“I don’t think older generations realize how TERRIFYING dating is for the current generation,” fumed one young Twitter user, to the tune of 18,000 likes. “Absolutely chaotic out here.” When I interviewed dozens of people for my book on sex and relationships, I found that women, in particular, discussed their sexual experiences in visceral terms: encounters that end in unexpected and alarming acts — a choking, say, or other porn-inspired violence — that they go along with out of surprise or resignation. After all, if consent is given (and it often is), there are no grounds left for protest.

Navigating our love lives has always been difficult. But today, the general outlook among heterosexual daters has come to take on a less playful, more depressive tone — manifesting in what the writer Asa Seresin calls “heteropessimism,” a mode of feeling “usually expressed in the form of regret, embarrassment and hopelessness about the straight experience.” (Queer relationships, being less beholden to male-female gender dynamics, may present fewer issues — but they aren’t perfect either.) It’s an anesthetic posture, one that young people use to avoid fully feeling a sense of sorrow for their lack of control and repeated disappointment or fully acknowledging the pervasive awfulness of a sexual culture that’s not suited to their happiness.