Affection

by Krissy Kneen

A memoir of love, sex and intimacy

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Book Club, Erotica, Australia, Feminism, Sexuality

276 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Krissy Kneen has been shortlisted three times for the Queensland Premier's Literary awards. She is founding member of Eatbooks Inc and is the marketing and promotions officer at Avid Reader bookshop. Find out more about Krissy Kneen at www.eatbooks.com and www.avidreader.com.au

Reviews

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Affection follows the path of Krissy Kneen's life journey, from the compulsive sexual self-exploration of her childhood to her experiences as a young woman for whom the world is a sexual playground. Brave and honest in her assessment of her own sexual addictions. Bold indeed, comes to mind when I think of Krissy, even in her fear. I admire the raw exposure of inner most feelings, thoughts, and details. Intimidating and liberating.
Her story gradual drags you into the deep trenches of her insatiable lust. Her sexual nature battling to be free, even before understanding the meaning of it all. At first feeling light, airy and naive as a young girl protected in the bubble of her squeaky clean world by domineering matriarchal females. Determined to abide by her instinctual need to break away, eventually she does. Thrown a curve ball by life, she struggles but none the less lives in ways most of us never do or have or will.
This book stirs all emotions. She is witty, funny, strong, delicate, sassy, smart and beautiful in so many ways. She keeps it real, which allows you to connect. Empathizing and sympathizing with parallel events in your own sexuality. I recommend this book for males and females alike, insightful for all. I enjoyed this book so much, my only regret is that I took so long to read. I need to prioritize my time better for my love of words.

[H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard tied me to a pole because I asked him to. He used duct tape and and he secured my wrists with it. The mattress was within reach but only close enough to rest my head on.

... There was something strangely domestic about the morning. He filled up the sink and I could hear the clatter of plates in the soapy water. ... I imagined that he would look up from the dishes and watch me. I wondered if I looked ridiculous in submission, if he was grinning with the humor of it all. Perhaps he watched impassively, clocking the time by the fading heat of the water. I heard him empty the sink and fill it again. Time passing. The slow drip of dishes drying.

... I grew restless. I wanted to call him over to me. I wanted his hands and his body and some relief from this stretching out of my skin. I imagine that he spent an age over the drying because he wanted me to enjoy my time of longing, but I am not sure I enjoyed the long minutes of waiting. When he came to me finally, I could have ripped the duct tape off the pole and finished in a second but I did nothing. Said nothing.

He examined me. I felt his hands still dripping with dishwashing liquid, lifting, pulling separating. Of course I knew how this would end, but still there was this little shivery thrill as he traced the ridge of bone arcing down from the center of my back, slipping his finger over, but not into, my anus, and hooking it into my vagina, testing the viscosity there.

I thought of dissection tables, dead things tied down, paws and legs splayed, bellies exposed to the glare of fluorescent light. The fact that this aroused me was perhaps a problem. ... It was the idea of him watching me like that, the openness, the vulnerability.

Here's your obligatory PSA for venturing out and trying a book you REALLY thought you'd dislike.

On paper, Affection is everything I hate in books:

1. It's a memoir
2. It has super short chapters (2-3 pages)
3. The chapters abruptly alternate between the 80s/90s and now
4. It has a LOT of sex that I was sure would pretend to shock in the pursuit of poignancy
5. It is frank to the point that I thought we'd end up in smugsville

Alas, I should have trusted Krissy Kneen because when have Australian writers let me down? This was BRILLIANT. No other author (or fictional character, for that matter) has laid themselves quite as bare -- seriously, EVER. If I had a grain of this woman's courage, I'd be satisfied. And it is intelligent, funny, despairing, illuminating, and hopeful all at the same time. As you can see, I'm quoting a ridiculous amount but I'm in love with this book and Krissy Kneen's thoughts about feminism, erotica as a genre, and gender bias in literature.

