Are Straight Women Okay?
Performative heterosexuality will never not stun me into silence. And how? It’s an every day, all day experience. From a.m. to p.m., it’s engagement photos of women in camo training their rifle at their man buck this, and “lock up your daughters” bibs on your infant sons that.
But a stroll down the “his and hers” retail section will still have me on some Family Feud Steve Harvey levels of disbelief. I mean, “his and hers” towels I get. A piece of material that collects whatever excretes from a man’s skin even after he’s showered should never come in contact with another human being and I’m gonna need some stitching, some exclamations, maybe a marching band through the bathroom to alert me of one such towel. But y’all need gendered coffee mugs?
When you further investigate this phenomenon, as I did, things get real dark, real quick. The items themselves are worrying enough on their own as they reveal a prison of what women are allowed to be and should want, but then you dive deeper and the culture that lurks just behind these items reveals itself. I’ve seen the depths of this landscape and I need to ask a question: are straight woman okay? Like, not in a joking way — do they need assistance?
More specifically:
Straight women who buy this Husband and Wife Conversation Starter Game to play with the man you’ve married and have presumably known long enough to not need icebreakers but actually still do need icebreakers to engage in a conversation with the person you share a space with, are you okay?
Straight women who are married to men who need to buy a book called How Not To Be An A-hole Husband and Lose Your Wife in order to not be an a-hole, are you okay?
Straight women who so relate to the features this Inflatable Husband is meant to counter that it becomes a funny joke, are you okay?
Straight women for whom Sex Checks in order to maintain balance in the bedroom had in mind, are you okay?
Straight women who spend 31 days literally praying for a future husband, are you okay?
Straight women who are fine with less coffee because at least my husband’s cup fits into mine, are you okay?
Straight women who fetishize a trend of facial hair — that has been proven to contain ample amounts of fecal matter — and who prefer to spend their mornings looking at a man drinking out of a cup that says I LIKE HER BUTT, are you okay?
Straight women who maybe feel scared that being alone is the worst thing you could possibly be and so you confidently lean into the overbearing, possessive wife trope for some semblance of control in this increasingly terrifying world, are you okay?
