Uptown Affairs is a column for The Tulane Hullabaloo, addressing sex, hookup culture and all things dating. If you are a Tulane student, you can submit an anonymous story to be featured here. 

Critiquing heterosexuality has become trendy. Straight women are borrowing radical language about freeing themselves from men who they consider “trash,” then continuing to go on dates with them. On social media, gender roles are being challenged, causing traditionalists to kick and scream about losing their privilege. “Tradwives” are enjoying the spotlight, but so is singlehood, which is now being marketed as an aesthetic. Meanwhile, queer folks watch from the sidelines, laughing at the spectacle of straight dysfunction. 

Last week, British Vogue’s Chanté Joseph released “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” and the internet was set ablaze. “Women don’t want to be seen as being all about their man, but they also want the clout that comes with being partnered,” Joseph wrote. 

Joseph outlined the newfound practice of cropping boyfriends out of Instagram posts or refraining from posting romantic male partners at all. Chat rooms, comment sections and TikTok videos erupted in response.

The outrage reflects the rise of heteropessimism on social media, a term coined by literature and gender scholar Asa Seresin, referring to feelings of hopelessness, regret or embarrassment about the straight experience. Heteropessimists are most often straight women dissatisfied with straight men, yet unable or unwilling to detach from them. They complain, “men suck!” as if it will heal the romantic disappointment caused by the troubling dating scene. 

I hear things like this constantly on Tulane’s campus. The male-to-female ratio is skewed, with female students outnumbering their male counterparts. There are 16% more female students than male students in the class of 2029, a narrower gap than in years prior. If you are a straight woman at Tulane, the dating pool is small, the guys are short and their behavior is disappointing. Even with a ratio that works in their favor, many men are still fumbling. 

This leaves us gals a few options: opt out, compete with each other, lower standards or explore other sexualities. Joseph wrote in her British Vogue article that when there aren’t enough men, or they are not meeting your standards, you may be inclined to reevaluate your allegiance to heterosexuality. But is abandoning heterosexuality really the answer — or just a fantasy of escape?

Many heteropessimists claim no woman would choose to be straight. The line of thinking says that if only she could make herself gay, it would be so much better. But we know attraction and sexual identity are not things you can manipulate. 

What’s problematic about heteropessimism is that it cements straight women in a permanent state of dissatisfaction. Some argue this prohibits the possibility of changing straight culture. But what if disappointment could become a catalyst for change? Not to fix men — they need to do that work themselves — but to build a kind of heterosexual culture that is enjoyable to participate in. Disillusionment can be the first step to reinvention.

The heteropessimist TikToks are funny and relatable, yet they co-opt queer theory without acknowledging it. We must credit this effort of reconceptualizing a sexual culture to queer theorists themselves. However, we can learn from queer movements and theorists to dream up an alternative to the heterosexual dating scene. Queer culture proves that gender roles, dating and intimacy can be reimagined. Maybe saving heterosexuality starts there — by unlearning the rules that make it so frustrating.