Funding for To The Contrary provided by: This week on To The Contrary: But they want partnership, not just marriage.

And they, you know, ar are wanting to break some of the the norms and trends that they witnessed in relationships before them.

This form, blueprint, I think it does not belong only to one specific rule versus urban setting or category of individuals.

I think it's applicable throughout, as human nature.

Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbé.

Welcome to To The Contrary a discussion of news and social trends from a variety of perspectives.

Widespread exhaustion with modern romance is common for people in all kinds o fields, but recent articles say it may be especially fraught for straight women.

Many find themselves frustrated by unequal relationship dynamic and the burnout of dating apps.

This persistent cycle has becom so pervasive that commentators have coined a term for it: heteropessimism.

Joining me this week are Ximena Araya-Fischel, health author for Forbes, and Rebecca Minor, a licensed social worker and clinician.

So welcome to you both.

Thank you for joining me on this discussion.

And let's start with a very simple question, I suppose, which is what is heteropessimism and is it a real thing or is it an avenging of some commentator?

Lets star with whoever wants to go first.

The easiest, simplest way I see the term is complaining about the genre, about men while staying in heterosexuality or in the genre.

Is heteropessimism real?

I would say that real has many angles to it.

Before answering that question, how vivid is it fro a phenomenological experience, lived-in experience for each man and woman.

But more than a verdict, it can be a mood.

So is it tangible?

Perhaps.

Is it an academic term that applies to a lot of societal and cultural dynamics?

Yes.

But is it real?

I truly believ that it comes down to the person and how they choose to enter the dating realm and refer to it, or stay within it for that matter.

Ms.

Minor, do you think— do you agree this is something that's real and everybody is going to have to face it at some point?

I would argue that the way that Ximena described it is accurate, I think one sense of reality is individual.

But and, you know, I don't think it's necessaril something that we will have to face in a like doom filled future.

But I do think that there is a reality in which folks are grapplin with a sense of disappointment, frustration and hopelessness about the state of relationships.

And that is somethin that I believe we can work on.

Why is this happening now?

What prompted everybody to get heteropessimistic?

I would say that complaints about the opposite sex are ancient.

I mean, they've been going o for years and years and years, but there is a backdrop definitely that has changed right now.

And it goes from AI to dating apps to the loneliness within the manosphere, all these different things that don't necessarily change this dynamic, ancient dynamic, but it accelerates and gives a different perspective on how this clash is perceived in the present.

Is the point of this that women are getting more pessimistic about trying to have, relationships with the opposite gender?

I wouldn't say so.

I would say, like I said, that this grievance is old, but the structural conditions around it, the apps, the gender polarization, the ever shrinking network of support networks within men, those are new.

Why are they shrinking?

If there's so much of this going around and people are so upset, why would the networks, people looking for support, figuring out how to deal with this, why aren't they growing instead of shrinking?

I refer to men's support networks.

There's 2 or 3 studies that came up within the past 18 months that show especially within white, straight, middle class men, that the support system has been getting smaller.

Men only sharing about their experiences, their feelings, voicing their emotions within a very closed, if existent network, as opposed to women who tend to articulate, share, connect, just like the tal in the New York Times article, over brunch, over a wider circle of female friends.

And from here, it's the term that comes out, the emotional labor that also women fee by taking on the responsibility of this lack of support that men are having.

Ms.

Minor, do you see this in your practice?

Sure.

So tell us about that.

Especially because—sure.

Especially because my focus is on gender specifically, I think about this more about kind of a cultural moment of reckoning around gender.

What we're living in right now are, we have this public conversation about gender base violence, reproductive rights, what we're seeing this onlin misogyny in the ways that power operates in relationships.

And so those conversations, I think, are shaping a lot of the ways that women think about dating in partnership.

And at the same time, like what Ximena was talking about, we're seeing things like a rise of the manosphere online and a lack of actual interpersonal connection for cisgender men especially.

And many women are looking at the message they're seeing online and asking whether or not they're compatible with the kind of partnership that they want.

So what has changed isn't just relationships.

It's about what our awarenes and expectations have shifted.

It sounds like the generation that is going through becoming adults right now, and you could give that several names.

I'm not sure which one is correct, but, that they are having all kinds of questions about what sexuality are they and should they be in straight or gay relationships?

Is that something you've seen?

Certainly.

I don't think that folk who are struggling with hetero- pessimism are necessarily struggling with their own identity development in terms of wondering if they are, in fact, queer.

Though I do think that we— and we know scientifically and research based— that younger generations are identifying more and more with a variety of identities outside of heterosexuality.

I do think that heteronormative expectations for relationship contribute to heteropessimism.

And so what I mean by that are the kind of roles and scripts that have been handed to younger generations about what relationships are supposed to look like, and the ways in which men and women are supposed to function within them.

