The Last Straight Woman

Summary

Quillette Podcast — "The Last Straight Woman"

Host: Iona Italia
Guest: Phoebe Maltz Bovy (writer, journalist, author of The Perils of "Privilege" and The Last Straight Woman)
Date: May 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Iona Italia interviews cultural commentator and author Phoebe Maltz Bovy about her new book, The Last Straight Woman: On Desiring Men (forthcoming May 19). The conversation explores the evolving discourse on female heterosexuality, its persistent desexualization in public narratives, the role of gender studies and queer theory, and the surprising influence of lesbian and queer-identified writers in shaping ideas about straight women’s desires.

The discussion is candid, witty, evidence-based, and not afraid to court controversy. Both speakers draw on personal experience, pop culture, and intellectual history to unpack shifting ideas around women’s sexuality, the "frumpy but horny" archetype, sexual fluidity, and the complicated politics of self-identification—offering both critique and insight for listeners curious about the forces shaping modern perceptions of straight women.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis of the Book & Changing Discourse on Straight Women

Timestamps: 01:27 - 03:44

• Phoebe Maltz Bovy traces her interest in the topic to changes in the 2010s, including the rise of personal essays that linked straight female desire with conventionality and prescriptiveness.
• Shifts after #MeToo and the pandemic saw more women identifying as queer or bisexual, even within outwardly heterosexual relationships.
• She observes a growing sense that women are “off men”—with increasing skepticism toward male desirability, especially among older, middle-aged women.
• Quote:

  “There was just this sense that men are dragging women down. … Women are off men now. And it just suddenly seemed to be huge.” (02:57, Phoebe Maltz Bovy)

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2. Resentment, Status, and the Housework Problem

Timestamps: 03:44 - 05:47

• Iona comments on resentment that accrues in heterosexual relationships over division of labor, even when work is technically balanced.
• The lower social status of household work contributes to this dissatisfaction.
• Phoebe clarifies her book isn’t a reactionary defense or attack on men but about reckoning with the reality of straight women’s actual desires—challenging the trend of performatively lamenting male partners or fantasizing about the supposed ease of being with women.
• Quote:

  “…if you were into women. Second of all, you’re not into women, so figure out what to do with men. Basically.” (05:39, Phoebe Maltz Bovy)

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3. The Desexualization of Female Heterosexuality

Timestamps: 05:47 - 07:56

• Iona points out that much writing about straight women fixates on status, kindness, and security, dismissing sexual attraction itself.
• Phoebe observes how male heterosexuality is viewed through the lens of lust or desire, while female heterosexuality is often theorized as mere social expectation or peer pressure.
• She notes a double standard: men’s sexual appetites are seen as normal, while women displaying desire—especially for men—are sometimes pathologized or considered “unserious.”
• Quote:

  “…you become unserious as a woman if you’re attracted to men in that sort of physical way.” (07:16, Phoebe Maltz Bovy)

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4. "Frumpy but Horny" – Middle-Aged Female Desire

Timestamps: 07:56 - 12:46

• Discussion of Phoebe’s concept “frumpy but horny,” describing women (especially middle-aged, outside the “sex-object” role) who openly desire men.
• Extended example: Jane Edwards from the British sitcom Waiting for God—a self-described “37-year-old virgin” fervently attracted to her sleazy boss.
• This trope highlights how culture depicts female desire as either invisible, laughable, or both—especially outside youth or conventional beauty.
• Quote:

  “Not in the sort of sex object role, yet desiring men. Yeah, yeah.” (09:30, Phoebe Maltz Bovy)

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5. Female Desire in Modern Literature & #MeToo Narratives

Timestamps: 12:46 - 19:52

• Iona notes a pattern in contemporary fiction (e.g., “Cat Person”) and journalism (e.g., the Aziz Ansari date account in Babe.net) where women appear attracted to men almost by accident or social programming—rarely by erotic desire.
• Phoebe critiques the tendency to universalize such depictions, often authored by queer or lesbian writers, as representative of all straight women—despite lacking firsthand passion for men.
• She recounts not relating to the “Cat Person” protagonist finding her date’s body repellent and being bewildered by the idea that all women would share this experience.
• Quote:

  “…I did not relate to this. I did not relate to how you would end up consensually in a situation with a man you found sexually revolting. To me, this just seemed absolutely foreign to my experience.” (15:29, Phoebe Maltz Bovy)

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6. Lesbian/Queer Theory and the Myth of Compulsory Heterosexuality

Timestamps: 19:52 - 24:14

• Iona and Phoebe discuss Adrienne Rich’s and Jane Ward’s influential theories, noting many critiques of heterosexuality and “heteropessimism” come from lesbians or non-straight writers.
• The academic focus on “heterosexuality as imposition” can erase or overlook the real experiences of desiring men.
• The field’s foundational texts are rarely written by straight people, leading to distorted or outsider accounts of straight experience.
• Quote:

  “The problem is that is not a pool of people who necessarily have the best grasp on what it is to be a straight woman…” (22:16, Phoebe Maltz Bovy)

