The embarrassing truth of dating men

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NPR

News, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Society & Culture, News Commentary

4.6 • 8.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What's it like to date a man? Ask pop stars or your friends, and you might hear it's a struggle.

From Sabrina Carpenter to Summer Walker, some of the biggest female artists on the charts today…are absolutely through with men. It’s a sentiment that has a name: heteropessimism. Coined in 2019 by the writer Asa Seresin, the term encapsulates the embarrassment, disaffection and fatigue that comes from being heterosexual.

“Men are trash” music that reflects these feelings isn’t new, but NPR Music editor Hazel Cills says it’s making a comeback. So what makes this time different? And what can we learn from this moment's heteropessimism about the realities of dating men today?

(0:00) How Heteropessimism went mainstream
(4:21) What makes this "Men are trash" moment different than the past?
(7:55) What do women want from their relationships?
(14:59) How long will we be in the "men are trash" era?

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Transcript

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0:15.8	Science Delivers.com.
0:19.2	We are in a moment for pop music right now where there are so many young women making music that
0:26.4	reflects how women are talking about dating these days, which is quite pessimistic.
0:31.3	I think that the reception to some of the I love my man so much elements of the Taylor Swift album is evidence.
0:41.7	You know, I'm glad you brought up Taylor Swift.
0:43.5	You're glad?
0:44.4	I was like, I regretted that.
0:45.7	No, go ahead.
0:46.2	Sorry.
0:48.2	If there's one thing you might take away from listening to some of the top songs on the charts lately. It's that the pop girlies are sick of men.
0:58.1	Here's a snippet from Sabrina Carpenter's Manchild.
1:04.8	And here's Olivia Dean's Man I Need.
1:10.8	Come be the man I need. Okay, different vibes, but you could argue that these ideas, ranging from men are trash and men need to do better to please come
1:30.4	through for me, please step up, are cut from a similar cloth.
1:36.4	An NPR music editor Hazel Sills told me that this trend has a name, heteropessimism.
1:43.2	Heteropessimism is basically the phenomenon of, like, expressing embarrassment or fatigue about being
1:52.3	a heterosexual.
1:52.9	It was also coined in 2019 by the writer Asa Saracen, an article for The New Ingrid.
	...

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