On Denise Riley
The LRB Podcast
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The Triumph of Linguistic Hesitancy
The essay is about the awkward moment before one gets down to business and choosing the right instant to raise the question of contraception. It's important here to stress that she is describing consensual sex. But what she's really talking about, it seems to me, is the disruption of an assumed mood in the very act of vocalizing something. She'd want to be read as an essay on verbal hesitancy or embarrassment.
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