Three Women gives a provocative take on sex and the patriarchy

In a late episode of Starz’s Three Women, one of those titular characters tells reporter, Gia (Shailene Woodley), how she wants her story framed, asking, “Would you write that it works out in the end? That I get everything I want? I’m tired of stories of women not winning.” This comes off as a bit of a rebuke because this ten-episode series mostly shows women losing.

Based on the #1 New York Times bestselling book of the same name, Three Women follows Gia as she sets out to write said tome. She’s a stand-in for the real-life author, Lisa Taddeo, who executive produces the series and has writing credits on half of its episodes. In the show, Gia sold a book about “sex in America,” a phrase she and her agent (a delightfully smarmy Fred Savage) toss about with some regularity. What unwraps instead is a look at how women, represented by three particular examples, pursue personal fulfillment in the face of the U.S.’s often violently patriarchal society.

What exactly is winning for women, anyway? With countless studies on the wage gap and pipeline problems, it’s clear what women need to “win” economically. There are also groups tracking who does the chores and child rearing and looking to make the split more equitable across gender lines, honing in on the idea that more leisure time for women will equal more fulfillment. And maybe it will. But life is not all about labor (or its absence). What about joy? Connection? Desire? Three Women puts those aspects first, creating a novel and somewhat disorienting experience that challenges viewers’ assumptions about sexual violence, feminine appetites, and the importance of relationships.

First, though, let’s get to the sex. There’s lots of it in Three Women, both sexy sex and the more awkward variety, with man parts and woman parts, pubic hair, blood—the whole gamut. A lot of it comes via the story of Lina (a charming Betty Gilpin), a mother of two in a conservative community in Indiana. Her husband refuses to kiss her and hasn’t touched her in months, so she’s starving for affection when she decides to reach out to her old high-school flame. (This is what Facebook is for, in case you’re wondering.)

Gia gets explicit sex scenes too with her persistent but hapless lover Jack (John Patrick Amedori), who she keeps pushing away, not because she doesn’t love him back but because she’s sure any personal connection will just mean more pain down the line. (Having lost both of her parents, she has some reason to think so.) Meanwhile, Sloane (a beguiling DeWanda Wise) is our resident swinger, starring in a series of multiple-partner sex scenes, while twentysomething Gabby (Gabrielle Creevy, sympathetic and strong) hasn’t figured out how to have good sex yet, stunted as she is by the affair she had with one of her high-school teachers.

With these varied but largely heterosexual experiences, Three Women argues that carnal pleasure is its own pursuit and something women should go after. But, of course, good sex is only part of a fulfilling personal life, and despite its focus on that, Three Women doesn’t pretend otherwise. Justice is clearly also important, if out of reach. From the show’s opening credits, Three Women makes clear that its protagonists are stuck in an unjust society.

Maggie’s relationship with her teacher derailed her life: She didn’t go to college; she isn’t looking for a better romantic relationship. But she has figured out that what happened to her was wrong. Now, she wants to be a social worker and realizes she won’t be able to tell her future clients to fight for themselves if she hasn’t done the same. So Maggie stops keeping her teacher’s secret. She tells her parents, who are devastated, realizing how their problems kept them from protecting their daughter when she needed it. She tells the police, and they decide to bring it to trial. Of the five counts brought against Mr. Knodel (Jason Ralph, perfectly cast), he’s acquitted of three, and the other two are dismissed in a hung jury. All of that, keep in mind, is explained in the show’s opening sequence. 

Knodel is exonerated, found not just not guilty but welcomed back into the classroom with back pay for the time he lost in the trial. On the flip side, Maggie pays a terrible price as the stress of the case and the revelations around it reverberate outward. It is such a deep injustice she experiences, and she is not alone. There is plenty more sexual violence in this show, but no one here is defined by the trauma they experience. Three Women instead focuses on how these women respond, their resilience, and the work they do to better their lives (and maybe—just maybe—those of the people around them).

For what they’re really fighting for isn’t to be free of trauma but rather for the right to be flawed and still loved. There is so much pressure on women to be perfect—the perfect victim, the perfect mother, the perfect partner—and none of these women are any of those things, just like no real woman is either. They are messy, as Sloan declares herself at one point. But they are also worthy of love and happiness. That’s what the quest for personal fulfillment is really about. And that’s how these women, do, indeed, triumph in the end—not through the external validation of a guilty verdict or a new partner (or another orgasm) but through their newfound and suddenly unwavering commitments to themselves. They each decide to pick and pursue their own happiness. That’s a radical choice for a woman to make, and Three Women celebrates it and explores the consequences (while showing lots of boobies, too).  

Three Women premieres September 13 on Starz