Should I Kill Myself, or Be Embarrassed by My Boyfriend?

Hetero-pessimism, Sabrina Carpenter, and sex neutrality

[Author’s note: This is in large part a response to feedback on Your Boyfriend’s Blowjobs Are Safe, but I also like to talk things through, and like to imagine that we are all in dialogue with one another.]

Is all sex rape? Can men be saved? Should we save them? When I look in his eyes I see myself in their reflection and wonder if he has it in him to really love me. When I look in his eyes I wonder if I would love myself enough to leave. Does a man know how to love? Was he ever taught how to hold things gently? Does he care enough to remember?

My position on heterosexual sex, and women’s ability to negotiate under patriarchy is something that I would like to touch on further. In particular I was asked about my perspective on MIM’s stance that all sex is rape, and received some feedback saying that it seemed I was arguing that sex was both patriarchal and not patriarchal, and because of this, nothing at all. I believe this is where I diverge from both hetero-pessimism as well as a sex positive framework that argues choice indicates a total freedom, a liberation that is ours if we are empowered enough to choose it. Forgive me, but we will have to get into some philosophy as we untangle this together.

The universal, the particular

Are all cows black at night? Well, yes. But also, no. There is a universality in this, but it fails when applied to the particular. Sure, we see these cows as black. Yet upon closer inspection, each cow takes on its specific form. When we surrender to the universality, to night, we surrender the particular, the Subject, or the true Absolute, to the abyss. The distortion of the night makes the positive assertion that “at night all cows are black” appear to be true, but it doesn’t make it legitimately true. Night-time causes us to ‘lose’ detail, but even if we cannot see it, it’s still there. So, is heterosexual sex patriarchal, and in the case of MIM’s theory, rape? Well, yes. But also, no.

“A Night in Which All Cats are Grey” by A New Institute for Social Research explores this in depth. To Hegel¹, the true Absolute is the negotiation between the individual and the universal. It is the outcome of wrestling with the superstructures and oneself, negotiating and understanding that we are “at once the producer and product of itself…” In short, it is through struggle that we find ourselves.

The text provides two examples, one being depression, and the other being the loss of the self via capitalism. In the case of depression, the universality of the illness may cause those afflicted to feel helpless, that all of life is distorted through the lens of this universal. In the case of what Engels calls the “character masks” which try to hide that workers and owners become machines which compulsively expand production, this universal also denies us the individual and the particular. Both of these examples are considered to be depressive Absolutes.

Though in the eyes of Hegel, these depressive Absolute’s are a product of a false world. In response to these two examples they write, “A social reality that appears ‘impervious to human intervention’ is a reality evacuated of subjectivity, a monolithic Absolute functionally identical in its substance: a night in which all cats are grey.” Human beings produce our lives, even if it is “behind our own backs” and are capable of engaging with the world around us. We are Subjects and individuals even if we are suppressed by a depressive Absolute. Here we see a dynamic in which the solution is not so simple as “feel better” or “stop engaging in capitalism” but simultaneously it is also not surrendering to the structures that be. Grappling with ourselves as Subjects in a false world which positions us as objects is where we begin to do the work.

Patriarchy is another such depressive Absolute — it is the false world which positions us as objects to play out our patriarchal roles. Instead of a night in which all cows are black, patriarchy is a world in which All Dogs Bite. True, and also, untrue. It denies us our individuality and attempts to remove our role as Subjects. This is in part, the violence of the structure. A specific act, such as heterosexual sex, is an expression of the universal onto which humans map different things. The end goal is of course to recognize and destroy this map through the establishment of Communism, to be free of the false world, but what is to be done before then?

Heterosexual Women are the Best Nihilists I Know

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee”² is often attributed to absurdist philosopher Camus³. It’s typically taken one of two ways; either read incorrectly as a nihilistic thought, or correctly read as an absurdist quip. The question is also often taken as an either or. Putting aside for a moment that this is a mistake, I posit the reformed question modern women keep asking: “Should I kill myself, or be embarrassed by my boyfriend?”

