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+\chapter{Why Women and Men Cannot Love Each Other (Yet)}
+\chaptermark{Why Women and Men Cannot Love Each Other}
+\chapterauthor{Audrey Rodriguez,
+\textit{University of Miami}}
+
+% makes the section numbers roman numerals
+\renewcommand{\thesection}{\Roman{section}}
+
+% makes the subsection letters
+\renewcommand{\thesubsection}{\alph{subsection}.}
+
+\begin{quote}
+In a heteronormative society, men and women are
+typically expected to look not for authentic love, but simply a partner
+of the opposite gender. This compulsory heterosexuality, as explained by
+Adrienne Rich, and the resultantly tainted love story problematize views
+about love like Berit Brogaard's ``appraisal respect''. I take Brogaard
+to give an apt account of what we should want authentic love to be, one
+in which we are said to love another when we properly evaluate their
+role as a lovable lover. However, because loving another and evaluating
+their lovability are not the goals of love as it stands, heterosexual
+men and women cannot be said to love in the way Brogaard rightly
+champions. Authentic love is then something most do not generally
+experience, but all (who are interested in engaging in romantic love)
+ought to strive for. I ultimately claim that developing respect for
+ourselves, our peers, our same-sex relationships, and love itself are
+the best ways for us to make authentic love widely accessible.
+\end{quote}
+
+\vspace{\credgap}
+
+\noindent In a heteronormative society, men and women are
+typically expected to look not for authentic love, but simply a partner
+of the opposite sex. Can you be said to love your partner without truly
+getting to \emph{choose}\footnote{My argument throughout this work pressupposes at least a minimal amount of free will. What authentic love would look like in a hard determinist picture is an interesting question, but whose answer is opaque enough that I will not be endeavoring to answer it here.} your partner? Many feminist theorists
+have taken issue with whether men can love women under patriarchy since
+patriarchy does not see women as ends-in-themselves, but the reverse
+case has rarely been considered.
+
+I argue that women are also not taught to strive to love men, but taught
+to objectify men as a means to the securing of connection to a
+subjectivity. Heterosexual love is thus an inauthentic experience for
+heterosexual men and women alike. This is because heterosexual love
+projects, as they stand, necessarily hold not love as their purpose; but
+rather the fulfillment of societal expectations.
+
+In Section I of this paper, I will explain the constraints compulsory
+heterosexuality places on love. In Section II, I will recount Berit
+Brogaard's framework describing romantic love as a goal-oriented emotion
+that is importantly different from friendship\footnote{Throughout this
+  paper I will refer to ``platonic love'' as ``friendship love'' in
+  keeping with the terminological choice of one of the main authors with
+  whose work I am interacting, namely, Berit Brogaard (2022). Any
+  instance of ``friendship love'' can be understood to refer to the same
+  love between friends that the phrase ``platonic love'' picks out.}
+love. I will use the problem of compulsory heterosexuality to complicate
+Brogaard's assumption that the appraisal of one's performance in the
+role of lover accounts for lovers' ability to respect each other when
+engaging in romance is generally possible.
+
+It will become clear that most do not yet have the type of respect
+necessary to be said to love authentically, and in Section III I will
+argue that men and women cannot generally love each other in an
+authentic sense. I will use the phrases ``genuine love''\footnote{Bauer,
+  Nancy. \emph{Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy, \& Feminism}. New York:
+  Columbia University Press, 2001. 164-165.} and ``authentic
+love''\footnote{Bauer,  Nancy. \emph{Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy, \& Feminism}. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 164.} interchangeably to refer to a love that
+is genuine/authentic in so far as it ``is an expression of the highest
+of moral laws: when I love another person genuinely I both exercise my
+existential freedom and evince the highest respect for the freedom of
+other, on which, I understand, my own freedom rests.'' (Bauer, 164--5)
+This respect for another's freedom is something I take to be most
+clearly portrayed by Brogaard's lovability account, and something that
+clearly seems to be a necessary aspect of a kind of love worth having.
+These oppressive societal constraints also make heterosexual friendship
+love generally impossible according to the ``appraisal respect''
+standard. Finally in Section IV, I will consider general objections to
+my claims, offer responses, and consider ways in which we could
+eventually create the conditions for and ultimately secure an authentic
+heterosexual love.
