What did you learn about the way women judge each other?

I think there’s a lot of jealousy. A ton. I think it comes down to the idea that we’re not allowed to want. With Lina, for example, other women felt that you have a house, you have a husband who has a good job, you have two kids. You should be happy. And the fact that you want more than that is not ok. There’s a sense that you don’t deserve more; you have enough! There’s a certain allotment each of us have. And when it’s not jealousy, it’s our own shame.

Is desire always wrapped up with shame?

Totally. There’s shame and then there’s a fear of not getting what you want. If I said that I want my book to sell 20 copies today, for example, and then it didn’t, people would be like oh you didn’t get that ha ha. People can be dicks and it’s just a fact.

Did you find that fear manifested differently in men and women?

It’s more specific to women. I found that men will say what they want and they aren’t afraid of not getting it. They’ll announce their desire. There was this time - I’ll never forget it - I was at an event with this really good looking, somewhat famous guy. I said “I’m gonna sleep with him” to this other women that I didn’t know. I don’t know why I said it; I’m sure I was drinking. Her response was “no, no you’re not”. She wasn’t curious as to why I said it, she just wanted to let me know that I couldn’t. It’s something I’ve thought about ever since.

Beauty is a big part of Sloane’s story and your mother’s, too. What did you learn about it?

My mom was vain. She was very concerned with getting older. And Sloane is too. Sloane is a very intelligent woman, and an entrepreneur, so it’s not like she’s only valued for her looks but it was a huge part of the way that other people saw her. And my mom, too. She was the prettiest girl in her town. The way they viewed beauty was that it was important for them to maintain it and the evanescent of it was scary. And then there’s the women who aren’t seen for their beauty. Lina had a lot of issues about wanting to look beautiful; and it wasn’t about losing beauty, it was about never having it. And Maggie too; even though she’s a beautiful girl.

But I’m saying she’s beautiful, and what does that even mean? Does it mean that a man has said she’s beautiful? I remember being so shocked when I found out who the guy I liked in high school had a crush on. It was not who I expected. It was the Jennifer Garner and not the Megan Fox, you know? But then I thought, well, I guess this girl is prettier than I thought.

It came across that Sloane was almost harder to shame because she had this thing; she had her beauty.

Yeah and people would try to shame her more because of it. I think that women dress up for other women, I also think they dress up for men so that men will like them and then other women will see men liking them. There’s a lot of sh*t going on. And I don’t think we talk about it. And when we do talk about beauty and the value of it, then you get women who are like oh, you shouldn’t care about that, and so what if you do? Some of us do. Some of us don’t. Most of us do, because we’re biologically attuned to.

Exclusive: Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women, talks judgement, desire and bad orgasms