In this inaugural episode, we wade into an internet subculture known as the “dark feminine,” a viral beauty trend turned hetero dating strategy.

Dark feminine influencers promise liberation from fuckboys and toxic straight relationships, with TikTok videos and ebooks that teach women the art of seduction—and not texting men back.

Behind the goth-meets-glam makeup tutorials and affirmations about “pretty privilege,” there lurks sexism, gender essentialism, and a truly dark view of both heterosexuality and feminism.

Remember: You can listen to our episodes on Substack or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other major podcasting platforms.

Show highlights

01:39 Amanda watches some TikToks that we don’t have the rights to play, but you can watch them here

03:00 Selling a fantasy of turning the tables on men

05:56 Dark femininity goes mainstream

07:21 Amanda affirms her “pretty privilege”

11:23 What do these women want?

15:06 The racial dynamics of playing with “darkness”

16:50 Tracy’s embarrassing Angelina Jolie anecdote

18:03 Myths, folklore, “shadows,” and the Carl Jung of it all

20:57 Witchcraft and feminine power

23:39 Dark femininity as a response to patriarchy

25:46 Shitty dating dynamics

30:38 The overlaps of “dark” and “divine” femininity

32:44 What’s this have to do with the femosphere?

34:43 The dark feminine and… sociopathy?

39:32 Feminine ideologies as an alt-right pipeline

50:01 Reimagining femininity beyond stereotypes and heteronormativity

Dire Straights is a 100% scrappy, aging-millennial feminist operation coming to you at exactly the right time in history. We’re not financially dependent on corporate media or advertisers. If we had normal day jobs, this podcast would probably get us fired from them. Paid subscriptions really do liberate us— and so do your little hearts and shares.

Welcome to Dire Straights, a feminist podcast critiquing heterosexual love, sex, politics, and culture. Dire Straights is hosted by Amanda Montei and Tracy Clark-Flory, a couple of longtime journalists, essayists, critics, and authors.

Our show is a skewering of straight existence—and an exercise in imagining new possibilities. Each episode, we’ll unpack the most dire elements of hetero culture, like:

* Couples therapy

* Dating apps

* Sex strikes

* Monogamy

* Age-gap romances

* Cries of “but what about men?”

* The orgasm gap

* Antifeminist “feminism”

* Sex positivity™

* The manosphere

* Decentering men

* Pro-natalism

* “Dark feminine” influencers

We explore sex and dating alongside marriage, divorce, and the relentlessly unequal realm of hetero parenting and the nuclear family. We also consider celebrities and politicians as case studies. Tech bros, tradwives, and TERFs are also up for examination.

Along the way, we turn to beloved feminist scholarship, call on radical contemporary thinkers, and share our own personal stories, as we try to sketch out more hopeful visions of love, sex, relationships, and romance.

This is a 100% scrappy, aging-millennial feminist operation coming to you at exactly the right time in history. We spend countless hours researching, writing, recording, editing, and producing each episode. We’re not financially dependent on corporate media or advertisers, and if we had normal day jobs, this podcast would probably get us fired from them.

Paid subscriptions are the best way to make our work possible, so head over to our show page at direstraightspod.com to subscribe and get full access to the show.

Free subscribers get:

* One full episode and one paywalled episode every month.

Paid subscribers get:

* Two full episodes a month. No paywalls, ever.

* Access to the Dire Straights community via chats and episode comment threads.

* A growing list of fun extras, including advice and bonus discussions.

Founding subscribers get:

* Annual paid subscriptions to both Tracy’s AND Amanda’s newsletters plus all paid Dire Straights perks. You save $50 for going all in on us and you'll be supporting the hell out of independent feminist media in a time of journalistic collapse and feminist backlash.

If you’re interested in supporting us more deeply in the long term, please get in touch at direstraightspod@gmail.com.

“Techno-optimism” is a system of belief currently fueling the very worst tech bros—from Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg. So, we decided to do a close read of the movement’s manifesto to better understand its architects and their vision of the future, which includes becoming “Technological Supermen” and… invading space.

We turn to figures like Marc Andreessen, who have claimed this thinking as their own, to consider the broader implications of believing that endless innovation can save us.

As we dig further into this seemingly neutral but actually very straight-white-guy idea that technological advancements are inherently good for humanity, we find that capitalist definitions of progress are actually just the same old hyper-masculine, colonialist hero’s journeys, dressed up in VC-funded clothing.

And in all these visions of the future, I bet you can guess the role of women.

Looking at links between techno-optimism, pronatalism, and the manosphere, we ask what a more intersectional feminist vision of technology and the future might look like.

Artificial wombs anyone?

Show highlights include…

02:29 The origins of “techno-optimism”

04:47 The techno-optimist manifesto

07:07 The dystopia of “not utopia but close enough”

09:10 The romance and eros of technology… for dudes

9:58 The hero’s journey but make it tech bro

11:56 “Free thinkers” rebelling against their controlling mommies

14:12 Not that fringe, sadly

15:04 Vance’s stint in VC, inspired by Lord of the Rings

18:30 Web 3.0 ughhhhh

23:43 Dudes doing dude things (challenging each other to cage fights in the Roman coliseum)

25:30 Masculine energy™ bc the oppression of feminine energy, ofc

29:38 Futurist masculinity (and contempt for women) is not new or innovative

35:35 Pronatalist “techno-optimism” and women’s work in this version of the future

39:00 Unserious people in great positions of power, the pessimism of reproductive control, the role of women’s bodies and the American family, and, yes, eugenics, again

40:20 Red-pill thinking and the “cock carousel”

46:28 The nuclear family as anti-woke isolationism and imperialism

54:20 Leftist pro-tech philosophies that erase ecological destruction, global racial violence, and the feminist struggle to restructure work

55:43 Artificial wombs as the downfall of men… could be good? And other feminist visions of the future.

A huge thanks to everyone who has already supported us. Dire Straights is a scrappy feminist operation coming to you at exactly the right time in history. We don’t take any money from tech bros and paid subscriptions from listeners are the only reason we can talk about this stuff so freely and imagine a better future than the one these guys want.

We talk couples therapy—the good, the bad, and the unequal.

We look at sexism in the therapy room, consider how therapists try to save us from patriarchal socialization, and talk about the divorce stigma that shows up in the ever-popular belief that marriage is hard work. We ask: How does couples therapy challenge inequality in straight relationships—and how does it enable and excuse it?

Along the way, we discover the maybe not-so-surprising origins of marital counseling in white supremacy and eugenics, the field’s mid-twentieth century makeover, and the 90s-era therapy boom, which collided head-on with the woefully overdue criminalization of marital rape, giving us the “love languages” and “appointment sex” trends we know today.

After the paywall, we also share some very different, and very personal, couples therapy success stories—one that ended in divorce, and another in marital growth.

Show highlights include…

01:30 Couples therapy in pop culture—from Dying for Sex to Dr. Orna

5:40 Tabloid headlines about celebrities, like Barack and Michelle Obama, in couples therapy

10:30 The social and economic capital of being married

13:10 Meet the father of marriage counseling, a eugenicist

16:01 Marriage counseling evolved with the sexual revolution… or did it?

18:02 The 90s therapy boom and the criminalization of marital rape

20:20 John Gottman on wives’ “sour” faces and “divorce prediction”

24:05 Love languages and appointment sex

26:35 What is couples therapy for and how do we define it as a success?

26:00 Tracy on the widespread belief that marriage is joyless and punishing

27:18 Amanda on divorced women becoming an outlet for married people’s miseries

32:20 Women in straight marriages complaining about their partners with naturalizing language vs. women taking on the work of healing men’s patriarchal trauma: a memoir

34:40 Tracy asks: is couples therapy just a way of making the economic trap of marriage more survivable?

36:00 Divorce stigma

40:08 Reproduction of unequal power dynamics in the therapy room

41:50 Why couples stay in unequal relationships even when they believe in equality

43:45 Tracy and Amanda role play a couple in therapy lol

46:40 Questions for therapists to ask straight men in couples therapy

50:06 The moral quandary for therapists working with heterosexual married couples

56:34 Couples therapy as a powder keg

57:35 Amanda and Tracy go deep on their own experiences with couples therapy

Tell us ALL about your experiences with couples therapy in the comments.

We dive headfirst into the sex column at the alt-right women’s magazine, Evie, which journalist EJ Dickson called a “Gen Z ‘Cosmo’ for the Far Right.”

As we dig into Evie’s surprisingly graphic how-to-please-your-husband guides, we explore what the magazine tells us about conservative sexual politics today, including how the right frames their messages as empowering, educational, scientific, and even liberating, while actually selling young women strict, unequal, and objectifying models of sex and love.

