"The Tragedy of Heterosexuality" by Jane Ward is a thought-provoking exploration of societal norms surrounding heterosexuality, delving into the complexities and challenges embedded in this cultural construct. While Ward raises important questions and challenges conventional perspectives, the book may leave readers with mixed feelings.

Ward's analysis is undeniably bold and contributes to important conversations about sexuality. However, some readers may find the book's approach too confrontational or its arguments not fully persuasive. The writing style might be dense for some, making the exploration of these critical ideas less accessible.

Despite its merits in challenging norms, "The Tragedy of Heterosexuality" may not resonate universally due to its academic tone and the divisive nature of its subject matter. It stands as a three-star read, acknowledging its intellectual value but recognizing that it might not be everyone's preferred approach to discussions around sexuality and societal expectations.

I've long been a fan of Jane Ward and this book did a great job of describing heterosexuality and heteronormativity. Definitely don't miss this one!

I thought this would be more academic with humor mixed in. I liked that the author brought in other opinions as she was writing as a white female. I found it made me think, but I could not read it all in one go. It wasn't a book I had to gobble up, but that was expected as it is non fiction. Interesting read to say the least.

this book was interesting.' it was a good read and it explored interesting topics that kept me intreated threw the whole book

I'm fully willing to accept that, where this book is concerned, it's not you, it's me.

I'm very happily not straight. I like to make the same ol' jokes about straight culture being bootcut jeans and unhappy marriages as any self-respecting queer person. I just, quite frankly, Don't Get Men. With that in mind, this book should have been perfect for me, and yet it wasn't. I think a lot of it was down to narrative voice; it seemed high-handed in a way that honestly made me feel like I was being lectured to. It's a shame, because I did agree with several (if not all; but that's to be expected in a book which takes such an avant garde stance) of its core tenets but found myself almost wanting to disagree just because of the tone.

I won't expound on too many of the points here because ultimately you'd really need an academic essay to do that (and I would happily read them all, just not write them) but I think I would really have appreciated a less lesbian-centric view of heterosexuality and more of a takedown of how it pertains not just to straight women but also to society as a whole. I think I was expecting more of an analysis of heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality, and that's not really what this is.

It's an intelligent and well-researched book, and I'd like to reread it with a fine-toothed comb to give all of its arguments the attention that they deserve. I think you could probably gather all your lesbians together and have quite a fun reading party with it. I'm just not so sure it worked for me.

I ended up DNFing this book for two reasons:
1. It read too much like a text book.
2. It made me angry. I was hoping for an eye opening book that fit today’s standards and world views. Yes the title is The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, but I was hoping for a book that embraced all types of sexuality. I am not a fan of any book, movie, advertisement that seems to “bash the competition”; and that’s how I felt right away. I felt like I was a bad, disgusting person for “choosing” to be straight.

I would not recommend this book.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The character development was subtle in a myriad of ways, and the plot moves along quickly enough to keep interest. I could have used a little more expansion around the ending of the book, but on the whole found the experience very enjoyable.

'The tragedy of heterosexuality' resonated quite deeply with me. As a pan woman in a long-term, committed relationship with a cis, straight man, I went through a shit-ton of feelings while reading this book. And mostly the feelings of being an in-between that I have had for most of my teenage and adult years. It's difficult to articulate and much too personal to share here, but wow, has this given me stuff to reflect on.

I think it's very interesting to describe straightness as a tragedy and for queer people to put themselves forward as allies to straight people. Things are hardly ever framed in that way, and Jane Ward makes a really good point when she states that straight feminists seem to be stuck, because they see through men who hate women but they are still attracted to the idea of a straight relationship. And there is no denying that many women suffer in straight relationships. This is the second book I've read in a short time that proposes that being a lesbian can be a political choice, rather than a simple matter of sexual orientation - it's an interesting idea to explore.

