The Tragedy of Heterosexuality: 56 (Sexual Cultures)

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Nor is it in the sexual arena where, despite the lower rate of orgasms, women in heterosexual relationships appear to be about as satisfied as their lesbian counterparts – at the very least, the data is inconsistent and frequently also show that straight women are more satisfied than lesbian women are (and even more so than bisexual women). And it’s not like men can’t be dissatisfied with the sex in a relationship either (hell, even the sky high male orgasm rate is only about 85%). The “birthday blowjob” isn’t a cultural phenomenon for nothing (on a TMI personal note, more than once have I run into women who give oral exactly once in a relationship – that being on the first date that ends in sex).

In The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, Jane Ward smartly explores what, exactly, is wrong with heterosexuality in the 21st century, and what straight people can do to fix it for good. She shows how straight women, and to a lesser extent straight men, have tried to mend a fraught patriarchal system in which intimacy, sexual fulfillment, and mutual respect are expected to coexist alongside enduring forms of inequality, alienation, and violence in straight relationships. La heterosexualidad como la entendemos ahora ha sido fruto de propaganda para enseñar a las mujeres a desear las relaciones con los hombres a pesar de su inequidad. La heterosexualidad se organiza entre el amor y el abuso, comenzando desde el "te molesta porque le gustas" esa lógica sigue presente en la heterosexualidad adulta con lo que la autora llama la “paradoja de la misoginia” donde el hombre desea a la mujer pero no la humaniza. "Los hombres desean los servicios que proveen las mujeres: emocionales, sexuales, reproductivos, domésticos; más que a las mujeres reales". Mientras que la mujer aprende a acontentarse con poco con tal de experimentar el amor romántico que se nos vende como la fuente de la felicidad, estatus, protección y estabilidad, promesas que muchas veces no se verán cumplidas. I was also here for the chapter about "Dating Coaches" because what in the... And I loved the field study. It was great. It was interesting. It was eye opening. Solid 4 star read for me until here (because some of the transitions were a bit forced and it didn't read as elegently as I would have hoped). Many of these books were written by white eugenicists concerned that this mutual antipathy would reduce the white birthrate and emphasized harmonious marriages and reproduction as a tool to maintain white supremacy.No woman belongs to any man, she writes, and men are “not entitled to have any woman’s love, care and admiration in an asymmetrical moral relationship.” Justamente una forma en la que se expresa la miseria hetrosexual es en el terror cultural a la homosexualidad, la homofobia es la expresión externa de la miseria hetero: la tristeza, y resignación a la normalidad, el miedo a desear, a ser diferente. Una de las frases del libro nos dice "si lo queer es demasiado, lo hetero es muy poco" El aburrimiento es parte de la cultura hetero, la autora define algo aburrido como algo vacío y vincula el aburrimiento con la opresión. Dentro de la hetrosexualidad, el género es una repetición, un proceso sin fin en el cual adquirimos la normalidad, o legibilidad dentro el binario masculino/femenino. En el control de estos roles predictivos y poco originales la cultura hetrosexual genera personalidades aburridas y reprimidas. El enfoque hetero es mantener las cosas tal cual están, politicamente es apático y desinteresado por la justicia social. When it comes to sex, Ward argues that it’s mainly for men (who are all simple and happily get to climax every time) whereas the poor women miss out on amazing sex because their men are selfish and terrible at sex. Again, she is kinda half right. It’s no secret that women do more domestic work than men, which is likely a contributing factor to why women seem to feel greater marital strain in heterosexual relationships than do women in same sex relationships (who are on par with men in heterosexual relationships) according to a recent study in Journal of Marriage and Family. In the popular consciousness, women and men are assumed to have totally different interests, personalities, and sex drives, making them inherently incompatible. Heterosexual relationships, thus, become a battleground where partners get what they want from each other through coercion and manipulation.

Ward's first book, Respectably Queer, is based on her observations of three different queer organizations: the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, Bienestar, and Los Angeles-Christopher Street West. [ citation needed]

Again, all this is not to say that one relationship type is better than any other. It’s to illustrate that I think “The Tragedy of Heterosexuality” is a bit dishonest. The book has a lot of good criticisms and observations that I wish all straight people and couples take to heart. But in direct contradiction with the author’s statement that she’s a straight ally, I think the book is likely to do more harm than good. Like so much of the cultural and political discourse today, it’s drawing battle lines instead of bridging differences. queers are braced for the inevitable moment when a straight woman proclaims, offhandedly, "I wish I could just be a lesbian." Sigh. Why don't you be one, then? some of us wonder. It's not that hard. I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in return for my review. I am a hetero woman who has researched and written a lot about hetero love, romance, sex and marriage. I appreciated Jane Ward's take on the heterosexual repair industry and her deep dive into what heterosexual women have to put up with to get and keep what society tells them they need — the love of a man and a happily-ever-after narrative. But a patriarchal society that for so long has made women dependent on men and supported romantic relationships that are overwhelmingly unequal has not made that all that pleasant for us. So far, it’s mostly good if somewhat one-sided stuff, but this is where she’s starting to wander into the more problematic things. The bootcamps (which, to be fair, I think are total and destructive hogwash) are viewed through the prism of one of the books central arguments, namely what she calls the “Misogyny Paradox” – wherein heterosexual men both love and hate women. I’m not saying she’s entirely wrong here either, I think there’s a terrifying amount of people for which this is true.

