do you ever get tired of putting out banger after banger ?!
just to add to the discussion, i think as someone who’s bisexual, a lot of the jokes about hating men were liberatory for me when i was just coming to understand my queerness as a teenager.
as an adult now, i find them deeply uncomfortable because i’ve done a lot of thinking about my attraction to men to understand my sexuality. it also feels like another small marker of difference between me and the few straight women that i have as friends; i can’t join in on this social bonding moment. i try to subtly push back, but that’s also fraught with not wanting to come off as the ~slutty bisexual.~ which, as i type it, makes me wonder if the initial disparagement of sex with men can be a way for women who want to talk about their own desires to distance themselves from both feeling like and being perceived as promiscuous or deviant.
the comment is ramble-y, but please take it as evidence that your writing always gets me to think about these topics!
oh gosh thank you so much!!!! I think you’re right about heteropessimism being used to distance the self from feeling promiscuous or excessively sexual, Seresin says as much in the piece!
This whole essay brought me back vividly to an experience I had at a writers group a few weeks ago, when I was shared the first chapter of my second novel (which is a fantasy romance.) When the group read the FMC’s yearning description of her love interest upon first meeting, there were several echoing comments to the effect of “I hope the rest of this book isn’t just going to be her pining for this guy.” To be fair to my writers group, I am the lone romance novelist there, so they were never gonna have totally calibrated genre expectations. But I just burst out laughing because immediately a slideshow went through my head of my beloved FMC being absolutely relentlessly obsessed with this boy, while every other character in the novel begs her to think about literally anything else, for 300 pages. I felt myself get defensive of my character’s awareness of her desire and her determination to fulfill it, something that the group implied was anti-feminist because the thing that she desired was a boy. To me, that pursuit of desire feels like one of the most affirming aspects of reading and writing romance. Heteropessimism is a helpful framework for understanding their reaction.
the jokes about “wishing i wasn’t attracted to men” always made me uncomfortable in a way i couldn’t quite articulate, and i think this essay is finally letting me really figure that out. i find it disrespectful. i think too often it gets dangerously close to misandry (along with, as you pointed out, TERFy), and if you have a male partner, it’s like.. obviously you’re attracted to this man in particular, or you wouldn’t be with him. why put down your sexuality for ~acceptance~ in spaces? are you really that ashamed of it? what is this, catholicism? also going to reread “act your age, eve brown” as it’s been way too long.
I think heteropessimism is a normal / natural response, but maybe just not a very useful one to me! and yeah, the idea that desire for men can exist if you feel appropriately guilty about it is kinda catholic lmaooooo
As someone who only realized I was aromantic/asexual in my twenties, it would have been a lot more helpful if the straight women around me had been more open and honest in their desire for men (I did grow up in a fairly religious community, so that undoubtedly also had an impact). Instead, the heteropessimism delayed my own realization because it didn’t seem like my desire/lack thereof was too different from others. I really thought we were all reluctantly choosing which man we thought would be okay enough to spend our lives with. It also kept me from seeing my other forms of desire as valid.
Also, I wasn’t sure if this was on purpose, but:
“It’s an invitation to imbue heterosexuality with a sense of possibility, to position it as shifting territory that can be reconstituted by wider, thicker”—girthier? 😉—“more complex discourses.”
super relate to the affects of heteropessimism on realizing ace/aro spectrum identity!!! As I got older I was like wait, we’re all speaking on lack of desire similarly but acting/not acting on it super differently.
Sherronda J Brown is a great author in asexuality and race that put things into perspective for me.
"Heteropessimism places the onus on women to self-regulate their desires for their own safety by positioning the poor conduct of men as unchanging, inevitable, irredeemable, simultaneously accepting, implicitly, that women are the more malleable and reformable quantity in this equation."
I'm going to be thinking about this for a WHILE—phew! Incredible work.