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7. Sexual Fluidity: Critique of Lisa Diamond’s “Female Sexual Fluidity”

Timestamps: 24:25 - 32:05

• Diamond’s book posited that all women are fundamentally sexually fluid, based on a small and arguably unrepresentative sample.
• Phoebe argues that “fluidity” becomes meaningless if defined as any woman who has had an emotionally close female friend.
• She suspects much of the “women are all potentially bisexual” narrative is based on the experiences of bisexual/pansexual women who overgeneralize from themselves.
• She also raises concerns: if female sexuality is so malleable, it could be interpreted (erroneously and dangerously) as supporting gay conversion therapy.
• Quote:

  “…she defines fluidity in such an all-encompassing, huge umbrella way to include effectively you’re a woman with close female friends who or who has ever had close female friends. That’s basically fluidity because why should we privilege the sexual over the emotional? … That’s not anything.” (28:02, Phoebe Maltz Bovy)

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8. On Self-Identification and "Non-Practicing Bisexuals"

Timestamps: 32:05 - 35:48

• Lively discussion about shifting definitions of “bisexuality”—now sometimes used to mean “open to the idea” even if no same-sex desire or experience.
• Both speakers agree on the importance of respecting self-identification, but suggest that, on a population level, not all “queerness” is equally meaningful or similarly experienced.
• Phoebe:

  “…My aim is not to police what people say about themselves. I really, I’m not bothered. … It doesn’t mean you have to … agree that a woman who thinks women are pretty is just as gay as a man who, you know, came out and was thrown out of his house…” (35:12, Phoebe Maltz Bovy)

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9. Visual Desire and the "Narcissistic" View of Female Sexuality

Timestamps: 35:48 - 41:37

• Debunks the myth that women are “not visual” and men’s appearance doesn’t matter.
• Phoebe and Iona explore why female sexual attraction is often framed as “narcissistic” — about being desired, not desiring; about appearing attractive to men rather than wanting men.
• Example: Emily Ratajkowski’s memoir and comments on how society interprets female nudity as “sexual” only if it’s appealing to men; otherwise, it’s seen as brave or artistic.
• Conversation on how men struggle to make themselves conventionally beautiful, for reasons rooted in masculinity norms and the risk of being read as gay.
• Height as an “unfair” factor in attraction, more fraught than women being judged for weight, as little can be done to change it.
• Quote:

  “…when a man looks very conventionally beautiful, it reads as gay. … a woman looking beautiful in a very conventional way is—that’s supposed to be female sexuality.” (42:16, Phoebe Maltz Bovy)

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10. Closing Thoughts

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “Frumpy but horny” as a T-shirt; both Iona and Phoebe joke about owning one (08:08-08:22).
• Extended, humorous sidebar about Waiting for God and its hilarious but poignant depiction of middle-aged female desire (09:51-12:46).
• “If anybody wants to take my money for a bet on whether I will ever have a relationship with a woman… I’m willing to bet quite large sums against that.” (33:19, Iona Italia)
• “My best friend calls them ‘non-practicing bisexuals’ who just want the kudos of being part of the LGBTQ umbrella but don’t actually have any same-sex attractions.” (34:30, Iona Italia)
• Wry acknowledgment that accusations that “the Straits are not okay” always read as “the Straits of Hormuz” to Iona (24:14).

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Timestamps for Key Themes

• Origin of the Book & Societal Changes: 01:27
• The Housework Problem & Social Status: 03:44
• Desexualized Narratives of Female Desire: 05:47
• "Frumpy but Horny": 07:56, 09:51
• Problematic Fictional Depictions ("Cat Person" etc): 12:46, 15:04
• Role of Academic Queer Theory & Lesbian Writers: 19:52, 22:16
• Critique of Sexual Fluidity Theory/Lisa Diamond: 24:25, 28:02
• Bisexuality & Self-Identification: 32:05, 34:30
• The Visual & "Narcissism" in Female Sexuality: 35:48, 41:08

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Conclusion

This episode is a rich, often funny, and sometimes provocative exploration of female heterosexuality—how it’s shaped, misunderstood, and sometimes erased by both mainstream and academic narratives. Bovy and Italia challenge listeners to question cultural scripts about women’s desire, the politicization of sexual orientation, and the ongoing denial of erotic agency in straight women’s lives. The conversation brims with insight, sharp critique, and memorable anecdotes—inviting a more nuanced, reality-based understanding of what it means, and has meant, to be a straight woman.

For the full episode and more articles, visit quillette.com and subscribe.

Transcript

[Jonathan Kay]

Welcome to the Quilet Podcast, hosted on alternate weeks by me, Jonathan Kay, and by Iona Italia. Quillette is where Freethought lives. We are an independent, grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary. You are about to hear a free preview of this week's episode. To hear the full episode and to get access to all our podcasts and articles, Visit [e-mail] and click the subscribe button.

