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PODCAST

Dire Straights

Tracy Clark-Flory & Amanda Montei

A feminist podcast critiquing heterosexual love, sex, politics, and culture. www.direstraightspod.com

society & culture relationships

All Episodes

20:00

The hetero-politics of ICE

Dire Straights ·

2026/01/28

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comThanks 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

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26:53

Monogamy is a feminist problem

Dire Straights ·

2026/01/21

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comMonogamy 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

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18:31

Is ‘Heated Rivalry' an escape from heterosexuality?

Dire Straights ·

2026/01/14

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comWelcome 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

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81:19

Is dating dead?

Dire Straights ·

2026/01/07

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

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27:01

Can married and divorced women be friends?

Dire Straights ·

2025/12/17

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comIn 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

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96:45

Christmas is an ad for heterosexuality

Dire Straights ·

2025/12/03

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

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34:39

Is it women’s job to save men?

Dire Straights ·

2025/11/12

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comAre 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

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79:18

A feminist takedown of WWE masculinity

Dire Straights ·

2025/10/29

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

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31:17

Marital 'intimacy' is the fifth shift of women's work

Dire Straights ·

2025/10/15

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comToday, 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

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71:16

What happened to 4B?

Dire Straights ·

2025/10/01

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

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32:38

Have we lost the divorce plot?

Dire Straights ·

2025/09/17

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comThis 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

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80:58

'Red flags' are the state of dating right now

Dire Straights ·

2025/09/03

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

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25:10

We got AI boyfriends

Dire Straights ·

2025/08/20

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comWe 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

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74:48

‘Why am I in this relationship?’

Dire Straights ·

2025/08/06

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

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32:57

S*x guides for tradwives

Dire Straights ·

2025/07/23

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comIn this episode…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

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57:59

Tech bros will not save us

Dire Straights ·

2025/07/09

In this episode…“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

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33:54

What is couples therapy for?

Dire Straights ·

2025/06/25

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.direstraightspod.comIn this episode…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

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