Love this piece and I’ve been thinking a lot about heteropessimism as well! Especially as it relates to contemporary feminist discourse. I think probably we’re looking at the fact that any ways that woman can express desire are frowned upon — romantic desire is naive and to admit to sexual desire is promiscuous. If women are just meant to be with men, they never have to articulate their desire to be with them, but if we are increasingly aware of the house being on fire as you say, then the naturalising of heterosexuality is breaking down and women feel like they need to justify their choices, which they can’t outside of the unspeakable desire framework. So it becomes a language of inevitability?? Or something like that — anyway thank you!!
Absolutely wonderful read — this post makes me reflect and rethink whether heteropessimism has ever occurred to me. And this is exactly where romance novels come into the equation. People who feel heteropessimistic might try to seek live vicariously through fictional characters. I think it may probably due to their own insecurities, childhood experiences, or other personal feelings that make them feel hopeless about heterosexuality and turn into romance novels to seek comfort and love. I love the tone of this post. Although it talks about something that happens in our day to day life, it is addressed in a very analytical and academic way without compromising personal opinion. Love this post!!!
This piece was sooooo good Sanj! Really well researched. I wrote my dissertation using Berlant’s The Female Complaint and definitely feel like it would be a great companion to your writings. Also re: skillfully erotic scenes in romance - I feel like Cecelia Grant has got that down on LOCK! xx
I am going to need to you to keep these essays coming and then eventually get a book deal so I can buy that book and yell about it on the internet. Did I just learn something in an essay that includes the term "love of cock" I DID. I adore your style and depth of thought. Please never stop.
I loved reading this! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us, as always. It really articulated some of the things I’ve struggled with recently. (With the world as it is it has been hard not to think about Berlant and Ahmed, for instance, much less about stupid pineapple on stupid pizza.) I just read the Seresin and that last paragraph was a rough one (complimentary.) It is making me think more about the absence of desire in the new illustrated covers, or the dynamics in dark romances (the ultimate “but I can’t help myself”)… But to use my favorite academic cliche: there’s still a lot to unpack!
this was great. thank you. i saw you speak on the 831 stories panel at mcnally jackson last week and knew i needed to hear more from you. this really made me reexamine that idea of heteropessimism. i am nothing if not a heteropessimist entirely and it can be exhausting. it’s an interesting line to balance understanding that calling it out and even just complaining can change the behavior and it’s more structural than we like to think sometimes and because of that we need to find other ways to combat it too. will also be using yearnmaxxing everywhere all the time now thank you
Another fantastic read -- this has genuinely given me a lot to think on. Funnily enough, I kept meaning to respond to your IG story and my suggestion was also Shadowheart. Even if that type of sex and dynamic isn't really Your Thing, Elayne's desire for Allegreto is so HUNGRY right out from the start, and so carefully considered by the author. I loved it -- the scene in the tower where they are "playing pretend" stayed with me.
I also think Flowers from the Storm handles Maddy's desire really blatantly and honestly, though its probably the contrast with her upbringing and community that make it feel so bold (both to herself and the reader).
Can't wait to throw this is the chat -- thank you!
Loved this essay so much. I'm always thinking about my own investment in the romance genre and why I think it's a very generative space (both because of the literature itself and because it brings together readers - I’m on romance book subreddits where readers are HAVING FUN and just being unabashed about their love for MCs). Thanks for a great read!
Every time I read one of your pieces I just think, “ugh, your mind!” Thank you for giving me a new perspective (heteropessimism is an entirely new concept to me) and just being such a brilliant voice in the romance community. Please never stop!
do you ever get tired of putting out banger after banger ?!
just to add to the discussion, i think as someone who’s bisexual, a lot of the jokes about hating men were liberatory for me when i was just coming to understand my queerness as a teenager.
as an adult now, i find them deeply uncomfortable because i’ve done a lot of thinking about my attraction to men to understand my sexuality. it also feels like another small marker of difference between me and the few straight women that i have as friends; i can’t join in on this social bonding moment. i try to subtly push back, but that’s also fraught with not wanting to come off as the ~slutty bisexual.~ which, as i type it, makes me wonder if the initial disparagement of sex with men can be a way for women who want to talk about their own desires to distance themselves from both feeling like and being perceived as promiscuous or deviant.
the comment is ramble-y, but please take it as evidence that your writing always gets me to think about these topics!
oh gosh thank you so much!!!! I think you’re right about heteropessimism being used to distance the self from feeling promiscuous or excessively sexual, Seresin says as much in the piece!