[Iona Italia]

Welcome to the Quillette Podcast. I'm your host, Iona Italia. In this week's edition of the podcast, I talk to writer, journalist and cultural commentator Phoebe Maltz Bovey. Phoebe is the co host of two podcasts, the Canadian Jewish news podcast Bonjoura High with Rabbi Avi Feingold and Feminine Chaos with Kat Rosenfield. She is the author of the Perils of why Injustice Can't Be Solved by Accusing others of Advantage 2017. Today we'll be discussing her new book, the Last Straight Woman on Desiring men, forthcoming on the 19th of May. Let's start here. When did you first get the idea for this book and why? What was the germ of your of your thought about it?

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

So in the 2000 and tens I would notice things like women writing personal essays about how they were different from the other brides because they were going to get married in an off white wedding dress that they bought at a normal store and not a wedding dress store. Or I would see remarks about straight women that just seem to be conflating being a woman who is attracted exclusively to men with being conventional. And I wrote about this first for my own block at the time and then later in 2016 for the new Republic. And it wasn't really like my main beat, it was just something I wrote about a lot. I wrote about male beauty a lot and how people didn't really understand its importance and whatever. It was just kind of a side topic. But then the discourse on these topics started to change for a bunch of different reasons a bit further into the 2010s, both with MeToo and with new conversations about gender and sexuality such that a lot of people who present to the world not not so so many, but a bunch of people who present to the world as straight women. If you talk to them you learn that they are in fact queer identified in one way or another. Usually it's that they are bisexual women. Sometimes it's that they're non binary assigned female at birth, people who have a husband or whatever and also just the increasingly both sort of post me too and post Pandemic lockdowns for this applied more to older women, middle aged and older. I shouldn't say, not necessarily elderly women, but basically that like, there was just this sense that men are dragging women down. Women are sort of this mix of pro script or whatever, prescriptive and descriptive. Right. Like women are off men now. And it just suddenly seemed to be huge. And it occurred to me that it was huge. I'm not going to give likely a full, full timeline of attempting to make this a book, but like, I have known this for a while. It's only like very recently that it's kind of become huge as a topic. So anyway, there's a whole publishing backstory to it. But anyway, that's the short version.

[Iona Italia]

I think that there might be just intrinsically kind of resentment that builds up among people who are women who are doing more of the housework, doing more of the childcare, even if the husband is the primary breadwinner, going out to the office, et cetera. So I think that, that for a lot of people, even if you added up the number of hours and they were equal and the amount of contribution in terms of sustaining the relationship and the family was equal, I think a lot of people just feel more like drudges when they're at home doing housework than when they're out in the world and it has less social status. And I think that that is also something that is more important to people than we realize.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think there's also just the financial issue of if everything falls apart and you have an income versus you either have never worked for pay or not in a long time, you're obviously in a different situation. But also, I think, I guess what I'm trying to get at with this book is it's not that women should, because there is this whole sort of like backlash to the backlash moment that's like all the women say they hate their husbands. Actually, husbands are great. Men are great. Men are the best. I'm not like, this is not a men are the best book. This is not a men are the worst book. This is a the reality is this is who most women are attracted to book, if that makes sense. So I think it's more productive for straight women to look or look at their own lives, look at our own lives. See, you know, if you're happy with how your division of labor or whatever is in your relationship, rather than this kind of performative, incredibly pointless, oh, it would be so much easier with a woman because first of all, it wouldn't Even if you were into women. Second of all, you're not into women, so figure out what to do with men. Basically.

[Iona Italia]

Yeah, there's a lot of accounts of female homosexuality, heterosexuality out there that are extremely desexed and you point that out out at many points in the book. So there's this description of women as being attracted to men's status, wanting security, resources, kindness, attention, a whole bunch of qualities that have nothing to do with sex. And we are sexually reproducing species. I mean this is a core part of why women are attracted to men. And that seems to be absent in a lot of descriptions that I'm reading. Especially feminist descriptions.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Yeah, I think that that's definitely the case. I don't think that in our society there is really such a thing as like heterosexuality as it's generally understood. It really is more like male heterosexuality and female heterosexuality they get discussed very, very differently. Where with men it's understood that they have this lust for women that sometimes be over the top or not checked enough as it's, you know like conventionally talked about. Whereas with women it is more like well women were peer pressured into this whole thing but really if it were up to us we would just be on our own, left alone. The whole sort of like this very modern notion that a woman sitting alone in a coffee shop doesn't want any man to come up to her and it's like eh, that's not actually strictly speaking true, but that's kind of what's believed of women these days. Yeah, and the sort of the de sexed thing is also this idea that like you become unserious as a woman if you're attracted to men in that sort of physical way. Whereas with men it's just like a man could have great appetites and that could be part of it, you know, whether it's that he's attracted to women or attracted to men or both. That's just like, like a great artist. A man who's a great artist could have a lot of lovers. Whereas you know, then it's like oh, Taylor Swift is boy crazy and isn't that embarrassing?