+
+\section{Compulsory Heterosexuality}
+
+Adrienne Rich writes in her essay ``Compulsory Heterosexuality'' that
+heterosexuality is a ``\emph{political institution}'' that dictates that
+women must be attracted to and pursue relationships with men so as to
+assure the ``male right of physical, economical, and emotional access''
+to women.\footnote{Rich, ``Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian
+  Existence.'' 647.} To deny patriarchy's requirement of heterosexual
+love from women is often to open oneself up to ``physical torture,
+imprisonment, psychosurgery, social ostracism, and extreme
+poverty.''\footnote{Rich, ``Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian
+  Existence.'' 653.} Heterosexuality is then required of
+women not only at threat of discomfort while in the confines of
+patriarchy, but at the risk of a woman's mental, social, and physical
+safety. All those who live under patriarchy are indoctrinated to believe
+the only form of romantic love that is common, ``normal,'' or worthy is
+heterosexual in nature.
+
+The coercive power of this expectation of heterosexuality is so strong,
+in fact, that it becomes completely compulsory. With the compulsion of
+heterosexuality in romantic love, and the definition of romantic love
+thus being inextricable from a heterosexual relationship structure, this
+means love itself becomes compulsory as does its structure. One cannot
+be said to truly be making a choice when only given one option, and one
+cannot be said to truly engage in loving when only given one definition
+and version of love. Therefore, those in most heterosexual relationships
+cannot be said to truly be loving. Instead, many are unwittingly
+engaging in a societally mandated project akin to military enlistment.
+
+\subsection{Why Heterosexual Love is In Question}
+
+Heterosexual love is forced in a way most other types of love are not. I
+have been asked many times why I take most issue with heterosexual love
+if starting from an asymmetry in respect or societal power. There are
+many romantic relationships that can span any number of other oppressed,
+or not oppressed, lines - be these racial, socioeconomic, in terms of
+age, etc. I believe many of these are a non-issue in the face of the
+account of an ideally respectful love I sketch in Section III.
+Addressing the other types of love that still might be questionable even
+in the face of such an authentic love is out of the scope of this paper.
+Women\footnote{Throughout this paper I will use the terms ``women'' and
+  ``men'', and will take both to mean anyone who identifies as either of
+  those two genders at least occasionally. Again, there are many
+  identity markers that might call for a more fine-grained and specific
+  discussion that considers more than just the issues in love between
+  binary genders. It is just the general power imbalance between those
+  who identify as men and those who identify as women, and the
+  compulsory nature of heterosexuality, that I think makes heterosexual
+  love one of the most contentious and confounding forms of romantic
+  love.} are understood by most to be pervasively defined in terms of
+men and generally oppressed by the objectifying structure of this
+relation. In the next two Sections I will try to make clear how such a
+societal power imbalance and compulsory heterosexuality clearly
+problematize heterosexual love given the world as it is now.
+
+The realization of male sexual power ``by adolescent boys through the
+social experience of their sex drive'' is the same realization that
+causes ``girls [to] learn that the locus of sexual power is
+male.''\footnote{Rich, ``Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian
+  Existence.'' 645.} Girls come to know their sexual identities through
+boys' realization of theirs, making female sexual desire compulsorily
+linked to that of men and pleasing men. In a search for any kind of
+negotiating power on the societal stage, women become sexual responders
+to male power as opposed to explorers and actors of their own desires.
+This is all true if one accepts, as many feminists do, that women are
+kept subordinate by oppressive structures by patriarchy at best, or that
+women are entirely second-class citizens in how they are respected by
+societies at large and at worst. Not only are women taught to define
+themselves in terms of their ability to appeal to men's sexual appetite,
+but they also come to know themselves as objects.
