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In the spring of 2024, Miranda July’s bestselling autofiction , All Fours , inspired a certain demographic of American women (nerdy, privileged, partnered, maybe a little dead inside) to admit to their salacious fantasies of leaving all things domestic behind. It was a millennial/Gen X Feminist Mystique moment—one of those times when a book breaks open a conversation about longing that has real-world consequences . In 2024, we also got trend pieces arguing that Gen X women were having the hottest sex , and a rash of movies featuring older actresses paired with handsome up-and-coming actors.

This fall, however, among my fellow fortysomething women,

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