[Iona Italia]

Yeah, especially with older women. The frumpy but horny set, which I think I'm going to have a T shirt printed because I really identified so strongly with that chapter.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Thank you. I might even wear a T shirt that said that. Even though I don't do words on T shirts generally. I might make an exception.

[Iona Italia]

It's such a great title and it's going to be the Title of my book review. When I write my book review of the book.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Exciting. Exciting. I mean, so frumpy but horny. If I could talk about that for a moment. It's a weird concept. I mean, it's my weird concept. I think it's almost like I'm trying to think of what age I think of a frumpy but horny woman being. Because it can be that it's an older woman. It definitely can't be that it's a cute teenager. Right. Like I think of sort of the examples of what would not be frumpy but horny would be like on my so Called Life, the Claire Danes character, Angela Chase. Right. She's smitten for Jordan Catalano. He's beautiful. She's a little bit awkward, but she's also a gorgeous teenage Claire Danes, you know, so that's not frumpy but horny. But also like Sophia on the Golden Girls who's meant to be 80. I don't think she's really frumpy but horny either. Even though she's both frumpy and horny at times. I think it is more this kind of like middle aged zone of like not. Not in the sort of sex object role yet desiring men. Yeah, yeah.

[Iona Italia]

You give the example of Jane on Waiting for God.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Did you know the show already?

[Iona Italia]

No, I went and watched some clips after I listened to your descriptions in the book. For people who don't know the show, say a little bit about it perhaps.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Oh my goodness, I can't believe this is something I'm doing in a professional capacity because I have watched this show so many times. It's both brilliant art and weirdly enough, like really good. If you're a bit insomniac and you need to fall asleep to rewatch episodes of Waiting for God. Waiting for God is a 1990s Britcom set in a retirement home. Jane Edwards is an employee of the retirement home who works under Harvey Baines who's this kind of like weird wannabe proto Trump in 90s Britain who wishes he were in like 80s America. Like that's kind of his thing. His signature is that he wears what is always referred to on the show as his almost Armani suit. I guess supposed to be like Emporio Armani or knockoff Armani, whatever. Jane is this super religious, super frumpy woman who describes herself, I don't remember which season she is. So I don't know where it places her age wise as a 37 year old virgin. I think something like that and she's just, like, in love with Harvey. He's this complete sleazebag who. He runs the retirement home. Everybody, all the old people there hate him. Everybody hates him because he's gross. Although he is physically not gross in the least. He's played by the actor Daniel Hill, who is actually my mutual friend on Twitter, which is, you know, I'm basically a famous person.

[Iona Italia]

What a coup.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Yeah, but, yeah, so Jane is just, like, obsessed with him, but, like, she's his underling and she's just per the show, very, very unattractive. Not like we're not some sort of, like, severe deformity that would be, you know, like, discussed in sort of a somber way. But, like, she's just supposed to be very plain. She's supposed to be very plain. And she's played by an actress, Janine Davitsky, who's like. She doesn't always play that type of role, but often variations of this. And so she's convincing as plain on the show, regardless of what she'd be like if you saw her in person. And Harvey's catchphrase is, jane, you're touching me. Because she will always be trying to comfort him or something, kind of pat him on the shoulder. He will do. He's very cruel to her. He says things like that he wants her to help him find a wife, like, and she'll burst into tears. And he sort of always plays it as, like, half oblivious.

[Jonathan Kay]

And.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Yeah, I just found Jane very much, like, emblematic of this frumpy but horny thing because she is just so unsexy. That's the whole thing of her affect, her clothing, how everybody else receives her, you know, and she's, like, very prudish, but she's also just like, all she wants to do is jump on this man, and it's pent up. And then finally, in the end of the show, they get married, which is. It's like this slightly forced ending. It's a little bit weird sitcom ending. But anyway, Jane is really where frumpy but horny got its start in my brain. Yeah. And it's all in Brit box, so at least in Canada.

[Iona Italia]

So once you started talking about the way in which female heterosexuality is described in this very desex manner, I started to see it everywhere. And you give a lot of examples that come from not just positive depictions of relationships. So, for example, this aspirational thing of all that women are looking for is a man who's kind to them and respects them, et cetera. It's really nice if. When a man is kind to me and respects me. But that's not the only thing that I am hoping to find and you also in these negative portrayals. So I went back and reread Catwoman, the short story by Cat person or. Cat person. Yeah, cat person. Yes, the short story by.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Oh, what was the name of Kristin Rupinian.

[Iona Italia]

Yes, Kristen Rupinian, which made a big splash around 2019ish.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

I think it was probably 20. I think it was 2017 because it was right after the Harvey Weinstein story broke. Yeah. And in the same publication also in Babe.

[Iona Italia]

Babe.net, oh, no, that was in the New Yorker.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

This was in the New Yorker.

[Iona Italia]

Sorry.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

This was Aziz Ansari.