Right.

Like women who feel responsible for managing the household, remembering every birthday, planning family events and carrying the emotional labor of the relationship.

We're seeing that shift and things like we hear about the Fair Play Movement, or thinking about how we're managing labor in the household, whether that's physical and emotional.

And so I think we are seeing some shift to people recognizing the ways in which queer relationships shift some of those power dynamics and allow for folk to renegotiate roles and share labor in a way that's different.

But I think those are two different issues.

Why is there all this disorientation, it seems, about gender and what gender i and who fits into what category?

I think that a big misconception is that this is mostly a woman's feeling.

I think that it's a part of two ends of the same rope or— and please correct me if this was not part of your question, but from what I heard— but men are also heteropessimists too.

And like I mentioned before, women tend to voice it collectively and out loud, like I mentioned, in essays or group chats or women circles or just with friends.

Whereas men don't do this or do this in withdrawal.

One of the studies that I mentioned before from Pew Data found that essentially no gender gap is in loneliness.

About 16% of men and 15% of women reported loneliness.

So no, I don't think that it's a women's issue, but it might be a heterosexual condition with two different accents.

Do you think tha there are parts of the country where this is more of an issue than in others, for example, more of an urban issue than an issue for people living out in the country and not in urban areas?

I will— I don't have data for this but I will go back to Seresins, the person who coined this term, original essay in tha this is mostly regarding white, straight, heterosexual, middle class men and women.

It's—it differs on, say, Hispanic population, Black population, where loneliness rates are different or how they approach dating is different.

Of course, there is a huge polarization as well.

So the author was very specific that this is the audience it was referring to.

So I don't—I wouldn't say that it doesn't change throughout the country.

I do think that culture, economic status, different emotional backgrounds are the pivotal element in how this shifts.

And to be fully honest, as a Latina myself living in the US for many years, it probably would have never crossed my mind had it not been through a research journalistic perspective to learn about this term.

Okay.

And you said earlier something I want to bring u and ask you about, which is that men are heteropessimistic as much as women or possibly, you said more so than women.

Tell me about that.

The overall feeling tha there is a lack of connection, the backdrop that I mentioned before, whether it's a lack of connection through the dating apps, through not having the emotional granularity to speak emotions and convey emotions or being honest and straightforward.

I genuinely think that it's both ways, not only men— rather, women feeling exhausted from the dating app and the dynamics that it entail.

For men, I will say that there is a— I'm sure you've heard about this— there is a sense of toxic masculinity, although I avoid using the word toxic, that keeps them from being more open and interact and talk about how they feel.

But the overall feeling is I feel we're within a disposable industry meaning the dating app market.

I feel I have to perform, I feel that I have to wear different masks to finally find connection and empathy and synergy with another woman.

And I've researched this, I've conducted interviews and I've written about this as well just to prov that this anesthesia, this mood that we're talking about from a female women's perspective also applies to men, the men's world too.

And is it— what impact is it having on relationships?

Is it stymying them or is it promoting them?

Is it promoting gay relationships or same-gender relationships?

Is it not promoting pairs of men and women together being couples?

I don't think that heteropessimism is causing an increase in same gender, same sex relationships, that again, I think these are kind of separate concerns.

There may—you may hear more of the kind of offhanded comment of like, oh, I'm so sick of men, I wish I was a lesbian, but that doesn't actually contribute to folks engaging in those relationships.

What I do think is happening is, like you said, an increase in conflict sometimes within heterosexual relationships.

But that conflict is not necessarily due to the genders of the people involved, but it is experienced as suc because of the larger constructs around gender and th patriarchal structures at play.

So you can be in a very equal and like open and communicative romantic partnership that is with someone of the opposite gender.

But that require you both to be willing to come to the relationship with that openness and kind of change the scrip around some of the expectations that have been handed to us.

And that's where I se the generational shift in this is that it's less about, you know, people not entering relationships, though there are younger people who are choosing not to be in relationship necessarily, but they want partnership, not just marriage.

And they, you know, are wanting to break some of the norms and trends that they witnessed in relationships before them.

And you're sayin that some of these relationships or some of the forms that these relationships are taking now are problematic?

Tell me about that.

Well, I think what's problematic is when people don't feel heard or seen in an equal way within their relationship.

When one person is carrying more of the caretaking labor, the emotional labor.

And on the flip side of that, also, when perhaps one person is carrying more of the expectations of being a breadwinner or succeeding financially, all of those things can be shared.

And we know that that is most successful, that, you know, there are plenty of women who are also breadwinners for their families.

And we're seeing mor stay at home dads, for example.

So again— That's been going on for decades, really.

Right.

So that's what I was just going to say was like, none of this is different.

