Marso’s review raises two important questions. First, she probes a concern that haunts any book that focuses on a singular (and in this case, fairly remarkable) example: namely, does this example bear any possibility of replication for the rest of us? Second, she asks a question that re-stages at a new level an important problem that animated my whole writing of the book: what is the relevance of intimate, chosen love experiences between two or three people to broader collective struggles for freedom and justice that often emerge out of negative feelings (fear, shame, and anger), and where we may have to stand in solidarity with those we do not like, let alone love?

As Marso notes, I am interested in Carson and Freeman’s queer love more as a pedagogical model for becoming aware of the significance of queer feelings in our lives, than as a blueprint for political change. I do not see their example as replicable, but I do see it as teachable. In the book, I draw out how their experience of queer love shifted their ideas of what a meaningful life is (not one of consumption, but one of vibrant nature where queer love can exist and thrive), and then how they strove to create and sustain a world where such a love is possible for everyone. I think their example shows how the heteronormativity of our culture keeps us locked in the climate crisis: if capitalism is necessary to my good life, and fighting climate change means fighting capitalism, then what possible good life could I live fighting climate change? My interest is in showing readers—through this particularly evocative and beautiful example—how engaging possibilities for queer love and pleasure beyond or outside of capitalist consumption can actually lead to more meaningful intimate lives. Learning about Carson and Freeman’s example (and engaging with its lessons in our own lives) can help all of us to understand, at the level of feeling, that fighting climate change does not destroy the only possible good life, but actually helps to undo a stifling ideology of heteronormativity that blocks us from becoming our true selves. In this moment of resurgent patriarchy, this lesson is more necessary than ever.

Hopefully, I have begun to respond to Marso’s second question about how this intimate story is relevant to broader collective struggles, which are often animated by negative (rather than positive, pleasurable) feelings. Negative feelings can create political solidarity and action, especially in situations where we already the end on behalf of which we fight (e.g., equal rights). But in a situation like climate change, where fighting it entails dismantling the only system of living we have known, we need to find ways to develop an understanding of what we are fighting for, beyond our current repertoire of political goals. Negative feelings are not enough, and even if they spark interest, they may not be sufficient to build something new. I see intimate life as the place where we can grow visions and ideas of a good life beyond hierarchical extractivism and capitalism and heteronormativity, and that is what I have tried to show in this book.

We neglect queer intimate pleasure and beauty at our peril; this is the place where beautiful futures grow, where we feel affirmed in our true selfhood, and where we help each other gain courage to demand a future we actually want. What I see in queer love is an intimate experience with other people and nature that helps us figure out what we want (individually and collectively)—even when it feels deeply unsettling. The book is a modest attempt to recast the meaning of Carson’s legacy and to offer a pedagogy for how we might all connect with queer desire in our own lives as well as start to experience the fight against climate change as part of creating pleasurable, happy futures.