“Nobody Wants This” Hints That The Sexual Revolution Is Played Out

If you spend time online, a catchphrase you might see occasionally from the left is “late capitalism.” I haven’t seen it explicitly defined, and what it actually refers to seems vague, but I get the sense it’s an intended wink at the claim that capitalism hasn’t served us and we’re seeing its slow disintegration. 

I can’t speak for that, but I’ve definitely come across some conceptual equivalents, and we’re seeing their evidence all around. Shows like Netflix’s Nobody Wants This seem to point to the emergence of “late feminism,” if you want to take this idea and apply it to the dating world. In the collective swoon over Adam Brody’s Rabbi Noah Roklov, we may have missed this, but the show hints that elements of feminism aren’t working for us, and women are getting tired. 

Mainly, I’m talking about one of the key claims behind the sexual revolution – so long parroted as fact – which is that women can “have sex like men do” and be happy. It’s the idea that casual sex can be embraced and that this kind of behavior is empowering. Second-wave feminists had at least the partial intention of removing the “shame” surrounding sex, but they also began to remove the sexual guardrails that keep women physically and emotionally safe.

There’s an entire plotline in Nobody Wants This – secondary but possibly just as important – where main character Joanne (Kristen Bell) grapples with having built her career and public identity around engaging in casual sex. At certain points in the series, the conscience of women surrounding this once-celebrated principle seems to tell on itself.

How It Started, How It’s Going

I’d like to preface this discussion by saying that I used to buy into some of these same ideas. Not a lot of people know this about me (and I’ve certainly stopped listing it on my resume), but I actually majored in Gender Studies as well as English in college. This came about mostly because I took a lot of cross-listed English courses, but also because I was genuinely curious – I’ve always been interested in relationships between women and men.

I was naïve, however, in thinking this was what my gender-related courses would be exploring. Instead, I was taught that I was disempowered and that there was no situation where straight men were not to blame.

Back then, I considered myself a feminist because it seemed unconscionable to do otherwise. I was aware of how my opportunities as a woman had been expanded by the feminist movement, and yet I personally had never thought of myself as a victim, and I have never, in general, seen men as adversaries. 

As I absorbed the academic narratives of second-wave moving into third-wave feminism at a very liberal school, I began to observe the real-world implications of these ideas playing out in my life and the lives of my female friends. I also – thanks to a male friend – was clued in to the then-rising world of “pick-up artists” (PUAs) and their online discussions about women and women’s motivations.

Shockingly, though I disagreed with and was disgusted, at times, with their approach to women, their understanding of women’s actual needs and desires – which feminism has long taught us to suppress – was one thousand times more accurate and true. 

I had to confront the reality that feminism had literally created a dynamic where cynical men were exploiting us because we were blind to – or weren’t allowed to claim – our own wants and needs. I saw where women were increasingly unhappy due to being socialized away from our nature.

We had to pretend that we no longer wanted traditionally masculine men – while we were powerless to avoid our enduring attraction to them. Instead of seeing ourselves as the gatekeepers of sex, the doors were now wide open, and we were told it was cool to let anyone in.

It’s taken culture a little longer to catch up to these unsettling realizations, but it’s happening. In 2021, Buzzfeed published an in-depth article surveying feedback from Gen Z women who feel betrayed by so-called “sex positivity.” “It feels like we were tricked into exploiting ourselves [and] tricked into thinking it was our idea,” one 23-year-old woman was quoted as saying.

The tone of contemporary shows like Nobody Wants This is at odds with ‘90s and early ‘00s landmarks like Sex and the City. Shows like Sex and the City made the “sexually liberated,” chronically single lifestyle seem glamorous and fun, but a generation later, it’s finally becoming permissible in our media to turn that assumption on its head. Podcasts like Call Her Daddy – very similar to Joanne’s podcast in the show – might still be immensely popular, but Nobody Wants This seems to be exploring the very different reality of how these conversations and behaviors make feminine women feel. 

The fact that more and more women seem to identify with this conflict means that we may finally be ready to be honest and move on.

An Inconvenient Truth

Joanne’s changing relationship to her career as host of a popular sex and dating podcast is also the story of her changing relationship with her sister, Morgan, the podcast’s co-host. 

I would say that both stories reach a critical point when Joanne accuses Morgan of lying to sabotage her and Noah’s relationship – and finally comes out of the gate framing their dating-app escapades as “desperate” and sad.

“This is about you feeling left behind,” Joanne accuses her in Episode 8, “because I am finally in a healthy relationship, okay? And you are still on desperate dating apps so excited that you’re matching with a cater-waiter named Broyden!”

