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Essays in Love  is a novel about two young people, who meet on an airplane between London and Paris and rapidly fall in love. The structure of the story isn’t unusual, but what lends the book its interest is the extraordinary depth with which the emotions involved in the relationship are analysed. Love comes under the philosophical microscope. An entire chapter is devoted to the nuances and subtexts of an initial date. Another chapter mulls over the question of how and when to say ‘I love you’. There’s an essay on how uncomfortable it can be to disagree with a lover’s taste in shoes and a lengthy discussion about the role of guilt in love.

The book is an intriguing blend of novel and non-fiction. As in a novel, there are characters and realistic settings, but these are blended in with a host of more abstract ideas. The book has attracted a particular following among those who have recently fallen in love ­- or come out of a relationship.

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Essays in Love (On Love) by Alain de Botton

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B : weaknesses galore, but clever enough, with his trademark digressions, that we do recommend it

See our review for fuller assessment.

   From the Reviews : "Alain de Botton picks up the torch, so to speak, more or less where Stendhal left off. De Botton�s On Love reads as if Stendhal had lived into the �90s, survived modern critical theory (as he clearly has), thought it was funny (as he likely would have), but retained a novelist�s sympathy for the impulse -- which he shared -- to deconstruct and to dissect in search of some higher understanding." - Francine Prose, The New Republic "The result is something like La Rochefoucauld�s maxims crossed with Adolphe, with jokes and against a background of luggage reclaim areas and breakfast cereal packets. (...) Ingeniously pinpointed mundane details stop the novel from getting too abstract. It is witty, funny, sophisticated, neatly tied up, and full of wise and illuminating insights." - Gabriele Annan, The Spectator Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

The complete review 's Review :

       Baby-faced in appearance, Gallic in name and often in attitude, English Wunderkind De Botton has achieved notable (and somewhat galling) success at an early age, with five books to his name before he turned thirty. On Love was his first novel ( Essays in Love , as the British original had it) -- though there are also similarly themed later novels, Kiss & Tell and The Romantic Movement . Love preoccupies the young author, as well it might, and though a big subject to tackle, De Botton tackles well.        The story of this novel is simplicity itself: a love affair, from its very beginning to its very end. De Botton's narrator describes falling in love with Chloe, being in love with her, and then getting over her. An old story, the twist here is in how De Botton relates it, dwelling and (over)analyzing each and every aspect, and looking to see greater truths in them.        De Botton is intelligent, and he chooses to approach his book cleverly. Clever and intelligent do not always mix, but De Botton manages quite well. Each relatively short chapter is further divided into numbered paragraphs, each a brief point (or often a brief digression) illuminating various aspects of the love between Chloe and the narrator -- and love in general. Young, well-educated, fairly well to do, neither is completely sympathetic. Part of De Botton's success is that he shows us everyday love in characters who are not particularly appealing. He revels in considering all aspects of love, including -- or rather, especially -- the mundane and everyday and trivial. There are charts and pictures and diagrams, and some of it is too cute and forced, but overall it is indeed a clever little book.        It is a young author's book, and we occasionally grimace at some of what De Botton tries -- but it is a difficult subject to handle well. Other people's love affairs are often not the most interesting of subjects, especially when one deals with the everyday minutiae, but for most of the book De Botton keeps us hooked with his interesting thoughts on love's many aspects. The almost banal affair itself does stifle the narrative (De Botton's strength is certainly essayistic, which is why his Proust book is far superior to the novels), but there are enough well-conceived flights of fancy to keep the reader amused.        In her review Francine Prose makes particular note of the chapter entitled Marxism , where the Marxism in question is not Karl's, but rather the Groucho's who didn't want to belong to any club that would have him. It is that sort of cleverness that fills the book, and those who are put off by it should turn elsewhere. Prose is correct in expecting that those who can't appreciate this notion (which De Botton handles very cleverly) would not enjoy the book. We would argue that the book is, on some level, even more demanding than that. De Botton is intelligent, and the book is rich in allusion and reference. While most of this is enjoyable, it is perhaps the place where he truly goes wrong: the references are too clever for the quality of his narrative (he is not quite up to snuff in the story-telling department yet), and so readers are left either disappointed by the writing or confused by the references.        We still recommend this book rather highly, as an interesting failed effort, with enough quality, humor, and cleverness (and love-talk !) to satisfy. Like all of De Botton's book, it makes one think -- though without being overly taxing.