After the paywall, we talk about how we once internalized the demand to perform for men during sex, and explore our own brushes with topics that show up in the magazine’s sex column—like riding cowgirl and grieving, as one Evie writer puts it, through our vaginas.

Show highlights include…

02:45 Evie imagery as Victoria Secret circa 1995

05:35 Amanda’s affair with Evie

10:00 Milk + cow + man with lasso as American Dream

11:40 Tracy on not being able to stomach the sour milk of trad discourse

14:30 White supremacist frontierism

17:15 Mr. Darcy teaches tradwives how to date in Evie’s relationships column—brace yourself

24:05 Reactionary feminists selling women crap instead of liberation

29:02 Evie loves vanilla sex

31:55 Tracy’s experience with cowgirl lol

35:58 The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and “sex positivity”

39:11 Tips for using the “backturn” to show off your “bum” in… the lap dances you give your husband

43:59 Disciplining women into straightness

46:45 Evie’s advice for women who avoid sex with their husbands “like the plague”

49:05 P.S. to future husbands

52:36 The “painful treatment” that “led to the most pleasurable sex”

55:45 The politics of the “familiar erection”

59:00 Sex ed for conservatives

59:19 Making marriage spicy again

1:00:00 Bunk science

1:01:45 Single reader discretion advised

1:03:43 Grief and spiritual sex

1:07:45 Anti-kink conservatives appropriating kink terms

How did you learn about sex? Was it condoms on bananas, reading Cosmo, watching MTV Spring Break specials, or something else entirely? Drop a comment below. And come join us in our subscriber chat!

In this episode, we’re talking about men who call their exes “crazy,” don’t text back, refer to women as “females,” and listen to Joe Rogan.

In other words, we’re talking about “red flags.”

Maybe you’ve seen a viral video of a woman listing off warning signs that a man is no good. Maybe you’ve seen that guy on TikTok who re-posts videos of straight people behaving badly and then runs around waving an oversized red flag to pass judgment on their dysfunction. Or maybe you’ve just listened to a friend talk about a guy canceling a date at the last minute and found yourself saying, “That’s a red flag.”

Red flags can guard against heartbreak or abuse, but they’ve also become a meme targeting everything from pizza choice to misogyny. We look at this viral discourse as a window into women’s greatest fears and hopes around hetero relationships.

This is a free episode, but paid subscribers make this podcast possible. You can upgrade at direstraightspod.com. You'll get access to the full episode, along with special bonus content, our subscriber chat, and more fun extras on our Substack.

Show highlights…

02:04 What is a red flag, exactly?

03:00 Amanda dated a guy who made fun of her hair

03:56 Tracy dated a guy with an “I’m sorry” tattoo

05:34 Amanda’s red flag was drunk dialing

08:04 Tracy’s red flag was writing about her sex life on the internet (also: hanging a weird Diane Arbus prints above her bed)

10:31 The viral Tea app was supposed to help women avoid dating “red flag” men—and then some “red flag” men hacked the app

15:09 The red flag has its origin in war and now it’s being used on “the battlefield of love”

17:22 The term took off in self-help books in the 80s as a way for women to try to identify misogynistic and abusive men

21:15 Our “old friend” John Gottman makes a killing off red flags that could spell the “apocalypse” of divorce

26:09 Now that it’s a viral meme, the meaning of a “red flag” has shifted

27:19 Like the “ick,” red flags point toward the cognitive dissonance of hetero relationships

28.58 The racist and classist assumptions behind “icks”

33:15 The most popular red flag themes are… [drum roll] listen to find out

38:52 Men listen to this podcast and like it! Green flags for them!

39:41 The bar is so low

41:28 What about men who are great to start and then… you get married and have kids

46:24 Women share signs a man is red-pilled

49:33 Is “simp” the new “pussy-whipped”?

53:39 Does red flag culture give a false sense of security?

56:43 The absurdist comedy of red flag videos on TikTok

58:54 Maybe red flag lists help enshrine certain behaviors as troublesome

59:00 Fighting words over pineapple pizza

01:11:43 Are we witnessing the enshittification of a useful concept?

01:01:29 Why do we love red flags right now? Is it #MeToo? Swipe-based dating?

01:06:05 How many red flags are about trying to avoid vulnerability and heartbreak?

01:07:41 What’s this have to do with divorce stigma?

01:11:32 “You don’t see something as a red flag when it’s been normalized for you.”

01:14:23 Red flags are about making a “bet” on lifelong monogamy

01:20:19 Paying for this podcast is a big green flag— put that on your dating profile

We got AI boyfriends for a weird and wild weeklong experiment—and now we’re reporting back.

There are dozens of popular apps that let users either design their own virtual romantic companions or choose readymade partners modeled after common straight-guy archetypes, celebrities, and popular characters from TV and film. You can even simulate a very realistic phone call with your bespoke digital boyfriend. And these guys always text you back.

We look at what the popularity of AI companions—and the technology itself—has to tell us about the state of heterosexual relationships today. And we get very personal as we share our experiences with several AI boyfriends, and one girlfriend. You’ll even get to hear from one of them. But the best parts are behind the paywall.

Our conclusions? You have to listen to find out. Let’s just say, we don’t like this future any more than you do—and yet, it’s here.

If you’re not already a paid subscriber, trust us that now would be the time to upgrade. Just go to direstraightspod.com. You'll get access to the full episode, along with special bonus content, our subscriber chat, and more fun extras on our Substack.

Show highlights…

1:10 Tracy tries to make “polyAImory” happen

1:25 Amanda had a rough week with lots of breakups

4:37 AI is actually infiltrating every aspect of sex and relationships

8:27 The gendering of bots

10:00 To be clear, AI is categorically terrible obvi, 0/10 we do not recommend

17:35 Tracy & Amanda are suckers for a rebel artist because we never learn

20:00 Tracy & Amanda discover they dated the same rebel artist but choose sisters before misters, especially since the guy they dated wouldn’t even change his t-shirt

22:03 Breakup #1

23:23 Amanda dates a writer… she should have seen what was coming

24:05 S**t hits the fan

This summer’s pop music has a lot to say about heterosexuality.

It’s seen as a burden and an addiction—men are compared to children and cocaine. Haim is literally asking, over and over: “Why am I in this relationship?” It’s textbook heterofatalism when Sabrina Carpenter sings, “I swear they choose me, I'm not choosing them.”

But some pop stars are actually escaping sad straight relationships—or else abandoning the romantic fairy tale. Cardi B is living a divorce revenge plot, Lorde is discovering a more expansive sense of her own gender post-breakup, and Summer Walker is trading love for “the last four of your credit card.”

Since we can’t play all these songs for you, we’ve created playlists on Apple Music and Spotify to go with this episode.

Make sure to join us on Substack, where we have bonus content, subscriber chats, and more. Dire Straights is a scrappy feminist operation. We don’t take any money from corporate music execs. Paid subscriptions keep us singing, and we love being in this relationship with you.

In this episode…

01:25 Is it Single Girl Summer? Heterofatalist Summer? Neoliberal Feminist Summer?

04:08 Lorde's album cover is an X-ray of a pelvis with an IUD in it. A symbol of strength, refusal, and bodily defense? Or maybe it’s giving MAHA vibes!

11:32 Lorde sings about being “in the middle gender-­wise” and seems to be asking, “Who will love the ‘me’ that is stepping outside of heteronormativity?”

15:24 Cardi B teases her divorce album with a diss track about her ex (“Next time you see your mama, tell her how she raised a b***h”).

19:25 Amanda is (not) ready for her epic divorce era—and a football player boyfriend.

21:36 Subverting the single-girl breakup song.

22:49 Tracy makes Amanda watch Kesha’s “Boy Crazy” video because she loves it very, very much.

23:25 Amanda has thoughts about the MAGA-looking men in the video.

23:58 Kesha breastfeeds a grown man!

25:42 This is her Dr. Luke revenge era.

26:57 Tracy has regrets about being the privileged straight girl in gay clubs in her twenties.

29:02 Fletcher got her start as a lesbian icon.

30:52 But then she kissed a boy and she’s sorry about that!

35:10 Then she made some really bad merch about it. Also: is there some sort of bi-pessimism going on here?

41:00 Amanda is really annoying her kids by listening to Haim all the time.

44:21 To promote their album, I Quit, they recreated famous hetero paparazzi shots, like that Nicole Kidman post-divorce meme.

47:37 Why does “the Millennial divorce album” have no divorce in it?

50:27 Summer Walker is over the exploitation of love. “Buy back my love, you can keep your heart,” she sings. Also: “I’m trading a broken heart for a good life.”

