In a city like New York – or Madrid, or Buenos Aires, or any city where a woman with quotes history and good Internet connection reevalu Spin-off Less glamorous of Sex and the city. One where the stories do not end in Manolo shoes and kisses in the rain, but in Ghostingsexcuses for anxiety and group therapy in dinner format.
And it is not that Carrie Bradshaw did not warn something similar. In more than one episode, their columns revolved around a question today very close to what many women formulate from a more critical and collective place: heterofatalism. A term that describes the disenchantment, irony and resignation with which their love experiences with men look at. But it is a ismIs it a theory or just another bad appointment with academic name?
Heteropesyism It was coined in 2019 By the columnist ASA beings, describes an attitude of hopelessness and resignation to heterosexual relations, especially from the perspective of women who, although disappointed, do not abandon those relationships. As He explained an article in The Conversationthis position “does not necessarily imply violence or hierarchies”, but rather “a worldly but persistent disappointment.”
However, beings propose a more extreme version: heterofatalisma kind of resigned acceptance of heterosexual failure. As explained by Jean Garnett In an extensive article for The New York Timesis “the feeling that the men I want do not love me with enough clarity, urgency or commitment.”
An amplified term
There is a political and social context that exacerbates disenchantment. As Marie Solis points out in The New York Timesmany of these speeches intensified after the choice of Donald Trump and the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, perceived figures as symbols of sexist impunity. The #MeToo Movement, Although transformativedid not change the most daily dynamics of the appointments.
In addition, social networks have amplified this narrative. Tags like #boysober, #selfpartnered or growing interest In movements like 4b (Rejection of relationships, sex, marriage and maternity with men) portray a generation of women who, although they do not always renounce men, have lost faith in the promises of heterosexual love. According to sexual Health Alliancethis gap is linked to how men have been socialized: with difficulty verbalizing emotions, Fear of vulnerabilityand in some cases, a rigid masculinity that associates desire with domination or detachment.
Professor Ellie Anderson Talk about “hermeneutical work”a form of emotional exploitation in which women are responsible for interpreting the confusing signs of little communicative men. It also mentions the “masculine regulatory Alexitimia”, a structural emotional difficulty in many heterosexual men. For her part, the psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin Talk about the “paralyzing complementarity”: When both parties in a relationship feel that they cannot gain recognition without losing power. All this composes an emotional scenario where, as Ironiza Garnett“A woman asks for clarity and is punished for ‘being too intense.”
In a Newtral article, the journalist Noemí López Trujillo Lo has explained quite clearly: Connect the rise of heteropesis with a stretch of female sadness. Speaks of Femcelcore As a cultural current where women are portrayed as broken creatures, dressed in black and away from men as the only self -protection strategy. This romantization of the love duel, however, can fall into a sterile nihilism, which avoids all political or transformative action.
ORna exclusively feminine experience?
Although heterofatalism has been mainly theorized since the experience of heterosexual women, some authors warn that it is not completely unilateral. The Times points out that While women express this pessimism with irony and memes, heterosexual men are also experiencing a crisis, although with very different consequences. While they retract, they take refuge in communities Like incels or PERICAderiving his frustration in misogyny.
In this context, in recent years the proliferation of male communities that feed a growing anxiety towards relationships and a replication towards the idea of “traditional love” has become more evident: stable couples under rigid gender roles, and a nostalgia for an alleged “golden age” – the 50s and 60s— 60— in which, with a single salary, “the woman stayed at home, they had three children and they were all happy.” This imaginary, reinforced by online forums and conservative speeches, Not only does it idealize an unequal pastbut it presents it as a remedy against current confusion and disenchantment.
For her part, the Poppy Sowerby journalist, In The Timeshe warns that when women hold all men for their disappointment, without nuances, heterofatalism becomes the reverse of the Incel discourse. In both cases, the heterosexual relationship is presented as a tragic destination and without exit.
There is a disjunctive present in this whole situation: is the desire the problem or the roles that frame it? One of the most relevant criticism of heterofatalism comes from within feminism. As Health Alliance has detailed sexualthis speech can end up naturalizing misogyny by equating it directly with heterosexuality. The problem, they argue, are not the men per se, but the gender roles that both – men and women – reproduce without questioning.
Rachel Connolly, In The Guardianhe sees heteropessimism as “a conservative vision disguised as radical criticism.” Really all we can expect is that our partners do not throw their dirty socks? What kind of imagination do we have if we assume that heterosexual relationships are convicted by nature? Shon Faye, In his book Love in exileproposes something different: stop waiting for a couple to be everything. It raises a reorganization of relationships based on the recognition of our diverse needs –sex, conversation, care, finance – as potentially distributable, and not necessarily contained in a single romantic link.
In short, the panorama that is presented is ambiguous. On the one hand, there is a growing awareness of the failed dynamics of heterosexual love. On the other, there is a scarce exploration of real alternatives. The challenge, According to Jessica BenjaminIt is not the resignation, but the encounter. To do this, it proposes the concept of “intersubjective third”: a mutual recognition zone where both parties are seen as subjects with desire, agency and vulnerability. It is not about dominating or giving in, but of surrender to the link. Perhaps the question is not whether heterosexuality is convicted, but if we are willing to rebuild it.
Despite fatalistic speeches. The growing disaffection towards heterosexual love is not a whim or a fashion: it is an answer to patterns that are no longer supported. The heterofatalism speech gives name to that wear, but it is not enough to identify it. Thinking about new forms of bond requires going beyond meme or resigned cynicism. It is not about ceasing to love men, but to stop normalizing relationships where desire and care circulate in opposite directions.
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