The radfem or liberal hetero-pessimist asks this question in a nihilistic fashion. She sees the growing echo-chambers, the gender relations that keep fraying, she hears about the violence and sees it first-hand. She has more paper-cuts and splinters in her fingers than she can count, and the more you coo at her wounds and tell her try and try again the less she trusts you. In an essay, “No, Having a Boyfriend Isn’t Embarassing!” by Hasif, a reader left a comment that touched on much of the reasonable anxieties women are having. “Women aren’t retreating from men because they’ve forgotten that ‘love is messy and beautiful’; they’re retreating because it often feels unsafe or socially costly to be publicly associated with men.” Too often, those obsessed with individual choice and the metaphysical ‘human connection’ lose sight of the very real structural and interpersonal violence that specifically targets exploited genders. This is the ‘feel better’ or ‘stop engaging in capitalism’ argument. The outright denial of the depressive Absolute and the insistence that the world is there for you to take it. It is individualistic and categorically untrue. In tandem, utter surrender to the depressive Absolute is where you find the nihilist. I find that most often, the radfem or liberal hetero-pessimists advocate for some version of zionism, separatism or resigning oneself to their prescribed fate; fatalism.

My sister embodies the false choice between “death” and embarrassment, as she has temporarily abandoned the thought of being with a man. Kitchen table discussions centered on dating are cut short by a far off look and an insistence that all the good men are married or dead. She is not yet willing to choose “embarrassment” (a man who doesn’t meet her standards of good/decent) just to be with one, and certainly has not yet realized any of the other possibilities (finding a not embarrassing man, not being embarrassed, finding a woman etc). Her liberal and therefore individualistic nihilistic hetero-pessimism (a mouthful) identifies patriarchy on the periphery. She feels the poor behavior of men, names it, does not tolerate it, but still localizes it. She applies this rationale to herself as a personal moral failure (untrue), recognizes the failure of a swath of men (true), but continues to blame individual men in general rather than acknowledge that the failures are caused by the structure of patriarchy itself. She resigns herself to the belief that love is for better women with better men whom you will never have access to, or for those unshackled by heterosexuality.

Radical feminist nihilistic separatism (a mouthful) meanwhile, is similar but is centered upon group rather than individual experiences. It names patriarchy as the structural cause but since most radical feminists do not identify social sex (male/female) as the gendering of the body or even as a social phenomenon, their analysis is doomed to incompleteness at best, or as another oppressive force. As such RFNS further fails to identify social sex as sites of patriarchal oppression and falsity, and blames men as a group alongside patriarchy. Often you will see male/female socialization theory here, which is incorrect. There is no male/female socialization, only patriarchal socialization. This theoretical framework de-emphasizes the individual experience and focuses on the depressive Absolute — that all men are violent and unsafe. Developing their theory from an incorrect social basis leads to misidentification and blame of so-called male biological impulse rather than the actual material incentives and violent hazing process. This means that their separatism can only ever be a moral question and their concern is with enforcing separatism as much as possible on a group basis. Individual renunciation is not enough, “women’s only spaces”, and transmisogynistic movements like 4B⁴, are key. “The personal is political” is the calling card, and they don’t sleep with the enemy. It is an attempt to entirely remove oneself from patriarchy (as best as one can, of course). Whilst structures may still stand, individual connection is seen as guaranteed exposure to violence, rather than a risk.

What is the end result of all of this Nihilism? The poem Dialogue by Adrienne Rich⁵ can be read in several ways, one of which is a person’s reflection on dissociative and rehearsed intercourse. The strange awareness that oneself was lost somewhere leading up to the act… that she had become an actor, an object merely wearing a “character mask”. Surrendering to nihilistic hetero-pessimism is laying down, palms to the sky, and agreeing that you have lost yourself entirely. Rich writes, “I do not know/ who I was when I did those things” and instead of the reader interpreting this as a call to try and find their authentic sexual identity, nihilists argue that this is impossible during heterosexual relations. When in the presence of men, or when engaged in heterosexual partnered sexual acts, women forfeit their humanity. Not that forces try to strip you of it, but that they succeed and were always-already successful. It is a surrender, it is a loss of the self for nothing at all. And so women give men up, and of course they do. This is the position of the nihilistic hetero-pessimist, collective or individual surrender.

Heterosexual Women are the Best Absurdists I Know

But what of the hetero-pessimist absurdists? Nihilists and absurdists both agree on one thing, there is no point. The attitudes formed after the position is where things diverge. Moving forward it should be noted that virtually all hetero-pessimist absurdists focus on individual/swaths of men rather than patriarchy as a system of oppression. As Camus writes, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” one must imagine Sabrina Carpenter happy. Condemned to roll a bolder up a hill for eternity, Sisyphus may find happiness in accepting his fate. “Sabrina Carpenter’s Glamorous World of Hetero-Pessimism” by Shanspeare touches on this chagrin resignation. The idea that all men are dogs, but goddammit, we love them anyways. The acknowledgement of total and encompassing defeat, and the joy one might find in it. It is tacitly not resistance, negotiation, or any other form of trying to wrestle freedom from the grip of your oppressor. It is a surrender, we are told, that feels good. It’s why Sabrina Carpenter can have her hair turned into a leash on the album cover for “Man’s Best Friend” whilst calling men dogs. Verbal acknowledgement of the violence but active complacency within it. None of these Carpenter-esque absurdist hetero-pessimists have considered that they can let the bolder fall. They have surrendered to the universal and forgotten that they are individuals.