About the Author :

       English author Alain de Botton was born in Switzerland in 1969 and educated at Cambridge.

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Book Review: Essays in Love // Alain de Botton

As soon as the final word on the final page of Essays in Love ended, I felt a strong impulse to write about how this book made me feel, so here goes.

This book is a rarity. Feeling so content and warm when reading a book happens only on occasion, and this book has been successful in doing so. Written by Alain de Botton as his first novel in such a beautifully poetic manner, Essays in Love documents a passionate and tender relationship between a man and a woman, which happened coincidentally and ends inevitably. Told from the man’s perspective, his philosophical stance on love for his other half Chloe paints an intricate picture of how intense love can be. He marks each part of the relationship in chronological order, each chapter as a mini philosophical essay, going into great depth about simple details of their relationship such as seducing her, saying ‘I love you’, silently arguing through ‘romantic terrorism’ and wanting to commit suicide when it’s over. This all may sound slightly obsessive – which it essentially is – but through de Botton’s flowing and softly-spoken writing style, it’s as if the novel is being whispered to you (in the least creepy way possible).

The novel begins with their meeting on a flight, which sounds clichéd but it captures the surprise and coincidence love can bring. The characterisation of the speaker depicts him as a clearly highly intelligent and profound man, whose analytical thinking allows us directly into his mind and how well he can breakdown and evaluate love. As the chapters progress, so too does the relationship, which starts off awkward but grows and grows into a strong adoration for one another. His observations of the little mannerisms and physical attributes of Chloe which he found to be beautiful were extremely poignant, as are the moral questions he asks about love such as “If she really is so wonderful, how could she love someone like me?” and “Is it not my right to be loved and her duty to love me?”

The relationship between the speaker and Chloe is one of normality; it’s nothing spectacular. What really makes it so special, however, is the way the story is told in such detail and depth. Each sentence is sculpted so flawlessly; the last couple of chapters are particularly stunning, as the book doesn’t simply describe being in love, but also being out of love, and these chapters deal with getting over a break-up in such a raw and realistic manner. Describing Chloe’s affair with the speaker’s work partner Will was heart-wrenching to read, particularly due to how deep his affections for her were, but the beauty of it is how realistic it is – it’s not all magic and fairy tales, it’s just an ordinary relationship (if such a thing exists).

The book often references philosophers and analogies from philosophy which may be slightly confusing if you don’t have prior philosophical knowledge; however this does not affect the book as a whole. It can, at times, be quite challenging to grasp due to the scope of language used, but this generally makes the book so much more sophisticated.

Whether you are falling in, have fallen or have fallen out of love, Essays in Love will explain all the complexities, unanswered questions, underlying feelings and strange sensations love seems to entail. This book is a treasure, one which is highly underrated, and I am left blown away by its beauty. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to recommend this novel to everyone and anyone who’s willing to listen.

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Essays About Love: 20 Intriguing Ideas for Students

Love can make a fascinating essay topic, but sometimes finding the perfect topic idea is challenging. Here are 20 of the best essays about love.

Writers have often explored the subject of love and what it means throughout history. In his book Essays in Love , Alain de Botton creates an in-depth essay on what love looks like, exploring a fictional couple’s relationship while highlighting many facts about love. This book shows how much there is to say about love as it beautifully merges non-fiction with fiction work.

The New York Times  published an entire column dedicated to essays on modern love, and many prize-winning reporters often contribute to the collection. With so many published works available, the subject of love has much to be explored.

If you are going to write an essay about love and its effects, you will need a winning topic idea. Here are the top 20 topic ideas for essays about love. These topics will give you plenty to think about and explore as you take a stab at the subject that has stumped philosophers, writers, and poets since the dawn of time.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

1. Outline the Definition of Love

2. describe your favorite love story, 3. what true love looks like, 4. discuss how human beings are hard-wired for love, 5. explore the different types of love, 6. determine the true meaning of love, 7. discuss the power of love, 8. do soul mates exist, 9. determine if all relationships should experience a break-up, 10. does love at first sight exist, 11. explore love between parents and children, 12. discuss the disadvantages of love, 13. ask if love is blind, 14. discuss the chemical changes that love causes, 15. outline the ethics of love, 16. the inevitability of heartbreak, 17. the role of love in a particular genre of literature, 18. is love freeing or oppressing, 19. does love make people do foolish things, 20. explore the theme of love from your favorite book or movie.

