Heteropessimism and the Pleasure of Saying “No”

Using Lauren Berlant’s keynote at the 2019 Duke Feminist Theory Workshop as a starting point, this article offers a comparative reading of feminism’s “heteropessimistic turn” and the involuntarily celibate (i.e., incel) movement. In doing so, I demonstrate that both groups are saying “no” to certain elements of what Berlant refers to as “the pleasure regimes of sexual normativity.” I focus on the affective function of heteropessimism—what Asa Seresin identifies as its “anesthetic feeling”—arguing that it affectively soothes but politically stultifies the feminist movement. Framing the incel movement in a heteropessimistic light, I dispute the common perception of incels as ‘merely’ misogynistic and argue that their totalizing sexual nihilism indicates a broader hatred of, and disidentification with, the politics of heterosexual desire. Introducing the example of “Black Pill Feminists,” I take the heteropessimistic connections between feminism and incel to their logical conclusion, showing that feminist heteropessimism’s inherent essentialism affectively cements the incongruous ideological positions of feminism to incel’s sexual nihilism. I conclude with an argument for the naturalization of negativity as part of a broader move toward accepting the ambiguities of heterosexual desire and the antagonism(s) that drive it.