Helen Flanagan to make her West End debut as she joins the cast of Cluedo 2 as 'iconic' Miss Scarlett: 'I've long been looking for the right role' Eve sees Olivia and Nathan’s life together as “the life I felt I was owed given all the concessions I was making to heterosexuality and capitalism and the monstrous city – a life of adventure, romance, beauty, and pleasure.” Eve’s unapologetic self-seduction drives her narration of what she wants, what she thinks she wants, and what she thinks she should want from herself and her relationships. For Eve, sex isn’t an escape or a mask to hide behind though. According to her, it’s an oracle, “A truth-teller just waiting to find me out.” There’s a sentence in the novel that stood out to me: “Over the previous decade I had talked myself all the way from an attraction to women into a political commitment to lesbianism.” I was listening to a podcast recently where they were talking about Cynthia Nixon and how she upset a lot of gay and lesbian activists when she said that, for her, being gay was a choice. I think because we live in such a conservative culture where homosexuality is only permissable if it’s innately who you are, a lot of people saw that statement as a threat to the cause.

I think there were some valuable insights into how the patriarchy affects sex, specifically, and how women feel so rawly attracted to male praise regardless of their sexuality.' I was thinking of this when I walked through Bed-Stuy to meet Olivia for the first time – the question of how I would know. Was it simply irrelevant, since we had expressed blunt interest in each other online? There had to be a physical exchange, a look of some kind to reassure us both that our tentative interest remained intact. It had been a couple of years since I had entertained a new flirtation.Jennifer Ellison, 40, flaunts her toned figure in a white bikini in Turkey after revealing she's ditched dieting and is finally happy with her weight Selma Blair reveals a doctor once told her to get a BOYFRIEND after she sought help for agonizing MS symptoms - as she opens up about pain Keke Palmer dons FIVE different dresses while hosting the Soul Train Awards: 'I'm just giving you a bunch of different vibes!' Kelly Clarkson, 41, looks thin in a belted leather jumpsuit that highlights her newly slender figure after losing a dramatic amount of weight Trying to write a second book now makes it clear to me how long Acts of Service was percolating before I started working on it. I was inside it for three years, but there were five years before that where the questions circling in the novel were very urgent to me, and I was talking about them with everyone that I met. It started out being more about the relationship between Eve and Olivia: I was trying to get out how it feels to be seen doing something you’re ashamed of by other women, and the new context that’s given to that feeling when you’re a queer person. It’s not just like you’re being witnessed by another woman who’s a rival or a stand-in or a friend, but also someone that you theoretically have a relationship with that you want to live up to, in some way.

Prince William's ready for action! Royal looks the part as he dons camouflage military gear before riding in... Stacey Dooley shows off daughter Minnie's lookalike red hair as she stuns fans with a HUGE announcement: 'This can't happen already!' Chris Evans' wife Alba Baptista shows her diamond wedding rings for first time since couple secretly married LF: This is such an interesting question and has been at the forefront of many conversations about the book. To me, Acts is very much a love story – and what Eve and Nathan feel for each other is absolutely love. What is more romantic than being surprised by your attraction to someone, surprised by the quality of their interest in you, feeling incapable of refusing it, coming to see yourself in their eyes, and learning to see both them and yourself in a far deeper light? It’s true that Eve doesn’t develop solid or committed relationships with either Nathan or Olivia. And many readers have been discomfited by the way Eve uses love to describe her feelings for Nathan – perhaps because she’s skeptical of him, because their relationship begins as physical, or because it’s hard to see the two of them ending up together. And those elements are all true – but what do they have to do with love? For me, one of the most important subjects in Acts of Service is the variety and complexity of love.David Walliams SETTLES lawsuit with Britain's Got Talent producers after being 'forced out' of show I'm a Celeb hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly give health update on Grace Dent as viewers praise show for stepping in after food critic quit show

Rather than build up to the first meeting with Nathan, the story presses on into a near future where Eve joins the couple regularly in Nathan’s luxury apartment. The messy power dynamics leave plenty of room for alternating feelings of empathy and disgust. Olivia will do anything to please Nathan. Nathan enjoys a power over Olivia and Eve that comes with his role as host. His opulent apartment provides a perfect stage for their performative nights together. His coaxing feels coercive at times. The attraction complicates everything Eve has come to trust in her queerness. “Over the previous decade I had talked myself all the way from an attraction to women into a political commitment to lesbianism.” Oh, Olivia said. This time I did see disappointment cross her face – she was ashamed of being liked for her politeness.I'm A Celeb campmate Tony Bellew compares Sam Thompson to his children despite Made In Chelsea star being 31 as he asks to sit on the boxer's KNEE Lillian Fishman: I too had encountered very few books that started from this place, and it really interested me. (There’s an absolutely great piece of art that approaches sexuality from this angle, which was the first time I ever saw it portrayed – Desiree Akhavan’s 2018 series The Bisexual.) In this inverted scenario, there’s the same fear of a loss of identity and an existing community, but instead of a fear of being cast out of a mainstream community you were born into, there’s a fear of being considered a traitor to a much smaller, hard-won, and chosen community. There’s far less danger in exploring heterosexuality from Eve’s vantage point than there is for most people who explore their queerness for their first time. But there’s also no moral value to it – Eve’s story goes against this very beloved narrative we have of a person who discovers their sexuality, gathers the courage to pursue it, and makes a statement about the underrepresented value of their experience. It’s a story about complacency and succumbing, as opposed to a story about fortitude.