Heterosexual relationships are bad for.you.

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Every relationship is different. Sex isn’t the only thing that creates an attachment between people in a relationship, and it doesn’t always do so. Not all heterosexual couples have sex. Personally speaking, I would need to have an attachment to someone before having sex with them. To me, emotional intimacy is more about having open, meaningful conversations, sharing thoughts, struggles, hopes, dreams, etc. It’s also about having experiences together. Other forms of physical intimacy are nice, too. I’m not saying sex can’t be a meaningful part of a relationship; it’s just not crucial for me as far as attachment is concerned.

Also, elderly people or people with different health conditions may lose the ability to have sex. It doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to stop being attached to their partner. Relationships are often about more than sex.

The article sounds like it's written from a lesbian separatist perspective.

For biological reasons, heterosexuality will be the what most humans are drawn to, and, biologically, there are only two sexes. Even if people want to argue that sex is different from gender, the idea that biology doesn't play a role in one's gender strikes me as odd (e.x. there is evidence showing that men and women have different brain structures, for example).

The article also speaks in generalizations regarding people's sex lives. That obviously doesn't mean that individuals will fit those generalizations, or that individuals and couples aren't capable of improving their sex lives.

I'm a lesbian. Not a separatist though, just someone who happens to be gay.

Heterosexual relationships are not bad for you. Nor are they doomed. However, I don't think that's quite what the article is about. Both titles are misleading. I think it's more to do with gender roles and expectations. Although in my experience, based on my time in the gay community, there are still certain expectations and patterns that occur even within gay relationships that somewhat mirror stereotypical heterosexual patterns. That's not to say everyone falls into such structures though.

I wish I had more time to expand on that thought but I have more interviews to prepare for so I shouldn't even be on here procrastinating.

If heterosexual relationships are bad for me, what sort of relationships should I be in instead?

I guess it is time to get in the old debate that men are actually equally involved in domestic abuse physically or emotionally. It is underreported since there aren't that many men's health and support groups that actively encourages men to share openly without shame what they are going through.

Prime example GBV or gender based violence only includes women and children. So what does this teach a boy? Oh when you get to be an adult, no one is going to care about you because apparently you will have it good in life and have male privilege. When in reality, everyone struggles. Ran by the corporate evil THE MAN which completely justifies why it is okay to pick on the single top man while the rest are actually also in distress. Then you have your good women, that don't even align with the media. Thanks, but it is not enough. Everyone should be protected, everyone should be able to openly talk about their abuse.

Last edited by Cornflake on 10 Nov 2025, 7:52 am, edited 1 time in total.: Redacted offensive commentary

Violence towards men certainly is underreported. Violence towards women is also underreported although, granted, not to the same extent as it is for male victims. I did not report the violence that I experienced. Due to very scary threats as well as how grueling I knew the process would be (and could all be for naught), I was too afraid to press charges which mirrors the experience of many women.

Anyway, frequent differences in size and/or strength tend to make women more vulnerable to certain types of violent crimes. Women are statistically much more likely to be seriously injured or killed by a partner which is why the statistic I cited said severe physical violence. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that it never happens to men - that’s not what the statistic I cited suggests - but there are disparities that researchers are interested in exploring and for good reason.

I agree with that 100%.

Me too, but I still want my money back.

Seriously, what a load of. It's too disjointed to even present enough meat to make a clear criticism. So men and women are different, I thought the goal was to celebrate and accept differences, in all walks.



I think the problem is the feminism movement so fanatically embraced by western society has been entirely focused on women, what women want and need, the wrongs done to women and so on, moving (as everything has to expand all the time, right) from a women-rights/equality ideal to into something quite misandrist and anti-men, with the patriarchy/toxic men etc etc pitched as its counterpart. Men are bad, men are to blame, men are evil.

And while thats understandable on certain levels it's a really dumb way to go about righting things. It's a zero-sum game that collectively punishes and demeans men, and leaves them cut-out and feeling defensive, and the rise of even more toxic masculinity and so on is an inevitable outcome.

The best way to change many things is to accept that in the absence of good guidance you're predisposed to act a certain way, and work from there to explore, understand and elevate how you behave, rather than it being something you need original sin level blaming for.

If the goal of feminism was/is to make the world better for women then mens thoughts, rights, wants and needs - and yes flaws - need to be as front and central to the conversation as women... and not an enemy combatant.

!	Cornflake wrote:
	Rather than drag this thread into a discussion/bashing of feminism - or more accurately in this case, what feminism is mostly not - please keep to the topic.

This has nothing to do with Cornflake having posted a comment, but I thought I would share what I had in mind when I posted this. So I had imagined a future society (as a possible theme for an SF story) in which "opposite-sex" relations were actually banned, and those who were happy with same-sex relationships became the favored members of that society and those who still yearned for sex with members of the "opposite" biological sex were reviled as perverts and possibly even felons if they acted on those urges. If you are familiar with SF then you should be aware that it's a very common practice in SF to look at certain trends and extrapolate them to some sort of extreme conclusion. As for actual trends, some people have argued that lately there has been a "sex-negative" theme to some societal developments, but it's my impression that one rarely sees it aimed at people whose sexual preference is intimacy with members of their own biological gender (feel free to accuse me of imagining that).

So I was amazed to see this article that was being promoted as an argument for that exact view of society i.e. if heterosexual relationships are bad for you then you should prefer same-sex relationships, and if you have trouble getting on board with that, you really have a problem. I genuinely wanted to see how people would react.

Are the people who wrote this article the same people who say that obesity is completely healthy?

Well you succeeded.

I agree, that if heterosexual isn't working one shouldn't have to put up with it. But it seems the easy answer is to swing both ways. Or be polyamorous. However I think the answer is to just leave. Like one would in nature, where there are no borders. Anyway, a person would then either be adopted into a village or troop where there is one male,.many females. And males battle over the resource group, which happens to be female.

So today we can say the undesirables lacks resources and in today's world it would be money before it was status. We're not that far from our distant cousins, the same drives and wants. We're stuck in this biological machine. I suppose status is money today which is power and the rest of us are just cannon fodder or have toe the line with the ones at the top.

Yes we will have a serious problem if we cannot swing the other way of sexuality. I don't think this is something that can easily be changed later in life. Maybe during adolescence, is my thought.

In nature like studies suggest, those who do not have access to resources (female) will then go to war... Sounds familiar right

Last edited by Cornflake on 10 Nov 2025, 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.: Redacted offensive commentary

I shared this article with my friend and she said this:

Is funny to me because that would mean the author is from another planet and cannot relate to others because of how disconnected she is. Which reminds me of myself and why I am on this forum

I hate stereotyping. Monomania is also wrong. Quadrophenia is even worse. We're surrounded by surround sound from demented audiophiles. They're all a bunch of Bose-o's.

western world is going down the same path as Japan
https://www.vogue.com.au/culture/featur ... 579508b791

Perhaps some context would be useful. Jane Ward’s article was published in December 2020, her book in September 2020.

Her book’s description:

https://nyupress.org/9781479851553/the- ... sexuality/

(Ward is a professor at University of California Santa Barbara, not that that puts her work above scrutiny. I’m interested in reading her book but haven’t done so yet.)

^ Thank you for the context.