As someone who abhors gender norms, I found it infuriating to look back on the history of straight marriage and the rise of the straight relationship repair industry (from good-wife manuals all the way to the utterly chilling seduction workshops men can attend to 'get higher-quality pussy'). The straight narrative has been pushed down our throats for so long and the damage has been so severe. I live for the day when our lives are no longer dictated by this straight pressure and we just find ways to connect as individuals, regardless of sex, gender, or expectations.

This book is really worth a read, but I'm wondering if straight people are ready to hear that their straightness is a tragedy.

Definitely a very interesting take on a subject that many of us are familiar with, either due to inclusion or proximity. The premise of this book is to show that perhaps it is not gay people who have the hard life, but instead it is straight people.
Not only does this book do its research, but it brings to light something that many of us have felt, whether straight or queer, but have not known how to put into words. I found the argument about how absurd it is that straight people are conditioned to hate each other, even though they're "the ideal" pairing. There is too much discord about how women are nagging and men are lazy, and it is something that needs to be eradicated. Not only is heterosexuality toxic to women, but it is toxic to men as well. Perhaps it is time for a reform.
I found the book a little aggressive with some of its points, but everything needed to be said.

Jane Ward, a professor of Gender and Sexuality studies at UC Riverside, challenges the notion that heterosexuality is easier or preferable over queerness. She unpacks how patriarchy, misogyny are often tightly intertwined with expressions of heterosexual desire, and that this can lead to dehumanizing or even simply unfulfilling and un-pleasurable relationships for both men and women. If you have ever been slightly (or greatly) perplexed at jokes about nagging wives and lazy husbands - I would suggest reading this book. Dr. Ward unpacks how the self-help and wellness industries have profited off of the assumption (and normalization) of deep antipathy between heterosexual partners, as evidenced by books such as Men are From Mars and Women are from Venus and the pick-up artist industry. Some of this is well-trodden ground for gender theorist and feminist writers before her, but Dr. Ward's weaving together of theory and pop-culture examples makes this book eminently readable.

I reviewed this for Bitch Media - see link below

When was the last time a straight woman complained to you about cishet men? I can count four times this week, motivated by a mediocre Bumble date, a jealous boyfriend, a growing ennui with dating apps, and a male partner who doesn’t do his share of the housework. These laments often end with a comment like, “Ugh, if only I were into women!” Now in the so-called fourth wave of feminism, straight women tend to reject victim status in almost every context except one: their love lives. They’re self-actualizing by day, victims of their own straightness by night. In her new book, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, gender and sexuality studies professor Jane Ward explains why “the world’s most glorified relationship is often a miserable one.” Many of her conclusions won’t come as a surprise to queer readers, but they can help us understand the predicament facing our straight friends, or even our own normative desires.

As a bisexual cis white woman, I have one foot in and one foot out of this heteropatriarchal bog. My first and most significant relationship was queer. After that relationship ended and I started dating men, I felt surprised and guilty at how comforting these scripted interactions were. But then they began to feel automated, which made them boring. In this primer on straight culture, Ward explains where these feelings come from. The book’s dedication is even addressed to straight women: “May you find a way to have your sexual needs met without suffering so much.” The sanctimoniousness! The pity! The condescension! People typically don’t respond well to this tone, especially when we’re so accustomed to the “you go, girl!” mode of writing on sex and relationships. In a gesture of solidarity with straight women, whose desires and frustrations are often my own, I will temporarily use “we” when referring to the group.

Ward begins by challenging straightness as a site of security and queerness as one of suffering. While mainstream LGBTQ discourse—dominated by gay white men—has historically promoted biological, “born this way” theories of queerness, the idea of choosing one’s own sexuality is central in lesbian feminist discourse. Ward doesn’t advocate for political lesbianism, which posits sexual orientation toward women as a political choice. Instead, she challenges straight people to own their straightness: “If we abandoned all pretense that heterosexuality is the only option, or that it is easy, simple, automatic, predetermined, and not worth talking and thinking about, how might straight women and men articulate what propels them toward each other, despite all the difficulty?”

