Chelsea Fagan

But I think I realized that part of the reason why I find myself very drawn to a lot of queer romantic stories is because they sort of inherently don't come with this extraordinary baggage of gender, power, money, class, all of these things that...

to me are very, very hard to escape or subvert in more heterosexual romantic stories.

And I think when you look at the exceeding popularity of the genre, what you just described, like I will assume about you that you are a very progressively minded woman and live a very progressive life.

But what you described there with like the forced marriage to a hot guy to inherit this fortune, it is not an...

it is in some way in conflict with the way you live and how you see yourself and the way you would probably want to handle a situation like that in real life.

And in some ways, it's sort of almost this fantasy of giving up our power, this fantasy of the decision being made for us, this fantasy of,

Just relaxing.

And I think what that speaks to in the modern woman is this real frustration with, you know, where we usually also have to work full time.

We also, generally speaking, do more of the housework.

Like marriage in general is increasingly a losing proposition for the average heterosexual woman.

So I think losing oneself in a sort of more...

In a fantasy of giving up control and power to a man, it makes total sense.

But I think if anything, it almost feels like a bit of, you know, a very temporary reprieve from what are very real world material conditions that are getting worse.

I mean, it, it just comes down to that man.

Right.

Um,

it comes down to how honest he is, how loyal he is, how financially disciplined he is.

Um, how much of a, how good of a steward he is of your family's finance.

Like it just depends on the man.

Now I will say that there are, there are situations in which, because oftentimes people will sort of project onto me that I just like, don't think anyone can be a stay at home mother.