Defining love may not be as easy as you think. While it seems simple, love is an abstract concept with multiple potential meanings. Exploring these meanings and then creating your own definition of love can make an engaging essay topic.

To do this, first, consider the various conventional definitions of love. Then, compare and contrast them until you come up with your own definition of love.

One essay about love you could tackle is describing and analyzing a favorite love story. This story could be from a fiction tale or real life. It could even be your love story.

As you analyze and explain the love story, talk about the highs and lows of love. Showcase the hard and great parts of this love story, then end the essay by talking about what real love looks like (outside the flowers and chocolates).

This essay will explore what true love looks like. With this essay idea, you could contrast true love with the romantic love often shown in movies. This contrast would help the reader see how true love looks in real life.

An essay about what true love looks like could allow you to explore this kind of love in many different facets. It would allow you to discuss whether or not someone is, in fact, in true love. You could demonstrate why saying “I love you” is not enough through the essay.

There seems to be something ingrained in human nature to seek love. This fact could make an interesting essay on love and its meaning, allowing you to explore why this might be and how it plays out in human relationships.

Because humans seem to gravitate toward committed relationships, you could argue that we are hard-wired for love. But, again, this is an essay option that has room for growth as you develop your thoughts.

There are many different types of love. For example, while you can have romantic love between a couple, you may also have family love among family members and love between friends. Each of these types of love has a different expression, which could lend itself well to an interesting essay topic.

Writing an essay that compares and contrasts the different types of love would allow you to delve more deeply into the concept of love and what makes up a loving relationship.

What does love mean? This question is not as easy to answer as you might think. However, this essay topic could give you quite a bit of room to develop your ideas about love.

While exploring this essay topic, you may discover that love means different things to different people. For some, love is about how someone makes another person feel. To others, it is about actions performed. By exploring this in an essay, you can attempt to define love for your readers.

What can love make people do? This question could lend itself well to an essay topic. The power of love is quite intense, and it can make people do things they never thought they could or would do.

With this love essay, you could look at historical examples of love, fiction stories about love relationships, or your own life story and what love had the power to do. Then, at the end of your essay, you can determine how powerful love is.

The idea of a soul mate is someone who you are destined to be with and love above all others. This essay topic would allow you to explore whether or not each individual has a soul mate.

If you determine that they do, you could further discuss how you would identify that soul mate. How can you tell when you have found “the one” right for you? Expanding on this idea could create a very interesting and unique essay.

Break-ups seem inevitable, and strong relationships often come back together afterward. Yet are break-ups truly inevitable? Or are they necessary to create a strong bond? This idea could turn into a fascinating essay topic if you look at both sides of the argument.

On the one hand, you could argue that the break-up experience shows you whether or not your relationship can weather difficult times. On the other hand, you could argue that breaking up damages the trust you’re working to build. Regardless of your conclusion, you can build a solid essay off of this topic idea.

Love, at first sight is a common theme in romance stories, but is it possible? Explore this idea in your essay. You will likely find that love, at first sight, is nothing more than infatuation, not genuine love.

Yet you may discover that sometimes, love, at first sight, does happen. So, determine in your essay how you can differentiate between love and infatuation if it happens to you. Then, conclude with your take on love at first sight and if you think it is possible.

The love between a parent and child is much different than the love between a pair of lovers. This type of love is one-sided, with care and self-sacrifice on the parent’s side. However, the child’s love is often unconditional.

Exploring this dynamic, especially when contrasting parental love with romantic love, provides a compelling essay topic. You would have the opportunity to define this type of love and explore what it looks like in day-to-day life.

Most people want to fall in love and enjoy a loving relationship, but does love have a downside? In an essay, you can explore the disadvantages of love and show how even one of life’s greatest gifts is not without its challenges.

This essay would require you to dig deep and find the potential downsides of love. However, if you give it a little thought, you should be able to discuss several. Finally, end the essay by telling the reader whether or not love is worth it despite the many challenges.

Love is blind is a popular phrase that indicates love allows someone not to see another person’s faults. But is love blind, or is it simply a metaphor that indicates the ability to overlook issues when love is at the helm.

If you think more deeply about this quote, you will probably determine that love is not blind. Rather, love for someone can overshadow their character flaws and shortcomings. When love is strong, these things fall by the wayside. Discuss this in your essay, and draw your own conclusion to decide if love is blind.

