This week, we’re thrilled to be joined by the fabulous Sophia Benoit, sex columnist for GQ magazine and romance novel lover! We talk about romance, about why it’s so hard to talk about sex in the world, about the books Sophia has written and is planning to write, and about Jimmy Butler. Because, obviously.

Happy New Year!

Next week is our first read along of 2021, Alexis Hall’s For Real! Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or Kobo.

Show Notes

• Welcome GQ sex columnist, Sophia Benoit. She’s absolutely great on twitter and writes an amazing advice column, which is available as a Substack. Her book of essays, Well, That Was Exhausting will be out in the summer of 2021.
• The Sex and the City reference, of course, it to Carrie Bradshaw’s job as a dating columnist. 
• Captain Sit on my Face.
• America has a sex education problem. 
• Lollapalooza is very fun and the music is great and every time she’s attended, it has made Jen feel like she’s a million years old. 
• Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina has a famous first line, but the rest of it is very long. 
• HoCo, FauxCo, and Prom is Cancelled. 
• If you’re looking for paranormal, all of season one is a read-along of the Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole. 
• The Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds mustaches of the 80s were quite a thing. And if you look at the original covers of romances from that time, you'll see them in action.
• Wigs were big in the 1700s.
• Reddit’s Am I the Asshole (AITA) is a cultural touchstone for so many people. 
• We are adding Jimmy Butler to our list of favorite athletes, which started with Jurgen Klopp. Here is a bunch of Jimmy Butler information for you: about the trade from The Bulls, about his minivan, about his love of country music, about his coffee company, about his teamwork, and about his fashion sense. The third member of the Fated Mates sports team is Ted Lasso.
• Next week, we’ll be reading For Real by Alexis Hall.

The Rest

• For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2021/1/4/s0321-sophia-benoit
• If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
• Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough.
• If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.