But there is a look at hetero-pessimism which is smack dab in the center of the ven diagram between Nihilism and Absurdism. YouTuber Maia Wyman in a video titled “TikTok Feminism is Not Your Friend” critiques the hetero-pessimistic trend at a different angle. One that argues “feminism” and attitudes towards heterosexuality are deeply informed by capitalism. For Nihilists, the idea that having a boyfriend is embarrassing is primarily being driven by women whose identities and relationships are their brand. And, that while women may be identifying issues within patriarchal society, the solution for these women is not negotiation but rejection in totality. And through this, not a substitution involving deepened friendships with women, but rather individualistic living. Career focus (hello capitalism, hello also unfulfilling), increased social media consumption, and so on. In summation, it’s that damn phone. For absurdists, Instead of organizing, resisting, or even giving up men, over-consumption is embraced. Girl math, girl dinner, girl-whatever-the-fuck, are all trends which means that they are all consumed, discarded, and involve some product (see: tinned fish). This includes the SheraSeven princess treatment psuedo-sex-worker-craze⁶ that again argues that men are dogs so we might as well get some benefit. For Sabrina Carpenter, it’s fun and sex, for women like SheraSeven, it’s money. In summation, there is a market revolving around women becoming hetero-pessimists.

Heterosexual Women are also Experts at Denial

As a relatively brief aside I would like to clarify that whilst all of this is happening in the background, there is still a significant portion of heterosexual women that do not see heterosexuality as stacked against them. I touched on this in “Your Boyfriend’s Blowjobs Are Safe” but I would like to clarify that while I am critiquing hetero-pessimism, I am not promoting what is often called “sex positivity” or telling women to prioritize “human connection” with men. As a lover of Wittig, but also as a Marxist, and as a Feminist, my position is that heterosexuality is a political thing, one meant to institutionalize women as men’s property. A sort of psyop intended to make women submit. Heterosexuality cannot exist outside of capitalist patriarchy because male, female, man, and woman, are all artificial categorizations that have been naturalized via patriarchy and colonialism. I hope my various previous essays on the sex trade, AI utilized as a weapon of patriarchy, and personal anecdotes convey this position adequately.

Won’t Someone Think of the Maoists?

MIM, or Maoist International Movement, has a book titled Revolutionary Feminism, in which we find the quote “the dictionary describes rape as coerced sex. It is clear to MIM that women did not consent to being born into a world with unequal power; hence, all sex is rape.” (p 244, 245) The crux of the argument is that there is no good sex and that tastes and preferences are a product of our white supremacist cishetero capitalist patriarchy which may be weaponized. It leans entirely on the universal, which as we discussed, is not comprehensive. It leaves us in a “yes, but” sort of situation.

In this logic there’s a bit of a fallacy. They argue that there is no good sex under patriarchy so it’s all rape, which is untrue. They continuously walk back the statement in various ways and negotiate throughout the chapter which indicates they know this to be true. So, what they should have said, and ideally meant, is that the conditions of patriarchy means that everyone exists and has sex under conditions akin to statutory rape. And that tastes and preferences are not formed in a vacuum and are often used as weapons against non-hegemonic individuals in various ways. This means that sex is often bad and sometimes rape and could be better if these conditions were abolished. Bad sex does not always equate to rape, and good sex for individuals is not revolutionary or liberatory.

Heterosexual Sex: Redeemable?

We must undertake the nightmarish and terrifying task of being fully embodied Subjects, and navigating heterosexuality for what it is. Both a source of connection, and as a political and coercive institution. Rather than “behind our own backs” we must make our own connections with knowledge of the risks and the structures working against us.

What does this entail in the real world for those who wish to have heterosexual sex? It entails taking on work yourself. Sex is not a game, an individual act, or something consumable. Work to undo these patriarchal notions of sex as a form of masturbation. It entails making men work as well. Yes, seeing all men as [x] ignores the fact that they are also subjects punished and rewarded to varying degrees by patriarchy. Yes, it is possible for a man to do his best to reject the incentives patriarchy gives to express dominance, and we should demand and enforce that they do so. (For example; in All Dogs Bite, I write about my personal view of men and patriarchy at the time, likening patriarchal conditioning to schutzund, forgetting that some dogs fail out of the program; universal, individual.)

