‘X’ explores pleasure and pain in a dystopic world

How do freedom and rights intersect with sex, pleasure and the self? It’s a question the U.S. is facing in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — and a central theme in writer Davey Davis’s new novel. In X, Davis relocates the conflict over these ideas from courts and abortion clinics to queer clubs and BDSM dungeons in a more dystopic version of our present.

In this episode, guest host Anna Sale talks to Davis about why sadism is romantic, how bureaucracy can become a tool of oppression and why bad behavior doesn’t make us less human.

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