[Iona Italia]

Aziz Ansari, Yeah. So I went back and reread Cat Person and I was really struck by how. By how little she, the narrator, seemed to actually like the guy that she went on the date with. So she falls in love with him over text as a result of the texts he's sending her and this mock flirtation between their cats, which is in itself a rather weirdly asexual thing. Their cats pretend to be texting each other.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Well, it depends if you think of what the euphemism could be. Yeah, yeah. I bring that up for a couple reasons. But just like the author of this short story was at least at the time, in a relationship with another woman, which I think is an interesting twist to this, but go on. Yes.

[Iona Italia]

Yeah. Well, I think we'll come to that. The role of lesbians in these depictions of heterosexual.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

I mean, what was so interesting with Cat Person was. So it's fiction, right? And it's fiction that came out at just the right moment because this was what everybody was talking about. It was received very much the way, kind of like. And thinking about the cultural criticism of that moment. So, like where Girls, the HBO show, the character that Lena Dunham played in the show, Hannah Horvath, was treated as like, this is a documentary about Lena Dunham and her friends. Right. And that kind of happened with this short story where it got written about either as if it literally was one young woman's account of a bad relationship. Then also even the people who got sort of genre wise that it was fiction all of the. And I write about this in the Last Straight Woman. A lot of the. Virtually all the criticism, the headline would be like, every woman has had this experience. You know, we've all been there. And I found this really interesting because it was very clearly a description of being with a man who you're not attracted to. And I did not relate to this. I did not relate to how you would end up consensually in a situation with a man you found sexually revolting. To me, this just seemed absolutely foreign to my experience. And the fact that this was presented as something all women related to, I found very weird. It did seem perhaps relevant that the author may not be all that attracted to men. Maybe a bit. I don't know, maybe she's with a man right now and loving it. I have no idea. But that did seem like a possibly relevant data point. And it just. It does relate to the whole fluidity thing, but sounds like we'll get to that.

[Iona Italia]

Yeah, and the same with Aziz Ansari. She also. If you go back and read the account of the supposedly terrible date which the writer had with the comic Aziz Ansari, this was around the same period, I think that was the account that was published in Babe.net, and once again, we have only her word for it. We don't know his side of the story at all, and we don't know what actually happened between them. So it almost might as well be a fiction. It's really in the realm for me of gossip. Whereas people are taking it as evidence of what relationships between men and women alike, or they did at the time.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Well, I want to just jump in on that. I think that was actually like a kind of crucial turning point where it. It. Because part of it has to do with, like, relative quality of journalism and sort of how elite of a journalistic space babe.net is or was. I don't know if it still exists versus the New Yorker. So there definitely was this element of, wait, this is it. This is now me too. Going too far. Even from people who I think were otherwise pretty on board because basically he had been a bit forward on a date and what. But I think that the common thread is both fictional, though, in different ways. Cause this is just like bad journalism, which is, you know, it's more in the fake news sort of fiction than, like, literary fiction. But also that people. I think, like, there was this aspect to the story that I thought was very similar, where it was about a woman who's out with a man. She does. She knows she doesn't want to have sex with. I don't think it's hard to picture a woman not knowing if she wants to, like, have intercourse with that particular man that particular evening. That's very easy to imagine. But a woman who knows from the outset she's not sexually attracted to A man, but goes out with him all the same. You get that in both of these narratives, right? Because in Cat Person, Margot's the, I think, the protagonist. She finds basically like a non abs, non six pack, abs type, male torso, revolting. Okay, well, to each her own. And then with this Aziz Ansari story, you know, ostensibly true, I think it was Grace, right. Was the pseudonym possibly. She just liked that he was famous and that was clearer the whole time. And it seemed if anybody was using anybody, not so clear who that was. But I do think that this, again, just to return to this whole idea of female heterosexuality being understood as this kind of non sexed thing. There's this notion that that's just what it is to be a woman and that any of us are equally attracted to and not attracted to basically anybody at any time. And it's just sort of like what we choose to agree to or not. And I don't think that's right.

[Iona Italia]

Yeah, absolutely. So I was also struck by how many of these accounts, both the fictional accounts and the sort of theory about compulsory heterosexuality, which was an idea coined by Adrienne Rich, a lesbian. The heteropessimism essay that recently came out, which was about. About the difficulties and the unappealingness of dating men, that was written by this person's identity was rather complicated. But I think.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Do you mean the original, like the 2019 one?

[Iona Italia]

Yeah.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

That was written by a then lesbian identified person who is now a trans man?

[Iona Italia]

Yeah.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Yes.

