Are heterosexuals OK? The question is in the ether, with the New York Times interrogating the phenomenon of “heteropessimism” or even “heterofatalism” – women, specifically, viewing their heterosexuality as a misfortune and lifelong disappointment, given the flakiness and apparent commitment-phobia of the men they encounter. Women online have also been deploring the amount of “mankeeping” (shouldering the “structural burden of men’s declining social networks” as the research team who coined the term put it) in their lives.
But it has being posed most entertainingly by the French Instagram account @le_trema, created by Maël Coutand. Posts follow a standard format: in faux-reportage style, Coutand says: “Today we’re asking: are heterosexuals OK? (Est-ce que les hétérosexuels vont bien?)” Then there’s a horribly catchy jingle and a clip of some egregious online machismo or manosphere discourse that makes Sinitta’s So Macho look sophisticated – think men thumping each other with tyres, or shaving their eyelashes to look more manly; one tests his “self-control” by trapping his fingers in mousetraps; another crawls along railings to avoid stepping on a rainbow-painted staircase. Women aren’t spared: there’s a mother and daughter proudly pregnant by the same guy simultaneously, and a mind-bogglingly OTT gender reveal ceremony. The conclusion is inevitably: “Non!”
Of course, bigger picture, heterosexuals are fine. Many of us are in happy relationships with sane members of the opposite sex. But more importantly, it’s not straights who suffer significant physical and mental health inequalities and poorer housing outcomes, who face discrimination and violence for their sexual identity or whose existence is still criminalised in disgracefully large swathes of the world.
Teasingly interrogating the wilder, weirder corners of heteronormativity is a fun corrective; speaking to the radio station France Inter, Coutant said people have told him the account has been a starting point to discuss the absurd expectations around masculinity with their teenage sons. It’s also very funny and doesn’t require much French, but beware that earworm of a jingle: the next time you skirt a bare-chested punch-up outside a ’Spoons, read about Gregg Wallace’s new “men only” chat room or catch five minutes of Love Island, it will play, unbidden, in your head.
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
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