Book Review: 'Love in Exile' by Shon Faye

As a sex and relationship therapist, I found this book a must read for anyone working with themes around love, acceptance and desire. This isn’t an academic book for therapists, or yet another self help book written by a therapist. ‘Love in Exile’ consists of eight chapters of real life reflections by Shon Faye, a trans woman who candidly and generously shares her experiences and struggles with love and self acceptance. 

Each chapter challenges the status quo on subjects including sex, desire, mothering, addiction and the relationship with our community and ourselves. She references one of my favourite books by bell hooks ‘All about Love’ and the pioneering feminist Germaine Greer, amongst other great thinkers. 

This book is full of thought provoking gems, but my biggest take away is Faye’s  depersonalisation of ‘romantic failures’ by questioning the entire system that romantic love is built on. Many of us, particularly marginalised groups, may indeed fail in meeting the standards imposed by heteronormative romantic ideals and rather than fully blame ourselves, she points to the failures of capitalism and society, that quite frankly, have a lot to answer for. This is serious thinking on a macro level yet written in a witty and accessible voice of todays generation drawing directly from personal and lived experiences. 

She also calls out patriarchal conditioning in relation to sexual desire and our idea of what we consider ‘sexy’. In reading this book, I began to question my own formulation of ‘sexy’. Have I been ‘brain washed’ by the capitalistic currency of sexiness? Faye brings forth the example of  ‘porn performers who are adjusting there performance of sexiness to the demands of the commercial market’. She argues that this isn’t exclusive to porn performers, to some degree we have all been influenced by these insidious capitalistic messages. The question Faye asks is ‘what is authentic sexual desire: what I want vs. what he wants, or what he thinks he wants’. Which, as a sex therapist, I feel are important questions to ask ourselves and our clients.

Faye includes a chapter entitled ‘Mother' acknowledging that she cannot write a book about love without writing about mothers. Our primary caregivers are indeed our first loves, this is the foundation of where and how we learned to love, and to recognise when love is being genuinely given. She also makes an important point, that there are many ways of mothering without necessarily giving birth and raising a child. She describes the importance friend-love saying that for her friendships are the ‘greatest love stories’. I tend to agree.

Finally, if there’s anything you do, you must read the chapter entitled ‘Self’. This chapter is a piece of therapeutic work on self love or as Faye prefers to call it 'wholesness' or 'self possession'. She also hits on the ever pervasive term 'narcissism' and has an interesting take on why these pathologising terms have become a mainstream part of our language, particularly connected to todays dating scene.

Overall, I found this book incredibly relatable. Whether you’re non binary, cisgendered, gay or straight, this compelling and engaging book is for anyone who wishes to challenge their thinking around love and the ramifications of living in a capitalistic heteronormative culture. Thus, the apt title: ‘Love … in Exile’. 

Here are some of my favourite quotes from ‘Love in Exile’:

On Mothers:

‘The intensity of the demand we place on mothers matches the deluded expectation we have of them: the veneration is a cover for reproach’ Jacqueline Rose

On Addiction:

‘Ask not why the addiction, ask why the pain’ Gabor Mate

On Fear of Intimacy:

When seeking out unavailable partners, Faye wisely reflects that ‘their intermittent presence, provides enough stimulus for fantasy without the risk of intimacy’

On Community:

‘I think about the word agreement, not that we would hold the same views, but rather that we would communicate enough to agree on what each of our different views actually are’ Sarah Schulman

On Self Love:

‘We cannot easily show love to ourselves in a society that has not shown love to us’ Shon Faye