[Iona Italia]

And Cat Person was also written by somebody who was in a relationship with a woman at the time. I'm getting the impression that many of these pieces that are about that focus really on how repellent men are, were written by lesbians. And many of these pieces about how most women are actually sexually fluid or are just being heterosexual because they're just pressured into heterosexuality by society, that many of those writings are just wishful thinking on the part of lesbian writers.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

It's almost as if you've read my book. Yeah, so definitely I have a lot of thoughts on this, basically. So I'm gonna have to zoom out first. The idea of looking at heterosexuality in isolation and studying it comes out of really like gender studies, queer studies, that sort of realm. Right. So for obvious reasons, most of the people, really, all of the people who've book length taken on anything remotely like this. There isn't yet a book about like, this is the first book to my knowledge about straight women, straight womanhood specifically. But the closest comp titles in some respects, except that they're out of academia. So it's a little different. It's definitely not straight identified people. Right. It's not straight women. It's not straight men either, for that matter. Some are gay men, some are lesbians, some are otherwise queer identified. Right. And that makes sense when you think of where this field is coming from because there's a ton, like to understate it, ton written about being a straight woman and straight womanhood, it's. That just calls itself being about being a woman. Right. So to call it straight womanhood, that's, you know, borrowing in a sense from gender studies already. The problem is that is not a pool of people who necessarily have the best grasp on what it is to be a straight woman, because their understanding. And this is particularly true in Jane Ward's book the Tragedy of Heterosexuality. There's just this kind of notion that it's just the imposition. It's always experienced as an imposition. And this just. It doesn't make sense if you think about it for a second. And the, the reason for this is, yeah, if you're gay and forced to marry somebody of the opposite sex, that's going to be miserable. Agreed. If you're straight and you're forced to marry somebody you're not interested in, but you're super interested in the opposite sex person next door, that's going to be painful. And if you were told it's fine to be gay, how does that help you? Or like Romeo and Juliet, you know what I mean? Like, it just seems sort of obvious if you think about it for a second, that there are so many restrictions historically and in the present, in fiction and in life, placed on straight people about which opposite sex people they can and cannot be with. That obviously, like, it's not heterosexuality itself that's like holding most people back from doing anything that might have occurred to them, you know what I mean? So it just leads to this kind of logical mess that. And it's in. You see it in academia, but you also see it in just sort of like online memes and stuff about are the Straits okay? You know, that sort of thing.

[Iona Italia]

I just assume they're referring to the Straits of Hormuz.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

I have tried to restrain myself on about that, but you said it. Yeah.

[Iona Italia]

So talking about sexual fluidity and this kind of notion that every woman could really be lesbian if she so wished, or might become a lesbian at any stage. And a lot of that is based on a very influential book by Lisa diamond called Sexual Fluidity.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Right.

[Iona Italia]

Female sexual Fluidity, Yes, Female sexual fluidity. Female sexual fluidity. And I think it's really interesting that men are very rarely considered to be sexually fluid. So I have some gay friends who used to be married to women and their narrative about that is at the time I was closeted. I wasn't telling people I was gay or I was trying not to be gay, or even I myself didn't know I was gay, which is a really odd way of thinking about it. Whereas women's narratives tend to be. I used to be married to a man, now I'm with a woman. Anyway, a lot of that kind of idea, a lot of those ideas are encapsulated, at least in Lisa Diamond's book. And I was really surprised when I read your analysis of why we might want to take Diamond's book with a bit of a pinch of salt.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Okay, so many thoughts here as well. First, just to talk about the whole sort of late in life, lesbianism versus husband comes out of the closet out of the blue. I am a middle aged woman. I know a lot of people. I know of both things, you know, from life and from, you know, reading about it. But not from my, thankfully not from my own life. But you know what I mean, like from talking to people and so forth. But what I think is interesting there is sometimes when you hear an account from a woman who only realized she was a lesbian in her 40s, 50s later, is that part of what makes it confusing is that there is this myth that women are not fundamentally attracted to men at all. So they think, okay, I'm normal, I don't want to have sex with a man. No woman does. All women find penises disgusting. That's very normal. Normal, typical of women. And then they, you know, give women a go and it's like, ah, they're gay. Right. Whereas I think you don't get this with men where they think, oh, it's normal to not want to have sex with a woman. That's typical. That's the usual way. You know what I mean? So that's, I think, one confounding thing. There are others as well. And even like, so they're actually, what's really weird is there's a very good book about male sexual fluidity, Not Gay by Jane Ward, same person who wrote the Tragedy of Heterosexuality. So, you know, everybody's got a range of things and she, she's an engaging writer regardless. Even though I don't really so much agree with that book. Onto Lisa Diamond. Yeah. So I think she has written a Bit more about male sexual fluidity since that book, as I understand it, which I've learned, I think since writing my book, if I have my own brain. Timeline, right. Basically, Lisa diamond studied. She was set out to study the identity and relationship fluctuations among what would now be called queer women, like gay or bi women. In a gender studies class. She was studying women in a gender studies class. Then to have like a sort of control group. She had what was like 10, I think I recall something like 10 straight women. She's going to study 10 straight women found in a gender studies class, by the way, which is, you know, not going to be. I'm not saying that they couldn't actually be straight women. Like, of course straight women take gender studies classes all the time. But they were maybe not super representative from that. That said, she defines. It's. It's a really. It's an interesting argument that just doesn't make any sense if you really look at it too closely. Like, there are part. Let me. It's too snarky. There are parts that make sense, parts that don't. The part that makes sense is it's true that people's sexuality can be different over the course of their lives and that somebody might identify like this sort of what's her name? Cynthia Nixon Miranda from Sex and the City type narrative where a woman identifies as straight and then she identifies later as gay or whatever. Or it could go different ways. And it doesn't mean that there is a true self that is bisexual and you have to call her bisexual and she has to call herself bisexual. Fine. People can call themselves what they want to call themselves. That I'm not worried about. But where she talks, Lisa diamond talks in this book about like the fundamentally fluid nature of female sexuality. And that in all women is this capacity. Right? In all women is the capacity to be basically into anybody. But how does she arrive at this? Because obviously that's not true. Well, she defines fluidity in such an all encompassing, huge umbrella way to include effectively you're a woman with close female friends who or who has ever had close female friends. That's basically fluidity because why should we privilege the sexual over the emotional? It's like, okay, that's just not. That's not anything like, then that's nothing. Nothing means anything. And I did not find this very persuasive. And then just to speak of fluidity theory more broadly, what it amounts to, I have found is basically you get certain women who are wired bisexual whether their identity is bisexual or not. I don't know, that's something else. That's up to them. But who basically do have the capacity to be attracted to men and women and who have chosen women or who just have happened to who are or who have retrofitted an explanation because they happen to be with a woman. And they say, I could do this. Why can't other women do the same? I was with men, now I'm with women. What's stopping you? It's like, well, you know, sexual orientation is a thing. I am not like. I. I don't say like that. It's biology or not biology. I don't know or care. I really don't care. It's more about, like, respecting people for what they say. And anyway, I just think you're hearing often with this fluidity stuff from women who just. It works for them. It's not so. It's. For me, though, the part of the Lisa diamond book that I found most frustrating was this whole thing about fundamental. That it's fundamental. And then what's interesting, just one last thought on this. She became controversial not for the somewhat shaky claim that all women are sort of potentially bisexual, although, whatever, she calls it something else, but because of trans stuff basically, you know, this idea of. This very essentialist idea of women. Right. So this book's from 2008. And then if you go and read about it on, like, Goodreads or whatever, people are mad at her, but not for the reason you might think so, and also, also because of this. And then there's also the reason you might think, even from 2008, which is that it seems like it would be rather supportive of conversion therapy, Right? Like if anybody could become gay if, you know, under the right circumstances, anybody could become straight if a pastor yells at them enough, you know, and she really denies that that supports this. But, you know, how would it not.