This book is a loving lesbian intervention, a defamiliarized look at what we’ve come to expect from heterosexuality: “I have noted that it appears to be perfectly acceptable for straight couples to share few interests, to belittle or infantilize each other, or to willingly segregate themselves during important moments in their relationships.” Ward also questions whether men and women are even sexually attracted to one another. Straight women have made a running joke of our indifference toward penises and straight men seem to desire women’s bodies only very provisionally, depending on their size, youth, and hairiness. Straight people aren’t completely oblivious to these issues. Beyond complaining to friends, we also gorge ourselves on relationship self-help media. In a delightful short history of this genre, Ward demonstrates how the “heterosexual-repair industry” has capitalized on straight people’s disappointment for more than a century.

These books and movies reinforce the myth of men and women’s innate difference, reconfiguring it as a scientific fact and even a field of study. Gender difference is used to sell things, to legitimize wage gaps, to extort domestic labor from women, and to justify sexual violence. But it also turns us on. According to Ward, straight culture is the “romantic arm of misogyny, wherein the delicate coexistence of hate and love, the slap and the kiss, would come to represent the heteroerotic.” Mutual dislike and violence are not an unfortunate bug in the heteropatriarchal system; they’re fundamental to it. So fundamental, in fact, that self-help writers ground their solutions to heterosexual disappointment in the very “difference myth” that causes it. Ward notes the classic example of this paradox: the 1992 bestseller Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex. Although Ward doesn’t address romantic comedies, which often deliver self-help messages via fictional narratives, these films clearly illustrate her thesis.

When Harry Met Sally (1989) features enough philosophizing on male and female differences to fill a self-help book. Other romantic comedies are explicitly tied to these books: Think Like a Man (2012), based on Steve Harvey’s 2009 bestseller, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, and He’s Just Not That Into You (2009), based on Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo’s popular 2004 book. Although critiques of the gender binary are becoming more mainstream, we cling to the difference myth as if it is the precious source of all heterosexual eroticism. Ward even calls out Esther Perel, the widely adored couples’ therapist, who has built her career on the idea that overidentifying with a partner kills desire. Meanwhile, by focusing on gender as the predominant type of difference, straight people fail to recognize other types of difference: race, class, ability, trans/cis identity.
Like many American traditions, the relationship self-help genre was born out of white supremacy. The earliest American marriage guides were intended to ensure white women’s marital happiness and, in turn, their race loyalty. Meanwhile, racist ideas about the Black woman’s inordinate strength have cast her as the archetypal “survivor” of heterosexuality. Ward locates this trope in popular music (from Gloria Gaynor to Lizzo), in film (Waiting to Exhale), and most famously in Beyoncé’s 2016 visual album, Lemonade. Ward suggests that Beyoncé’s performance of resilience is yet another example of straight women’s preoccupation with “fixing relationships with individual men rather than identifying hetero norms and heteromasculinity themselves as fundamental problems.” This dismissal is unfortunate, since Lemonade features the very type of conscious heterosexuality that Ward champions. In it, Beyoncé explicitly treats the historical and cultural forces impinging on her 21st-century Black heterosexual marriage.

Continuing her critique of Lemonade, Ward expresses the core frustration of her book: male partners (in this case, Jay-Z) who seem to care very little about maintaining their romantic relationships with women. Ward’s solution—rather than advocating for the “queering” of straightness—is for straight men to become more straight. To “put their politics where their lust is.” To “desire women humanely.” To “fuck and to be feminist comrades at the same time.” She calls this “deep heterosexuality,” and in her final chapter, she lays out some central tenets of lesbianism as guidelines. Most critical is the idea of love as an encounter between two subjects, in which each person reaffirms and delights in the subjectivity of the other. Reading this book was a pleasure. It was interesting, fun, quotable. I Snapchatted passages to my friends who complain about men. Paradoxically, this easy consumption reminds me of the very self-help books Ward critiques.

