Heterosexuality is undergoing a major public relations crisis. From Gallup polls proclaiming Gen Z as the “queerest generation ever” to reactionary pundits inveighing against the death of traditional family values,…
Posts Tagged ‘heteropessimism’
How do we write about love of cock?
There’s something embarrassing, shameful, about enormous desire: cuntstruck, dick-drunk, dickmatized, down bad. So much work goes into pretending to be more upright, less addicted, than we really are. When I…
The Rom-Com is Dead, Long Live the Rom-Com
About twenty-five minutes into Joachim Trier’s 2021 film The Worst Person in the World, protagonist Julie is leaving a party where her boyfriend was being annoying. She is enjoying a…
Compulsory Heterosexuality, Past and Present: Adrienne Rich and the Lesbian Masterdoc
I started using TikTok in late 2020. Not long after joining, the app began feeding me videos by queer women who enthusiastically praised something called the “Lesbian Masterdoc,” describing it…
Domestic Heteropessimism
Last summer people on Twitter were angrily discussing an Instagram account that was new to me, run by an artist, Mary Catherine Starr, who posts as @momlife_comics. Presented as sincerely…
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…