Rani Neutill interviews GenX women in “Permission to Desire” to consider the reencounter with oneself through new objects that rewrite the story of one’s libidinal, unconscious, and symbolic life. In collection stories about their struggles, their depression, and how BTS alleviated the sorrows that came from living through the COVID-19 pandemic as stay-at-home moms, remote workers, being unemployed, and as women who feel as though they are no longer allowed to do things for themselves, she describes a collective reckoning among Gen X women with how the media of their youth produced often-demeaning images of East Asian men, and how BTS has subsequently reshaped their desires. This reshaping, Neutill argues, allows for a gleeful rewriting—as well as a grieving for what could have been—of their past.
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