While this book is addressed and marketed toward straight women, it doesn’t offer a concrete course of action. It’s also missing the “you go, girl!” energy that evaporates when an author moves from an individual to a structural analysis. After all, if the redemption of heterosexuality depends solely on men, women aren’t left with much to work with. A tragedy is a tragedy because its characters cannot escape their fates. And by including the word “tragedy” in the book’s title, Ward stresses the grand proportions of straight suffering and the “pity,” as Aristotle wrote, that it arouses in spectators, including the author herself. Within this framework, Ward’s concept of “deep heterosexuality” is a deus ex machina that improbably flies in at the last minute to save the day.

Critics have ridiculed this dramatic device for centuries, arguing that it betrays the playwright’s inability to work within the narrative they have created. I reacted similarly to Ward’s schematic presentation of “deep heterosexuality,” which improbably concluded a convincing study of the institution’s inherent flaws. Maybe it would help to reimagine this work in a different genre: utopian literature. A century ago, the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch distinguished between “compensatory utopias” that are meant to console versus “anticipatory utopias,” which imagine a future that can actually be built. It’s up to readers—and lovers—to determine which category “deep heterosexuality” belongs in.

3/5 Stars

This was a very interesting read. Throughout her introduction, she discusses her perspective, but she also brings in points from many others – especially women of color, which is particularly important since she is writing from a white perspective. Her discussion of the heterosexual “self-help” industry, in particular was interesting and very important in understanding parts of heterosexual culture. I think that this discussion of the impact of misogyny on heterosexual relationships is very important. While I did not agree with all aspects of the solutions that she gave, I do agree that there needs to be a reframing of what it means to like/desire women for heterosexual men to see woman as human and whole, rather than sex objects, in order to fix the animosity that is essential to parts of heterosexual culture.

However, parts of the book – particularly towards the latter half – could have been better. She could have used the quotes from her queer respondents in a way that made that section stronger. I understand the need to have all of the quotes in the work, but I think that using fewer within her text while she discussed the point (while, perhaps, utilizing an index to house the rest of the quotes) would have been more effective. There were also parts where she used personal antidotes too heavily for my taste; they would have been more successful if she had tied them more in with a reference to a previous study or other point that she had made. I do think that in most of these instances, she had pulled a similar point from her findings, but she did not allude to those points when she brought it up later in the book. There were other points that I would have liked to see explored as well (for instance, queer women's experiences with compulsory heterosexuality could bring an important layer to this conversation, especially since this is from a queer perspective).

I received this as an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in return for my honest review.

DNF at 22%.
I was excited for this book because the disparities between heterosexual and queer relationships and even just friendships is something that I have often noticed and thought about and I thought that it would be very interesting to read a book on the topic. However, I found this book dense, hard to get through, highly repetitive, and even somewhat upsetting. The first chapter spent all of its time repeating the same information about how heterosexual relationships are concerning and often toxic even though I fully believe that most people who read this book are probably queer people who are already well-aware of this. What really upset me, though, was the way that the athor talked about queerness. Though they did say that they believe that straight women can't choose to be gay, they clarify this by saying that they believe that queer people are people who saw heterosexual relationships and society as children and on some subconscious level decided that they wanted no part in it. While I don't have the perspective as a lesbian to draw on like the author does, I find the thought that I somehow brought queerness on myself offensive. Like the author has posited, I ultimately enjoy my queerness, but it took a lot to get there and saying that I in some way chose to go through that (or that any of us did) is ludicrous.

