What kind of topics are you hesitant to talk about? Sex? Periods? Body image? Herpes? Well, buckle up, because in “Naked: The Confessions of a Normal Woman,” Éloïse Marseille has created a graphic novel about all of those and more! She’s on a mission to destigmatize talking about sex in order to help readers understand and accept themselves. It’s a fun and funny trip through her sexual experiences of adolescence and adulthood, though the story is somber at times.
Written, Illustrated, and Translated by Éloïse MarseilleCover by Éloïse MarseilleIn this unabashed and uncensored personal memoir, author Éloïse Marseille examines her sexual education (and miseducation), from a forbidden first kiss with a female best friend in Catholic school to her exposure to the extremes of online porn, fumbling hookups, and navigating the complexities of lust and love in the modern era… But most importantly of all, the author’s nuanced relationship with her own body, sexuality, and self.
Note: The book comes out in English on November 7, 2023. (It’s already a hit in French.) This review has mild spoilers and a content warning for sexual assault.
The genre of funny-but-touching memoirs told in a cartoony graphic novel format gets another entry, this time focused on being totally honest about the sex life of its author. I’d give one warning to readers, though not one about all the on-page sex or pictures of genitals. (There are lots of those! They’re fun!) Several of the author’s stories and memories deal with sexual assault, attempted assault, and of men simply not listening to or respecting women’s desires. Most of these are acknowledged as such but I was simply sad to see how prevalent they were in the author’s story. I’m a full 13 years older than she is, and I’d hoped that things had improved for young women’s sex lives. Sadly, lack of consent and a resignation to orgasm-less sex is still a part of life for young women.
We start at the beginning and get a picture of Éloïse from birth to adolescence as a curious, enthusiastic girl. Then she learns to feel shame over her body and how she feels, which gradually leads her to what she describes as a “super fucked-up” connection to love and sex. From there, we move on to her relationships as a young adult as she learns what she likes and has sex with a variety of partners, including one she deeply loves.
The book is primarily drawn in red tones, with simple character designs and backgrounds. Other characters speak in blue, which is also used as an accent color. I enjoy Marseille’s style, which is simple but effective. Captions narrate the story and occasionally break the fourth wall to explain meta details about the subjects on the page. It will be a familiar style to fans of “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel or “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” by Kate Beaton. Gritty realism and realistic backgrounds take a backseat to stylized characters, but when they do appear, landscapes such as a lake at summer camp or a school bathroom are effective, if simple. Mostly, the panel backgrounds are either white or a shade of red, which gives you little sense of the surroundings and keeps the focus on the author’s inner turmoil. For the type of story this is, it’s an effective choice, even if I do think a few more backgrounds might have added to a sense of place.
“Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” by Kate Beaton is another recent graphic memoir by a female artist that also deals with the sexual experiences of its author. While the goals of the two books are very different, I couldn’t help but compare them as I was reading. Though both are set in Canada, they’re vastly different stories from different time periods and places that share unfortunate similarities due to the sheer prevalence of sexual assault. Beaton’s thorough, detailed depiction of sexual assault contrasted with the monotony of everyday life was so effective because it was subtle, brutal, unflinching, and examined through the lens of multiple sociopolitical critiques.
In “Naked,” Marseille retells her own experiences viewed through a lightly therapeutic lens. She doesn’t shy away from depicting her experience with an older man who assaulted her and didn’t even realize it. But she processes it and then largely moves on, tackling larger wounds like shame surrounding sexuality and the difficulty of porn addiction. Although it may have been painful, perhaps some of the topics brought up in “Naked” could have used further examination and more in-depth analysis from points of view other than the author’s emotional journey.
I breezed through this book in one sitting, and although there are some rough moments depicted, the tone is kept very light. “Naked: The Confessions of a Normal Woman” is an easy read overall, delving into the author’s anxieties and hangups but never dwelling on them for so long as to be tedious or diving so deep into them that the reader gets lost in self-psychoanalysis. I appreciate and respect the author’s honesty and vulnerability in sharing this much of her inner <em>and</em> outer self on the page. It’s an enjoyable dive into one woman’s experience of the world of sex, body image, and dating. Though I’m a hardened cynic with a heart of ice, I’m sure many will be moved by the ending, a touching moment of self-acceptance.
I salute you if you’re brave enough to read “Naked: The Confessions of a Normal Woman” on a crowded subway. In fact, we should all read books like this because we’re all humans with bodies that do funny, interesting, wonderful things. Bravo to Éloïse Marseille for putting herself out there and telling her story—wrinkles, warts, and all.