51:55 Do yourself a favor and go watch Ciara’s “Like a Boy” music video from 2007.

01:01:00 We’re still not tired of talking about Sabrina’s “Man’s Best Friend” album art. Bonus reading: Tracy’s essay on the topic.

01:08:00 Amanda asks: Why do we treat pop music as “PR for some kind of moral womanhood”?

01:10:00 Sabrina is camp, yes. But what is she doing with “cuteness”? And does it actually help to highlight gender hierarchy and domination?

01:12:00 So what does this summer’s pop tell us about heterosexuality? We pull it all together.

This week, we’re doing an epic survey of American divorce plots, including the literature, film, TV, and cultural attitudes that shaped our understandings of divorce from a young age, teaching us about family, love, and heterosexuality.

That means we’re talking about tough divorcees of the 80s and 90s—including ex-wives who get a new lease on life after their husbands dump them for younger women—and the “chick flicks” of the aughts and 2010s that brought us reconciliation plots and Euro-travel as the ultimate divorce era milestone.

We even stretch back to beliefs held by the Founding Fathers and to literature that featured women throwing themselves into the sea to escape their oppressive marriages, because divorce was not an option, before exploring the gradual evolution of tragicomic stories about marital misery in pop culture.

As we dig into our own personal stories of resisting divorce myths and the stories we inherited about love and marriage, we also look at where divorce plots stand today in the midst of unprecedented authoritarianism, gender and political division, feminist backlash, and an increasing number of straight women choosing to remain single.

This episode is for paying subscribers, who are the only reason we can make this podcast. Free subscribers will see a preview of the episode. Upgrade for just $8/month to listen to the whole episode and to get access to all other paywalled shows, bonus interviews, conversations, and our subscriber chat on Substack.

Show highlights…

2:00 In case you forgot, the origins of marriage are in white men’s property rights

3:47 Henry VIII creating a whole new church to get out of his marriage as colonialist pop culture

5:01 Tracy reminds us that The Tudors is a good and hot show

5:55 Rich, connected white men get divorce in England

6:33 Women get poison

8:57 The Founding Fathers saw divorce as an essential freedom… until they realized it was a threat to white patriarchy

11:44 By the 19th century, women are writing about their bad marriages and things… don’t end well

15:39 Edith Wharton’s divorce plot

16:04 Hollywood takes on divorce… and then adopts a Christian censorship code

18:08 The love/hate marriage trope takes off

22:30 The lucky, happy family narrative emerges in the 80s

23:56 And men’s desire is positioned as the only threat to marriage

27:09 Enter: The Babysitters’ Club and The First Wives Club

31:38 The divorcee becomes an aspirational character

35:23 The not-quite-revenge plot

37:23 The most iconic divorcee scene yet

39:21 It’s the aughts—Amanda and Tracy are very much centering men

40:36 Marital misery as the real traumatic inheritance

43:19 Eat, Pray, Love and Get Married

46:03 Amanda is only 40— she doesn’t need a caregiver!

46:39 But social services would be nice!

51:57 Tracy plays divorce movie trivia

54:00 Somehow Ryan Gosling is hot even when he’s toxic??

56:47 The truest divorce plot: a couple caught between social scripts and the reality of their relationship

1:00:00 The “broken family” myth

1:02:05 The rise of the divorce memoir and hetero-exceptionalism

1:11:08 The “women choosing the right guy” myth

1:13:02 Political and religious differences also lead to divorce

1:16:34 Divorce stigma is not a strong enough phrase for what women face when considering divorce

1:17:57 Let’s party

Today, we’re talking about the fifth shift — all the labor and consumerism that heterosexual women engage in to maintain their marital sex lives.

Appointment sex, date nights, intimacy classes, coaching programs, books about desire, erotic subscription services, and hours of internet content about keeping the spark alive. And then there's pills, gummies, bacon-flavored lube (an actual thing), and many more late capitalist iterations of sex positivity.

In this episode, we look at the erotic hurdles that are baked into hetero monogamous married life, from inequality in the home to sex becoming chore-like, obligatory, and just… not that hot anymore. A lot of women fear that they are abnormal, or headed for divorce, if they don’t have constant mind-blowing sex with their husbands. And they tend to blame themselves. But we’re also witnessing a growing cultural interest in open marriages and midlife sexual awakenings.

Our personal experiences with the un-sexiness of the “marital bed,” and the much hotter possibilities of encountering a spouse as a bit of a stranger, are behind this episode’s paywall, so you’ll have to upgrade to get the juiciest stuff. And this is easily our juiciest episode yet.

Independent feminist voices like ours are under attack. We’re free to talk about the stuff no one else talks about because of our paying subscribers. If you believe in this podcast, support it! Head over to direstraightspod.com to become a paid subscriber and help make this podcast possible. You'll get access to special bonus content, subscriber chats, and more. If you're only listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you're missing out on the full experience--so make sure to hit the link above.

Show highlights…

2:03 We discuss alllll the shifts women work after the second shift, and it takes us almost ten minutes just to describe them all. Women are doing that much work.

9:45 We have arrived at the fifth shift. We’re already tired.

11:45 Despite how exhausted women are, they are pathologized for not desiring their partners at the end of the day hmmmm

14:15 But why exactly aren’t men putting in the work of maintaining sexual intimacy in marriage?

17:45 Post-MeToo consent shakes up the long history of sexual duty and obligation in marriage.

18:54 Lots of things sapping eroticism from married life.

19:32 Late capitalist solutions to the challenges of monogamy.

22:20 Do we really need bacon-flavored lube??

30:51 Should women be flashing their boobs at their husbands to get them to do chores?

33:31 Can cohabitation ever be hot?

35:00 Go to the “marital bed” in this economy?

37:30 Amanda spills the tea on her (very!) surprising and hot FWB situation—and what it says about men taking care of themselves.

38:14 Speaking of, should women be working so hard to help men undo their patriarchal socialization? Why not just… let the men do it themselves?

44:02 We need to talk about spiciness and risk.

49:07 Tracy shares the (very!) surprising experience that launched her into a midlife sex portal.

54:39 The hottest married sex is sex that provides an escape from marriage.

1:02:00 Enter sex positivity™

1:17:00 Straight people are encouraged to use sex to avoid deeper relationship problems.

1:20:00 Your regular reminder that marriage was designed to oppress women… but at least we’re finally talking about sexual consent in marriage?

1:23:00 You’re normal… but also a weirdo freak like everyone else and that’s why we love you.

Don’t forget to share this episode and rate it if you loved it! Thank youuuu <3

Remember the 4B movement? Last fall, the idea exploded in the U.S. right alongside the election of Donald Trump. Some called it a “sex strike.” The idea was that women were going to say “no” to men. No dating, no marriage, no sex, no babies.

There were viral TikToks. It was all over the headlines. It sparked debates, backlash, mockery, and threats. And then the meme disappeared.

A year later, we’re looking back at what happened to the 4B movement—or, maybe, more accurately, the 4B meme. We’re also going to consider what’s happened to conversations around celibacy, decentering men, and women’s romantic and sexual refusal, as well as why 4B made so many people so angry, as we look closer at a growing distaste for women’s… pretty reasonable complaints about men.

We’ll also talk about other models of sexual resistance—from lesbian separatism to ideas around radical eroticism. What can we learn from the rapid rise and fall of 4B? What was going on after the election and where are we now?

These are dire times for feminist commentary. This is a free episode, but we need your support. Head over to direstraightspod.com to become a paid subscriber and help make his podcast possible. You'll also get access to special bonus content, subscriber chats, and more. If you're only listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you're missing out on the full experience—so make sure to hit the link above.

Show highlights…

Today we’re digging into an age-old question along the lines of has feminism ruined the workplace? and has feminism pushed men into the manosphere? and did feminism get Trump elected?

We gathered a roundtable of people who are pro-marriage and anti-divorce who don’t believe women should have any rights. We’re calling this conversation, Did feminism ruin the family?

JK. More seriously, this episode asks whether feminists and progressives today are “anti-family.” We talk about the trap of that framing, and why being against the nuclear family is good, actually. We look at the origins of the nuclear family, and talk about how people today are panicking about the state of the family, while failing to propose any meaningful solutions for those who are most harmed by the nuclear unit—that is, women and children.

Looking at the political potential baked into more expansive notions of kinship, we also discuss alternative ways of viewing community, love, and connection, suggesting that, given all we know today about the dangers of the nuclear family, feminists who really care about care ought to think bigger.

This episode is totally free because we really want you to have it. If you find this episode helps you rethink family or feminism, please rate us on your podcast apps, share the episode with everyone you know and on your socials, and better yet, upgrade your subscription to support the next season of Dire Straights.