I think what's happenin is in part, the pandemic forced a lot of people to be stuck at home with their partners, and that started to create some kind of hum of resentment underneath.

I think some of what day to day we kind of just ignor or avoid in our relationships.

And that came out in social media and online through more kind of joking and ways of speaking about our partners that aren't—are, you know, intended to be humorous but have an undercurrent of kind of pessimism.

Interesting.

Well, where are we going to end up with this?

I mean, are we going to see fewer and fewer heterosexual relationships people of two different genders pairing up and marrying and starting families?

Or what is there?

Are we going to see an increase in people— same gender relationships?

Where are we headed with all this?

Each of you— If each of you could please jump in an give me your thoughts on that.

I would even go back to the the test problem.

In other words, instead of thinking, is heteropessimism problematic?

I think a better question would be what is it doing right now before it produces any consequences or tangible social shifts?

And at the heart of the concept is this affiliation with heterosexuality, but really without abandoning it.

So it caters to the question, if there is a sense of frustration, what are we doing about it?

And I think that that is the action point that we really need t look at before even analyzing.

What effect has it had in relationships throughout the country.

How do you do that?

I mean, I would again, taking it as a journalist, Latina myself in the world of dating, actually, again, making an effort to meet the person, not the gender.

I think this is just a very tiny example of how to move from frustration to solution to action.

And again, going back to is the differen throughout the country or not, it'll depend on the specific context of a group or even an individual to really take on different tips to avoid heteropessimism and move toward a more fluid, fulfilling, at least discerning path in the dating realm.

Second, I'd say that naming the performance as hetero- fatalism feels like insight, really, and it can bring a lot of academic viewpoints understanding where we're at.

But it also can function as anesthesia, just like Seresin mentions.

So the question to ask is whether a given complaint changes anything, or doe it merely keeps the status quo?

That's another one.

What do you think, Rebecca?

I appreciate that, I think that, yeah, it's so important that we don't think of this as just a concept of man hating or a widespread rejection of men entirely, and that somehow this is going to result in, you know, a lack of partnerships or moving towards something like we're seeing in South Korea.

I think what we're seeing is a growing refusal to participate in relationship that feel unequal, and that is actually a really good thing.

Most people do want connection and intimacy and partnership and love.

And the question isn't about whether or not we want relationships.

The question is whether they want relationships under the same terms that previous generations accepted.

And so I think, you know, noticing the frustration is the first step.

And it's valuable information that often tells us that something needs attention.

So yeah, I don't want to get ahead of— I could go on for too long.

No, but that' interesting and it's critical.

It still strikes me, though, and Id like both of you to give me feedback on this.

Is this something that is a lot more current an happening in urban environments than it is in even the suburbs but certainly the countryside, and we have a political divide along those lines as well.

I mean, we— Democrats are dominating in in urban environments, and Republicans are dominated in suburban and country environments.

So is this something that's affecting a lot more than just relationships?

Lets star with whoever wants to go first.

I'm happy to, if you want me to.

Yeah.

I do think that this is a complicated issue when it comes to the ways in which you could draw a parallel with politics.

Again, I don't think it is a result of political leaning or stance necessarily.

But I do think depending on the spaces and and types of messaging— spaces one inhabits and the types of messaging they're receiving, they may or may not feel more prone to some of these ideas, like what we've see in more of kind of a trad wife trend that's happened, which, you know, comes with it a desire for engaging in more of the traditional wife activities, for example.

Some of those women may feel more aligned with those ideas and not experience as much of the sense of hetero- pessimism, whether or not they're happy in their relationships.

I don't think we know.

And so I don't think that hetero— pessimism is necessarily an urban or suburban issue.

I do think, like Ximena said, it was originally understood through a very white, straight middle class lens.

And of course, again, that makes sense because gender is relational and it is a construct.

And so we understand those things in the— in our—withi the context of our environments.

And your thoughts to close out, please.

What came to mind was again Asa Seresins essay, the first line that heterosexuality had always embarrassed her.

And inevitably this is political in that straightness has gotten—that's associated with patriarchy.

That's what Garnett called the tainted category of men.

So, yes, part of it is aesthetic it can feel anachronistic and also unself-aware.

But to cite back again, Seresin, which is the root of this conversation, is that being embarrassed by your own straightness while staying within within the straight world buys you the moral credit of this affiliation to use the same wor without really paying any cost.

This form, blueprint, I think it does not belon only to one specific rule versus urban setting or category of individuals.

I think it's applicable throughout, as human nature.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for this incredibly enlightening discussion.

And we'll keep following it as it goes along.

Fascinatin to see how society is changing or bending to new rules or different sets of rules that people are setting up.

So thank you both for your participation.

Thank you.

It was an honor.

Thank you.

That's it for this edition of To The Contrary.

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