The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

by Jane Ward

One way to think about this is that homophobia is the outward expression of heterosexual misery, a kind of subconscious jealous rage against the gendered and sexual possibilities that lie beyond the violence and disappointments of straight culture. Added to this anger is also an unspoken sadness—a chilling cloud of resignation—that is a palpable and sometimes repellent ingredient of the affect of straight culture. Straight people have few opportunities to grieve the disappointments of straight culture (the bad and coercive sex, the normalized inequities of daily life, straight men’s fragility and egomania, straight women’s growing disillusionment with men’s fragility and egomania, the failed marriages, the coparenting that is really solo parenting . . .) because how does one speak about the failure of the very system that defines people’s success?