+
+It is in the packaging of heterosexual love in the ``workplace [\ldots]
+where women have learned to accept male violation of our psychological
+and physical boundaries as the price of survival; where women have been
+educated---no less than by romantic literature or by pornography---to
+``perceive ourselves as sexual prey.''\footnote{Rich, ``Compulsory
+  Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.'' 642.} All cultural and
+political channels create and fortify compulsory heterosexuality, making
+it a cultural and political pillar itself. This enforced and thusly
+reinforced self-perception of women as sexual prey causes women to feel
+that danger at the hands of men is imminent and the only remedy is
+aligning themselves with men in the hopes of being protected.
+
+Rich asks that all women who assume heterosexuality to be innate or a
+choice consider that it is in fact ``something that has to be imposed,
+managed, organized, propagandized, and managed by force.''\footnote{Rich, ``Compulsory
+  Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.'' 648.} Heterosexuality is thus not a choice or preference, but
+rather it is a regime backed by threat of death, torture, and social
+abandonment.
+
+Love and this sexual power imbalance cause women enveloped by compulsory
+heterosexuality to see their identity fulfill ``a secondary role and
+[grow] into male identification.''\footnote{Rich, ``Compulsory
+  Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.'' 642.} Female
+subordination is then eroticized and the ``access to women only \emph{on
+women's terms}'' becomes something unthinkably frightening to
+men.\footnote{Rich, ``Compulsory
+  Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.'' 643.} It is this identification with men, fear of
+societal retaliation, and the eroticization of female subordination that
+makes women search for themselves by way of being romantically
+associated with a man. A woman's difficulty in separating her sexual
+drive from that of men becomes part of the love and sex game, with women
+having to become accustomed to relinquishing their power of desire to
+men. This results in a clear objective laid out for women in engaging in
+romantic projects\footnote{I elect to use the term ``romantic projects''
+  instead of ``romantic relationships'' because I do not want to confuse
+  relationship projects with romantic ones. It seems the former would
+  need to factor in more practical matters (longevity of the
+  relationship, living arrangements, etc.) than I have space to
+  undertake in this project. I would like to leave the definition of
+  what a romantic relationship is and questions regarding polyamory and
+  how much ``committed'' ``monogamy'' is indicative of a healthy
+  relationship open. I merely mean to argue throughout this paper that
+  heterosexual love is misunderstood and inappropriately portrayed on a
+  societal scale and has little to no authenticity motivating it.}:
+securing a subjectivity to which you can attach yourself. This
+objectifies men because they become the kind of object, the kind of
+thing, that has the kind of subjectivity needed to live more freely, and
+women are taught they can only really find power and identity by growing
+into a male's identity since their sexual desires and others are defined
+in terms of men's desires. Thus, romantic projects are the clearest way
+for women to gain societal power and ``love'' so-construed never figures
+into the picture.
+
+\section{Love for Lovability's Sake}
+
+Compulsory heterosexuality will thus be the lens through which we come
+to understand love, and Berit Brogaard's definition of love will give a
+theory to be considered. It is necessary to give a definition of love
+that can bring light to the difficulties in squaring the economically
+and socially disadvantaged position in which women find themselves with
+the idea of engaging in heterosexual love. Brogaard's characterization
+also strikes me as the most concrete explanation of what an ideally
+authentic, healthy, and genuine love is; which is also that which should
+be strived for if romantic love is to be one works towards.
