Heteropessimism

Overthink

Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D.

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Education

4.7 • 549 Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are the straights okay? In episode 44 of Overthink, Ellie and David dive into “heteropessimism,” the sense of disillusionment or even shame associated with heterosexuality. From viral TikTok videos to studies showing that women are less dissatisfied than men in heterosexual relationships, post #metoo society is reckoning with the everyday sexism of many relationships. Ellie and David explore the reasons for heteropessimism, consider alternatives such as political lesbianism and boys' education, and ask: how can we be attracted to things that are bad for us, and how can we break out of a heteropessimistic approach to love?

Works Discussed

Asa Seresin, “On Heteropessimism”
Lena Gunnarsson, The Contradictions of Love
Mari Ruti, Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Costs of Everyday Life
Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism
Sandra Bartky, Femininity and Domination
Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman, Sex, Or the Unbearable
Andrea Long Chu, “The Impossibility of Feminism”
Pauline Harmange, Moi les hommes, je les déteste
Jack Halberstam, In A Queer Time and Place
Ronald F. Levant, Philip A. Allen, and Mei-Ching Lien, “Alexithymia in Men: How and when do emotional processing deficiencies occur?”
Ronald Levant, “Desperately Seeking Language: Understanding, Assessing, and Treating Normative Male Alexithymia”
Lauren Papp, Chrystyna D. Kouros, and E. Mark Cummings, “Demand-Withdraw patterns in marital conflict in the home”
D.L. Vogel, S.R. Wester, M. Heesacker, and S. Madon, “Dating relationships and the demand/withdraw pattern of communication”
Stephanie Coontz, “How to Make Your Marriage Gayer”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm David Pena Guzman.
0:08.6	And I'm Ellie Anderson.
0:10.2	Welcome to Overthink.
0:12.0	The podcast were two friends, who are also professors,
0:15.0	put philosophy in dialogue with the everyday.
0:18.6	Because big ideas are within everyone's reach.
0:30.7	Ellie, do you ever wish that you weren't attracted to men?
0:39.6	For sure.
0:41.0	I mean, what woman who dates men hasn't at some point wish they weren't attracted to men?
0:46.1	Dusha. Good point, good point.
0:48.3	I mean, dating men really does suck a lot of the time.
0:51.2	Like, in banal yet pervasive ways, like, it really sucks. Well, I mean,
0:58.9	excuse me, I date men also, but I assume by that you mean straight men, right? Yeah, yeah. And I mean,
1:05.8	okay, we could do, we could do like a not all men thing here. We'll have lots to say about
1:09.9	the pervasiveness versus individuality
1:12.4	in this episode. But my least favorite thing about dating straight men is when they act like
1:17.9	they're logical and women are emotional when actually like the way they're behaving is blatantly
1:23.6	irrational. Whereas like the women's makes a lot of sense. I was looking at my college
1:28.4	journals in prep for this episode because I thought, you know, there might be some relevant
1:32.0	stuff. And indeed, of course, there was. And I found a printed out email exchange. That's like
1:38.2	the 2000s for you right there. And in this email exchange, I guess I was upset with my boyfriend at the time
1:47.6	for not answering any of my calls or texts one night when we were supposed to hang out and he was
	...

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