Human beings are, of course, perverse—both in ways that enrich our lives and in ones that hinder us. All too often, we remain “secretly attached to the continuity of the very things we (sincerely) decry as toxic, boring, broken,” as writer Asa Seresin memorably put it. Seresin was talking about “heteropessimism,” an instantly viral term he coined in 2019—and then quickly renamed “heterofatalism”—that describes a still-prevalent postfeminist mood of resigned, anti-utopian misandry among straight women who have no intention either of eschewing heterosexuality or, for that matter, transforming it.Article continues after advertisement
Heterofatalists (or heteropessimists), in short, wish that they were not attracted to men; yet they are unwilling to join a political struggle to change men or the situation responsible for these feelings.
Seresin’s simple yet devastating observation swept up Western pop feminist commentators and gender studies departments alike, launching a fretful debate that still hasn’t subsided, five years later, around a number of vexed questions: What kinds of lives should feminist heterosexuals pursue in the twenty-first century? Is it “pessimism” to say that the choice to make babies the standard way, i.e., coupling up monogamously with a man, is the only option available? Or does the more pessimistic path entail a “cat lady” lifestyle of the kind feared by America’s arch-misogynist vice president J.D. Vance: a matter of embracing the fertility crisis and helping speed national demographic decline? (Surely there couldn’t be a secret third thing involving both cats and a wealth of children—each with more than two parents?—as well as an abundance of liberated sex, hetero- and otherwise, to boot . . .)