We have been delivering timely, deeply researched, hour(s)-long episodes to your inbox twice a month for a whole year. Can you believe it? We produce, edit, and write this show all by ourselves. It’s been so fun, and enlightening, and we’ve been totally blown away by the support and buzz.

We will be developing our next season this summer, and have some really exciting ideas in store. We won’t be releasing new episodes for a few weeks while we get season 2 ready, but just know that behind the scenes we are working hard to cook up some really good stuff for you. We’ll be back in August with some brand-new episodes.

In the meantime, let us know what you most want to see us cover in season 2 either in the comments or by emailing direstraightspod@gmail.com.

Thanks to everyone who tuned into our Substack Live.

This week, Tracy was joined by a special guest: Myisha Battle, a feminist sex and dating coach, and author of the newly released book Sexual Pleasure for Dummies. It’s an inclusive, empathetic, and nuanced look at the role pleasure plays in our lives—and all the things that get in the way of it.

You might remember Myisha from the Dire Straights IRL event that we did last year around the biggest complaints in hetero life right now. This time, we’re focusing on pleasure.

Just a few topics we touched on:

--stress and caregiving getting in the way of pleasure

--why chore wheels show up in her coaching practice

--men who prefer that their partners fake orgasms

--avoiding the trap of pleasure becoming yet another form of work that women disproportionately do in hetero relationships

--how porn has changed over the past decade, including the new intimate horizons of OnlyFans

--what people are really looking for when they talk about “spontaneous” sex

--the lie of being “vanilla”

--kinky tradwives, milkmaid fantasies, and MAHA husbands drinking breastmilk

--men refusing to wear condoms

--people still not knowing about the clitoris!

--women’s sexual awakenings blowing up marriages

--using ChatGPT to decode a partner’s intentions, instead of just… asking them

This recording is a special extra for paid subscribers, who make this podcast possible. Free subscribers will find a preview above, but you’ll have to upgrade to watch the whole thing. We’re also officially offering these Lives on all podcasting platforms if you prefer just the audio.

Perhaps you’ve heard, men will do literally anything to avoid going to therapy. They will eat raw liver, obsess about the Roman Empire, run American democracy into the ground, start their own paramilitary organization, design AI housebots, invent social media, start podcasts with their bros, open carry— anything other than Zoom for an hour with a mental health professional.

Meanwhile, men are—according to men—lonely, depressed, disempowered, and confused about what to do with themselves. Masculinity influencers and therapy-averse brocasters often insist that the key to men’s happiness is not therapy, but rather, wives, more economic power, and better definitions about what it takes to be a man.

We, however, are skeptical. So, we’re digging into why so many men are resistant to therapy, and why so many women are insistent that men go anyway. What does the “men and therapy” conversation tell us about heterosexual relationships? Is therapy really what men need? Or do they, actually, just need to listen to this podcast?

This is a free episode—but we believe it’s worth just as much as an hourly session with your therapist. If you love independent media that refuses to play to “both sides,” and will never, ever, host a town hall on whether feminism has failed women, upgrade to a paid subscription.

You’ll get an additional, extra juicy episode every month, full access to past paywalled episodes on topics like couples therapy and conservative “sex positivity”, along with access to live conversations with us and cool guests, and all community features on our Substack page.

If monetary support really isn’t in the cards for you, please share this podcast on your social pages, in your group chats, and IRL—and leave us a 5-star review on your favorite podcasting platform. These little gestures really help us know you like what we do, and they spread the word.

Show highlights…

2:10 This episode is free but please upgrade your subscription if you want independent media to survive these fascist goons—and if $80 for a WHOLE YEAR of urgent feminist analysis and community is really not in the cards for you, please like and rate us on your podcasting platform.

2:51 The memes confirm it, men will do anything other than go to therapy.

7:18 Tracy defends LARPing, because it could be worse.

8:20 Men who start podcasts are the worst offenders here. To be clear, we have done more than enough therapy to host this podcast.

9:40 The guys who started the internet and all wars also need therapy.

10:10 Tracy finds hope at her local meditation class.

11:15 We’ve destigmatized therapy, but therapy bro summer has not yet become a thing.

12:00 We know why men don’t go to therapy, but don’t they, also?

15:15 It seems some men don’t realize that talking about feelings is fun?

16:26 Manchiiiiild.

17:26 Amanda tries to convince Tracy that The Bear is good and gets nowhere.

18:25 We agree that Carmy needs therapy—and that therapy was good for Bruce Springsteen.

19:47 Tracy spent her childhood psychoanalyzing Leonardo DiCaprio, like girls do.

22:20 Girl culture is not just emotional, but highly textual!!

23:50 Men will literally declare a male loneliness epidemic to avoid going to therapy.

28:24 Why do women care so much if men go to therapy? Maybe because this political moment is brought to you by men who won’t go to therapy?

34:22 Amanda goes on a little rant about the sexual division of labor.

36:54 The premise that anti-empathy folks rely on to make their dumb argument against caring about other people.

38:10 The point is always power.

40:20 Why do men see women who want their partners to go to therapy as nags hmmmmmm.

43:58 The individualism of therapy.

45:30 Amanda goes on a little Scott Galloway rant—and makes a radical argument about what men need even more than therapy.

51:00 Emotional curiosity for the win!

55:20 Tracy thinks most white guys actually need a therapy domme.

59:07 Women telling their partners they long for men to make a political commitment is scarier than…

1:04:00 …women mothering men.

1:05:10 Amanda makes Tracy play the “does this guy need therapy or a feminist book?” game.

1:12:50 Tracy makes an offer: if you upgrade to paid we might do an episode on JD Vance.

Please share your favorite episodes of Dire Straights in your group chats and on whatever social media platform you can still stand. This one is free for all and… relatable.

Thanks to everyone who tuned into our Substack Live.

We got into the hetero-politics of the Department of Homeland Security. Given that our podcast is all about deconstructing heteronormative culture and politics, and imagining new ways forward, we felt like it was pretty urgent times to do a bonus episode on the state-sponsored, hypermasculine violence we’re seeing across the country right now.

Just a few topics we touched on:

* the origins of ICE in this country’s long history of rationalizing white supremacy and male violence as a way to “protect” white women’s sexuality and “the family”

* the link between Nazi motherhood medals and The Heritage Foundation’s new report

* Alex Pretti as a foil to ICE masculinity

* Renee Good as a reflection of the hetero-politics of ICE

* the sentimental nuclear family as the marketing arm of authoritarianism

* DHS targeting young men who want to team up with their “boys” to fight the “bad guys”

* Greg Bovino’s stupid f*****g Nazi coat

* Naomi Wolf being Naomi Wolf

* Why Minnesotans are winning (we should all be taking notes)

This recording is a special extra for paid subscribers, who make this podcast possible. Free subscribers will find a preview above, but you’ll have to upgrade to watch the whole thing. We’re also officially offering these Lives on all podcasting platforms if you prefer just the audio.

Monogamy is essential to the culture of heterosexuality.

From its historical roots as a marital expectation for wives, but not husbands, to its current role in maintaining a society that runs on women’s unpaid labor, it’s clear that monogamy is a feminist problem. In this episode, we look at how monogamy fuels toxic romance myths about soul mates, isolates love and care within the nuclear family, and shrinks our social and political lives.

But the task of solving these problems is obviously much bigger than just opting into polyamory, so we’re also talking about what it might look like to be “anti-monogamy” in ways that actually have nothing to do with who, or how many people, you’re f*****g.

This is a paywalled episode, which means free listeners will have to upgrade to hear us get very candid about our own experiences with monogamy—from the myths that we grew up with, to experiences with infidelity, to our current feelings about sexual exclusivity, as a married woman and a newly single woman. We’ve got some big, complex, and sometimes contradictory feelings on this topic.

You can upgrade now on our Substack at direstraightspod.com. You’ll also get immediate access to all of our previous episodes, without any paywalls, as well as special bonus content and subscriber chats.

Paid subscribers, thanks so much for making this podcast possible.

Show highlights…

02:11 What is monogamy? Not as dumb of a question as it sounds!

04:24 Expectations of monogamy showed up in Ancient Rome. But only for wives.

05:46 It wasn’t until the 19th century that men were ALSO expected to be monogamous—after thousands of years of men being given the go ahead to f**k around while women were shamed and tortured for doing the same.

06:34 Monogamy became a working class aspiration, and a way for some to distance themselves from queer people and sex workers.

10:56 Compulsory monogamy! Let’s discuss.

12:24 Wildly racist and colonialist 20th century sexology tried to argue that monogamy as proof of European superiority.