When someone falls in love, their body feels specific hormonal and chemical changes. These changes make it easier to want to spend time with the person. Yet they can be fascinating to study, and you could ask whether or not love is just chemical reactions or something more.

Grab a science book or two and see if you can explore these physiological changes from love. From the additional sweating to the flushing of the face, you will find quite a few chemical changes that happen when someone is in love.

Love feels like a positive emotion that does not have many ethical concerns, but this is not true. Several ethical questions come from the world of love. Exploring these would make for an interesting and thoughtful essay.

For example, you could discuss if it is ethically acceptable to love an object or even oneself or love other people. You could discuss if it is appropriate to enter into a physical relationship if there is no love present or if love needs to come first. There are many questions to explore with this love essay.

If you choose to love someone, is heartbreak inevitable? This question could create a lengthy essay. However, some would argue that it is because either your object of affection will eventually leave you through a break-up or death.

Yet do these actions have to cause heartbreak, or are they simply part of the process? Again, this question lends itself well to an essay because it has many aspects and opinions to explore.

Literature is full of stories of love. You could choose a genre, like mythology or science fiction, and explore the role of love in that particular genre. With this essay topic, you may find many instances where love is a vital central theme of the work.

Keep in mind that in some genres, like myths, love becomes a driving force in the plot, while in others, like historical fiction, it may simply be a background part of the story. Therefore, the type of literature you choose for this essay would significantly impact the way your essay develops.

Most people want to fall in love, but is love freeing or oppressing? The answer may depend on who your loved ones are. Love should free individuals to authentically be who they are, not tie them into something they are not.

Yet there is a side of love that can be viewed as oppressive, deepening on your viewpoint. For example, you should stay committed to just that individual when you are in a committed relationship with someone else. Is this freeing or oppressive? Gather opinions through research and compare the answers for a compelling essay.

You can easily find stories of people that did foolish things for love. These stories could translate into interesting and engaging essays. You could conclude the answer to whether or not love makes people do foolish things.

Your answer will depend on your research, but chances are you will find that, yes, love makes people foolish at times. Then you could use your essay to discuss whether or not it is still reasonable to think that falling in love is a good thing, although it makes people act foolishly at times.

Most fiction works have love in them in some way. This may not be romantic love, but you will likely find characters who love something or someone.

Use that fact to create an essay. Pick your favorite story, either through film or written works, and explore what love looks like in that work. Discuss the character development, storyline, and themes and show how love is used to create compelling storylines.

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

14 Modern Literary Passages That Beautifully Describe Every Part Of Love

• https://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=653218

1. “‘I am,’ he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. ‘I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.’”

– The Fault In Our Stars , John Green

2. “People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there, even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves.”

– Wild Awake , Hilary T. Smith

3. “No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater … The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that’s the key. It’s like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot.”

— This Lullaby , Sarah Dessen

4. “I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me.”

— The Amber Spyglass , Phillip Pullman

5. “I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.”

— Everything Is Illuminated , Jonathan Safran Foer

6. “All his life he would hold this moment as exemplary of what love was. It was not wanting anything more, nor was it expecting people to exceed what they had just accomplished; it was simply feeling so complete.”

– A Widow For One Year , John Irving

7. “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”

– The History Of Love , Nicole Krauss

8. “His examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his only concrete feeling was an urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning…to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera.”

— Love in the Time of Cholera , Gabriel García Márquez

9. “Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That’s what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.”

– Delirium , Lauren Oliver

10. “Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.”

— Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , J.K. Rowling

11. “Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path.

No one wants their life thrown into chaos. That is why a lot of people keep that threat under control, and are somehow capable of sustaining a house or a structure that is already rotten. They are the engineers of the superseded.

Other people think exactly the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought, hoping to find in passion the solutions to all their problems. They make the other person responsible for their happiness and blame them for their possible unhappiness. They are either euphoric because something marvelous has happened or depressed because something unexpected has just ruined everything.

Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it – which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?

I don’t know.”

― Eleven Minutes , Paulo Coelho

12. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

– The Velveteen Rabbit , Margery Williams

13. “A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing— not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.”

— The English Patient , Michael Ondaatje

14. “When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

About the author

Liz was born, raised, and schooled in the Chicago area. Every year, she is sure the Cubs will win the World Series, and one of these years, she’ll be right.

