Fear of Flying is a 1973 novel by Erica Jong, which became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality, and figured in the development of feminism.
The novel is narrated by its protagonist, Isadora Zelda White Stollerman Wing, a twenty-nine-year-old poet who has published two books of poetry. On a trip to Vienna with her second husband, Isadora decides to indulge her sexual fantasies with another man. In this context, a "zip...
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Fear of Flying is a 1973 novel by Erica Jong, which became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality, and figured in the development of feminism.
The novel is narrated by its protagonist, Isadora Zelda White Stollerman Wing, a twenty-nine-year-old poet who has published two books of poetry. On a trip to Vienna with her second husband, Isadora decides to indulge her sexual fantasies with another man. In this context, a "zipless fuck" refers to a sexual encounter with an anonymous stranger that one will never meet again, and nobody who knows one will ever know that it happened.
The book resonated with women who felt stuck in unfulfilled marriages, and it has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. Jong has denied that the novel is autobiographical but admits that it has autobiographical elements.
Despite Jong's claims to the contrary, Isadora Wing's basis in fact may be stronger than a sum of autobiographical elements. In 2008 Jong appeared at a conference to...
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