GT

“First, queer feminists have argued that straight life is characterized by the inescapable influence of sexism and toxic masculinity, both of which are either praised or passively tolerated in straight spaces. Second, queer observers of straight life have pointed to straight women’s endless and ineffective efforts to repair straight men and the pain of witnessing straight women’s optimism and disappointment.”
― Jane Ward, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

“Perhaps that's why art in all its forms can feel like the purest expression of one soul to another. A means of transcending the boundaried self. It turns out Joni's Blue is the case of wine I can drink and still remain standing. Her Blue pours out of me, not in a way she might recognise or even find at all touching, but it's there, nevertheless. The soul forever pouring from one to another, making something new through art.”
― Amy Key, Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Loving and Living Alone

“Even what passes as heterosexual intimacy is often resented by straight women who find themselves doing the emotional heavy lifting for men who have no close friends and won’t go to therapy. Men are less likely than women to discuss mental health with friends and family, to seek out psychotherapy, or to recognize they are depressed—a pattern so common as to be termed “normative male alexithymia” by psychologists.51 For straight men in relationships, all of these needs get aimed at women partners. In 2016, the writer Erin Rodgers coined the term “emotional gold digger” to describe straight men’s reliance on women partners to “play best friend, lover, career advisor, stylist, social secretary, emotional cheerleader, mom.”52 Elaborating on this dynamic and the emotional burnout it produces in straight women, Melanie Hamlett further explains that the concept of the emotional gold digger “has gained more traction recently as women, feeling increasingly burdened by unpaid emotional labor, have wised up to the toll of toxic masculinity, which keeps men isolated and incapable of leaning on each other. . . . While [women] read countless self-help books, listen to podcasts, seek out career advisors, turn to female friends for advice and support, or spend a small fortune on therapists to deal with old wounds and current problems, the men in their lives simply rely on them.”
― Jane Ward, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

“This can be said about shame: those who experience it feel that anything can happen to them, that the shame will never cease and that it will only be followed by more shame.”
― Annie Ernaux, Shame