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Essays in Love Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Essays in Love is a stunningly original love story. Taking in Aristotle, Wittgenstein, history, religion and Groucho Marx, Alain de Botton charts the progress of a love affair from the first kiss to argument and reconciliation, from intimacy and tenderness to the onset of anxiety and heartbreak.

• Listening Length 7 hours and 14 minutes
• Author Alain de Botton
• Narrator James Wilby
• Audible release date December 6, 2010
• Language English
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• ASIN B004FDUMSI
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The fireflies danced around us, the wind winding through the trees, and when he set his eyes on me, I felt like the only story he wanted to read. And that was dangerous, because he was fictional and Rachel had written someone for him. Someone good. And it wasn’t me

“Follow your heart, Even if it leads you wrong, will you really regret it?”

"Sometimes a book can change your life. It's hard to explain that to someone who doesn't read, or who has never felt their heart bend so strongly towards a story that it might just snap in two."

"So who could blame me for sinking into books, where I knew the people weren't real, but they also never disappointed me?

"The fireflied danced around us, the wind winding through the trees, and when he set his eyes on me, I felt like the only story he wanted to read."

"I couldn't remember the last time someone had kissed me that passionately--savored me, like I was the last sentence in his favorite book."

"You don't like naps? What's wrong with you? Who hurt you as a child?"

"It wasn't the end that mattered, but every word leading up to it."

"Love was a bunch of small things that added up to bigger things. Love was feeling valued. And accepted. Just the way you were."

Long distance I could travel, language barriers I could learn, but fictional ?

"I had buried my head in stories so long that I'd forgotton to live the real thing."

"You're cute," he went on, "when you're pretending to be angry with me."

"Your mouth is better at kissing than lying, Elsy."

"Well, I was certainly in trouble tonight. And the worst part was, I feared I was going to like it."

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As a Teenager in Europe, I Went to Nudist Beaches All the Time. 30 Years Later, Would the Experience Be the Same?

In July 2017, I wrote an article about toplessness for Vogue Italia. The director, actor, and political activist Lina Esco had emerged from the world of show business to question public nudity laws in the United States with 2014’s Free the Nipple . Her film took on a life of its own and, thanks to the endorsement from the likes of Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne, and Willow Smith, eventually developed into a whole political movement, particularly on social media where the hashtag #FreeTheNipple spread at lightning speed. The same year as that piece, actor Alyssa Milano tweeted “me too” and encouraged others who had been sexually assaulted to do the same, building on the movement activist Tarana Burke had created more than a decade earlier. The rest is history.

In that Vogue article, I chatted with designer Alessandro Michele about a shared memory of our favorite topless beaches of our youth. Anywhere in Italy where water appeared—be it the hard-partying Riviera Romagnola, the traditionally chic Amalfi coast and Sorrento peninsula, the vertiginous cliffs and inlets of Italy’s continuation of the French Côte d’Azur or the towering volcanic rocks of Sicily’s mythological Riviera dei Ciclopi—one was bound to find bodies of all shapes and forms, naturally topless.

In the ’90s, growing up in Italy, naked breasts were everywhere and nobody thought anything about it. “When we look at our childhood photos we recognize those imperfect breasts and those bodies, each with their own story. I think of the ‘un-beauty’ of that time and feel it is actually the ultimate beauty,” Michele told me.

Indeed, I felt the same way. My relationship with toplessness was part of a very democratic cultural status quo. If every woman on the beaches of the Mediterranean—from the sexy girls tanning on the shoreline to the grandmothers eating spaghetti al pomodoro out of Tupperware containers under sun umbrellas—bore equally naked body parts, then somehow we were all on the same team. No hierarchies were established. In general, there was very little naked breast censorship. Free nipples appeared on magazine covers at newsstands, whether tabloids or art and fashion magazines. Breasts were so naturally part of the national conversation and aesthetic that Ilona Staller (also known as Cicciolina) and Moana Pozzi, two porn stars, cofounded a political party called the Love Party. I have a clear memory of my neighbor hanging their party’s banner out his window, featuring a topless Cicciolina winking.