+
+Brogaard situates love as a socially and personally defined emotion in
+which ``evaluations of the perceived, remembered, or imagined objects
+elicit the bodily and mental changes characteristic of the specific
+emotions.''\footnote{Brogaard, \emph{Friendship Love and Romantic Love.}
+  171.} Similar to the way in which a fear of heights renders height
+scary to some, this ``perceived-response theory of emotions\ldots [makes
+it so that] love renders a person as lovable, or worthy of
+love.''\footnote{Brogaard, \emph{Friendship Love and Romantic Love.}
+  171.} Her account seeks to establish a clear
+definition of love that can distinguish romantic and friendship love
+while also avoiding relying on a motivational account as such accounts
+can lead to the incorrect assumption that heterosexual men tend to
+respect the dignity of women who arouse them.\footnote{Brogaard, \emph{Friendship Love and Romantic Love.} 171.}
+
+Brogaard utilizes Stephen Darwall's concept of ``appraisal respect'' to
+illustrate her theory that love is a matter of the appraisal of a person
+in terms of their moral perfection generally and in a specific
+realm.\footnote{Brogaard, \emph{Friendship Love and Romantic Love}. 172.}
+Brogaard's theory of love then draws on this concept but diverges in the
+defining of the appraisal inherent in love ``in terms of properties we
+value in them.''\footnote{Brogaard, \emph{Friendship Love and Romantic Love}. 172.} Brogaard's use of appraisal respect as
+opposed to recognition respect designates respect for one's lovability
+as an aspect of their character.\footnote{Darwall, ``Two Kinds of
+  Respect.'' 41.} Those features of people which Darwall and thus
+Brogaard define as ``constituting character'' are ``those which we think
+relevant in appraising them as persons'' and ``those which belong to
+them as moral \emph{agents}.''\footnote{Darwall, ``Two Kinds of
+  Respect.'' 43.} This focus on the
+agent allows appraisal respect to refer to different aspects of human
+character, such as Brogaard's reference to the extent a lover is
+lovable. In the case of romantic love, this property we value would be
+the ``[l]ovability'' of a person based on their
+attributes.\footnote{Brogaard, \emph{Friendship Love and Romantic Love.}
+  171.} Thus, romantic love is expressed when we love our beloved
+``\emph{in their role as our romantic interest or partner,}'' and our
+friends ``\emph{in their role as our friend}.''\footnote{Darwall, ``Two
+  Kinds of Respect.'' 43.} This means there is not necessarily a set of
+values against which we evaluate and determine whether to give love to
+our lovers. Instead, we appraise our lovers by evaluating their ability
+to demonstrate the properties we value in them.
+
+Individual people love romantically and authentically when they find
+those fulfilling the role of a romantic partner lovable in that role.
+Their character must be that of a romantically lovable person and the
+character of a lovable romantic partner that is constituted by
+``dispositions to act for certain reasons [\ldots] to act, and in
+acting to have certain reasons for acting.''\footnote{Darwall, ``Two
+  Kinds of Respect.'' 43.} A lover's reasons for being lovable are just
+as important as their lovability. Baked into Brogaard's account is the
+idea that one cannot feign being ``lovable'' to secure things other than
+loving their partner and being the best romantic partner possible.
+
+This clearly picks out the issue of the pervasive love story's lack of
+authenticity discussed earlier. Those engaging in heterosexual love
+simply have too many inauthentic reasons for pursuing love in the first
+place to be said to be prima facie able to love in a way that
+demonstrates and is constituted by the right kind of respect for their
+partner. This is also significant in bolstering my later argument
+describing why the artificial love story mandated by patriarchy's system
+of compulsory heterosexuality causes most men and women to have
+inauthentic reasons for wanting to engage in love. ``Love'' as it is now
+understood only facilitates and necessitates one's trying to be
+\emph{perceived as} a lovable partner as opposed to their pursuit of
+\emph{actually being} a lovable partner.
+
+Brogaard then clarifies that that which determines one's lovability in
+the role of a romantic partner is based on cultural and individual
+scripts.\footnote{Brogaard, \emph{Friendship Love and Romantic Love}.
+  172.} These scripts refer to:
+
+\begin{quote}
+structures comprising social roles, common knowledge, and norms and
+guidelines that shape our perception, thinking, and action and guide our
+interaction with others\ldots.Whereas cultural scripts are
+\emph{constructs of the culture in which we are embedded}, individual
+scripts are products of individual socialization, which includes our
+\emph{upbringing and personal experiences}. [Emphasis added]
+\end{quote}
+
+\noindent One of these cultural scripts can thus be undeniably said to be Rich's
+compulsory heterosexuality as it utterly determines, defines, and
+enforces a specific kind of love that individuals and communities alike
+struggle to free themselves from. As made evident by Rich's explanation
+of the power and depth of compulsory heterosexuality, in terms of
+heterosexism it seems the line between cultural and individual scripts
+is quite blurred. If one were raised in a society that only ever talks
+about the delight of cheese and never mentions broccoli except in a
+disapproving manner, it is likely that would contribute to one's marked
+(coerced) ``preference'' for cheese and unthinking hatred of broccoli.
