How Straight Women Became Uncool

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2026

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Writer and cultural critic Phoebe Maltz Bovy joins Meghan to discuss her new book, The Last Straight Woman, an exploration of how heterosexual women became suspect — if not pitifully uncool — in progressive culture. They talk about everything from Tumblr-era feminism and the post-#MeToo recalibration of gender politics to the television series Sex and the City and Girls, "photogenic feminism," bachelorette parties at gay bars, late-in-life lesbians, hookup culture, and why admitting you're a "boring straight woman" may now qualify as a radical act. We also revisit the "lesbian chic" era of the 1990s (my personal heyday), the discourse around the viral New Yorker short story Cat Person, the appeal (and limits) of sexual fluidity narratives, and the cultural overlap between straight female culture and gay male sensibilities.
Bonus: They switched gears in the last 15 minutes and did a Deep Dive™ into the subject of buying secondhand clothing from online marketplaces such as Poshmark. This portion is available to paying subscribers. To upgrade your subscription, go to https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/subscribe.

Guest Bio:
Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a Toronto-based cultural critic and the author. She is co-host, with Kat Rosenfield, of the Feminine Chaos podcast, Opinion Editor at The Canadian Jewish News, and host of the Canadian Jewish News podcast, The Jewish Angle. She contributes regularly to The Globe and Mail and is the author of The Perils of "Privilege" (St. Martins, 2017). She also runs a Substack called Close-Reading the Reruns with Phoebe Maltz Bovy.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What's interesting, I think, about the Bachelorette Party or Bachelors in a gay bar phenomenon
0:06.2	is that it gets discussed as these are women looking at gay men as if they're zoo animals.
0:13.5	I don't think that's it. I think these are women who are, who are, yeah, basic, but they like looking at undressed men.
0:34.6	Welcome to the unspeak-easy podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dom. My guest is cultural critic and author Phoebe Maltz Bovi. You may know her from the Feminine Chaos podcast,
0:39.8	which she does with Kat Rosenfield. They've been on this show before, and I've been on their podcast.
0:45.0	And she's here to talk about her new book, which is about straight women. Yes, it's called
0:50.8	The Last Straight Woman. And it is fascinating and unusual. And I think you'll
0:56.1	enjoy this conversation a lot. I will say that at the end, we started talking about something
1:01.8	completely different. We started talking about ordering secondhand clothes from the internet site
1:09.7	poshmark.
1:11.4	Yes, we talked about that, and it was actually very interesting.
1:15.6	So if you are a paying subscriber, you're going to be able to hear that part.
1:20.2	Otherwise, we are going to just talk about straight women.
1:23.1	So if you want to upgrade your subscription, go to megandom.substack.com or the unspeakable
1:30.1	podcast.com. That's our old name to become a paid subscriber so you can hear about Poshmark.
1:36.3	But in the meantime, here is Phoebe Maltzbovi welcome to the podcast hi Megan thank you so much for
1:54.1	having me on I have been so excited to talk with you about this book ever since you
1:58.6	started talking about the fact that you were writing it.
2:02.8	So we're finally here.
2:05.5	We're recording this on May 15th. The book is going to come out next week.
2:07.8	It is the last straight woman.
2:11.0	I'm holding it up here.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 14 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Meghan Daum, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Meghan Daum and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.