[Iona Italia]

On some level, I would be in favor of conversion therapy if it worked. You know, if it were possible, if it actually worked, then it would be great. Everybody could choose their own sexuality. But the problem with it is that it's nonsense. Not that.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Well, I mean, I think it would be a problem if it was parents. I think if it's parents doing it to their, like signing their children up for it, that would be unethical. But if it's adults wanting to. Yeah, and that's. That's another thing that I write about in the book is like, there are these cases I found of straight women who basically decide that they're going to be gay now or bisexual. And it Just doesn't work. And you would think if heterosexuality was so compulsory and women are, you know, try, have, are situated socially, whatever, where they could shed themselves of it, surely it goes great. And spoiler alert, it does not. It does not go great. They are shocked. There's one woman I write about who's like shocked to learn that it's not amazing to have sex with a woman because surely all women would think this and it's like, well, they. Not all. Yeah, not, not most probably.

[Iona Italia]

I, I'm willing to. If anybody wants to take my money for a bet on whether I will ever have a relationship with a woman, sexual relationship with a woman, I'm willing to bet some quite large sums against that.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

I mean, that is another thing that I think has changed in. And this is something I wrote about once for the Globe and Mail and people were very mad. But whatever. I stand by what I wrote, which is that bisexuality itself, the definition is not static. And what you get sometimes these days are women who use the term bisexual to refer to basically anything that they would be okay with being like any attraction, they would be okay with having. So any woman who's never been attracted to a woman, but who would be okay with it if she were, could be a bisexual now. And by that standard, I could be a bisexual because I'm not ethically, whatever, opposed to having that thought. It just, I have so many decades of experience of. Not that I'm just, you know, going by what I rationally have to assume, but. Yeah, anywhere.

[Iona Italia]

Yeah, I do think, certainly especially among younger people, there are a lot of. My best friend calls them non practicing bisexuals who are, who just want the kudos of being part of the LGBTQ umbrella but don't actually have any same sex attractions. That, that certainly exists as well, but it's also kind of none of my business. I can't really police that. I can't go inside my brain and

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

see what this thing. My aim is not to police what people say about themselves. I really, I'm not bothered. Like, I think it's always better to err on the side of being respectful and like, nice to people. Especially like when you're talking to somebody, you don't want to be like, well, I'm why you call yourself queer, why, you know, you want to be like reasonable to get along with and all. It doesn't mean that you have to just sort of like in. When you're thinking about this at a population level, agree that a woman who thinks women are pretty is just as gay as a man who, you know, came out and was thrown out of his house, you know, as a teenager. Right,

[Iona Italia]

yeah. Talking of thinking women are pretty, there's two more aspects to this, at least two more aspects, this kind of desexualization of female straightness. And one is the view that women are simply not visual and therefore what a man looks like is unimportant. And that is. I find that extremely counterintuitive and also quite frustrating. The other thing that you highlight is that female sexuality is often seen as narcissistic, that it's fundamentally about women enjoying being desired and feeling beautiful. And you quote the model, Emily. I can't pronounce her name. Ratowski.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

It's Ratajkowski. I know because I read my own audiobook and it had to be looked up.

