Doomers in Love

Heterosexuality has been deemed dangerous for as long as I can remember. In the 1990s, before I was born, an influential faction of feminists had already declared heterosexual sex and especially marriage to be marred by men’s structural advantage over women. By my teenage years, whether according to the revitalized legacies of MacKinnon and Dworkin or the dictates of #MenAreTrash feminism, to love a man was to be subject to his contempt and domination. (Figures like the disreputable Andrew Tate would agree.) By 2025, more than a decade since the term “toxic masculinity” entered cocktail-party conversation, it’s become a baseline assumption that heterosexual women are beleaguered, suffering from a condition not entirely of their own choosing but still incriminating for any right-thinking person: being attracted to ever faultful men.