13:49 Questionable theories abound about monogamy as “natural”!

14:57 Never trust a headline about “monogamous prairie voles.”

17:30 OK, but to play devil’s advocate: What’s so bad about monogamy? We have a LOT of answers.

21:07 One of the worst things, though: it privatizes love and care.

23:47 Monogamy culture is why men and women can’t be friends!

24:39 Are you “allowed” to be attracted to other people in a marriage?

25:35 We get personal and talk about the monogamy narratives that we grew up with as kids.

30:22 After her mom died, Tracy learned that her parents were not as monogamous as she had thought, and it kinda made her question everything.

32:52 Amanda used to call herself a serial monogamist because “I was always having boyfriends for a long time and then… replacing them.”

35:18 We both talk about brushes with infidelity. 👀

40:08 “Once a cheater, always a cheater”?

41:56 Tracy has been questioning monogamy for a very long time.

42:54 The existential threat of non-monogamy.

44:13 Tracy talks about admitting to fantasies about other people within a monogamous marriage.

49:56 OK but there ARE some good things about monogamy.

52:02 Amanda tells us how her attitude toward monogamy has changed post-divorce.

55:05 When non-monogamy is an attempt to prevent divorce.

01:00:47 How do you push back against jealousy while along allowing yourself to be human?

01:02:23 Non-monogamy is not necessarily politically radical—and it can reproduce some of the same troubling dynamics of monogamy.

01:07:14 Kim Tallbear has lots of smart things to say about decolonizing “settler sexuality.”

01:08:27 Maybe the question isn’t “monogamy or non-monogamy” but rather: How do I de-center the couple and create webs of caring connection?

Welcome to Dire Straights Live, one of our bonus podcast episodes recorded on Substack in front of a virtual audience. If you're listening on a podcasting platform, make sure to join us at direstraightspod.com for the full experience—and upgrade to paid so you can listen to the whole episode.

We dig into HBO’s Heated Rivalry, the spicy gay hockey drama that everyone is talking about. Given that our podcast is all about critiquing hetero love, sex, politics, and culture, we obviously had to do a bonus episode on this viral phenomenon. Why do women like it? And might it have something to do with the current hetero-pessimistic moment?

Just a few topics discussed:

* butts

* cocks

* hockey goalie warm-ups in which they very much look like they are f*****g the ice (also: f**k ICE)

* the show’s foley artists simulating b******s

* straight women co-opting gay culture

* the show’s lesbian viewership

* straight women watching gay porn

* the novelty of depicting mutual pleasure and sex as story

This recording is a special extra for paid subscribers, who make this podcast possible. Free subscribers will get a preview, but you’ll have to upgrade to listen to the whole thing.

We’re back from the flurry of the holidays and new year, and we’re digging into dating. Last month, we hosted our first-ever live recording of this podcast, and let’s just say we heard loud and clear that dating today… sucks.

People are burnt out on the apps, the gender divide is stark, and straight women’s attitudes toward partnership and marriage are shifting. Meanwhile, men are failing to put in the effort to meet the moment, leading many straight women to question whether dating men today is even worth it.

We know the dating scene is bleak. But in this episode we discuss what exactly is making dating so miserable today. How much of this is age-old stuff, the kind that won’t resolve itself until we confront the more systemic causes of gender inequality, and the effect that inequality is bound to have on hetero relationships? And how much of what we’re seeing today is caused by the digital world in which we all live, from the apps to social media to the increasing romanticization and sexualization of AI?

This is a free episode—and it’s kind of a PSA on how to survive dating today. But we need your support. Feminist media is under attack. If you want to see us stick around, upgrade to a paid subscription. You’ll get an additional, extra juicy episode every month, along with access to live conversations with us and cool guests, and all sorts of community features, including any of our future matchmaking endeavors (more on that in the ep).

If monetary support really isn’t in the cards for you, you can also share this podcast on your social pages, in your group chats, and IRL—and leave us a 5-star review on your favorite podcasting platform. It really helps.

Thanks to our paid subscribers for making this podcast possible.

Show highlights…

2:50 The decline of romantic comedies is good, actually.

4:30 Because not all romance plots are created equal—nor are they predicated on equality!

5:50 Nobody Wants This—as in, nobody wants Dax Shepard.

9:16 Reddit users debate the death of dating.

14:50 Marital misery filters down to dating culture in the critique of women’s “high standards.”

18:48 Or is therapyspeak ruining dating?

24:39 In her dating era, not many dates were had, but Tracy chased men she wanted to be.

26:42 Amanda wanted to be wanted, not really be those guys.

28:10 The contradiction of wanting what men have and wanting the love story in which men protect women.

30:32 Tracy’s first real date.

33:34 Dating in marriage is definitely dead.

40:12 But there’s a reason why date nights matter so much to married women.

43:19 Low effort men boooo.

45:15 Are women fleeing relationships with men or trying to optimize dating?

47:12 The timeless moral panic over chivalry/benevolent sexism dying.

49:41 Everyone is burnt out on the apps, but are we really divesting from them?

54:20 And does just being on the apps shut down hot chance encounters with strangers?

56:30 Amanda discusses her own feelings about dating…

59:55 For all the married women who want to live variously through the single lady.

1:00:55 A public call for lover applications.

1:04:00 Strategies for dating with less misery, from dating without the goal of marriage to women filming themselves on dates, then posting it on social media.

1:09:50 Tracy is not a fan of cuddle parties and being touched by random strangers.

1:13:00 Should we get into matchmaking?

Stay in touch between episodes by following us on Instagram: @tracyclarkflory, @amontei, and @direstraightspod. You can also find Tracy and the pod on TikTok. And don’t forget to rate us.

In this episode, we ask an age-old question that somehow also feels very of the moment: Can married and unmarried women be friends?

More specifically, can married and divorced women be friends? What about married women and women who have no interest in marriage at all, like those who see marriage as a hetero-patriarchal institution that we might all do well to opt out of? What about single women who are opting out of dating, and those who are actively seeking a husband?

We’ve noticed a certain tension between women bubbling under the surface of many conversations about the state of feminism, the shifting sands of marriage and divorce, and the dating scene today. Many are asking if it’s embarrassing to have a boyfriend, or a husband, and even if it’s worth dating men at all.

In this episode, we dig into how changing attitudes toward heterosexuality are affecting relationships between women themselves. What goes unspoken between straight women, and how do these silences keep us trapped and resenting each other, rather than fighting the institutions that don’t have our best interest at heart? How do our individual choices reflect our politics, and how much pressure do we put on ourselves, and each other, to solve big political and cultural problems, in the absence of a strong feminist movement?

This is a paywalled episode, which means it’s the episode we put out every month that gets personal. In this one, we go deep on our own friendship, including what it’s like for a happily married woman and happily divorcing woman to build a business together, and we get real about the conflicts we have faced with other women, as both a married person and a woman removing herself from marriage.

Upgrade your subscription now to listen to the whole episode, and every episode thereafter. You’ll get access to special bonus content, our subscriber chat, and more. A subscription to this podcast also makes a great gift for the friends you’re trying to connect with more deeply.

Show highlights…

0:32 We’ve noticed certain tensions in the air…

2:45 Straight women are questioning whether men and marriage are the goal, connecting the dots between politics and personal lives, even opting out of dating.

4:39 Amanda would really like to know what the husbands are doing.

5:00 But some married women are, apparently, still finding value and happiness in marriage, and so, have feelings.

5:30 Other married women are just trying to hold it together—and stay in unhappy marriages because culturally, we make it so hard to leave!

6:30 Meanwhile men are trying to make women feel like they are always asking for too much.

9:00 Rejecting marriage, however, can be about thinking bigger about love, not smaller.

13:00 Is Tracy embarrassed to be married? Can Taylor Swift make marriage liberal?

16:00 We unpack why nuclear family = bad.

19:25 And why trad life isn’t connection and care but rather antisocial.

20:25 Regular reminder: love and partnership don’t actually require a marriage contract.

25:30 What should women do when they realize marriage is bad news for women, but they still love their husbands?

27:50 Tracy admits, well, “you don’t really get to remake the institution.”

You just survived Thanksgiving. You might now be surviving the onslaught of holiday commercials and Hallmark movies starring big-city career women who are reminded of the true meaning of Christmas after falling in love with a rugged small-town hunk in a plaid button-up.

Maybe you’re also cruising the sales, checking the Christmas lists, planning the next holiday dinner, and feeling a little overwhelmed. You might even be thinking, Hmm, this season has a certain dire straightness to it.

It’s time to talk about holiday labor and heterosexuality.

