie is left profoundly lonely, working a dead-end job, her life derailed. The book quotes her as being "lonely in a deeper way than many other twenty-three-year-olds." Her desire, whether it was genuine, manipulated, or a mix of both, collided with reality, and reality crushed her.

Laura: So you have Sloane, whose desire is a private performance, and Maggie, whose desire becomes a public spectacle. What Taddeo shows us is that in both cases, the woman's desire is never allowed to be a simple, private thing. It's shaped, judged, and ultimately controlled by the world watching her. Sophia: And the consequences are so different but equally devastating. Sloane is trapped in a psychological cage of performance, and Maggie is trapped in a social one of shame. It really makes you question what 'sexual freedom' even means if it's always on someone else's terms. Laura: Precisely. The book's biggest takeaway isn't a happy one. It’s what Taddeo says in the prologue: "It’s the nuances of desire that hold the truth of who we are at our rawest moments." But society is rarely ready to hear that truth, especially from women. That's why she spent eight years on this. These stories are that complex, that painful, and that important. Sophia: It’s a powerful and deeply sobering book. It leaves you with a heavy question: How much of what we want is truly what we want, versus what we've been taught to want, or what we think others want to see us want? Laura: A question worth sitting with for a long time. The book was a massive bestseller and won awards, but it also polarized readers. Some found it liberating, others found it exploitative. It really forces a reaction. Sophia: Which is probably the point. It’s not a book you can read passively. Laura: Absolutely. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What did you feel reading these stories, or even just hearing about them now? Find us on our socials and share your perspective. It's a conversation that needs to continue. Sophia: This is Aibrary, signing off.