Archive for July, 2023

Sally Rooney’s Love Plot as Gimmick

The novel is, by definition, formally heteropessimist: gesturing towards queerness at the levels of narrative, style, and perspective while resolving upon heterosexual coupledom in the end. This, at least, is…

The Performativity of Heteropessimism as Feminist Complaint

“Females, however, and effeminate men enjoy having people to wail with them” — Aristotle1 Around the time I turned thirty, I was dating the most magnetic man I’d ever met….

Introduction

In season 5, episode 2 of Sex and the City, Carrie meets with publishers who want to turn her eponymous column about sex and relationships into a book. All she…