Ordinary Unhappiness

123: Polymorphous Perversity and Gender Pleasure feat. Lucie Fielding

Ordinary Unhappiness

Show Notes

Abby and Patrick are joined by therapist and sexuality educator Lucie Fielding. First, the three talk about Lucie’s path to clinical work and the significance of her book, Trans Sex, just out in a revised Second Edition. They then turn to Freud’s classic, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), putting that text, and the broader legacy of Freud’s views on sexuality, in dialogue with contemporary questions of trans embodiment and sexual identity. This means reckoning with the ways that...

More from Ordinary Unhappiness

Oct 17, 2026

Abby and Patrick are joined by Elizabeth Cotton, author of UberTherapy: The New Business of Mental Health, and Linda Michaels of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN), for a conversation about platform capitalism and datafication are reshaping psychotherapy, and how clinicians and patients can organize for safer, deeper care. From Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to practice-management companies, and more, Elizabeth and Linda unpack how an unholy alliance of players have...

Oct 10, 2026

Unlocked Patreon episode. Support Ordinary Unhappiness on Patreon to get access to all the exclusive episodes. patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Abby, Patrick, and Dan dig into the realms of myth and fable to investigate the ancient origins of the Narcissus myth. As they discover, behind the skeletal form of the story (i.e., guy falls in love with his own reflection) are a multitude of versions, with some striking variations and suggestive throughlines. After cataloguing these, they turn to the...

Oct 3, 2026

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness “No one leaves a star – that’s what makes one a star!” In the latest installment of Wild Analysis, Abby and Dan discuss Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film, Sunset Boulevard. From Gloria Swanson’s masterful portrayal of faded starlet Norma Desmond to the film’s ruthless depiction of Hollywood’s love affair with youth and the very idea of movie magic itself, it’s a ...

Sep 26, 2026

Abby and Patrick welcome back returning guest Adrian Daub. The occasion is Adrian’s latest book, What Tech Calls Governing. A follow-up to his 2020 book What Tech Calls Thinking, an intellectual history of Silicon Valley and critique of tech culture, What Tech Calls Governing unpacks subsequent developments and continuities that go deeper than pundits’ loose talk of a “vibe shift.” Indeed, as Adrian explains, recent years have seen Big Tech abandon the rhetoric of not being “evil” and promise...

Sep 19, 2026

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness The Ordinary Unhappiness journey through the landscape of modern narcissism continues – and arrives in the United States! In this episode, Abby, Patrick, and Dan turn to the work of Karen Horney, a figure who has variously been called a Neo-Freudian, a forerunner of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis, a key player in a psychoanalytic “Cultural Turn,” and one of the fi...

See all episodes →