The Paris Review

Love in the Time of Trump

A few months before the election, when eleven six-foot-five effigies of a naked Donald Trump, then the 2016 Republican presidential nominee—bulging paunch, saggy ass, mottled limbs, constipated visage, and puny dick—popped up around the country, I briefly liked being an American. We were tragic absurdists, a nation of disgusted pranksters. The statue had no balls. Like most women, I’ve never been entirely clear on what balls are for, or why they’re meant to symbolize traits like courage and daring. Aren’t they actually the most vulnerable spot on a man—is that how men conquered the world, by costuming their vulnerabilities as mettle? (Something I wish I were better capable of, for the record.)

The country’s disgusted fascination with Trump’s body united us,

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