We all know that women tend to do a disproportionate amount of work at this time of year. In this episode, we break down the gendering of holiday labor, from cooking to gift-giving, and question the myths the holiday season serves.

We look at how traditions like Santa Claus erase women’s unpaid labor and romanticize women’s self-sacrifice and domestic exploitation, and how the holidays ask us all to rely on a fantasy of marriage and the nuclear family as the source of love, care, and security.

We are not total feminist Scrooges, though. We also look back on our most nostalgic childhood memories of holiday “magic,” discuss the overlooked importance of holiday labor and “kinkeeping,” and consider what it would look like to reimagine the holidays as something other than an advertisement for heterosexuality.

Speaking of unpaid labor, we need your support. This is a free episode but paid subscribers are the only reason we can do this work. And speaking of holiday gifts, have you considered giving the gift of this podcast—to yourself, to a friend, to a partner? For just $8 a month you or a loved one will get all of our episodes—no paywalls, ever. You’ll also get access to special bonus content, our subscriber chat, and more.

Show highlights…

01:26 We actually love the holidays.

03:01 But all year long, women spend twice as much time on childcare and housework as men.

04:15 In other words, s**t is already bad… and then the holidays show up.

06:50 We talk warm, fuzzy memories—family skits, baked goods, Christmas houses, all of it!

15:53 And then we reconsider what was really happening behind the scenes. It’s kinda heavy! As in, Tracy only really saw her mom’s invisible labor after she died.

26:46 Amanda loves Christmas aesthetics.

28:23 But Christmas decorating stresses Tracy out! Too much red! Not enough neutrals!

31:41 Tracy feels like she should probably learn to cook already; Amanda thinks she’s fine.

32:28 On Christmas morning, Amanda bakes cinnamon buns FROM SCRATCH.

35:36 Elf on the Shelf! A polarizing topic.

40:19 The joys—and tyranny—of family holiday cards.

45:41 Studies, as usual, show what we already know and what women have been saying: women are more engaged with Christmas shopping than men.

53:11 We’re both skeptical about how our desire for love, connection, and strong social ties is exploited by the market at this time of year. But also! Gift-giving can be an act of empathy and care.

57:16 Moms have to fill their own Christmas stockings.

59:12 Maybe the “male loneliness epidemic” has a lil’ something to do with the lack of “kin-keeping” work men do around the holidays.

1:00:32 Tracy is definitely on Santa’s naughty list this year. She calls him the biggest eraser of women’s labor. Women are the real Santa Claus!

1:01:22 It’s all perfectly reminiscent of the usual heteronormative family dynamic where the dad gets credit for the mom’s work.

1:02:37 Don't worry, we let our kids believe.

1:06:38 A fun little tale about a dad who took responsibility for wrapping presents one year—and ended up wrapping them in paper bags and painter’s tape because he forgot to get wrapping paper.

1:10:50 The myth of women having standards that are too high persists.

1:11:08 Clearly, women were born with the ability to wrap presents.

1:13:43 Christmas is the marketing arm of heterosexuality!

1:16:01 Amanda refreshes Tracy on the plot of Love Actually.

1:20:23 Amanda is having her first holiday season post-divorce.

1:24:13 We talk about the “beautiful ache” of the holidays, and how they always seem to disappoint.

1:25:45 Hot takes on holidays songs: Mariah is not decentering men, and we’ve got a few ideas about why mommy is “kissing Santa Claus.”

1:29:48 What might it look like to reinvent holiday traditions so they aren’t a sales pitch for hetero marriage and nuclear family isolation?

1:36:11 As promised, a link to donate to the Alameda County Food Bank, which is local to us. You can find your local food bank here.

Stay in touch by following us on Instagram: @tracyclarkflory, @amontei, and @direstraightspod. You can also find Tracy and the pod on TikTok. And don’t forget to rate us.

A paid subscription to our pod is a perfect holiday gift for a friend or loved one in the trenches of heterosexuality. Just hit the link below, then tap “gift.” Or grab one for yourself! Either way, it’s a gift to us—the only one we want this holiday season, really.

Are men OK? Is there actually a “male loneliness crisis”? Is it women’s job to fix it? What role should straight women play in rescuing men from… whatever the hell is going on with them? What would it take for men to help themselves? And how on earth should a mother of boys be in this era?

Everyone has a lotttt of questions about the state of men. Meanwhile, toxic visions of masculinity abound, from the dark corners of the manosphere to the casual misogyny of the current presidential administration. In our last episode, we outlined a brand of reality-challenged warrior masculinity that is taking over the White House. But it kind of seems like everyone is trying to Make Masculinity Great Again these days.

In this episode, we turn to the state of everyday men and boys, and talk frankly about how we navigate the cultural pressure women face to save them all. We pinpoint where exactly ideas of masculinity come from and what messages young people are getting about gender today, and question whether a more “positive” vision of masculinity is even the answer. You might be surprised by some of our thoughts on this topic!

We also get real in this episode about our experiences mothering kids right now and talk about how to navigate the “boymom” mentality in parenting circles. And we unpack how and why we’ve mothered grown men to prove ourselves as women, and why we’re done with that.

A quick reminder: If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you're missing the full experience on our Substack. You can find us at direstraightspod.com.

We put out one free and one way more personal, and therefore paywalled, episode every month. To listen to this full episode, including all our frank discussions of mothering kids and men, upgrade your subscription. You’ll get instant access to other episodes on couples therapy, the 5th shift, the stories we tell about divorce, and Dire Straights Lives with us and cool guests, like this one with Koa Beck.

You’ll also be supporting a rigorously researched feminist podcast in a time when masculinity often means not listening to what women have to say about anything!

Show highlights…

0:01 Lots of questions about the state of men.

4:00 Like, we can’t even hear ourselves think over all these questions.

8:08 There are a lot of men telling men how to be men today. Like, a lot.

9:35 Tracy breaks down the manosphere.

10:46 The founding text of the men’s rights movement was written by an ex-feminist after he got divorced. Cool, cool, cool.

12:00 Men go into the woods to reconnect with their masculine selves… not going to end well?

14:40 The Joshua Tree to Joe Rogan pipeline.

17:25 JD Vance doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a boy and man, and not just because he’s covering the tracks of the young Republicans’ group chat.

18:28 What feminist researchers say about how men move ever rightward through masculinity subcultures to the deep recesses of the manosphere.

19:15 W. Kamau Bell on what Charlie Kirk’s killing tells us about the use of left vs. right designations.

21:13 Claims that men are enduring a masculinity crisis are not new and feminism has always been blamed.

21:51 And the moms, too. Everyone loves to blame the moms.

25:25 Can you guess how the guys at the Stronger Men’s Conference define masculinity? Would you be surprised if we said it includes porn addiction, racism, and comparisons between Adam & Eve + T-Pain?

29:29 It all comes back to the tech bros with masculinity issues.

32:19 We talk navigating tech with kids, including how Tracy handled her kid finding out about her AI boyfriend, and spreading the word at school.

This week, we wrestle with what WWE and UFC tell us about the current moment in gender, heterosexuality, and American politics. We talk about some truly terrible men—Vince McMahon, Joe Rogan, Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Tate, and, of course, Donald Trump.

Turns out, pro-wrestling is a perfect lens for understanding our wannabe dictator of a president, from his political rhetoric to his cultish following. We look at how a particular brand of chest-thumping, s**t-talking, and reality-challenged masculinity found its way from the WWE wrestling ring and the UFC Octagon into the White House (literally).

Don’t worry, this episode isn’t all authoritarian bummer town, because we’re living that bummer every day and also need some pop culture fun. Tracy also baffles Amanda by talking about her fraught love for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, her internet friendship with the former WWE star, and the fact that he’s baaaasically¹ confessed to thinking about her on “date nights” and every time he works out.

This is a free episode, but we need your support. These are very dire times for independent feminist media. You can upgrade for just $8 a month, which is waaayyy cheaper than a ticket to a UFC fight, and the same cost as an ad-supported subscription to Netflix, a platform promoting WWE as we speak. You’ll get access to all of our episodes, special bonus content, subscriber chats, and more—with no ads, and no previews of men beating each other, ever.

If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you're missing the full experience on Substack. Head over to direstraightspod.com.

Show highlights…

0:01 Welcome to the ring: Aaaamaaaaaanda “Mad Woman” Monteiiiiiiiii and her tag-team partner Tracy “Patriarchy’s Nightmare” Clark-Flory!!!!

03:58 Trump’s turn in the WWE ring involved… hair clippers.

05:36 UFC President Dana White is bros with Trump—and has been for a long time.

06:56 Tracy calls WWE “aggressive ballet.”

07:27 A Trump rally is WWE.