But at the same time, in the absence of a very good incentive and punishment for rejecting patriarchal modes of domination, the men will be weaponizing this belief in the true Absolute. And they will be probing the defenses for the minimum exertion for sexual access, at which point it’s a mistake to try to, and is indeed very difficult to, raise the expectation. We must remember that as men are incentivized to lean into patriarchal benefits and rewards, they are also incentivized to pretend they’ve given them up, especially via cheap aesthetics or words (see: tote bag matcha men).

It’s odd, because heterosexual sex didn’t exist before the patriarchy did, as male and female and heterosexuality as concepts and categorizations didn’t, but the sex acts themselves did. So these acts are not naturally or ontologically x or y, and are not entirely beholdent to the coercive and violent categorizations that impose themselves upon them. Patriarchy, the universal, has mapped itself onto the specific sex acts themselves. This is to be negotiated with and struggled against, but always kept in mind.

False Dichotomy

Political lesbianism (which, for straight women most often manifests as fetishistic) and hetero-pessimism has become a quasi-cultural obsession as gender relations continue to fragment and splinter. As we become more and more socially and culturally separated, finding ourselves in technological echo chambers without actual physical interactions, we find patriarchy amplified. Beyond what everyone talks about; the make-up, the clothes, the alpha male coaching courses, there’s something deeper. We are being sold epiphanies. Short form answers for gender dynamics that are backed by ad campaigns and consumerist culture. And, these epiphanies tap into the real, subjective, but real experiences that we have. It’s a mistake to discount these experiences and feelings, just as it’s a mistake to put all our weight in these epiphanies.

Those who peddle epiphanies seem to be concretely in sex positive or sex negative camps, a false dichotomy. They forget that there are third or fourth or fifth things to do. It is reminiscent of the infamous question asking if you should kill yourself or have a cup of coffee. I mean, there are more options than that. Sex neutrality remains the correct position. Normalizing abstinence is a fight against cishetero patriarchy, but in our increasingly abstinent world (not for the best reasons, but still), it’s not out of the realm. Normalizing abstinence means that our demands for men may be as high as necessary as there is zero threat of lowering the bar so that more (or any) men may meet the requirement. Romantic or sexual pairing is not needed, therefore whoever successfully passes has signaled themselves as uniquely deserving of said romantic or sexual pairing. This is also why we should be mindful of partners we do pick on a communal level. Because it’s not just that the man self-signals, but he signals to every other person who perceives him, and the woman signals to every other person who perceives them that such-and-such is worthy of that romantic pairing when this is often not actually the case with men.

All these attitudes and philosophies are lies that prevent you from reaching both your own human potential and the potential of your relationships with or without men. It hides the fact that you can be mindful and disciplined about the underlying politics while being a fulfilled individual. Secretly, this is the only way. There is no dichotomy. Be neutral about sex and always critical of it.

1. Hegel was a bourgeois liberal who was a monarchist and ascribed to the eurocentric and racist views emerging at the time. His works on historical matters should be understood as eurocentric and bigoted, and this should be minded when considering his philosophical contributions. My application here is reserved, specific, and mindful of this. Red Sails provided further analysis on Hegel’s contributions in full consideration of his bibliography here.

2. Camus did not write or say, “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” It appears nowhere in the often cited text, A Happy Death, and The Journal of Camus Studies even has a paper titled “The Noble Art of Misquoting Camus”.

3. While Camus is often considered the foundational absurdist philosopher, he also was a French man born in occupied Algeria and whom was not sympathetic to the Algerian liberation struggle. Indeed “Algeria and Albert Camus” makes this clear. This is to be condemned and understood as the political and moral failing that it is. My application here is reserved, specific, and mindful of this.

4. The 4B movement in Korea started around 2019, with the tenets being; no dating men, no marrying men, no having sex with men, and no having children with men. Its popularity seems to be a point of contention, some calling it fringe, others calling it more widespread. It has been criticized for being transphobic as well.

5. Adrienne Rich, while known for her poetry and work related to queerness, she is also known to have helped Janice Raymond write The Transexual Empire, a horrible transphobic book. This should be remembered and kept in mind as we navigate her work. My application here is reserved, specific, and mindful of this. “What Kind of Times are These?” ruminates over her legacy in more detail.

6. I will have to write about this more in future, but SheraSeven and other dating coaches like her popularized terms and strategies deployed within the sex trade, and delivered them as civilian dating strategies. This is harmful and dangerous for a number of reasons.