I am sure there is no lack of discourse on this, and that I am just not reading enough books on the subject, but I feel the contentiousness of having a woman desire a man is poisoning romance.
Men may argue, blatantly or unconsciously, as they have done through their art for thousands of years, that women cannot experience the desire that they do. Men may do so by reducing the woman to her body; by positioning her constantly as beloved object and never as loving subject; or by implying or outright stating that women lack interiority and the capacity to feel and love nearly as passionately as men. This is the logic behind the courtly love song of the troubadour. It is the archetype of the pining lover and the cruel, frozen-hearted, statuesque woman he loves.
Women may argue, then, that female heterosexual desire is a pillar of patriarchy. They may call women who pursue men male-centered and insecure, position a woman prizing a man as readjusting the spotlight on an already visible demographic. They may dismiss a woman's perspective of a man she desires as completely unreasonable by emphasizing the unworthiness of the man, by calling her delusional, etc. And I understand the merits of this latter pattern of behavior - not only because I, too, have been flabbergasted and frustrated seeing a woman I esteem restructuring her life around an evil man who doesn't even care for her, but because I cannot pretend that this view is the font of all patriarchy. It is not nearly as harmful as the view men have of women. I also understand it would do better to let in more discourse on romantic and sexual love between women, instead of doing this gender war bullshit.
I mostly want to talk about this because I think the instinct of everyone to dismiss women's desire, hetero- or homosexual, is misogynistic, and it ruins romance. I am sick of pretending that the popular fictional heterosexual dynamic of "man is madly in love with and obsessed with woman who is... well, it doesn't matter" is woke, or even very interesting. Here the dynamic subversion comes not from reversing the typical male desiring subject/female desired object roles, but by reframing desire as embarrassing and humbling. And desire is like that! Desire makes you feel subservient and weak. But desire is also beautiful and enjoyable, and women deserve to feel all of those things, too. Perhaps they even deserve to both feel desire and feel equal to the object of their desire, instead of associating that feeling with the real risk of becoming property.
I was inspired to write this stupid post by fiction. I have seen fictional heteroromantic dynamics with mounds of chemistry made hollow and nonconsensual by the fear of women's desire. It's a disease. It's a strange impulse I will never ever fully understand. How can I get writers to grasp that I do not wish to see a woman respond to a man's desire with discomfort or borderline disgust? If I'm supposed to project onto the female main character, it's even worse, because I would not do all that!
A manhwa I am oddly obsessed with, "Lee Seob's Love" or "Iseop's Romance", which absurd scenarios could be made infinitely better by the woman being into it, is getting a K-drama adaptation soon. I can only hope the drama does not make the same mistake as the comic by almost eliminating any semblance of desire from the female lead's inner voice as soon as she and the male lead get together. What was once (and still somewhat is) an interesting look into the relationship of two recklessly passionate people now feels strange to read. For the love of God, let women be people. It fixes everything.
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