The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, Jane Ward
The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, Jane Ward
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The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

Author: Jane Ward

Narrator: Dara Rosenberg

Unabridged: 6 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/17/2020


Synopsis

A troubling account of heterosexual desire in the era of #MeToo

Heterosexuality is in crisis. Reports of sexual harassment, misconduct, and rape saturate the news in the era of #MeToo. Straight men and women spend thousands of dollars every day on relationship coaches, seduction boot camps, and couple’s therapy in a search for happiness.

In The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, Jane Ward smartly explores what, exactly, is wrong with heterosexuality in the twenty-first century, and what straight people can do to fix it for good. She shows how straight women, and to a lesser extent straight men, have tried to mend a fraught patriarchal system in which intimacy, sexual fulfillment, and mutual respect are expected to coexist alongside enduring forms of inequality, alienation, and violence in straight relationships.

Ward also takes an intriguing look at the multi-billion-dollar self-help industry, which markets goods and services to help heterosexual couples without addressing the root of their problems. Ultimately, she encourages straight men and women to take a page out of queer culture, reminding them ?about the human capacity to desire, fuck, and show respect at the same time."

About Jane Ward

Jane Ward is a professor of gender and sexuality studies at University of California Riverside, where she teaches courses in feminist, queer, and heterosexuality studies. She is the author of Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men, and Respectably Queer: Diversity Culture in LGBT Activist Organizations.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Simone on November 30, 2022

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me with this ARC. [...] 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. When I started this bo......more

Goodreads review by Bek on August 30, 2020

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” indu......more

Goodreads review by Zach on November 02, 2020

She’s right, but you won’t appreciate her for saying so. This book lays out concise historiographic and ethnographic evidence for a new understanding of the dysfunction at the heart of heterosexuality. Ward brings insight and wit to the discussion, and her overview of the history of what she terms t......more

Goodreads review by Verónica on March 03, 2021

As a queer human being, I saw that this book expressed many of my opinions about the reality in which we live. It may sound a bit over the top at times, but I think it is because we are too used to accepting heteroxesual regulations as the only possible ones, which is not the case.......more

Goodreads review by Courtney on April 24, 2020

I received this book as an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review — thank you! I'm not even sure where to begin for this one. I originally requested this book because I saw the title and I absolutely lost it. The concept seemed right up my alley, and I was really keen to read it. It h......more