These nine short comics about sexuality outside the confines of conventional dating and marriage reveal the challenges and possibilities presented by newly emergent views of the body, sex, love, and gender identity.

Although we live in a time when our understanding of human sexuality is rapidly evolving, it remains a taboo subject for many. Dispensing with conventional notions of sex, love, sensuality, and beauty, this collection of nine short comics reveals the naked truth of the diversity of sexual expression in contemporary society.

Within the pages of Tender Is the Night, readers will become observers to a wide range of uniquely modern sexual experiences: a man whose online hook-ups never come to fruition, a lesbian who arranges an encounter with her lover’s mistress, the unusual sex life of a neurotic woman and her deaf boyfriend, a gay man with dwarfism who gets a lesson in the art of the blowjob, a lesbian who wants to see her partner make love to a man, the decades long affair that becomes a source of inner strength for both parties, an overweight woman who can’t escape her own self-loathing, a gay man tries his first three-way, and two trans women negotiate the sometimes awkward complexities of gender preference and attraction. As flesh contacts flesh in myriad ways, what is revealed are the hopes and fears that people of all genders project onto their bodies and intimate relationships.

Comic artist Huihui, known for her sensitive depictions of human affection and sexuality, and renowned playwright Chien Li-Ying collaborated to adapt Chien’s script, which would be nearly impossible to stage with live actors, to the comic book medium. Upon publication, the book became a focal point of discussions on changing sexual mores in contemporary Taiwan.