+It is in a manner similar to this that people are coerced into only
+considering heterosexual love as a viable love, and thus it cheapens any
+heterosexual love projects in which they attempt to engage.
+
+Brogaard goes on to compare the impact of patriarchy and matriarchy on
+concepts of shame, romantic love, and friendship love. While not the
+direction in which she takes her argument, Brogaard thus provides a
+theory of love that helps elucidate the inability of women and men to
+truly love each other under patriarchy as the world stands by basing her
+theory on appraisal respect. In Section IV, I will show how this also
+gives us a roadmap with which to seek healthier, more authentic
+relationships.
+
+\section{Men and Women Cannot Love Each Other\ldots}
+
+The cultural scripts of patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality thus
+make it so that men and women cannot authentically love each other.
+Shulamith Firestone argues women must love ``not only for healthy
+reasons but actually to validate their existence.''\footnote{Firestone,
+  \emph{The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution}. 155}
+Rich clearly thinks compulsory heterosexuality relegates women to that
+same fate of engaging in heterosexual love not for authentic or healthy
+reasons, but because women have to come to ``perceive ourselves as
+sexual prey'' and grow into ``male identification.''\footnote{Rich,
+  ``Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.'' 642.} This
+elucidates the fact that women are not held as ends-in-themselves and
+cannot \emph{be} without first being defined by men. The romantic
+pursuit of men on the part of women is then not genuine, but necessarily
+motivated and calculated so as to ensure a connection to any kind of
+subjectivity. This kind of motive, to no fault of the woman's own,
+negates any authenticity her love could hold for a man. The influence of
+patriarchy in negating her subjectivity and the influence of compulsory
+heterosexuality in negating her choice to explore other forms of
+romantic love negate her ability to consider men as possibly lovable in
+the role of lover, and thus her ability to love men.
+
+Conversely, there is no way for a man to gauge the actual lovability of
+a woman because men need to fall in love with ``\emph{more} than
+woman.''\footnote{Firestone, \emph{The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for
+  Feminist Revolution}. 255} They must engage in a hyper-idealization of
+women so as to be able to justify their loving someone who they are
+taught can only serve to siphon their societal power and offer minimal
+social status in return. Brogaard's account being one characterized by a
+goal-oriented emotion similarly recognizes that idealization is at play
+because to love is to desire to engage in love with the beloved `\,``or,
+in any case, some idealized version of her or him.''\,'\footnote{Brogaard,
+  \emph{Friendship Love and Romantic Love}. 165} Women then become
+homosocial status symbols for men to prove to other men they are correct
+and healthy in their ability to fulfill their role as a heterosexual man
+in society.
+
+Similar to women, men cannot consider other sexualities and are chained
+to women. Jane Ward's terminology of the ``misogyny paradox'' describing
+``men's simultaneous desire for and hatred of women'' dictated and
+demanded by compulsory sexuality illustrates this well.\footnote{Ward,
+  \emph{The Tragedy of Heterosexuality,} 33} Desire for women is thus
+expected and forced out of men while women are presented as people
+unworthy of respect in and of themselves. This makes evident that if
+someone's lovability is based on the appraisal of their performance in
+their role as a lover, it is impossible for men to see women as lovable
+in romantic roles because their own participation in love is more a
+fulfillment of duty than an interest in the person.
+
+We know that femininity and the gathering of women together pose a
+threat to patriarchy as a site of consciousness-raising. Men are
+encouraged to distrust and destroy femininity because they are told it
+is not ``manly'' and that it would mean the end of their supremacy.
+Thus, men cannot love women because they cannot view them as those
+capable of being lovable as romantic interests but instead objects meant
+to be defined by men. Since women are taught to see men as that which
+defines them and not those capable of being lovable as romantic
+interests, women cannot be said to be able to love men either.