[Iona Italia]

Okay, great.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Yes.

[Iona Italia]

And she. So she's written a memoir called My Body. And she. In an interview that she gave, she talked about. She talked about women being topless on public media platforms, in photographs, in film, et cetera. And she said when someone like Lena Dunham takes her top off, it's considered brave, it's considered praiseworthy. But when someone who is. When a woman who is sexual takes her top off, it's regarded in a completely different way. And that was a very telling use of the word sexual. And it highlights something that has frustrated me for years, which is that I hear people saying that women are expressing their sexuality by being attractive to men. And I find that really odd. A lot of gay men are very attractive to women. Are they therefore expressing their heterosexuality by being good looking or by going to the gym or by wearing a tight T shirt or whatever? It's only in the case of straight women that we think of the sexuality not being about who you desire, but about who desires you.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

I might be able to bring those two points kind of together, actually. So I think it's kind of tough for men who want to look better because unless there is something really obvious like, you know, a man is very, very overweight and then goes to a less outlier weight, fine, that's, you know, something very obvious. And I'm not saying it's easy or whatever, although Ozempic exists now, whatever, that's sort of outside my beat. But if a man just wants to look prettier, like handsomer, whatever, there's just not as much he can do. And the reason is it's. It comes across as either feminine or gay when a man does a lot with his face. You know what I mean? Like, you know, different things. Like when. When you can see that a man has, like. And obviously this is all extremely subculture dependent. And I, you know, I. Somebody listening to this in one location might be like, oh, mendo is where I live all the time. Nobody thinks it's whatever. In my world, if a man has very obviously, like, styled eyebrows, you know what I mean? That doesn't come across as he's making an effort to get a woman. You know what I mean? It either makes. It either comes across as kind of eccentric, which is fine, whatever, or as that he's a somewhat feminine gay man, which also fine, not so useful for getting women if that is in fact what he wants. So it is tricky where women can do all sorts of things that may or may not work, you know, to be more conventionally attractive. You can. You can signal as a woman with visual cues that you are looking to maximize the number of men who find you attractive, whereas what can you do as a man? Just sort of like, try not to look odd in a way, or. But then you're also supposed to have some sort of flair, whatever. I think it's not so easy for men to be beautiful, which is, I think, part of where this myth that women don't care what men looks like comes out of. Because I think it's in a way more hurtful as a man not to be thought beautiful because it's so much about things that men just can't control. You know what I mean? Certainly if height enters into it at all. My goodness, the discourse about height, you know, and. And not that that's what all women are caring about. You know what I mean? But like, anything of that nature just becomes very fraught and it gets viewed as almost like, inherently unfair for women to judge men on the basis of looks. As if this is sort of an act. As if it's a bit, you know, like women could turn that off, but are choosing to be shallow. Whereas men, it's like, well, you know, either either they respond or they don't. Right, so it's. Yeah. Then the height.

[Iona Italia]

Yeah, the height discourse is mad because weight can be changed, but your height, you can't. You can't change.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

I mean, so I think that that might be. Some of it is just this idea that it's so unfair that it's, like, upsetting. Whereas if a woman is told or learned or sort of comes to realize that there are men who are ignoring her on the basis of her looks, she can always say, well, that's because I have the integrity not to do such and such beauty stuff, whatever.

[Iona Italia]

Right.

[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

Like all women pretty much are like choosing not to do some of the things, whatever they are, you know, so then the whole Emily Reddickowski Lena Dunham first is so funny. I think they're friends in real life. They definitely like Emily Ratajkowski is in Too much Lena Dunham's new, somewhat new Netflix show. And yeah, I did find that all very. So that's where it kind of connects this idea that that's being sexual. When you're talking about, like when a man looks very conventionally beautiful, it reads as gay. And that's something else. I think it was Germaine Greer, I quote in the book, something that she wrote about, like, when it's art with beautiful men, it's assumed to be like a homoerotic situation because that's who the artist would have been assumed to be. Right. And often would have been. So there is something about this where like a woman looking beautiful in a very conventional way is that's supposed to be female sexuality. And yeah, I mean, I think if you are specifically Emily Ratajkowski and that's what you look like. Yeah, if I look like that, I'd probably be looking in the mirror more than I am. But is that like. And then that book also much like cat person, it was one of these things where.

[Jonathan Kay]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Phoebe Maltz Bovy]

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