Kind of Joanne? Absolutely not. A low blow? Definitely. And while her statement isn’t coming from the most emotionally balanced place, it’s also hitting at something real. 

As part of the argument, one of Morgan’s claims is that Noah has gotten Joanne to “change everything about herself.” She may be overstating the truth, but the seed of this conflict does occur when Noah – a more traditional man – causes Joanne to see her occupation in a different light. 

In Episode 2, we see Joanne and Noah have a conversation over drinks in which he admits that he’s been listening to the sisters’ podcast. She instinctively freezes up when she finds out he heard an episode that was particularly explicit. Though she tries to guide the conversation to what she’s doing for women’s empowerment, it’s clear that the thought of Noah hearing these details is making her feel a little ashamed. Noah is showing up as husband material, and as most women at least subconsciously realize, broadcasting a wild sex life turns good men off. 

He gently but firmly states his opinion that openness can be healthy, but only “to a point.” He seems to believe that there are certain things in life that are better kept to yourself. In that moment, Joanne gets defensive, but later on in the episode, we see her trying to downplay the podcast’s sex content to Spotify reps. 

“We’re talking about…your podcast, right?” one rep responds in disbelief.

A further chapter of the conflict occurs in Episode 6 when podcast agent Ashley, along with Morgan, point out to Joanne that downloads of the podcast are “tanking” because her stories have become so “boring” since getting into a relationship. Joanne responds – in a near-complete reversal – that she is “sharing a little less because it’s healthy, ever heard of it?” 

There is so much to say about this plotline, but two things are clear: number one, the podcast seems to have trapped Morgan and Joanne in cycles of casual dating to fish for content, and number two, these cycles they’re dramatizing completely undermine the goal of dating and sex in general. 

Noah’s influence pushes Joanne into a more feminine frame of mind. She starts to lean into her desire to be loved, protected, and cherished, and begins dealing with the issues she has around intimacy, which were only perpetuated by the sexually aggressive behavior she’s been casting as “empowering.” She may have gained the attention of men this way, and she may have controlled the narrative of her relationships, but she was blocking off true love and preventing herself from being seen at a deeper level. A cultural standard that promotes and glamorizes casual sex stunts women in exactly this manner. 

Joanne begins to clash with Morgan because Morgan remains largely okay with this mindset while Joanne, increasingly, is not. Strangely, the storyline around the podcast becomes less and less visible as the series approaches its last episode (thus far). It hints at a fundamental conflict of interest without forcing the action into what might be a messy – and realtalk-heavy – end. 

“Liberation” Is Anything But

The podcast drama isn’t the only sign of a change in the wind when it comes to dating attitudes. There’s a notable reference to the “pick-me” phenomenon in Episode 5, when Joanne stays with Noah at a Jewish sleepaway camp, surrounded by a whole subplot around situationship dynamics. 

It’s possible to remember a time when the brave new world of unlabeled relationships was hailed as liberating, but if Nobody Wants This is a sign of the times, it’s now being firmly cast as undesirable. Women everywhere now realize that “let’s just see how this goes” and “we don’t need to put a label on it” are euphemisms for being taken advantage of and used. Even those of us with the best of intentions and what are now countercultural values – myself included – have fallen prey to the modern situationship. It’s difficult not to, now that sex and commitment have been so thoroughly divorced. 

In the episode, Joanne confronts Noah over the fact that he’s reaping the benefits of dating her, but doesn’t want certain people in his life to find out. I wanted to say, “Girl, I’ve been there.” I was once in a “relationship” that I thought stayed off social media because both of us were private, only to be left for someone my ex wanted the whole world to know about. Painful, absolutely, but it was something I should have seen coming – and modern standards that normalize this kind of dynamic didn’t help.

So much has been said about heartthrob Noah’s “green flags” – such as his sense of purpose and his desire to make Joanne feel safe – that what has been lost is the fact that this “healthy relationship” excitement casts sexual revolution tropes in a bad light. Joanne might not have shame around her sexuality, but it’s clear that the lifestyle she sells through her podcast is not bringing her any closer to what she really wants. It’s also clear that what widespread casual sex has opened the door to – poorly defined and largely uncommitted connections – creates situations where primarily women get hurt. 

The show doesn’t seem to have a ton of self-awareness around this, paying lip service to feminism throughout, but if Netflix develops shows to tie into the zeitgeist, whispers of inner conflict are strong. I can only hope we’ll see a day when women connect empowerment with self-respecting behavior: Our bodies are valuable, we owe our vulnerability only to those who have earned it, and when it comes to love, we deserve the best.