+
+Objectifying women is key in affirming women's subjugation because men's
+``identification with women (and what it means to be female) helps
+remove the symbolic distance that enables men to depersonalize the
+oppression of women.''\footnote{Bird, ``Welcome to the Men's Club:
+  Homosociality and the Maintenance of
+
+  Hegemonic Masculinity.'' 123.} In the same way that exploring the
+lesbian continuum might grant women subjectivity, if men identified too
+much with women and their own femininity, patriarchy would be disrupted
+because men would begin to see women as subjects. Patriarchy instead
+relies on a feedback loop of men necessarily objectifying women to
+affirm women's subjugation, and women being subjugated because they are
+objectified.
+
+To love someone ``\emph{in their role as our romantic interest or
+partner}'' would necessitate that the consideration of this type of role
+for men or women were ever offered.\footnote{Brogaard, \emph{Friendship
+  Love and Romantic Love}. 172} Men are instead effectively given the
+roles of protector, abuser, or person meant to be appeased by women
+according to patriarchy's love story. Compulsory heterosexuality takes
+no interest in actually determining that men be viable love interests
+for women, but instead that they be the only, inescapable
+option\footnote{The usage of the word ``option'' is itself dubious in
+  that it implies there is a choice between several options, whereas in
+  compulsory heterosexuality, clearly the only model of romantic
+  ``love'' allowed is the commitment of a man to a woman.} available.
+
+The lack of choice and over exaggeration of a woman's lovable
+characteristics so as to justify losing power cannot be said to
+constitute love for a woman on a man's part. The lack of choice and lack
+of an expectation for men to be lovable romantic interests to women
+cannot be said to constitute love for a man on a woman's part either.
+
+If Brogaard is correct that love is an emotion based on one's ability to
+see their partner as lovable, or someone deserving of love, then it
+seems men and women cannot yet love each other. There is no appraisal
+respect between men and women as compulsory heterosexuality does not
+allow it. In being told that women and men \emph{ought} to love each
+other, women cannot see men as romantic partners or vice versa, and they
+ultimately \emph{cannot} love each other.
+
+\subsection{Can Men and Women Be Friends?}
+
+This influences our cultural scripts surrounding friendship love as
+well. Friendship love is impacted by compulsory heterosexuality because
+finding a friend of the opposite sex authentically/genuinely ``lovable''
+in their role as a friend is not allowed under patriarchy. It is
+required that men and women expect to be engaged in claimant, not loving
+or friendly, relationships with each other. Since the dominant cultural
+scripts dictate that friendship is non-sexual and since Brogaard and I
+want to say that one should value a friend in their role as a friend,
+heterosexual friendships go unconsidered by patriarchy as a possibility.
+Stories portrayed in social and traditional media rarely (if ever)
+depict friendships between men and women that have no romantic or sexual
+connotations, but that do have a friendship intimacy. Friendship
+intimacy with those of one's own gender is already discouraged, but
+authentic friendship between genders is such an unconsidered project
+that it simply does not appear. The inability to regard each other with
+appraisal respect also negates men and women's ability to define each
+other as lovable friend interests.
+
+It is important men and women find a way to love each other as friends
+because that would be another key step in making authentic romantic love
+possible. It would reject the implied tenet of romantic love that says
+it must be sexual, and that anything else is simply friendship. All of
+these forces heavily limit who and how we love, and if one of these
+forces can be rejected in the hopes of securing a better, more authentic
+love; then it seems all of them can be rejected. In fact, all of them
+\emph{must} be eradicated before we can love. Men and women cannot
+authentically love each other as romantic partners or friends.
+
+\section{\ldots Yet. What We Ought to do to be Able to Love.}
+
+So, there are forces that make it impossible for the majority of
+heterosexual love projects to be called authentic love. These forces
+include compulsory heterosexuality and the lack of freedom it allows in
+choosing\footnote{Some have questioned what this focus on choice might
+  mean for arranged marriages. I am not at all arguing that authentic
+  romantic love cannot grow out of such environments (if the other
+  oppressive constraints I discuss were to be properly dismantled)
+  because there is a choice still at work behind love in such
+  situations. One could have an arranged marriage to another and never
+  love them or choose to love them, meaning one could also choose to
+  love them.} partners, patriarchy actually rewarding those who do not
+hold appraisal respect for their lovers, and the harmful representations
+of love as something necessarily difficult.
