Whimsy will save us all
A persistent gender war that has raged on since before I was born posits that both men and women have lost their way from the "natural" order of things.
For decades, a certain type of man has breathlessly insisted that once female-shaped robots hit the market, women are done for. There will be no need for us! This refrain has only gotten louder with the introduction of AI companions.
Meanwhile, my socials are filled to the brim with two kinds of women: 1) unapologetic authors and readers of spicy fiction, and 2) an intergenerational tide of women going feral over wicker-basket Alexander Skarsgård. (Not something on my 2026 bingo card, but I'm here for it!)
In this bizarro-world of the modern sexual marketplace, women can be replaced by doe-eyed chatbots who hit their 450 KB context windows and subsequently forget you exist, while the men who prefer this world can be replaced by an emotionally-intelligent basket.
We might've lost the plot.
The curse of amatonormativity
Have you ever flirted with a stranger who gave off desperate energy — a sense that they needed you to reciprocate in order to feel okay?
Humans are a relational species. We each have a deep need for love and connection with other people, and we're born with an innate aptitude for getting along. However, many Americans' bids for connection come with a litany of demands that my poor little ace soul can't accept. The basic desire for love is often filtered through an amatonormative lens until all love becomes flattened into the exclusively romantic. Everyone wants their "person!" Every man deserves a wife! If he wanted to, he would!
Rarely is there a modicum of liminal space here. Casual flings? Flung out the window. Platonic cuddle puddles? Why would you want anyone other than your Person touching you? Some people even forbid their partners from having platonic friends across the gender binary.
This energy can make romantic attention feel like being thrust into a job interview I didn't apply for. Should you pass the initial screening process (whether I'm aware of it or not), you're hit with a job offer, followed by a laundry list of things you must or must not do in order for them to feel safe in the relationship. He always pays, she never leads, no one ever argues, not texting back in six hours or less means you're dead to me.
Everything is predictable and certain. In our little bubble of love, nothing must be left to chance.
Y'all don't find that…kind of weird?
When we insist on infantilizing ourselves to maximize the ROI from our partners — to demand unconditional love, like a mother gives a child — we hobble our own ability to flex our social muscles. When the only people allowed to exist in our lives are parents and, later, romantic interests, we become less agile in other social contexts. Hell, Western societies are built around amatonormativity.
Love is a verb, not a sandbox.
Children require your love and attention to survive to adulthood. Other adults…don't.
In my studies on tarot and creativity, spiritual (and sometimes psychological) communities so often raise their magnifying glasses to both the carnal and the artistic in the same breath. After all, creative work is generative work — and sex is, at its core, an act of creation. The obvious case in point is, of course, babies, but even "going solo" fits the description. ("Generating" an orgasm counts!)
Beginning readers of the tarot who subscribe to a prescriptive way of loving will celebrating pulling the Knight of Cups: the "hopeless romantic" card, the card you'd want to find in a reading that promises divine your ideal lover, the relentless pursuit of something passionate and unconditional.
I'd argue that, if Knight cards follow a natural progression from ability to responsibility, the Knight of Cups is a progression from if he wanted to, he would logic to the daily practice of love as a skill, an armor, and a weapon.
Rather than weaponizing love as a tool of control to wrench certainty from the hearts of those you love, maybe we can go back to love being…you know. Fun? Like a neat hobby you can do together? Like something fun that naturally cultivates connection, that isn't relegated to people who feed or sleep with you?
Love is a skill. Love is making randoms on the internet laugh. Love is offering a seat to a stranger without expecting anything in return. Love is standing up for yourself.
Art is self-referential, and love is a form of art.
The more you flex this muscle in public — the more you model it for your peers, and the next generation — the more it recreates itself.
No one is actually down to fuck the hot wicker basket man. Seems like it would hurt, tbh. But we invent silly fantasies that just feel good to watch (or read, or think about) all the time. Art helps us learn what we like and don't like, what we're willing to accept and what we aren't. And the more we know our own boundaries, the easier it is to love ourselves — and the people around us. It's one thing to wish for an unconditional mommy-bangmaid and another to actively participate in another person's life.
That's the difference between "AI will replace women" and the hot wicker basket man. Hot wicker basket man is funny. We're not all running around chiding men with "monster fucker media is the future of love and you're obsolete." We're just having fun.
Remember fun?
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