The Sex and the State 2024 Holiday Gift Guide
Happy Thanksgiving! This year, I’m grateful, as always, to you, my babies, for supporting this publication. It’s my life’s work. I’m beyond grateful, thanks to you all generally and my mom in particular, to have been able to do this full-time for the past two years.
I’m happy to report that my paid subscriptions are up since focusing on gender. That, plus having sold some Bitcoin, should enable me to do it for at least one more year. I’m hoping it’ll be self-sustaining after that.
One way to get there faster, and make $100k in one month on Substack, is to publish a gift guide.
So here are some gifts I recommend!
I must, obviously, begin with the best gift you could possibly get anyone: A gift subscription to Sex and the State! Just grab the lucky recipient’s email address and click here to make their year (and mine).
If you need anything else, keep reading. All links are either stuff I made or affiliate.
Way back in the day (2013?) my then-partner bought a subscription to OMGYES.com and urged me to log in and look around. After some hesitation, I did. Then I wrote an honest review for my blog.
That post drove so much traffic and so many new subscriptions that the company ended up buying my entire personal website after it went offline (my ADHD ass forgot to pay the hosting bill). They also invited me to write copy for the core product (not my bag).
Now I occasionally write advertorials and other longform marketing content for them. They’re great clients. The subject-matter is interesting. But the main reason I keep writing for them and allowing them to use my name and likeness is that they put out a really cool product and their company has a really cool mission and I’m just happy to help.
I really do think pretty much anyone who has a vulva or has sex with anyone who has one can get a lot out of their content. This is true even if you, like me, think you already know a decent amount. More importantly, imo, they’re destigmatizing researching, talking about, and teaching sexual pleasure techniques for vulva-havers.
Speaking of knowing things and sex, I wrote a few guides a few years ago that also make great gifts.
Is This Going to Work? is the perfect gift for that friend who really needs to break up with their partner. It says “Please dump them” without coming out and saying it.
Dirty Talk 101: A beginner's guide to sexier speech is a great gift for the person who wants their partner to start saying more in the bedroom. It’s also great for the person whose partner wants them to talk more and needs something to point to in order to say, “See, I’m trying!”
3 Steps to Better Boinking is ostensibly for everyone. But, looking back, I think it’s best for the person or couple who isn’t fully happy with their sex life but isn’t sure what to do about it or is pretty confident that they’ve tried everything.
Now onto reading material that I didn’t write.
Here are the audiobooks I’ve enjoyed most in the past year (or two), listed using my own special categorization system.
History: Medieval and Renaissance
Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
This is funnier than it has any right to be. It’s also, as far as I can tell, a pretty straightforwardly accurate history.
It’s honestly hard to put my finger on exactly why I loved this one so much. One thing I’ll say about it is that I have a really shitty mind’s eye. But it did a good job of putting me in the scenes.
It also helps that Mozart, at least to me and at least in this telling, is just a really interesting, charming human. I also love a biographer who is fair, rather than too harsh or fawning, to their subject. I thought the parts about the music itself were very boring because I’m musically illiterate. But it’s interesting to read a historical biography written by someone who really knows music.
History: 20th Century
Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man
Garry Wills is a messy bitch who lives for drama. He’s like if Hunter S. Thompson were Catholic and drug-free. Which I realize makes no sense to anyone but me. Again, the beauty for me is in the balance. Wills hates everyone on all sides about equally, which I both relate to and enjoy. Also, while I wouldn’t describe Nixon as charming, necessarily, Wills makes him human, which entails him being somewhat sympathetic. But, again, without any fawning or apologia.
JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956
As a person, I think JFK is pretty boring. But this book does a great job covering what I think is interesting: The times and the people around him. Come for the early Boston machine politics and anti-Irish racism. Stay for the Harvard class system, Rosemary lobotomy, WWII heroics, and knock-down, drag-out between JFK’s dad and FDR.
Fuck me. Where do I even begin.
All you need to know about this series is that author and his wife moved to the Texas Hill Country from New York City and lived there for several years as part of his research.
Imagine an extremely talented writer and reporter (rare enough) with a severe-Autism-level special interest in something that turned out to be genuinely interesting. Did I care one whit about LBJ before starting this series? No. Is my head now filled with LBJ stories and facts? Yes. Am I eagerly awaiting the next book? Abso-freakin-lutely. I know it feels like your loved one doesn’t have 40+ hours to read about LBJ. But either they really, really do or you need better loved ones. (And don’t worry if you didn’t read or didn’t like The Power Broker. I couldn’t finish it myself, and I care way more about land-use than LBJ in general.)
True crime
When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders
I’m pretty sure this is the only true crime book I read this year. I wanted to buy it after I heard one of the few true crime podcasts I like interview the author. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Again, he does a good job of putting you there. And the parts about the weirdo church in Moscow, ID were very interesting.
Christian nationalism
The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church
If you’re 6/10 interested in Christian Nationalism and are likely to only read one book, max, about it per year, make it this one. It’s not the most thorough, which makes sense since it’s a memoir rather than a history. But it’s the most compelling and readable, especially for non-nerds.
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
If you’re 7/10+ interested in Christian Nationalism, this is the book for you. It’s less thorough than, say, FitzGerald’s The Evangelicals, which is too detailed and depressing for me to finish. And while Jesus and John Wayne, which I read a few years ago, is absolutely essential reading for CN geeks, it’s a little bit dry and academic for those with only a passing interest. The Kingdom is a good mix of history and analysis in a readable, at-times even gossipy voice.
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
First of all, it’s just a great biography. But it’s also super fascinating to me as an analysis of the intersection between religion and wealth and class.
That’s it for books for me. In terms of inexpensive, practical gifts, here are two suggestions:
The purfect gift for the childless cat lady with OCD and Autism-related sensory issues in your life. If your loved one has ever thought, “I love my shitbag/s, but I honestly don’t know if I can handle either constantly walking on cat litter or vacuuming several times per day every day for the next two decades and I don’t believe there’s any cat litter or system that will actually solve this problem for me” then this is the gift for them. Yes, up to ten pellets will end up on the floor most time a cat uses the litter box. But they’re pretty big, so you just pick them up and put them back in or throw them away. The pellets are simply too large to cover the entire living space the way normal cat litter does. Smell-wise, the system does almost nothing for poop. Then again, my cats are also totally incompetent at covering so YMMV. But I need to scoop right away when they go number two. But I only need to change their pee pad twice per week (once if only one cat uses the box) and we never smell pee.
Boska Stainless Steel Pizza Cutter
If someone in your life cooks or heats up pizza at home, get them this. You may wonder how much better a pizza-cutting experience can get. Much. This cutter is prettier, feels better in your hand, cuts in fewer passes, and, most importantly to me, is much easier to clean hardened melted cheese off of (rare) than whatever cheapo cutter or (quelle horreur) knife situation you’ve been using. For $25, it’s worth every penny.
If you buy any of these things, first of all, thank you! Second, please let me know what you think. Third, if there’s something you think should be on this list, let me know that as well. Same if you put together a gift guide.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on true crime in general. I think a lot of the weird culture around it is extremely fucked up in a pretty gendered way
Amazing variety here. 👏