+
+\subsection{Navigating and Transgressing Against Compulsory
+Heterosexuality; the Lesbian Continuum}
+
+Rich offers a method to solve the first of these issues, namely, the
+lesbian continuum. The lesbian continuum directly transgresses against
+compulsory heterosexuality and patriarchy by encouraging female
+friendships and sensual relationships between women. The basic idea is
+that women can actually seek love from men if they love other members of
+their gender and themselves enough to foster a sort of subjectivity and
+appraisal respect for themselves as lovable to engage in romantic
+projects with those of the opposite sex. It also encourages the
+``bonding against male tyranny, the giving and receiving of practical
+and political support; [and]\ldots\emph{marriage
+resistance}.''\footnote{Rich, ``Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian
+  Existence.'' 648.} These are all actions praised by various feminist
+consciousness raising movements and resistance movements generally. It
+is hard to change anything if one is not supported by others who are
+oppressed in the same way they are, and it is hard to even recognize an
+issue regarding a community in the first place if communication between
+those in the community is so divided. This is why consciousness raising
+efforts for any social justice movements are suppressed; there is power
+in community.
+
+The lesbian continuum suggests there should be a similar continuum for
+men. Many cultures outside of the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant)
+cultures of the U.S. and U.K. encourage physical and emotional intimacy
+between men. This is largely not the case in the U.S. and the U.K., but
+it is also not the case that increased homosocial male intimacy has seen
+widespread acceptance of queer men in these societies. Men need to value
+themselves and other men as people who can be evaluated in terms of
+their lovability as well. This might look like individual men putting
+value in their exploration of their femininity and their increased
+emotional vulnerability with each other. These endeavours would likely
+lessen their need to objectify women and would succeed in freeing them
+to engage in love as per Hannah Arendt's declaration, ``If men wish to
+be free, it is precisely sovereignty they must renounce.''
+
+While the first step would be encouraging homosocial bonding between
+women and homosocial bonding between men, this would not be enough to
+introduce queer relationships as being just as viable as heterosexual
+ones. It seems there would need to be ongoing efforts to ensure the
+equal treatment of queer love projects as viable in affirming the
+viability of their heterosexual counterparts. This will not only make
+authentic heterosexual love possible, but also authentic queer love more
+accessible. It is not clear that compulsory heterosexuality benefits
+people, and instead only benefits bureaucratic bodies interested in
+distracting. Outside of maintaining cultures of self-policing encouraged
+by cruel conceptions of ``morality'', compulsory heterosexuality just
+greatly cheapens all types of love projects. ``Love'' is then about
+aligning ourselves with others as to ensure our capital. Ridding
+ourselves of this oppressive force would make both queer and
+heterosexual love projects more authentic because neither could be
+construed as a reaction to a greater societal force, but instead an
+expression of intimacy that looks upon our lovers with love and not
+exploitation.
+
+\subsection{Conflating Conflict and Sacrifice with Love}
+
+Does this all mean that if you have a partner and you are engaged in a
+heterosexual love project, you do not love them? No, not necessarily. If
+you have invested properly in yourself and your intimate relationships
+with those of various identities, you have hopefully taught yourself how
+to love others for their lovability. This is much, much rarer than we
+take it to be; and there are thus many love projects that lack
+authenticity entirely. Since one can and must navigate within such
+oppressive forces\footnote{Again, assuming we have some minimal amount
+  of free will.}, and because we can think of examples in our lives of
+authentically loving heterosexual projects in which both people clearly
+love and respect each other as lovers, love can exist under such
+constraints.
+
+How we are taught to love is an extremely harmful shame. I have argued
+that we must educate ourselves and properly invest in our homosocial
+relationships so as to even be \emph{able} to love. I am not arguing
+that romantic love is unnatural. The need to love and be loved is likely
+innate for many, but how we are taught to construct and pursue it is
+completely learned. All the expectations of monogamy, heterosexuality,
+etc. are taught. The supposed goal of ``love'' is also taught. We are
+told that the goal of love projects is overcoming strife regarding your
+love project or loving your lover in some sense \emph{in spite} of who
+they are and the role they play in your life. Part of this love in spite
+of who the other is has to do with their gender identity in relation to
+your own, as discussed. The other issue at work in this problematic love
+story is the idea that authentic love should be difficult, or that
+``true'' love comes about when one makes sacrifices for their lover. It
+seems true that one needs to be \emph{willing} to sacrifice and suffer
+for their loved one to be said to love them, but for that to be a
+necessary part of the love or that which proves the love is inauthentic
+and unhealthy.