Thanks to Netgalley, for providing a digital copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
I’ll be honest, folks. I’m part of the LGBITQA+ community. In particular, I identify as a bisexual woman, and I’m currently in a longterm relationship with my girlfriend (also a bisexual woman). The subjects of gender and sexual diversity had been an important part of my research as a Social Anthropologist, and those are basically my two main areas of professional interest. That being said, when I saw that a book with this title A) existed and B) was available for request, I ran to press that button hard. And I was not disappointed.
This book is written by Jane Ward, a “dyke” (her word, not mine). She’s a professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Riverside, California. She teaches classes on feminist/queer/heterosexuality studies. And she’s worried about the straights. Frankly, after reading this, I realized I’ve been kinda low-key worried about them too subconsciously, and now I’m genuinely worried. Divided in five chapters, Ward tells us about the issues about heterosexuality, how it grew to be our society’s norm; the misogyny paradox, or how come straight men hate women so much?; pickup artists and the seduction industry, a.k.a., self-help books but more; the opinion of queer people on straight people’s life; and deep heterosexuality, basically an "it gets better" for the straights. Maybe. If they allow some things to change. And if men learn to actually like women, mainly.
Half essay, half academic research, this reading was right at my alley. And maybe it can be of yours too, if you’re interested in these type of thing, but you’re bored/not interested/intimidated of/by academic papers, that tend to take themselves too seriously. This book will make you reflect on this subject, and some of our every-day-life events that we take for granted, but maybe we shouldn’t. Are queer people really the victims of our society? Should we really feel sorry for the LGBTIAQ+ community? Or should we focus our lense to the straight and cis woman? I have my own answer to this question. I hope you get to read this and get your own.

This book will be published on September 1st (right on time for the Hogwarts Express!), by NYU Press.

[...] queers are braced for the inevitable moment when a straight woman proclaims, offhandedly, "I wish I could just be a lesbian." Sigh. Why don't you be one, then? some of us wonder. It's not that hard.

I am going to start my review by saying that I am a cis-gendered straight woman and have a lot of queer friends, which I think made me very aware of straight-culture and how it can be hurtful (to everyone involved) and wrong.

When I started this book and it started with a history of heterosexuality and straight culture, I was here for it. I kept nodding and having "AHA!" moments that explained why I am not actively looking for a partner, why I rather be single than with someone etc. etc. I loved it. It was well researched, the points were made clearly, I was here for it.

I was also here for the chapter about "Dating Coaches" because what in the... And I loved the field study. It was great. It was interesting. It was eye opening. Solid 4 star read for me until here (because some of the transitions were a bit forced and it didn't read as elegently as I would have hoped).

And then... Listen. If I wanted a handful (57, was it?) of queer people telling me "straight people are garbage" then I'll just go to a dinner party at my friend's house. And they will be nicer and less arrogant than the rest of the book was.
The writing I felt like switched from informative to being straight up 'holier than thou' and 'better than you' and that irked me to no end. I didn't get anything from the remaining chapters than the quote witch which I started this review "Why don't you then, it's not that hard".

Is not the whole point of the LGBTQIA+ movement that you are who you are and you love who you love and can't change that? I am not here to cry about my feelings being hurt because they're not, I just felt like these remarks were incredibly unprofessional and shouldn't be in a book which I thought to be was a scientific work of gender- and sexuality studies.

In the end, I am giving this book two stars. Because I literally put it down and felt mad at it. Mad at the judgement, mad at the preachy-ness and mad that I'd just read around 100 pages that to me were a waste of time.

However, the first 100 pages were absolutely great, so there is that.

A very interesting views of of hetero relationships from the view point of an member of the LGBTQ+ community. I like how they turn the tables on the straight community and explain what is weird to them, what stands out and especially the things that make them realize the toxicity. It's an important view to see the eyes of our society and it's very forthcoming and truthful, which I appreciate.

This is going to be interesting for me to review because I'm kind of at a loss for words and not sure where to begin but a lot of that stems from the fact that I'm not very good at reviewing non-fiction books.

I originally requested this because the title kind of threw me off and I was curious to see what points the author was going to make. Once I started, I read it very quickly despite the fact that I was annoyed by the tone and the formatting. I have a hard time reading anything that has blocky paragraphs and this book definitely had a lot of blocky paragraphs which threw the formatting off. That's more of a personal pet peeve of mine though so I can't really fault the book itself for that, it just made my reading experience less enjoyable.

