Heteropessimist

Heteropessimists are keen to distance themselves from the “awfulness” of heterosexuality and frame their own continued attachments as a kind of “prison” (Seresin).

For Berlant, “the fantasy life of normativity” (2011, 167) is precisely such an object, and correspondingly, despite all evidence to the contrary, the heteropessimist continues to optimistically tether her desires to a world and to relationships ill-equipped to meet them.

As with the feminist heteropessimists, the heteropessimistic nature of The Black Pill seems to function as an “anesthetic feeling,” succinctly captured in the idea that "the game is rigged from the start."

Rather, we are identifying a particular heteropessimist sensibility that critiques the gendered constraints of the institution of heterosexuality while simultaneously embracing them—albeit with flat and cynical detachment.

In heteropessimist fashion, she resents her husband’s neglect and find his habits “irritating,” yet she remains attached to him, dredging up romanticized possibilities of belonging to manage her homesickness (Cusk Kudos 53).

In this vein, her fate may convey Tolstoy's heteropessimist critique of toxic masculinity, male sadism, and straightness, as reflected in the "happiness and pride" that Vronsky takes in his "conquest" of her person, which made him feel like a "tsar."