In short, the things we once needed in order to survive—food, shelter, intimate partnerships—have become the things we want in order to feel sated.

In fact, the camps are not so disparate, and the question of appetite—specifically the question of what happens to the female appetite when it’s submerged and rerouted—is the thread that binds them together.

Weighing, measuring, calculating, monitoring. Withholding and then overcompensating. Reining in hunger in one area, letting go in another. The female appetite moves in guilty, circuitous ways, and although my own relationship with food is probably as normal today as it ever will be, I still carry around a flickering awareness of hunger’s pushes and

I go to a restaurant with a group of women and pray that we can order lunch without falling into the semi-covert

At a time when I felt adrift and confused and deeply unsure of myself, starving gave me a goal, a way to stand out and exert control, something I could be good at.

the state of one’s waistline being easier to contemplate than the state of one’s soul.

What liberates a person enough to indulge appetite, to take pleasure in the world, to enjoy being alive? Within that question lies the true holy grail, the heart of a woman’s hunger.

boundless;

Thus, women are told not just to want but what to want. And the unstated promise here—that to want properly will make you be wanted—can create a powerful feeling of discord: