Heterofatalism: Is it actually cringey to have a boyfriend now?
Sex and relationship expert Dr Caroline West writes about the growing trend of women stepping back from dating men in favour of enriching their own lives first.
Is it cringey to have a boyfriend now?
That was the question posed by Chanté Joseph in her Vogue article, which went instantly viral and prompted reams of online takes, snarky counters, and quite a few memes.
It explored how women's lives become ‘boyfriend-ified’ once they settle down with a new flame, and their social media content soon starts to revolve around just the new relationship.
The positive response to this article seemed to show the push back against the centuries-old social role for women: to be a partner, wife, and mother who is defined by her (typically male) other half.
It joined the well-established discourse around why women are rejecting men in favour of being single instead.
As per the viral question: which would you choose, the man or the bear? In recent months, the bear has been winning, no contest, it seems.
These conversations from women highlight the calmness of living on their own and how the focus for many women has been shifting from finding a boyfriend to finding good friends, furthering a career, developing passions and generally relishing in their lives.
This is surely no coincidence alongside the decline in birth rates worldwide, with many women happily choosing to live childfree these days. In Ireland specifically, more women are having children later in life, with record numbers of babies born to women over 45 in 2023.
The trend appears to be one of women prioritising their wellbeing and looking out for one another. For example, take the rise in popularity of online groups and forums such as Are We Dating The Same Guy?
These groups were initially set up across social media to find out if a potential date was already in a relationship with someone else, but often feature horror stories of abusive men with links to their convictions for domestic violence and sexual violence, in addition to the countless 'everyday' hurts, instances of disrespect and more that you'd find in most dating groups.
With all these factors, it's no wonder that women are turning away from dating to focus on their own lives instead.
In this climate, 'heterofatalism' has become the latest buzzword when it comes to dating, describing a growing sense of heterosexual women’s disinterest in dating heterosexual men, often stemming from repeated experiences of disappointment.
This disinterest isn't just a media soundbite this time: it has been observed in online spaces with all major dating apps losing users by up 60-90% in the past two years in multiple countries.
But what exactly are women saying no to, and why?
One reason is multi-layered but comes down to a matter of a few seconds: the orgasm. In particular, the orgasm gap between genders and orientations.
Dr Laurie Mintz’s research showed that in encounters such as hookups, 95% of men had an orgasm, while their female partners had an orgasm 65% of the time. In relationships with queer women, there was more orgasm equality, with both women experiencing orgasm 86% of the time.
Figures vary, and sometimes effort does too. If a partner isn't interested in giving pleasure as well as receiving it, it makes for a very unsatisfying sexual experience, and why would you want to repeat that if you're left feeling frustrated?
Intimacy is best when it is a mutually consensual, pleasurable, respectful, and fun experience, not when participants are being treated like a set of genitals for someone else's use.
In recent years, we have also made huge strides forward in addressing sexual violence. Laws targeting the nonconsensual sharing of intimate content, stalking, and non-fatal strangulation have been passed, and consent education continues to grow and include more topics as we understand the different forms of sexual violence.
Yet we still live with the fact that one in four women in Ireland has experienced sexual violence, according to Women's Aid, with Gardai responding to over 1,200 incidents a week in 2024.
In Ireland, Women’s Aid have noted the violent deaths of 275 women since 1996, with over 60% murdered in their own homes. Over half of whom had their lives taken from them by their partners or ex-partners, and almost 9 in 10 knew the person who ended their lives violently.
They were fatally unsafe where they should be the safest: in their homes with people meant to cherish them, not murder them. It's exhausting to hear about, live with, and support ourselves and our friends through.
The shift is likely not only due to concerns about safety, but a lack of basic respect, empathy, and compassion, too. For example, the following DM I recently received really highlights this lack of basic respect and conversation skills:
‘Hi’
‘How are you?’
‘Do you like threesomes?’
Or another recent less than delightful opening message that I received:
‘I like your t**s. X’
One Cork woman I spoke to, Eimear, 24, says that these types of messages are all too common, and she has deleted all her dating profiles. She says:
"I just can't be bothered dealing with the gross messages, or being ghosted, if it does even make it to the stage of planning a date. I used to spend a lot of time on the apps, but now I just focus on myself again. It meant spending more time with friends, and if someone nice comes into my life, that would be nice, but I’m certainly not actively looking.
"Dating is a cesspit, and I don't want to subject myself to demands for nudes or guys expecting to sleep with me after a coffee. All my friends say the same too, so now we have friend dates instead of romantic dates, and I have to say we are all happier as a result."
Awful DM’s aside, the renewed focus on being happily single is potentially a response to this lack of safety and respect that far too many of us as women have experienced when dating, or just when existing.
It may be dismissed in favour of headlines about loneliness epidemics, but even that feels like a fatalistic reality when the violence against women epidemic continues to be minimised and perpetrated.
Reducing women's concerns about their safety, dignity, and lives to a hashtag or meme isn't helpful, but perhaps we can use this as an opportunity to increase efforts to stop it. We all deserve to feel safe, and for those who want to date, they deserve to feel respect, not terror.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ.
If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
