Straight Culture’s Orientation Toward Heteroromantic Sacrifice Is Also Influenced By Socioeconomic

Straight culture’s orientation toward heteroromantic sacrifice is also influenced by socioeconomic class. Respect for sacrifice—or sucking it up and surviving life’s miseries—is one of the hallmarks of white working-class culture, for instance, wherein striving for personal happiness carries less value than does adherence to familial norms and traditions. Maturity and respectability are measured by what one has given up in order to keep the family system going, an ethos that is challenged by the presence of a queer child, for instance, who insists on “being who they are.” Queerness—to the extent that it emphasizes authenticity in one’s sexual relationships and fulfillment of personal desires—is an affront to the celebration of heteroromantic hardship. As Robin Podolsky has noted, “What links homophobia and heterosexism to the reification of sacrifice . . . is the specter of regret. Queers are hated and envied because we are suspected of having gotten away with something, of not anteing up to our share of the misery that every other decent adult has surrendered to.”

For many lesbian daughters of working-class straight women, opting out of heterosexuality exposes the possibility of another life path, begging the question for mothers, “If my daughter didn’t have to do this, did I?” Heterosexuality is compulsory for middle-class women, too, but more likely to be represented as a gift, a promise of happiness, to be contrasted with the ostensibly “miserable” life of the lesbian. The lesbian feminist theorist Sara Ahmed has offered a sustained critique of the role of queer abjection in the production of heteroromantic fantasies. In Living a Feminist Life, she notes that “it is as if queers, by doing what they want, expose the unhappiness of having to sacrifice personal desires . . . for the happiness of others.” In The Promise of Happiness, Ahmed argues, “Heterosexual love becomes about the possibility of a happy ending; about what life is aimed toward, as being what gives life direction or purpose, or as what drives a story.” Marked by sacrifice, misery, and failure along the way, the journey toward heterosexual happiness (to be found with the elusive “good man”) remains the journey.

Jane Ward, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

More Posts from Hensteeths and Others

6 months ago

91% of adulterers stop before they find the one mistress who will bring back their zest for life. KEEP CHEATING!!!!!!!!

2 months ago

sigh...

Sigh...

while I'm obviously happy that ocd continues to get more and more awareness, I do wish it didn't involve so much reassurance posting.

"I can 100% promise that you're not a bad person 💖" is a nice sentiment, and I'm sure well intentioned, but oh my god is it unhelpful.


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3 months ago

the way you guys treat transmascs is actually fucking disgusting

that's a very unfair accusation, I have many transmasc friends who I treat with only love and kindness :)

2 months ago

My favorite recent example of memetic mutation is how the Spanish-speaking internet has now established any picture of a character smoking a comically large cigarette or a comical amount of cigarettes as the visual language for saying something is peak cinema.

My Favorite Recent Example Of Memetic Mutation Is How The Spanish-speaking Internet Has Now Established

Similar to the Martin Scorsese "absolute cinema" meme, over the course of the last couple years it became a meme to use this picture of Mads Mikkelsen smoking a cigarette as a reaction pic (both unironically and ironically) for the quality of a movie or TV show, commonly captioned as "en efecto, es cine" ("indeed, it is cinema"), "joder, esto si es cine" ("fuck, now this is cinema"), or "hoy ganó el cine" ("today cinema won").

This led to people establishing the visual shorthand of "cigarette = good show/movie" (such as people commenting a single cigarette emoji under screencaps or gifsets of movies), and eventually the meme of treating the size of the cigarette and/or number of cigarettes as being directly representative of cinematic quality, leading to reaction pics like these being used.

My Favorite Recent Example Of Memetic Mutation Is How The Spanish-speaking Internet Has Now Established
My Favorite Recent Example Of Memetic Mutation Is How The Spanish-speaking Internet Has Now Established
My Favorite Recent Example Of Memetic Mutation Is How The Spanish-speaking Internet Has Now Established
1 month ago

Azazeel by Youssef Zeidan, it’s set in 5th century Egypt and Syria. It’s about a monk with a demon in his head (Azazeel) caught in a struggle between paganism and Christianity

oohhh amazing tysm :o


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1 month ago
This Soap Dispenser Is Wide Open And Vulnerable To The World

this soap dispenser is wide open and vulnerable to the world


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4 months ago
hensteeths - hensteeth

if I ever have to see that fucking blorbo jesus crucifixion scene from good omens again i'm going to fucking lose it.


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2 months ago

usamericans when they have to read headlines: how can be I expected to process this

Still surprised when people are like “how come everybody in America seems insane” and then every single news bite is like

Still Surprised When People Are Like “how Come Everybody In America Seems Insane” And Then Every

like thats why. You live in a blender you can’t turn off. You live inside a 27 million degree fusion reactor wherein hyperindividualism is promoted to the extent that a feeling of intense loneliness is possibly the only trait Americans can agree on. You are supposed to be crazy because there is no logical way to process what is happening.

This sounds like “doomposting” I know, but it’s not what I mean to say. You should value the ability to stay on your feet. If the Founding Fathers had intended to create a machine that makes your emotions uncontrollable I do not believe your life would not be dramatically different. The point is it shouldn’t be surprising that America is made up of what seems to be people grabbing stances they’ll die for out of a bag of random parts. You need to expend a lot of effort to remain coherent.


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hensteeth

any pronouns / god's favourite lesboy

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