A lot has changed since those days, but also since that initial 2017 piece. There’s been a feminist revolution, a transformation of women’s fashion and gender politics, the absurd overturning of Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction in New York, the intensely disturbing overturning of Roe v Wade and the current political battle over reproductive rights radiating from America and far beyond. One way or another, the female body is very much the site of political battles as much as it is of style and fashion tastes. And maybe for this reason naked breasts seem to populate runways and street style a lot more than they do beaches—it’s likely that being naked at a dinner party leaves more of a permanent mark than being naked on a glamorous shore. Naked “dressing” seems to be much more popular than naked “being.” It’s no coincidence that this year Saint Laurent, Chloé, Ferragamo, Tom Ford, Gucci, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, and Valentino all paid homage to sheer dressing in their collections, with lacy dresses, see-through tops, sheer silk hosiery fabric, and close-fitting silk dresses. The majority of Anthony Vaccarello’s fall 2024 collection was mostly transparent. And even off the runway, guests at the Saint Laurent show matched the mood. Olivia Wilde appeared in a stunning see-through dark bodysuit, Georgia May Jagger wore a sheer black halter top, Ebony Riley wore a breathtaking V-neck, and Elsa Hosk went for translucent polka dots.

In some strange way, it feels as if the trends of the ’90s have swapped seats with those of today. When, in 1993, a 19-year-old Kate Moss wore her (now iconic) transparent, bronze-hued Liza Bruce lamé slip dress to Elite Model Agency’s Look of the Year Awards in London, I remember seeing her picture everywhere and feeling in awe of her daring and grace. I loved her simple sexy style, with her otherworldly smile, the hair tied back in a bun. That very slip has remained in the collective unconscious for decades, populating thousands of internet pages, but in remembering that night Moss admitted that the nude look was totally unintentional: “I had no idea why everyone was so excited—in the darkness of Corinne [Day’s] Soho flat, the dress was not see-through!” That’s to say that nude dressing was usually mostly casual and not intellectualized in the context of a larger movement.

But today nudity feels loaded in different ways. In April, actor and author Julia Fox appeared in Los Angeles in a flesh-colored bra that featured hairy hyper-realist prints of breasts and nipples, and matching panties with a print of a sewn-up vagina and the words “closed” on it, as a form of feminist performance art. Breasts , an exhibition curated by Carolina Pasti, recently opened as part of the 60th Venice Biennale at Palazzo Franchetti and showcases works that span from painting and sculpture to photography and film, reflecting on themes of motherhood, empowerment, sexuality, body image, and illness. The show features work by Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, and an incredible painting by Bernardino Del Signoraccio of Madonna dell’Umiltà, circa 1460-1540. “It was fundamental for me to include a Madonna Lactans from a historical perspective. In this intimate representation, the Virgin reveals one breast while nurturing the child, the organic gesture emphasizing the profound bond between mother and child,” Pasti said when we spoke.

Through her portrayal of breasts, she delves into the delicate balance of strength and vulnerability within the female form. I spoke to Pasti about my recent musings on naked breasts, which she shared in a deep way. I asked her whether she too noticed a disparity between nudity on beaches as opposed to the one on streets and runways, and she agreed. Her main concern today is around censorship. To Pasti, social media is still far too rigid around breast exposure and she plans to discuss this issue through a podcast that she will be launching in September, together with other topics such as motherhood, breastfeeding, sexuality, and breast cancer awareness.

With summer at the door, it was my turn to see just how much of the new reread on transparency would apply to beach life. In the last few years, I noticed those beaches Michele and I reminisced about have grown more conservative and, despite being the daughter of unrepentant nudists and having a long track record of militant topless bathing, I myself have felt a bit more shy lately. Perhaps a woman in her 40s with two children is simply less prone to taking her top off, but my memories of youth are populated by visions of bare-chested mothers surveilling the coasts and shouting after their kids in the water. So when did we stop? And why? When did Michele’s era of “un-beauty” end?

In order to get back in touch with my own naked breasts I decided to revisit the nudist beaches of my youth to see what had changed. On a warm day in May, I researched some local topless beaches around Rome and asked a friend to come with me. Two moms, plus our four children, two girls and two boys of the same ages. “Let’s make an experiment of this and see what happens,” I proposed.

The kids all yawned, but my friend was up for it. These days to go topless, especially on urban beaches, you must visit properties that have an unspoken nudist tradition. One of these in Rome is the natural reserve beach at Capocotta, south of Ostia, but I felt a bit unsure revisiting those sands. In my memory, the Roman nudist beaches often equated to encounters with promiscuous strangers behind the dunes. I didn’t want to expose the kids, so, being that I am now a wise adult, I went ahead and picked a compromise. I found a nude-friendly beach on the banks of the Farfa River, in the rolling Sabina hills.