11:11 A wrestling term that helps explain Trump: “kayfabe” (pronounced “hey babe”).

12:07 Tracy asks us to consider The Rock.

13:03 Amanda is confused by Tracy’s love of The Rock. Is it real or is it kayfabe???

13:31 It’s real. And it isn’t. That’s the kayfabe, babe.

13:58 Introducing: “neo-kayfabe” (a.k.a. America today).

16:58 Tracy finds a way to connect this to “casting couch” porn.

20:33 Amanda finds a way to connect this to Judith Butler.

22:04 Another wrestling term that helps explain Trump: “the heel.”

23:15 Also: “the babyface.”

23:29 Tracy asks us to consider The Rock, again.

25:08 Tracy begs The Rock to please not run for president.

27:45 Trump is one big smack-talking wrestling promo.

30:26 Are Trump’s WWE stylings strategic… or something else?

33:02 Tracy brings it back to The Rock, again.

34:07 The villain becomes a fan favorite by fighting the powers that be and breaking the rules—and Trump seems to have taken note.

36:15 Edward Said meets “The People’s Champion.”

37:58 Oh god, I guess we have to revisit Hulk Hogan’s RNC speech (it is worse than we remembered).

39:01 About that giant ear bandage…

40:07 The heteropolitics of WWE storylines: Vince McMahon has an affair with Trish Stratus to humiliate his wife…

43:54 Then he humiliates Trish Stratus by having his daughter “mop her up” with poop water.

44:56 Amanda points out: it’s all about taking pleasure in degrading women.

44:57 Tracy declares this the “Two Girls, One Cup” presidency. We’re all eating s**t now, aren’t we?

48:42 The homoeroticism, and homophobia, of WWE.

52:46 The UFC bros helped Trump win the election.

54:56 Remember Mark Zuckberg’s love of MMA?

01:01:14 Now we have to talk about shitty-human Andrew Tate.

01:03:46 Yep, UFC is coming to the White House.

01:05:40 Why is the military partnering with UFC?

01:06:58 Is Trump trying to build a rogue white nationalist army?

01:11:38 “Trace,” The Rock, and his “dick towel.” You can see the tweets we talk about here.

1 This interpretation may involve a few logical leaps.

Tracy’s newest book, My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past, is out May 5th! It’s a memoir about how a DNA test connected Tracy with her sister Kathy, who her mom placed for adoption at a home for unwed mothers in the sixties. She set out to understand their mom’s past and stumbled on a bigger story about shame, family secrets, race, and the control of women’s bodies.

In this episode, we have a behind-the-scenes chat about her memoir, including the story of how Tracy decided to take that DNA test. We also get into the book’s critique of heterosexuality, the disturbing history of homes for unwed mothers, patriarchal trauma, the importance of untangling all that we inherit from our mothers, “spiritually flailing” in the writing process, and how Tracy’s feeling publishing such an honest feminist book in an era of backlash and hyper-masculine authoritarianism.

My Mother’s Daughter, BTW, has received starred reviews from both Booklist and Kirkus, which called it, “deeply researched and lyrically written,” “trenchant and moving,” and “a powerful rejection of white-male dominated systems of oppression.” The book has been described as “tender, revelatory, and deeply moving,” by one Amanda Montei. It’s also gotten glowing blurbs from Rebecca Traister, Irin Carmon, Peggy Orenstein, Koa Beck, Chelsea Bieker, Soraya Chemaly, Savala Nolan, and lyz Lenz.

My Mother’s Daughter is officially out Tuesday May 5, but preorders mean everything to a book’s success. So please go grab a copy now! While you’re at it, get one for your mom, your sister, maybe even a man in your life, because men should also read brilliant feminist memoirs written by women.

And make sure to join Tracy at one of her upcoming IRL events:

May 5: Launch day at Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley, California with Alexis Madrigal. Reserve a spot here.

May 7: Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, New York with Irin Carmon. Register here.

May 14: Green Apple Books in San Francisco, California with Savala Nolan. Register here.

May 15: Skylight Books in Los Angeles, California with Koa Beck. Register here.

Please rate us on your podcast apps and to share the episode with everyone you know, and on your socials. Especially this one. Help us make Tracy’s book a smash.

It’s not just the manosphere, MAGA, TERFs, or reactionary feminists who are hating on “2010s feminism” right now. Increasingly, liberals and centrists are getting in on the action.

This growing feminist backlash claims that feminism has gone too far. That women have been made unhappy by progressive propaganda. That they’re being strong-armed into polyamory, casual sex, education, careerism, single-motherhood, and childlessness.

Meanwhile, as we discussed in a past episode, the Heritage Foundation is trying to use laws and public policy to strong-arm women into marriage, motherhood, and dependence on men. But never mind all that! The real threat, some say, is that feminists wrote some snarky blog posts in the 2010s.

Don’t worry, this episode does not rehash the Adult Braces discourse, but we do discuss how the Lindy West pile-on is part of a broader feminist backlash that has been brewing for many years—one that folks across the political spectrum are branding as a reasonable and empowering middle-ground for women.

The discourse is truly a mess out there, folks, but in this episode, we help you see the feminist forest for the trees. And while we’ve previously avoided confronting some of the more troubling arguments we’ve seen among liberal feminists—including, notably, on Substack—well, we’re over that. Behind the paywall, you’ll get our most candid thoughts on everything people are saying about feminism today.

This is a paid episode. Free subscribers get a generous preview, but if you want the full, uncensored conversation, you will have to upgrade to knock down the paywall. Paid subscribers make this podcast possible. If you care about the state of feminism, invest in our feminist podcast.

Remember the 90s? The Spice Girls were singing about girl power, and Britney Spears was asking someone to hit her one more time. Amanda was shopping at the Limited Too at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, while Tracy was sporting her Bebe shirt at a Bay Area mall, and possibly almost getting sex trafficked.

Behind the scenes, Les Wexner was cooking up the Victoria’s Secret Angels campaign, soon to be followed by the company's teen PINK-stamped butt line, while his buddy Jeffrey Epstein was allegedly posing as a VS scout to lure girls and women for abuse.

We know we’re not the only millennial women unpacking the now wide open secret of what 90s culture did to us. Bringing together everything we know now about the shitty men of that era who taught us all to hyper-sexualize little girls and lingerie-clad angels, in this episode we look back on our 90s girlhoods at the mall and beyond. We discuss what we learned then about gender, sex, bodies, beauty, and relationships with men. And we talk through how we’re deconstructing the lasting effects of 90s mall culture today.

This episode is totally free, because we really want you to have it. But if you find this episode helps you to un-gaslight and free yourself even a little, please rate us on your podcast apps, share the episode in your group chats and on your socials, and join our Substack community as a paid subscriber. Paid subscriptions are the only reason we are able to make this show.

The right-wing really wants women to need men.

Maybe you’ve heard: Earlier this year, The Heritage Foundation—the same ghouls who brought us Project 2025—released what they’re calling a blueprint for America’s next 250 years. It’s titled “Saving America by Saving the Family.”

Of course, this report isn’t about saving families. It’s 168 pages of policy recommendations that would strong-arm women into dependent relationships with men.

We dug into this report so you don’t have to, and we are here to tell you this plan is all part of a broader attempt by conservatives to coerce women into hetero marriage and motherhood, then to trap them there by eliminating no-fault divorce and social services for single women.

In this episode, we break the report down for you, and explore how it builds off the decades-long panic we’ve seen in the manosphere about women’s increasing freedom and independence and the broader right-wing fear of women’s ability to live—and thrive!—without a man.

Beyond the paywall, we also discuss our personal feelings around this pro-marriage propaganda. Amanda gets real about what divorce taught her about economic dependence on men. And Tracy gets into why this Heritage Foundation report made her think about her mom, who was sent away to a home for unwed mothers in the sixties—a story she covers in detail in her forthcoming book, My Mother’s Daughter, which is now available for preorder!

Speaking of independence, this is a paid episode. All subscribers can access a free preview, but if you want to hear the best and juiciest stuff, upgrade to a paid subscription. You’ll get everything that’s behind this paywall, and all other paywalled episodes, including those on porn, Epstein, marital sex, monogamy, divorce, and the dire state of dating today. You’ll also get access to guest conversations, subscriber chats, and more.

Whether you believe all wine moms are members of ANTIFA or that they’re just apolitical white ladies with too much rosé all day, it’s irrefutable that drunk and high mommies have a long, loaded cultural and political history.

Centuries before mommy juice and Mom Water™, before the Bad Moms movies and the giant wine glass memes, moms were getting high to escape the crushing demands of marriage and motherhood. And we can’t really blame them?

