Tradwives, incels and cat ladies: The year MAGA broke heterosexuality

Fellas, is it gay to give your wife an orgasm? More than five decades after the publication of "The Joy of Sex," one would think this was a settled question, but alongside the measles and poop-laced milk, the MAGA movement is bringing back sexual dysfunction as part of their dubious vision of a "great" America. In what may be the most "2024" clip of the year, MAGA-capped influencer Josiah Moody called it "gay" to have sex with a woman for pleasure, arguing the "best part about having sex is reproduction" and sneering at people who "just have an orgasm." 

"No gay sex with women, guys," the progressive host, Luke Beasley, responded. Missing Beasley's sarcasm, Moody replied, "Very true. I agree."

Moody's earnestness is funny, but it's not like his attitude is all that different from that of his hero, Donald Trump. The president-elect is infamously a cad, but as the court testimony of Stormy Daniels made clear, he has no concern about the experience of any woman unfortunate enough to be alone with him. As both E. Jean  Carroll's testimony and Trump's deposition in his civil rape trial show, Trump sees sex as a zero-sum encounter where a man's pleasure comes at the expense of a woman's trauma. Whether the point is joyless impregnation or a woman's humiliation, the common theme is that hetero-sex isn't about mutual satisfaction, but conquest. 

Despite these ugly attitudes from Trump and his supporters, in the past few months, there's been a deluge of pundits expressing confusion and outrage at straight women who conclude that it's better to be single than waste your one precious life dating — much less marrying — conservative men. Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, famously and repeatedly insisted that such women are "miserable cat ladies," even though it's self-evident that cats make better company than MAGA men. Even the Washington Post editorial board got involved, calling on women to "compromise" by marrying Trump voters. 

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In 2024, women increasingly responded to these pressures with a "no thank you," though often phrased less politely. After Trump won the election, there was even a spike in interest in the South Korean "4b" movement, where women quit dating, marrying, or having children with men. In truth, this idea was more aspirational than realistic, but the discourse mattered nonetheless. It created space for women to ask the question: Why should they sacrifice their happiness to save the institution of heterosexuality? 

Despite being led by a thrice-divorced chronic adulterer, the MAGA movement is downright obsessed with heterosexual marriage. The relentless drumbeat of Vance's quotes attacking single women existed because he spends so much time in right-wing media spaces, where getting everyone married off — ideally to an opposite-sex partner — is a singular obsession. And yet the model of heterosexuality promoted in the MAGA world is demoralizing. It seems joyless and sad, especially for women. The right's sales pitch for straightness is so gross that it backfires. 

Social media right now is an ocean of would-be propaganda for traditional heterosexual marriage. There are "tradwives," who cosplay submissive housewives on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. They overlap with "family vloggers," typically conservative Christians with large families who chronicle their daily lives online. The world of Christian right content online is far more interested in the maintenance and promotion of the patriarchal nuclear family than, say, the life of Jesus Christ, who died as one of those "childless cat ladies" Vance hates so much. Billionaire Peter Thiel has even funded a woman's magazine, meant to compete with Vogue or Cosmopolitan, that positions extremely conservative marriage as the only true path for women's lives. 

Despite the glossy and often expensive aesthetics of this content, however, the model of marriage on display is alienating, especially to women. Take a recent video by Paul and Morgan Olliges, who describe themselves as "Christian YouTubers" who are "Getting Real & Having Fun" to their 160,000 YouTube subscribers. In it, the couple showcases the events of a week where Morgan confesses she barely sleeps, having been relegated to the baby's room so Paul can be fully rested for his pickleball tournament. We see that she is run ragged and emotionally raw from endless domestic labor, while he films himself hitting the gym and bragging about how many smoothies he can drink. They claim the goal of showing this disparity is to "get real," i.e. be relatable for the audience. The actual effect can be seen in comments, where people said things like, "This is a reminder that someone can be an absent father even if they're technically 'there.'"

Last week, Fortesa Latifi at Rolling Stone reported on how much, if not the majority, of viewership for family vloggers is now the hate watchers. They watch these videos and then complain about them together in other social media spaces like Reddit. That could sound petty, but as I reported earlier this year, many content creators and online forums are doing something more interesting: using "trad" content to promote progressive, feminist values. By mocking "tradwives" or vloggers like the Olliges, these creators are using humor and online conflict as bait to promote their ideals of equality and argue that traditional gender roles create resentment that is the antithesis of love. 

On some level, it appears that MAGA leaders and messengers understand that their vision of heterosexual life is not persuasive to women, which is why they often start entertaining the use of force. Abortion bans are the most overt example of how Republicans are fighting to deny women the ability to walk away from relationships that aren't serving them. In Texas, the abortion ban allows people to sue anyone who helped a woman abort a pregnancy. The law is being used almost exclusively by men who are trying to punish ex-girlfriends or ex-wives for leaving them. Some in the MAGA movement don't think that goes far enough and are floating the idea of ending laws that allow women to divorce without having to prove to a judge her reasons for leaving are "good" enough. Unsurprisingly, Vance has been at the forefront of this, arguing that women should even stay in "even violent" marriages. 

But MAGA leaders aren't just interested in legal force to trap women in marriage. Social shaming is a major tool, as well. That's what Vance is doing with his endless "cat lady" quotes, trying to insult women into settling for unhappy marriages. The whole "incel" phenomenon is part of this, as well, as it rests on the assumption that women have a duty to soothe and placate men with sex, and men are deprived of their rights if this isn't happening. Shamefully, many centrist publications have glomed on to the idea that women are obliged to be in relationships with men for the betterment of society. "Women also must take this opportunity to bring men along with us," scolded Kami Rieck at the New York Times, in a column castigating women who are feeling demoralized about dating men. Elizabeth Bruenig claimed it's "a gift to the right" and "self-defeating"  for liberal women to be hesitant to date men when so many of them are Trump voters.

This fantasy that women can liberalize men through the power of sex is belied, however, by what MAGA creators themselves are showing the world about marriage, which they portray as an institution where the woman submits herself to a man — which includes letting him be the boss on political ideology. We can see women's skepticism in the population data. Nearly half American women are unmarried. Among single people, 61% of men are actively trying to date, but only 38% of women say the same. "Heteropessimism" has arisen as a term to describe the widespread fear that straight people, especially women, have that it may be impossible to be happy in a straight relationship.

I don't personally feel that way, to be clear. My straight male partner is a feminist and no, I didn't convert him by manipulating him sexually. (I wish I were so alluring!) Feminist men may not be the majority, but they are more numerous than one would think, after reading articles instructing women to suck it up and marry a Trumper. But with the flood of "manfluencers" and "tradwives" and family vloggers out there, I get why women would feel down on straight marriages. The model of heterosexuality pushed from every corner by conservative media looks oppressive for women and frankly kind of sad for men. They may get free housework out of it, but at the cost of something way better: to be in love with someone you actually like and respect. And not having to worry if your wife's orgasm makes you gay.