I like the term pornographic. It is a more challenging word than erotic. Pornographic work is what it is. It clearly states the purpose that the work is used for. Pornography is stuff you are aroused by. I like how confronting the word is to some people and I think it speaks to the confrontation I am trying to cause by my work. It is another gendered separation. We often think of pornography as the stuff consumed by a man and erotica as stuff consumed by a woman to become aroused and we load those terms up with value judgements - erotica is softer, gentler, more concerned with love and relationships seems to be the general view (although not my own). Pornography is a term we often use when the sex is separated from love. Well that is the work I have been doing in Holly [her newest novel], separating sex and love and suggesting the pure arousal is powerful and different to a narrative of love. These are loaded terms although they shouldn't be.

Interview with Krissy Kneen, November 3, 2015

I find most memoirs to be indulgent and uninteresting because either the author has something to say but can't convey it in a meaningful way, or worse -- the author deludes him/herself into thinking there's a story where there isn't one. Affection defies these pitfalls with its completely honest, vulnerable narrator and its subtle commentary on gender and sexuality of the modern female. That isn't to say that the narrator's honesty leaves her impervious to criticism; quite the opposite. The decision to expose herself physically and emotionally is why Affection shines.

Part of this gender bias flows through to our relationship to sex writing. When I say a sex book is not going to win any awards I really mean that a sex book by a woman is not going to win any awards. In my opinion, writers like Philip Roth, Yasunari Kawabata and Ian McEwan and even at least one book by Marquez are just plain sex books. I'm talking In Between the Sheets, The Cement Garden, Portnoy's Complaint, The House of the Sleeping Beauties, Memoirs of my Melancholy Whores and any Roth has written in his later period.

They are all concerned primarily with sex. Yet these writers are considered literary writers and not erotic writers. I don't see how my work around sex is any different and yet I am considered a writer of erotica. I think that there is a gendered perception that women writing about sex is somehow different to men writing about sex and is not treated as seriously. I haven't done an exhaustive study in this area but I would love it if someone did. I sometimes feel like I will never be taken as seriously as a male writer who is dealing with the same subject matter. My wonderful friend Christos Tsiolkas for example could win an award for his sex writing but I don't think I ever will. Happy to be proven wrong of course, but I feel like his work is every bit as concerned with sexuality as mine is and yet people don't think ,"Ah Christos, he is a writer of erotica". Perceptions are everything in this business.

Interview with Krissy Kneen, November 3, 2015

A hidden gem, to say the very least. Even if you don't end up enjoying the book (it's inevitably polarizing), Kneen's philosophical thoughts about gender and sexuality are worth a look.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pleasurable book of many unusual excellences. The promise of sex drew me in, yet, although there is perhaps more sex in this book than most (and of delicious, though not exhaustive, variety), it is not really a work of erotica. The smooth writing kept me reading. There are some lovely developing metaphors, e.g.:

I hold her delicate fingers and smile, and I think about how deeply she could reach inside me with those elegant hands. A wriggling fish of thought, fleeting, gone in a second, but there will be another and another, whole schools of thought flashing across my consciousness. The constant distractions of a sexual world as wonderful and varied as the ocean, a world I could drown myself in and die happy.

The structure does a lot of work, allowing us to follow Kneen's sexual growth from age 2 (and her first orgasm) to age 28, while scaffolding this narrative with fragments of the present (2008). The book sets up expectations and thwarts them, it asks questions and doesn't answer them, and, in doing so, it talked to me about sex and women and all sorts of important things, in an elliptical fashion. It dispenses with the traditional machinery — the psychiatric analysis of Kneen's early childhood, the rich portrayal of her mental states, the detailed description of her milieu, the political awareness of the times, a tidy coming-of-age resolution — in favour of a focussed, 'thin description'. An intelligent, mature, demanding work.

[Sheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult, absorbing, ultimately rewarding.