This whole essay brought me back vividly to an experience I had at a writers group a few weeks ago, when I was shared the first chapter of my second novel (which is a fantasy romance.) When the group read the FMC’s yearning description of her love interest upon first meeting, there were several echoing comments to the effect of “I hope the rest of this book isn’t just going to be her pining for this guy.” To be fair to my writers group, I am the lone romance novelist there, so they were never gonna have totally calibrated genre expectations. But I just burst out laughing because immediately a slideshow went through my head of my beloved FMC being absolutely relentlessly obsessed with this boy, while every other character in the novel begs her to think about literally anything else, for 300 pages. I felt myself get defensive of my character’s awareness of her desire and her determination to fulfill it, something that the group implied was anti-feminist because the thing that she desired was a boy. To me, that pursuit of desire feels like one of the most affirming aspects of reading and writing romance. Heteropessimism is a helpful framework for understanding their reaction.
P.S. I’m obsessed with the phrase yearnmaxxing.
love this pov, thank you for weighing in!!
the jokes about “wishing i wasn’t attracted to men” always made me uncomfortable in a way i couldn’t quite articulate, and i think this essay is finally letting me really figure that out. i find it disrespectful. i think too often it gets dangerously close to misandry (along with, as you pointed out, TERFy), and if you have a male partner, it’s like.. obviously you’re attracted to this man in particular, or you wouldn’t be with him. why put down your sexuality for ~acceptance~ in spaces? are you really that ashamed of it? what is this, catholicism? also going to reread “act your age, eve brown” as it’s been way too long.
I think heteropessimism is a normal / natural response, but maybe just not a very useful one to me! and yeah, the idea that desire for men can exist if you feel appropriately guilty about it is kinda catholic lmaooooo
I am levitating in my ride share right now. The driver is concerned. Giving both you and them a five star review
ily 😭🫶🏽
As someone who only realized I was aromantic/asexual in my twenties, it would have been a lot more helpful if the straight women around me had been more open and honest in their desire for men (I did grow up in a fairly religious community, so that undoubtedly also had an impact). Instead, the heteropessimism delayed my own realization because it didn’t seem like my desire/lack thereof was too different from others. I really thought we were all reluctantly choosing which man we thought would be okay enough to spend our lives with. It also kept me from seeing my other forms of desire as valid.
Also, I wasn’t sure if this was on purpose, but:
“It’s an invitation to imbue heterosexuality with a sense of possibility, to position it as shifting territory that can be reconstituted by wider, thicker”—girthier? 😉—“more complex discourses.”
ok this pov is SO good thank you for sharing! and lolol i didn’t intend that but boy does it work for the theme
super relate to the affects of heteropessimism on realizing ace/aro spectrum identity!!! As I got older I was like wait, we’re all speaking on lack of desire similarly but acting/not acting on it super differently.
Sherronda J Brown is a great author in asexuality and race that put things into perspective for me.
"Heteropessimism places the onus on women to self-regulate their desires for their own safety by positioning the poor conduct of men as unchanging, inevitable, irredeemable, simultaneously accepting, implicitly, that women are the more malleable and reformable quantity in this equation."
I'm going to be thinking about this for a WHILE—phew! Incredible work.
omg thank you so much!!!
