We’re thinking about the future of love and sex in all its complicated, life-affirming, messy and wonderful forms this month. In the past year, it feels like half the ELLE team have got engaged, married, or had babies. Meanwhile, I have friends who are happily single and doubling down on their commitment to themselves. All of this is happening against a backdrop of deep societal discontent. As I write, half a million workers spanning teachers, fire fighters, civil servants, border staff and more are on strike. And a recent YouGov poll revealed that more than 60% of Britons are feeling sad or stressed.
This makes me think of bell hooks’ observation from her seminal book All About Love: ‘Everywhere we learn that love is important, and yet we are bombarded by its failure… This bleak picture in no way alters the nature of our longing. We still hope that love will prevail. We still believe in love’s promise.’
And so we’ve packed this issue with reasons to do precisely that. There’s our cover star, Hunter Schafer, who speaks openly and candidly with contributing editor Lynette Nylander about how the many kinds of love she shares with her Euphoria castmates, from her best friend Zendaya to her partner Dominic Fike, keep her grounded (page 98). Meanwhile, writer Natalia Pasichnyk shares a moving account of her first year of long-distance from her husband, after being separated by the war in Ukraine, and how they’ve managed to hold on to intimacy and connection (