We piled into my friend’s car and drove out. The kids were all whining about the experiment. “We don’t want to see naked mums!” they complained. “Can’t you just lie and say you went to a nudist beach?”

We parked the car and walked across the medieval fairy-tale woods until we reached the path that ran along the river. All around us were huge trees and gigantic leaves. It had rained a lot recently and the vegetation had grown incredibly. We walked past the remains of a Roman road. The colors all around were bright green, the sky almost fluorescent blue. The kids got sidetracked by the presence of frogs. According to the indications, the beach was about a mile up the river. Halfway down the path, we bumped into a couple of young guys in fanny packs. I scanned them for signs of quintessential nudist attitude, but realized I actually had no idea what that was. I asked if we were headed in the right direction to go to “the beach”. They nodded and gave us a sly smile, which I immediately interpreted as a judgment about us as mothers, and more generally about our age, but I was ready to vindicate bare breasts against ageism.

We reached a small pebbled beach, secluded and bordered by a huge trunk that separated it from the path. A group of girls was there, sharing headphones and listening to music. To my dismay they were all wearing the tops and bottoms of their bikinis. One of them was in a full-piece bathing suit and shorts. “See, they are all wearing bathing suits. Please don’t be the weird mums who don’t.”

At this point, it was a matter of principle. My friend and I decided to take our bathing suits off completely, if only for a moment, and jumped into the river. The boys stayed on the beach with full clothes and shoes on, horrified. The girls went in behind us with their bathing suits. “Are you happy now? my son asked. “Did you prove your point?”

I didn’t really know what my point actually was. I think a part of me wanted to feel entitled to those long-gone decades of naturalism. Whether this was an instinct, or as Pasti said, “an act that was simply tied to the individual freedom of each woman”, it was hard to tell. At this point in history, the two things didn’t seem to cancel each other out—in fact, the opposite. Taking off a bathing suit, at least for my generation who never had to fight for it, had unexpectedly turned into a radical move and maybe I wanted to be part of the new discourse. Also, the chances of me going out in a fully sheer top were slim these days, but on the beach it was different. I would always fight for an authentic topless experience.

After our picnic on the river, we left determined to make our way—and without children—to the beaches of Capocotta. In truth, no part of me actually felt very subversive doing something I had been doing my whole life, but it still felt good. Once a free breast, always a free breast.

This article was originally published on British Vogue .

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My Son and Gus Walz Deserve a Champion Like Tim Walz

By Tina Brown

Ms. Brown is the author, most recently, of “The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor — the Truth and the Turmoil."

The sight at the Democratic convention on Wednesday night of Tim Walz’s 17-year-old son leaping to his feet, with streaming eyes, a hand to his chest with a cry of “That’s my Dad” was heart piercing.

As the mother of Georgie, a 38-year-old on the spectrum who still lives with me, I recognized him immediately as one of “ours,” a sweet, unfiltered, slightly bewildered-looking young man who wasn’t quite sure what was expected of him in this epic moment of political adulation.

Gus Walz has, according to his parents, a nonverbal learning disorder, A.D.H.D. and an anxiety disorder, all of which they regard not as a setback but as his “secret power,” that makes him “brilliant” and “hyperaware.”

I know exactly what they mean. One of the joys of my life in the social churn of New York is living with a son whose inability to read the room makes him incapable of telling anything but the truth. Once, as my husband, Harry Evans, and I left a pretentious social gathering in the Hamptons, Georgie told the host sunnily: “Thank you very much. No one spoke to me really, so it was a very boring evening. The food was OK. I doubt I will come again.”

“I have never been prouder of you in my life!” shouted my husband in the car. How many times have all of us wanted to say that as we gushed about the fabulous time we just hadn’t had? Then there was the moment he went up to Anna Wintour at one of my book parties and asked if she was Camilla Parker Bowles. And the time at the intake meeting for a supported work program, when the therapist asked Georgie, “Has anyone ever molested you?” “Unfortunately not,” he replied. Georgie teaches me every day how much we depend on social lies to make the world go round. His sister — his forever best friend — and I feel so lucky to have him in our lives. So did his dad, who died in 2020.

And yet for people who are different and have no support, the world can be bleak. Their loneliness can be agonizing. Some people assume the school days are the hardest, but it’s the years after that are the social desert. Having a friendly, forgiving workplace to go to is critical. It’s often their only taste of community and what makes them such reliable and rewarding employees. The work from home movement has been a killer for people with special needs, often depriving them of the only social connections they have.

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