Love this piece and I’ve been thinking a lot about heteropessimism as well! Especially as it relates to contemporary feminist discourse. I think probably we’re looking at the fact that any ways that woman can express desire are frowned upon — romantic desire is naive and to admit to sexual desire is promiscuous. If women are just meant to be with men, they never have to articulate their desire to be with them, but if we are increasingly aware of the house being on fire as you say, then the naturalising of heterosexuality is breaking down and women feel like they need to justify their choices, which they can’t outside of the unspeakable desire framework. So it becomes a language of inevitability?? Or something like that — anyway thank you!!
ok this *rocks* I love this framing so much and will be thinking about it for a long time!!!! thank you!!!
Absolutely wonderful read — this post makes me reflect and rethink whether heteropessimism has ever occurred to me. And this is exactly where romance novels come into the equation. People who feel heteropessimistic might try to seek live vicariously through fictional characters. I think it may probably due to their own insecurities, childhood experiences, or other personal feelings that make them feel hopeless about heterosexuality and turn into romance novels to seek comfort and love. I love the tone of this post. Although it talks about something that happens in our day to day life, it is addressed in a very analytical and academic way without compromising personal opinion. Love this post!!!
thank you!
This piece was sooooo good Sanj! Really well researched. I wrote my dissertation using Berlant’s The Female Complaint and definitely feel like it would be a great companion to your writings. Also re: skillfully erotic scenes in romance - I feel like Cecelia Grant has got that down on LOCK! xx
thank you thank you!! cecilia grant hive rise!!!!
I am going to need to you to keep these essays coming and then eventually get a book deal so I can buy that book and yell about it on the internet. Did I just learn something in an essay that includes the term "love of cock" I DID. I adore your style and depth of thought. Please never stop.
omg thank you so much 😭
I loved reading this! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us, as always. It really articulated some of the things I’ve struggled with recently. (With the world as it is it has been hard not to think about Berlant and Ahmed, for instance, much less about stupid pineapple on stupid pizza.) I just read the Seresin and that last paragraph was a rough one (complimentary.) It is making me think more about the absence of desire in the new illustrated covers, or the dynamics in dark romances (the ultimate “but I can’t help myself”)… But to use my favorite academic cliche: there’s still a lot to unpack!
thank you so much for this!!
this was great. thank you. i saw you speak on the 831 stories panel at mcnally jackson last week and knew i needed to hear more from you. this really made me reexamine that idea of heteropessimism. i am nothing if not a heteropessimist entirely and it can be exhausting. it’s an interesting line to balance understanding that calling it out and even just complaining can change the behavior and it’s more structural than we like to think sometimes and because of that we need to find other ways to combat it too. will also be using yearnmaxxing everywhere all the time now thank you
totally agreed- i don’t think heteropessimism is without utility! as you point out- just wonder if there’s utility to expanding our toolkits
Another fantastic read -- this has genuinely given me a lot to think on. Funnily enough, I kept meaning to respond to your IG story and my suggestion was also Shadowheart. Even if that type of sex and dynamic isn't really Your Thing, Elayne's desire for Allegreto is so HUNGRY right out from the start, and so carefully considered by the author. I loved it -- the scene in the tower where they are "playing pretend" stayed with me.
I also think Flowers from the Storm handles Maddy's desire really blatantly and honestly, though its probably the contrast with her upbringing and community that make it feel so bold (both to herself and the reader).
Can't wait to throw this is the chat -- thank you!
yessss totally agreed!!!! kinsale is just so masterful
Loved this essay so much. I'm always thinking about my own investment in the romance genre and why I think it's a very generative space (both because of the literature itself and because it brings together readers - I’m on romance book subreddits where readers are HAVING FUN and just being unabashed about their love for MCs). Thanks for a great read!
thank you so much!
Every time I read one of your pieces I just think, “ugh, your mind!” Thank you for giving me a new perspective (heteropessimism is an entirely new concept to me) and just being such a brilliant voice in the romance community. Please never stop!
you are so kind!! thank you!!
This was such a good read!! I appreciate the introduction too on erotica structuralism, lots of things I plan to dive into after reading this.
the paper is dense! I’m not a philosopher so it demanded a lot of me mentally lol, but still really fascinating!