Krissy Kneen is my favorite new discovery of the past few years--her fiction is the perfect mix of transgressive, futuristic, poetic, and super sexy.
I did not realize until I finished this memoir that it was her first published book---honestly that fact made me feel a lot better because despite the fact that the final chapter is an uplifting "happy ending"---a lot of this book is downright depressing. She writes frankly (and mostly erotically) about the unbridled sexual adventuring of her younger years, but for most of the book there is an uneasy undercurrent of emotional detachment as a coping mechanism for the fact that although men are happy to take advantage of her sexual freedom, they mostly do so while listing the ways in which she is not "girlfriend material."
There are some high highs and a lot of devastatingly low lows, but through it all the writing is gorgeous and true.
I might recommend this book to someone who likes a good redemption story, and who appreciates frank sexual exploration and excellent storytelling.
But I would recommend An Uncertain Grace or Holly White much more enthusiastically.

[Book Mitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir was so intense? I'm not sure what word to use. I was expecting something sexy and risque. These pages were filled with her finding and becoming these sexual realizations, urges, explorations, not only with herself but with other people. I found it so interesting that she explains at such an early age (younger than 10) but she was raised SO sheltered. There were parts that had me to grossed out that I gagged a little. As she grew into her womanhood, it seemed like no holds barred and she had a difficult time loving herself and others because of it. She is a married self proclaimed non-sex addict who comes to harsh realizations about who she is and how she loves/and can be loved.

[Kat at Book Thingo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my full review at Book Thingo

Sometimes you find a book impossible to put down, not because of what it says about the world, but because of what it knows about you. Affection is that kind of book.

Who might enjoy it: Libertines

Who might not enjoy it: Prudes

Affection is, at times, almost unbearably honest. And yet Kneen’s lyricism dulls the edge off some of the darkest parts of the book: depression, attempted suicide, homelessness. Worst is the emotional cruelty Kneen endures at the hands of careless lovers and friends. It’s not that these events are less shocking when they happen; it’s that Kneen introduces them so gently that we’re smack in the middle of these bleaker memories before we realise where she’s taken us.

The scenes set in the present anchor Kneen’s recollections. Underlying the sex parts are Kneen’s struggle to reconcile her inherently sexual nature with loving relationships that must remain platonic and her journey to self-acceptance.

What doesn’t come across so clearly is how Kneen goes from sexual hedonism to marriage. Scenes featuring her husband are sweet and deeply romantic—they’re some of my favourite moments in the book, but it’s never clear to me how Kneen remains true to herself through eighteen years of monogamy and ‘unrequited longings’.

[Cathy McLennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Krissy is a great writer - the prose in Affection reminds me of an Olympic gymnast, so fluid and natural with seemingly no effort behind the easy flow of the words.

The subject matter is at times confronting. The world Krissy depicts in her book is a world few of us will have experienced and she is immensely brave to allow us to delve into her most intimate moments, from the sweet interactions with her family, to the humiliating encounters with Brian. We see Krissy at her most vulnerable, such as in her dealings with Brian and Jessica, and cruel in her apparent enjoyment of the humiliation of the boys in the threesomes.

It is a journey through life of someone who sees things from a different perspective from the norm. It is not erotica, but it is about sex.

[Amra Pajalic · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been on my radar for a while. It's the story of Krissy's exploration of sexual desire.

Kneen is a great writer who tells her story of sexual exploration and acceptance with great honesty and forthrightness. There are moments of great eroticism as she lays out her sexual adventures and revelations.

Kneen has also written a book of erotic short stories and I'll be following this up.

[Kristy 0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a personalised signed copy of this one. A beautiful memoir from the first time (published) Brisbane author. I met her at a book launch and she is every bit as open and sincere in real life as she comes across in the book.

Needless to say I recommend this book, but it will not be everyone's cup of tea.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Truly struggled to read this book through. It is supposed to be a story about a woman's discovery of her sexuality but honestly it reads more like a story of sexual abuse. I found it difficult to read as I thought this woman remained disempowered by the way she even wrote this book

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fantastic read. Looks deeply at the issues of intimacy, commitment, relationships and lust. I found it to be an interesting look into the psychology of someone addicted to sex rather than it coming across as an erotic book, even though it definitely is in parts.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting on the whole, but ended rather abruptly.

Definitely a 3.5er.

[Anne Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutally honest. Raw. Beautifully written. Hard with a sweet, soft centre. Definitely a read for those with an open mind. If only we could all write this way.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautifully written, explicit, confronting, difficult to put down.

