The Problem With Being A Straight Woman is You Have To Like Men

It’s easier to “de-center” men if you don’t want to have sex with them

Photo by Muhammadh Saamy on Unsplash

During the 2010s, I stumbled upon a few radfem blogs that encouraged political lesbianism (the idea that women can choose to be lesbians as a way to reject the patriarchy) with some bloggers going further and asserting that women are only straight because the patriarchy forces us to be straight, and if we could break free from those patriarchal chains, we’d all be gay. Unsurprisingly, I disagree. I don’t believe sexual orientation is a choice, so I assume any woman who “chooses” to be a lesbian for feminist reasons was at least bisexual before, not straight.

Some of these blogs offered concessions for straight women who truly couldn’t deprogram ourselves from our penis addiction—for example, we could find a guy who’s open to having a relationship with us where the only sexual act is oral or digital pleasuring of the woman. But even then, we’d be imperiling ourselves and somehow also feeding into the patriarchy by submitting to some degree of problematic power dynamics. Also, not pictured: the aforementioned penis action.

Those are obviously fringe and wacky opinions that most women don’t hold (many women reading this might be hearing about it for the first time!) but even among less dogmatic, hetero feminists, you will see endless discussion about how to correctly “de-center” men, while still talking quite a lot about men. You’ll see women talk about how they “hate men” and are only grooming and dressing in a way that appeals to men ironically, but make no mistake—they don’t want to ever be around a man (ew! We’re still thinking about men in 2025? How millennial!) I distinctly remember seeing a woman claim she dresses and grooms in a sexy, girlish, hyper-feminine way in order to intimidate men—like, are the “intimidated men” in the room with us right now? When I pointed this out, I was corrected by other women who were angry that “intimidating men” hinged on men’s reactions (ie: being intimidated) and demanded I de-center them.

You’d be surprised to know that despite not being a radfem, I kind of…get it. If you truly hate men, masculinity, and any kind of natural or imposed power dynamics between men and women, you truly are best off avoiding men entirely (and yes, I’d say the same to a man who feels this way about women!) If you see an attractive man who wants to have sex with you, and your first thought is the inherent power struggles between men and women and how you can have the least problematic sex possible (AKA: two hours of cunnilingus to the soundtrack of a Judith Butler audiobook) then perhaps men just aren’t for you.

But on the flip side, if you like men (especially in an exclusively heterosexual way) and you want to have sexual and romantic relationships with them, you actually need to…well, like them. And if every interaction with a man is spent worrying about how this does or doesn’t reinforce the patriarchy, or trying to figure out whether having a crush on a man is “centering” men in a way that sets women back, or whether a particular sex thing is degrading (or actually empowering) you either don’t like men that much, or this stuff is getting in the way of enjoying yourself.