Molly - The Straights are OK as Anyone
The Cut published a long piece by Jessica Bennett last week about Jane Ward, a professor of feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara, specifically her course Critical Heterosexuality Studies. I mostly hated the article, so I'll start with the one part I did like. Discussing what people (well in this case just women) could do to improve the structure of straight relationships, Bennett writes:
Ward’s version of the concept is called “deep heterosexuality.” For straight women who want to begin down this road, the first step, she says, is having to answer the same questions that gay people have been forcibly confronted with for so long: What propels them toward the opposite sex, despite all the difficulty? And what does being straight do for them?
Unfortunately, that comes at nearly the end of the piece and we never get an exploration of what some answers to those questions might be. I have my own answers, and my life has been such that I have felt "forcibly confronted" with the need to answer those questions. Of course I haven't had to justify myself or my existence in the same way gay people have, but I have always been both unshakably straight and at least one of these things at a time: compelled by men, in love with men, disgusted by men, afraid of men, ambivalent towards men, or uninspired by men. It wasn't until my husband that I felt I truly had some love and appreciation for Men as an idea as well as him as an individual. Exes and friends over the years talked about being men but I was both not really listening and they were talking with a layer of remove that ellided the real experience. At this point I wholly believe that being a man and living with male sexuality is frightening and intense in a way women can't empathize with. We just don't know. Likewise I think most men just don't get how vulnerable (importantly: vulnerable and disposable are completely different concepts) it is to be a woman. Because of this, our sympathy towards the other is compromised by necessary self-protection. As the recipients of much of the most violent fallout from male sexuality, it seems unwise to give yourself over completely to compassion. That seems like a Grizzly Man situation.
What makes most conversations about why heterosexuality can be fulfilling tricky is that being straight is inescapably adversarial. Literally, we are opposed. Often, we are hostile. To be a hetero-optimist means being willing to forgive, at the very least on an interpersonal level, centuries of unforgivable oppression. Anyone who points out that women have and still suffer under the patriarchal boot are right! So seeing heterosexuality as worth it involves living with a lot of dissonance and constantly asking yourself, "Do I want to be right or do I want to be content in my life?" I don't think this means that every straight person, or women in particular, need to settle for disappointing treatment. But in order to get through the day as a person who intends to continue pursuing heterosexual relationships, you have to believe in your own endeavor. One of the key features of heteropessimism is the pessimism coupled with an ultimate lack of doing anything about it. Look, it just sucks and isn't sustainable to accept that you definitely are this way but that it's a cursed amulet you have to wear forever. Again - do you want to be right or do you want to be ok?
I don't think the most attractive parts of heterosexuality are "traditional gender roles." Nor do I think it can all be summed up by me talking about why I find the male form beautiful and sexy, though I think women who love men could stand to do a lot more of that for their own sakes. It's funny. Being straight is definitely not stigmatized, but I've found that multiple, disparate spheres aren't welcoming to straight women being open and honest about loving and yearning for the male body/male...aura, I guess. The casual "nobody wants to see a dick" comments become a self-reinforcing statement.
The question of "do heterosexual women really exist?" posed in the piece is not something I take seriously. I was surprised to see Lux Alptraum, who on Obama's Jezebel.com would appear like a spectre to argue with any conversation that got too critical of porn, getting agitated about The Cut article:
Her takeaway is extremely stupid though. I'll give her that I can see her point if you are invested in the idea of "winning." If heterosexuality is adversarial, though, wouldn't that imply someone has to be winning? I don't think so, and I think this is maybe the fulcrum of my hetero-optimism. I think men and women can hold, even as a precious object, the uncomfortable but exciting truth of their otherness, their opposition, and their non shared interests. The tension is never defeated, but balanced and even cultivated. The unbreachable otherness is the prize you've already won, not the obstacle to be vanquished.
It would be fair to say both my husband and I, prior to each other, led lives of maladjusted relationships to our own gender roles and sexuality. While I didn't feel the self-annihilating shame over femininity the way he did about being a man, I felt burdened and threatened. It was like my femininity was - well, a cursed amulet - dangling outside me that could be snatched and coopted all too easily by men. I've never not wanted to be a girl but I didn't feel connected to it. As a very reserved and self-protective person, it was upsetting to have this big aspect of my life that I felt I was locked out of self-possessing. My relationship with my husband is the first and only situation where I've felt like his love of my being a woman - his need for it even - is not in conflict with it being my own.
In the article, Ward's concept of "deep heterosexuality" involves:
Both men and women would need to reject their “gender imprinting” — that is, their “erotic investment” in traditional roles, whatever that meant.
But I would argue, those roles are hot, so, no. To get even more controversial and lame-to-many-people than I'm already being, here's a belief of mine I rarely voice: for straight people, a little opt-in gender essentialism is healthy and sexy. It doesn't mean be subject to misogyny in your private relationships or unquestioningly accept default labor divisions, but the beauty of being extremely different types of people and bodies is the lifeblood of hetero love. Maybe I'm a stupid idealist, or maybe I'm just very lucky and what I say can't be meaningfully replicated. Happening on the love of your life who you also have incendiary sexual chemistry with is not great, actionable advice. But a huge part of why my (extremely fraught at times, not perfect) marriage has held so strong is the haven we offer each other in our polarity as men and women. It's hard to write about this topic without imagining being called reactionary. I could put a disclaimer in between every sentence these insights are only aimed at the inveterately heterosexual who are devoted to pursuing or continuing romantic and sexual relationships. Very few people want to have these conversations, I've found. I did marry the one person who reliably does, though, so maybe that's all that matters.