I also had a problem with the tone the writing took - it just wasn't my thing but I can understand that it might be interesting to others. I'm a lesbian so I definitely understand the frustrations queer people have when it comes to straight culture, toxic masculinity and misogyny. I get it. Believe me. But I do not believe that queer experiences are inherently better than straight experiences - though they are vastly different and affect our lives in different ways - so this came off as slightly condescending and superior. Takes like this just make it harder for people to take us seriously. I don't know if that's just the tone I got from it or if this is something the author actually feels but I found it off putting because of that.

Other than that, I thought everything stated was well-rounded and well-supported. I do appreciate that she includes opinions and voices from queer people of color, especially considering the fact that she herself is white. I also appreciate that she addresses that her experiences might be different because of the privilege she gets from being white and well off. But a lot of the ideas in here were things I already knew so I didn't end up getting a lot from this.

I do think that people, especially straight people, who are not as well-versed with this topic will get a lot more out of it than I did.

I basically inhaled this book once I started. I am by no means an expert on feminist or queer works even though I’ve been reading them off and on for decades so this work introduced me to things I had little knowledge of, particularly when it came to queer identity in the modern age and the way queer people view straight people not only when it comes to sex but in their overall self identification and awareness as it suffers in our heteronormative lives. I do know that heterosexuality is tragic in most circumstances and particularly for women. The intersection of heterosexuality and patriarchy/misogyny is well known but I loved the concise way Ward shows us this through review of history, straight culture and other feminist works. I think her conclusions are valid and actually workable as long as men and women both want to improve their lives and not just their sex lives. Embracing queerness is not as odd as it sounds. I know from experience that indulging in things besides routine heteronormative sexual behavior can be great in many ways and people need to be open to that option. But men in particular need to do a lot of work to reach the point where not only do they desire and lust for women but they also like women and identify with women.. to be, as she says, a deep heterosexual and a feminist.

The book can use some more editing. There is some unnecessary repetition and at times a clunky transition from one topic to the next but overall a worthwhile read for both men and women. Unfortunately I’m not sure most straight men will read it as it challenges them, of course. Oh well, all you can do is keep trying!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

this book was thought provoking and here's why:

plot: jane ward examines the problem of the so called 'straight culture' and how straight people can work on being better. she compares 'typical' heterosexual behaviour to how queer people behave, shows how straight men are still using the patriarchal system to get their way in the 21st century and elaborates on the history of heterosexuality.

3/5🌟: while this book is written by a queer white woman, she includes a lot of voices (quotes and research) from queer bipoc, which is a necessary for a book about intersectional feminism. i truly wish straight people would actually start dealing with the history of their 'culture', but i have a feeling more queer people will read this book and they might not find something super surprising about it, because they're typically the ones who have had to deal with fighting against 'straight culture' all their lives. one passage stood out to me: ward observes a boot camp for straight men learning to hit on young women so they can have sex with them. the coach actually tells them not to be afraid, because they should imagine those girls probably have a low paid job, a small flat and feel insecure about their bodies like most women, so they will have the power over them. even more disgusting: people who haven taken part and been promoting these courses have actually killed women, because the women didn't find them attractive. i think this book is definitely worth a read, there's a lot wrong with 'straight culture' still in the 21st century, nobody wants 'gender reveal parties' or men, who objectify women at every given moment, not to mention kill them, if they don't like them back. if you're straight, it's your responsibility to learn about your history and be better than the ones before you.
(of course, there are exceptions, there are also queer people, who rape people, who should know better, but this is not what this book is about. there's a problem with 'straight culture' and you have to acknowledge that.)

thanks to netgalley i received an early access copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

This is a detailed exploration of what we mean when we joke that "the straights are not okay." There are some really intriguing parts, like when Ward goes behind the scenes at pick-up artist bootcamps. Parts of the book are genuinely funny and thought-provoking, like when Ward explores the literature of hetero relationship self-help.

Unfortunately, these were interspersed with some fairly dense recaps of queer theory (which you need in an academic book, but not so much as a non-academic reader) and personal experience digressions. Ultimately, Ward's prescription that men should learn to be more feminist was an unsatisfying ending.