In this episode, we go deep on inebriated moms, digging into both progressive and conservative characterizations of moms who get drunk and high, and we consider the wine mom’s political potential today.

What does the wine mom tell us about gender, power, and feminism? What does she tell us about individualism and collective belonging? And what has the absence of a social safety net taught these gritty moms about fighting authoritarianism?

Love them or hate them, drunk and high moms are one of the most important cultural figures for understanding the feminine paradox of agency and refusal under patriarchy. The conservatives who have come for this beloved figure should be shaking in their fascist boots.

So get cozy, grab your glass of wine—or your sparkling water if you are, like Amanda, a recovering wine mom. We are traveling through time to give you the definitive feminist history on the wine mom.

This is a totally free episode. Isn’t that nice? That said, we are a 100% reader supported podcast. We do this show because we think it’s urgent and important. But we have bills to pay. If you want access to extra episodes every month, including bonus episodes on the latest culture and politics, AND if you want to know that you are keeping us afloat, upgrade to a paid subscription.

Show highlights…

2:40 Amanda was born for this episode.

5:30 When we talk about wine moms, we have to talk about patriarchal trauma. But in this episode, we do it in a fun way?

6:00 No moms were moralized in this episode.

8:30 Wine moms are key to understanding women’s agency under patriarchy.

9:30 To understand the wine mom herself, we have to go all the way back to the beginning, to the wandering womb.

11:00 Maenads drank and danced in the forest, which we’re into—to a point.

14:00 Queen Victoria was high all the time on all the drugs, and it seems not unrelated that she had nine kids.

15:00 Laudanum for depressed women, women who see ghosts, basically all the women.

17:15 Then the Victorians (and Freud) just gave everyone cocaine.

19:15 Men coercing women into drugging themselves, in another era of reasonable heteropessimism.

26:20 Working women drank; housewives took pills.

34:20 The OG wine mom was remarkably chill about her husband’s absence.

40:11 Tracy talks about her pre-pandemic writing on the wine mom.

42:02 Amanda talks about her pandemic writing on the wine mom.

46:22 We revisit the SNL wine moms skit.

49:55 Wine moms as a symbol of shared suffering and resistance—and a way for women to feel recognition and belonging through complaint.

53:20 No one asked for Mom Water.

56:55 The intersection between wine moms and the girl boss.

59:11 After the childcare crisis of the pandemic, the center of the wine mom could not hold.

1:00:00 We respond to the conservative demonization of so-called gangs of wine moms, and talk about what makes moms—whether they drink or not—so gritty today.

1:06:00 The paradox of the wine mom is the paradox of women’s agency under patriarchy.

Are you loving Dire Straights? Us too! Please share this episode in your group chat, on your socials, IRL, or on your next bad date. It goes a long way toward connecting us with listeners who need the work we’re doing—and in supporting this scrappy, independent feminist podcast.

We want to hear from you! Send us your pleas for advice and your stories at direstraightspod@gmail.com, or leave us a voice memo here. Please also tell us all your thoughts on the wine mom in the comments!

Thanks to everyone who tuned into our Substack Live.

We started with a debrief of last night’s State of the Union. If you didn’t watch: Congrats. Let us recap for you.

Just a few topics we touched on:

* Trump as Daddy Protector of Patriarchy (also: a leering creep)

* That bombshell NPR report on the DOJ withholding files re: allegations of Trump abusing a minor

* Why the U.S. men’s hockey team (and the entire Trump admin) needs a training in bystander intervention

* Kash Patel: frat-boy idiot

* Trump and Melania’s shitty marriage as a perfect reflection of the misogyny and control behind “family values”

* Everything the America’s Next Top Model documentary got wrong about consent and reporting on an alleged sexual assault

* Kid Rock and RFK Jr. chugging milk, doing pushups in a sauna, and wearing jeans in a cold plunge tub

* The anti-heterosexuality of the Olympics

* Scott Galloway being disgusted by the birth of his own child

* Love Is Blind fat-shaming and straight men’s “just being honest” rhetoric

This recording is a special extra for paid subscribers, who make this podcast possible. Free subscribers will find a preview above, but you’ll have to upgrade to watch the whole thing. We’re also officially offering these Lives on all podcasting platforms if you prefer just the audio.

The adult industry has turned into a popular scapegoat for nearly every problem in hetero life and culture right now. Pornography is blamed for everything from the “male loneliness epidemic” to women’s heteropessimism.

Some of these arguments are coming from feminist-minded folks who are reckoning with the cultural influence of pornography. But there’s also a decidedly anti-feminist contingent that is focused on the idea of porn as a tool of men’s oppression.

These attitudes are even circulating within the manosphere and among right-wing pundits. Figures like Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, Tucker Carlson, and Theo Von have all joined the anti-porn chorus. Meanwhile, conservatives are attempting to ban porn while bowing at the feet of a president who paid hush-money to porn performer Stormy Daniels.

There are certainly valid critiques to be made of porn as an industry. In this episode, we separate the legitimate from the illegitimate, the feminist from the anti-feminist, and we highlight where critiques of porn are overly simplistic, shame-based, anti-sex work, or just doing patriarchy’s dirty work.

We also get into our personal histories with porn—from how Amanda felt as a teen and in her twenties watching boys and men get sucked into tube sites, to Tracy’s experience as a teenager using porn as a guidebook to hot sex. Tracy also shares some behind-the scenes secrets from her years reporting on the industry as a journalist—including how they make fake cum shots.

And you’ll hear our uncensored thoughts about recent anti-porn arguments made by fellow feminists.

This is a paid episode. All subscribers can access a free preview, but if you want to hear the best and juiciest stuff, upgrade to a paid subscription. You’ll get everything that’s behind this paywall, and ever other paywalled episode, including those on Epstein, marital sex, monogamy, divorce, and the dire state of dating today. You’ll also get access to guest conversations, subscriber chats, and more.

Show highlights…

02:58 Porn is a scapegoat for hetero problems right now…

03:43 … from jackhammering to low-effort men to women’s heteropessimism.

06:50 We will refrain from relitigating the feminist sex wars. For now.

08:11 Amanda reluctantly asks Tracy to explain “gooning.”

15:20 Tracy talks about reporting as a journalist on a porn set and having an eye-opening conversation with a performer that she had come of age watching.

17:33 We don’t just learn “sexual scripts” from porn. One of us learned as much about sex and gender roles from “The Real World: Seattle” as YouJ*zz.com.

23:32 The right-wing crackdown on porn—from age-verification laws to fantasies of an all-out ban.

33:49 Tucker Carlson has some big feelings about cuckold porn.

35:44 Andrew Tate says that porn—as opposed to, say, accused sex traffickers like himself—are ruining society.

37:07 Let’s not forget Jordan Peterson calling porn “deadening” and “parasitical.”

37:52 Amanda ties in Scott Galloway to all of this nonsense.

40:10 We dig into current anti-porn arguments among feminists. (And “feminists.”)

41:39 Tracy reminds us that the “pro-porn” feminists were often critical of porn! They had a lot of questions and no easy answers.

42:55 Amanda reminds us that Andrea Dworkin’s arguments are often oversimplified.

47:40 These debates usually boil down to a simplistic “good” or “bad.” We can probably thank the gender binary for that.

50:34 One day we’ll have to do an episode on Substack feminism.

52:25 Amanda talks about her “anti-porn” phase.

58:02 Tracy talks about her youth watching early internet porn and trying to figure out how to get good at sex.

01:01:14 She found great role models in porn, actually.

01:04:40 Tracy talks about the behind-the-scenes of porn sets—and you will never think of Cetaphil the same way again.

01:11:29 Let’s critique porn, sure, but let’s not lose sight of how anti-porn arguments are being used in conservative, right-wing, and reactionary feminist attacks that are transphobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and whorephobic.

Thanks to everyone who tuned into our Substack Live.

Today’s bonus episode was a cultural and political grab bag. Just a few topics we touched on:

* Tracy blaming dire straightness for her skateboarding-related concussion

* Chris Harrison’s new trad marriage dating show

* Epstein’s hand in the #MeToo backlash

* The files telling us what we already know re: the conspiracy of patriarchy

* Sexual violence isn’t just a problem of the global elite

* Clavicular: the manospherean looksmaxxer who took a hammer to his jaw

* The politics of the gaze and the normalization of the hetero pose

* Wuthering Heights lingerie

* Does Jacob Elordi have BDE… or “The Dick Doesn’t Even Matter” Energy?

This recording is a special extra for paid subscribers, who make this podcast possible. Free subscribers will find a preview above, but you’ll have to upgrade to watch the whole thing. We’re also officially offering these Lives on all podcasting platforms if you prefer just the audio.