[Sherry Mackay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m giving this 4 stars due to the honesty and openness and brutal self exposure that the writer provides. As I read, I kept thinking it was a novel rather than a memoir. I enjoyed the brisbane setting and knowing the places she was describing. I have met krissy at book launches so it felt almost voyeuristic to read this extremely personal book. I think some readers would find the sex described as confrontational and more than erotic. It verges on pornographic but beautifully written:). I’m still slightly unsure as to the verity of this book. Is this really her life story? Or a fascinating novel?

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5. It felt like it was missing something to tie it all together (the memoir moves back and forth btwn present day and her youth) and thinking back on it there seem to be a lot of loose ends, but overall an enjoyable read.

[Rene Low · Rating 4 out of 5]

As it begins I stumble over the multitude of metaphors but then it smooths out, and reveals its vulnerable parts and its wonder. A compelling account of the spiralling one does as the discovery of self takes a unique and interesting path. Revealing, human and beautiful.

[Sallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and captivating

[Dutch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written. Easy to read but found it a bit depressing

[Liz Sanquiche · Rating 5 out of 5]

Affection follows the path of Krissy Kneen's life journey, from the compulsive sexual self-exploration of her childhood to her experiences as a young woman for whom the world is a sexual playground. Brave and honest in her assessment of her own sexual addictions. Bold indeed, comes to mind when I think of Krissy, even in her fear. I admire the raw exposure of her inner most feelings, thoughts, and details. Intimidating and liberating.
Her story gradual drags you into the deep trenches of her insatiable lust. Her sexual nature battling to be free, even before understanding the meaning of it all. At first feeling light, airy and naive as a young girl protected in the bubble of her squeaky clean world by domineering matriarchal females. Determined to abide by her instinctual need to break away, eventually she does. Thrown a curve ball by life, she struggles but none the less lives in ways most of us never do or have or will.
This book stirs all emotions. She is witty, funny, strong, delicate, sassy, smart and beautiful in so many ways. She keeps it real, which allows you to connect. Empathizing and sympathizing with parallel events in your own sexuality. I recommend this book for males and females alike, insightful for all. I enjoyed this book so much, my only regret is that I took so long to read. I need to prioritize my time better to read more!

[Eddie Blatt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liken reading this book to confronting modern poetry; you know, the type where words are splashed on the page in strange combinations, and those in the know will tell you that it’s wonderful, even brilliant. Unfortunately for me, I have never ‘gotten’ modern poetry. And I didn’t ‘get’ this book. It felt like the author was trying to be fancy, but, then, given how retarded I am in the appreciation of modern poetry, I concede the same thing might be happening here. I found myself skipping whole sections of chapters where the pace was too slow and the content simply not interesting enough. In this regard, the author has divided the book into two ongoing concurrent narratives, her childhood days and present time. It was the former that I found dull, although the latter did spark some interest.

I guess I’m going to have to revert to young adult literature where, in all probability, my reading ability is sufficiently developed to appreciate what's on offer.

[C.K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were times reading this book when I wanted to give the author a big hug and tell her things would be alright. There were other times when I thought she was foolish and immature and I wanted to tell her to grow up and stop letting people take advantage of her. I admired her honesty and despite the graphic content thought her depiction of her feelings and emotions at the time were insightful. For any person who has struggled with their own sexuality it's a great read.I look forward to reading more from Krissy.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

A beautiful ending, but on the whole this is quite a depressing book. She's just such a sad and forlorn character. However, I really admire Kneen's writing style - she captures sensations so well: humidity, rawness, desire, obsession. This should be 2.5 stars, I guess.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favourite character was Brisbane.

[Luella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's one I've wanted to keep going back to and reading snippets of.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Close to being a 5-star. The cover doesn't do it justice - in fact those looking for straight (normative hetero) erotica might be rather upset. A full and intriguing character development.

[Romany · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book made me feel really sad. I wanted some depth and introspection, some redemption and gratitude. All I found was a pile of old mechanics and a bit of self pity.