+
+I agree with Brogaard that authentic love should come in one's ability
+to evaluate their lover in their role as a lover. Unfortunately, we are
+taught that ``love'' is something we must struggle to achieve, and that
+big shows of passion and extremely costly and impractical gestures are
+the most romantic. These things can be effective displays of affection,
+and because I also agree with Brogaard that love is goal-oriented, it
+makes sense that maintaining and expressing love necessitates some form
+of extra effort at least occasionally. However, that being the
+\emph{only} and most \emph{widely accepted} way of demonstrating one's
+true love makes the goal of love projects deeply problematic. Love
+becomes pure performance, a Romeo and Juliet feat of tragic
+experience.\footnote{Of course, many agree that this story ultimately
+  depicts an unnecessary and unfortunate amount of self-sacrifice.
+  However, since many cultures have stories whose structure and outcome
+  is similar to theirs, I take it to be a good indicator of the fact
+  that there is a common belief in true love necessarily being hard-won
+  is true.} If you respected your lover for their lovability and as
+subjects worth respect generally, should you want to make them suffer?
+Surely not. Similarly, they should not want you to suffer, and you
+should not want them to want you to suffer for them. This need to prove
+your love comes from a learned insecurity, not only on an interpersonal
+level, but a societal one as well.
+
+Authentic love can come from certain relationships in which there is
+some kind of power asymmetry between the partners, or some difficult
+force they must overcome. ``Loving'' someone \emph{because} you enjoy
+your one-sided power over them or \emph{because} you enjoy their
+one-sided power over you seems like pursuing the wrong kind of goal in
+your love project. Subordination and domination might be aspects of
+organizing all kinds of relationships, but authentic love cannot have
+that as its core goal because that is not loving someone with the proper
+respect for them as lovable people. How subordination and domination
+configure into sex might be a separate matter, depending on how closely
+connected one understands sex and love to be. This is an interesting
+topic, but out of the scope of this paper.
+
+There is also the matter of comparison of one's partner and love project
+to those of another. This seems to kill love. Envy of this strain is not
+an issue specific to romantic love, though, and it is unclear as a
+result that we can relate to others without \emph{any} sense of
+comparison \emph{ever}. All of the societal forces described encourage
+competition and a sense of there being ``losers'' and ``winners'' in
+romantic love, which is problematic in all of love's forms. Presumably
+this could be alleviated at least somewhat by learning to respect
+oneself and others and dismantling the ``love as conflict'' story. Envy
+of this kind might be possible to completely disentangle from our
+connections to others, but I am unsure. That might require the type of
+deep introspection that reveals to one that no connections are necessary
+or worthwhile at all.
+
+Authentic romantic love as a standalone project should have loving your
+partner in their role as a lover as its goal. No societal force under
+which we engage in romantic love supports or allows for this, so it is
+nearly impossible to love authentically. However, authentic heterosexual
+love is possible if one undertakes the labor intensive but crucial,
+intentional unlearning of the oppressive stories we are told and the
+intentional reteaching of how to actually love each other.
+
+\section{Conclusion}
+
+Men and women cannot be said to love each other romantically nor as
+friends under compulsory heterosexuality, but that does not mean it is
+essentially impossible, just impossible under current societal
+conditions. This is because men and women cannot idealize each other in
+such a way that they can actually evaluate the other's lovability as
+romantic partners or friends. Solidarity of any kind is threatening to
+oppressive social structures, but if men and women want to love each
+other authentically as friends and lovers, solidarity is key. First,
+individual men and women must invest in their respect for themselves and
+their homosocial relationships. Then, they can evaluate each other in
+their roles as lovable lovers, and lovable friends.
+
+\newpage  
+\section*{Bibliography}
+
+\refsection
+
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\ No newline at end of file