Action: A Book About Sex (32 page)

My endless gratitude, esteem, and so forth is the permanent property of the following beloveds: Rookie, who supported and generated this book in manifold ways; soup dumplings; Ma, Lito, Laurg, Maddy, and our family as a collective—forever and ever, and for everything; Dimitri Stathas aka DVS par excellence, who sat up with me through the night and rubbed oil on my mitt during the entire summer I spent writing my proposal; Dan Kirschen, my agent extraordinaire; Libby Burton who edited me gently and strongly; Charles Aaron; Tavi Queen Gevinson, who is the aperture through which this exists; Lena Queen Singer for extending me her signature grace and camaraderie—and more or less making it possible for me to finish this; Lauren Redding, the team captain; Action Park; Joseph Mitchell; Julianne Escobedo Shepherd; John McElwee; everyone I’ve ever fucked; everyone in general; Hermione Hoby for friendship and being one of my two readers; Rosie Lichter-Marck for the same; every editor I’ve ever had, but especially and above all, Anaheed Alani; ROOKIE ROOKIE ROOKIE and all of its people; www.rookiemag.com, in case that wasn’t yet clear; Laia Garcia; Jake Fogelnest, who said, “You’ll be amazed at what can happen if you just FINISH THE THING” and was right; Caryn Ganz; E. B. White, whose essays I read once or more a day before starting; Wayne Koestenbaum for the same; Jesse Miller-Gordon, my research assistant and love; Maggie Thrash, who kept saying, “Tell me the first word of your book. Or the last one”; Meredith Graves; Jessica “Jayhawk” Hopper; Sonja
Midboe; Helen Gurley Brown; Sarah Nicole Prickett; Andy Ward; Andy Kaufman; Morrissey; The Jane Hotel and my own lunatic impulses (also, everyone who visited me at Gitane—JMG, Bree [“goodbye, f-friend!”], JES, SNP, Ganzy and John and Tavi, who came without a word of hello and contributed more work to the air); Brafe; The Paris Suites Motel’s fake plants and view of the Unisphere; G. I. Gurdjieff; Stephanie Kuehnert Lewis; Lucy Betz; Annie Mok; Esme Blegvad; Gabby Noone and Hazel Cills; Steve Gevinson; Buffy Sainte-Marie; Matt Groening; Nick Brown; Lulu Penny; “Greenies”; Taha, I know this reads like I’m signing a yearbook and I don’t care, God, seriously. (Also: God. Seriously!)

About the Author

Amy Rose Spiegel is a freelance writ(h)er and editor, most recently for
Rookie
. Her work has appeared in
Rolling Stone
, the
Guardian
,
NME
,
Dazed & Confused
, the
FADER
,
BuzzFeed
, and many other publications. She came up in New Jersey and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

*
Tavi Gevinson, “Work Hard and Be Kind: An Interview with Chris Ware,”
Rookie
magazine, Issue 15: Invention (2012), accessed 2015, http://www.rookiemag.com/2012/11/chris-ware-intervie/.

*
Staff reporter, “‘Masturbation Is Good for Your Health’: Experts Say It Can Prevent Conditions Such as Cystitis, Diabetes, and Cancer,” DailyMail.com, December 5, 2013, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2518802/Masturbation-good-health-prevents-cystitis-diabetes-cancer.html.

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Contents

1. Cover
   
2. Title Page
   
3. Welcome
   
4. Dedication
   
5. Epigraph
   
6. Introduction
   
7. PART I
   
   1. Age of Consent
      
   2. Gender, Neutrally
      
   3. Boy About Town
      
   4. Alone in the Bone Zone
      
   5. Become Yourself
      
   6. From the Inside Out
      
   7. Introducing Everyone
      
   8. No, I Still Want to Lick a Face from the Web
      
   9. Whom Should You Bone?
      
   10. Some Notes on Grooming
       
8. PART II
   
   1. Protect Me from What I Want
      
   2. In the Act
      
9. PART III
   
   1. Mistakes Were Made
      
   2. The Case for Celibacy
      
   3. On Sluts
      
10. Further Resources
    
11. Acknowledgments
    
12. About the Author
    
13. Newsletters
    
14. Copyright
    

Copyright

The names and identities of romantic partners in the book have been changed.

Copyright © 2016 Amy Rose Spiegel

Cover design by Elizabeth Turner

Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected] Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Grand Central Publishing

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First ebook edition: May 2016

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ISBN 978-1-4555-3450-0

E3-20160404-JV-NF