The Sexiest Erotic Novels of All Time |
Sex in fiction, like sex on a beach, ought to be a no-brainer. On the one hand, there's, well, sex, a source of mystifying pleasure and profundity that for most people rarely elicits any articulation other than a contented grunt, groan, or gasp. On the other hand, there's the novel, an artistic enterprise devoted to making verbal sense of mute experience. In theory, the setup seems the perfect illustration of the Reese's principle: two great tastes that taste great together. But theory is not practice, and life, friends, is not a peanut-butter cup. There are so many perils awaiting sex in serious fiction these days that you could almost forgive a writer for playing it safe and sticking to the merely suggestive. Almost, that is, until you remember that prudence, no less than prudery, is the enemy of art. (Consider this your obligatory reminder that Ulysses, the preeminent anglophone novel of the twentieth century, takes place on a date that commemorates the first handjob James Joyce ever received from his future wife.) All credit, then, goes to the following writers, who press forward in spite of the sniggering. And a special shout-out to those whose devotion to literature has not rendered them too stingy to flirt with their readers, to seduce them—in the end, even, to try to turn them on. |
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The Lost Art of Date Night |
Something was off the other night as my wife and I sat in the corner banquette at Four Twenty Five on Madison Avenue, just a few streets shy of the Upper East Side. As we ate the last of the season's tomatoes and admired the army of light fixtures dangling from the high ceiling of the 62nd restaurant opened by chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, I asked Emily if she knew why it was different. She looked around at a dining room packed with men out on dates with much younger women, and then she joked it was because I appeared too young to be there, and my wife—who is seven years younger than me—was too old. But that wasn't it, I told her. As I watched our food make its way from the kitchen to our table, I nervously checked my phone again. The deal with our dinners is that we try our best to block everything out—not look at our phones or talk too much about work. A dinner date is supposed to be just us and nobody else. I was breaking the rules because somebody new had come into the picture. No, it wasn't an affair, nor did we become one of those Brooklyn couples that turned into a throuple. We became one of those Brooklyn couples that has a baby. |
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How Your Pants Should Fit Now |
There's never been a better time to be a pants-wearing human being. From a sheer selection standpoint, the current era is without rival. Whatever you're pulling on, a cornucopia of fits and finishes awaits you. Options truly abound. But abundance is a double-edged sword. Luckily for you, the Esquire office is full of borderline-obsessive pants enthusiasts. We've tried the skinny, the slim, the slim-straight, the straight, the baggy, and the ultra-baggy versions. We've played around with preferred rises. We've worn pleats—hell yeah, we have!—and flat fronts. Cropped cuts and ones that pool just so at the ankle. Wide legs and boot cuts. We've fixated, futzed, and failed to hit the mark a few times along the way. And we've done all that so you don't have to. If you're in the market for a new pair of pants, this is where to start. |
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41 Gadgets That Will Change Your Life |
Gadgets. Gizmos. Galore. From kitchen tech to your backyard equipment, we're all in here at Esquire. Our offices have transformed into a hub for high-tech testing. We're diving into robots, smart swimming goggles, e-bikes, mini fridges, and any big screen we can get our hands on. With new products launching almost daily, we've been busy. Each new launch raises two questions: Is it worth the investment? Does it represent true innovation or is it full of minor updates? That's where the value of human (not robot!) trial periods comes in. While some of us staffers are passionate about headphones, others love streaming entertainment in every way possible, and still others are invested in the ever-evolving wellness space. Our team of editors focused on the things they enjoy most, so everything was judged by experts in each category. Explore our top picks for outdoor gear, wellness products, home gadgets, and more. |
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Kamala Harris's Medicare At-Home Plan Is Revolutionary. Why Aren't We Talking About It? |
Perhaps the most undercovered actual policy proposal of the presidential campaign is the vice president's notion that home care for the elderly and infirm be covered under Medicare. Advocates have been beating down doors for years trying to get someone to listen to the appeals from elderly spouses and overwhelmed adult children for some respite or relief from what Alzheimer's activists refer to as "the thirty-six-hour day." (My family has some, ahem, experience with this.) Estimates from the Alzheimer's Association hold that some 11 million Americans are supplying unpaid home health care in these situations and that this labor-intensive work is worth an estimated $350 billion. This is a revolutionary proposal, and people should be debating it fiercely up one side of the campaign and down the other. It should be worth a massive bushel of votes for the Democratic ticket. Instead, the elite political press has greeted it with a self-satisfied shrug and moved on to whatever the daily fauxtrage is. Interestingly, though, House Speaker Mike Johnson had some thoughts to share about health care under a second Trump administration, and he shared them with an audience in Pennsylvania. |
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How Bad Is Co-Sleeping with Your Baby, Really? |
It's clear: New parents are tired. Their bump-into-walls level of exhaustion has even become a running joke that's spawned thousands of Instagram memes and sitcom gags, like dads brushing their teeth with sunscreen, pouring orange juice into their coffee, or dozing off at a red light. But the reality of severe sleep deprivation is no joke. It can lead to devastating mistakes, like forgetting your child in the backseat of a car or forgetting to turn off the stove. Deep fatigue is a major issue that new parents face daily. It can trigger irritability, depression, intrusive thoughts, and much more. In their desperation for sleep, parents often turn to risky choices that increase the chances of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID), such as bed sharing, stomach sleeping, and using soft toys or bulky bedding in the baby's sleep space. Despite decades of public-health campaigns advocating the ABC's of safe sleep (Alone, on the Back, in a Crib), the frequency of these tragedies is stuck at 3,400 deaths per year with no improvement in over 25 years! This brings us to the question: Does co-sleeping foster closeness, or can it be a danger? |
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