Men need to learn to genuinely like women and situate loving and pleasing women at the center of their sexual attraction to women. Men can learn from lesbians how to desire and have sex with women and love them as true equals. They can identify with women, share women’s interests and concerns, and still find women as thrilling as lesbians do. Joshua Gamson, author of The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, The Music, the Seventies in San Francisco When I started this book and it started with a history of heterosexuality and straight culture, I was here for it. I kept nodding and having "AHA!" moments that explained so many things. It was well researched, the points were made clearly, I was here for it. People say "life changing", right? But I cannot overstate how influential this book has been in shaping my own feminism and views on queerness.Perhaps this is better understood through the perspective of the revelation. The revelation of queer sex, especially for those of us socialized as women, is seeing that things you learned to loathe—the things about which you were told that people who love women find them disgusting—are actually sexy. It is the visceral experience of the falsehood of those lies. By contrast, Ward’s analysis and prescription revolves around “sameness” and As an ally for straight people, I wish for them that their lust for one another might be genuinely born out of mutual regard and solidarity."

Ward is known for her books The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (New York University Press, 2020), a 2021 PROSE Award Winner, [2] and Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men ( NYU Press, 2015), [3] a 2016 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. [4] Ward's research has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, NPR, New York Magazine, The Guardian, Forbes, Salon, Newsweek, Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, and Vice. Her 2008 book Respectably Queer: Diversity Culture in LGBT Activist Organizations was named a favorite book of 2008 by The Progressive magazine. [5] The thing about heterosexual misery that makes it irreducible to basic human foible is that straight relationships are rigged from the start. Straight culture, unlike queer culture, naturalizes and often glorifies men’s failures and women’s sufferings, hailing girls and women into hetero femininity through a collective performance of resilience.” So there's value in this exercise for me, a cis white American male, a scion of almost godlike privilege. Half essay, half academic research, this reading was right at my alley. And maybe it can be of yours too, if you’re interested in these type of thing, but you’re bored/not interested/intimidated of/by academic papers, that tend to take themselves too seriously. This book will make you reflect on this subject, and some of our every-day-life events that we take for granted, but maybe we shouldn’t. Are queer people really the victims of our society? Should we really feel sorry for the LGBTIAQ+ community? Or should we focus our lense to the straight and cis woman? I have my own answer to this question. I hope you get to read this and get your own.

University of California, Riverside

While her queer forerunners provide inspiration, Ward stops short of their separatism and recommendations of “queering”. Instead, the concept of woman-identifiedness is employed as a tool by which to honor the ostensibly guiding impulse of men’s straight identity: love for women. This, I think, is worthwhile. While the exhortation to abandon straight life to one degree or another is exhilarating and liberatory for many queers, and therefore may appear universally liberatory, we cannot assume that this is true for people who genuinely and deeply identify as straight. Some people really are, and really like to be, straight. Thus, in Ward’s proposal for deep heterosexuality, we see an approach interested in the “actualization, rather than undoing” of straightness (Ward 2020, p. 157). The author puts the blame for the unhappiness squarely on men and their misogyny. The institutions men have built are designed to reinforce straight white male supremacy. Gay men, too, if white, participate in the male-designed system of woman-degrading misogyny. To their detriment, of course; to all male beings' detriment. La autora llama "la industria de la reparación hetero" a todos los esfuerzos inefectivos de parte de las mujeres para reparar a los hombres de su machismo, que terminan en en una mezcla de optimismo ciego y resignación. A las mujeres se nos presenta la mediocridad y deficiencia masculina como un reto para transformar, haciéndonos creer que al criar "nuevos hombres" encontraremos respeto y liberación, gastando enormes cantidades de energía en este proyecto, que, el feminismo ha demostrado, haríamos mejor en invertirlo en generar redes y vínculos con otras mujeres. La premisa hetroromántica se le vende a la mujer como el vínculo más importante y que dará sentido a su vida, los dolores, tragedias y luchas forman parte de esta historia. Incluso se generan vinculos con otras mujeres al celebrar esta habilidad de sobrevivir a las decepciones y salir empoderadas: el sacrificio heteroromántico para llegar a la felicidad. El amor profundo de la mujer redime al hombre a través de su amor nutriente, perfecto y de aceptación. El dolor y sufrimiento femenino es el vehículo para la redención masculina y nuestra medalla de honor; sufrimiento y aceptación que se alinean con el capitalismo, con lo cual se acepta una vida aburrida y cansada como modelo a seguir. La heteroresignación y el heteropesimismo son ritos de edad de las mujeres. Hay un trabajo constante que la mujer tiene que realizar para mantener y sostener la satisfacción temporal del hombre dentro de la relación, con el miedo del abandono o la inseguridad económica. La lógica heteronormativa nos hace aceptar que entre hombres y mujeres no tenemos que gustarnos o querernos sino aguantarnos y suprimir nuestros deseos y necesidades. Que los hombres puedan ser desagradables o abusivos se plantean como cosas que hay que aguantar para cumplir con nuestras necesidades sexuales y románticas.