Between Hetero-Fatalism and Dark Femininity: Discussions of Relationships, Sex, and Men in the Femosphere (2025)

Abstract: The ‘femosphere’ is a term coined to describe a group of online ideological spaces for women characterised by toxicity, reactionary feminism, and hetero-pessimism. It is often portrayed as a mirror of a similar group of communities for men, called the ‘manosphere’. Although there have been several studies investigating the ideologies and language of the manosphere, the femosphere has been largely overlooked - especially in NLP. This paper presents a study of two communities in the femosphere: Female Dating Strategy and Femcels. It presents an exploration of the language of these communities on topics related to relationships, sex, and men from the perspective of hetero-pessimism using topic modelling and semantic analysis. It reveals dissatisfaction with heterosexual courtship and frustration with the patriarchal society through which members attempt to navigate.

## introduction the 'femosphere' is a term used to describe a collection of women's online ideological spaces which often mirror the vocabularies and logics of the manosphere @xcite , a loose group of online communities for men characterised by antifeminism and misogyny @xcite . while anger in the manosphere is projected outward towards women and society, anger in the femosphere tends to be internal @xcite @xcite . although the femosphere is not outwardly violent, it promotes a harmful world-view that creates a link between more extreme ideologies. some femosphere communities are explicitly antifeminist and others follow a version of feminism intertwined with transphobia, racism, and islamophobia. these views are particularly concerning, given the pipeline between anti-feminism and farright extremism @xcite . despite this potential harm, the femosphere is understudied, especially in the field of natural language processing (nlp). the analysis presented in this paper focuses on two subforums (subreddits) of the reddit femosphere centred on women's desires to pursue sex and romance with men, despite strongly pessimistic views on heterosexual courtship. both the r/femaledatingstrategy and r/trufemcels communities are situated in members' dynamic with men, with discussion focusing on the similar theme of dating through misogyny. although outsiders have often considered these communities the same, this study reveals that they approach heterosexual relationships (or lack of) in very different ways. this paper explores expression of pessimism towards the heterosexual dating experience in the femosphere using psycholinguistic and semantic analysis of community language use and topics of discussion. in doing so, it aims to answer the following questions: as these questions are addressed in the analysis, the results also reveal novel observations on how each community perceives several terms related to sexuality and gender. along with a review of literature on the femosphere, the paper also provides the following contributions: c1: an application of methods in nlp on the understudied areas of the femosphere and heteropessimism, both reinforcing observations from qualitative literature and presenting novel findings from the analysis c2: an exposition of how men, relationships, and women's issues are discussed in two different femosphere movements characterised by reactionary feminism c3: an exploration of two distinct responses to hetero-pessimism unique to each community: 'dark femininity' and 'hetero-fatalism' the following sections present an overview of existing research on the femosphere and previous efforts in employing methods in nlp to describe gendered ideological spaces online. ## background academic interest in the manosphere can be attributed in part to a history of violence by selfidentified members @xcite . numerous studies have investigated the language and psychology of the manosphere, particularly the incel foot_0 community @xcite @xcite . in a study of three gender oriented subreddits, khan (2020) used topic modelling to discover how users discuss various issues such as family law, sexual violence, and sexism. they found that manosphere communities primarily discuss false sexual assault accusations in addition to sexual assault faced by men, while feminist communities discuss sexual assault faced by women. @xcite investigated ideological tropes on frequently crossreferenced anti-feminist websites. the analysis revealed a rhetoric based on evolutionary biology that engendered misogynist, heterosexist, and racist language. another study of posts from the five top incel forums found several themes concerning incel identity and culture @xcite . the femosphere: while femosphere communities share many features of the male counterparts, it is incorrect to conceptualise it as the female version of the manosphere. a core difference is that, while anti-feminism is a feature of the manosphere, many femosphere movements are defined by 'reactionary feminism' that embraces bio-evolutionary 'truths' of race and gender @xcite . it claims liberal feminism is harmful to women and is characterised by a sense of fatalism and transphobia @xcite @xcite . another part of the femosphere is also characterised by anti-feminism, a history of participa-tion in white supremacy, and alt-right views on sex and gender @xcite . the tradwife foot_1 community, described as "white nationalist mommy vloggers", and r/redpillwomen promote traditional feminine virtues of submission to male partners and procreation @xcite @xcite . in an analysis of anti-feminism on tiktok, bauer (2024) noted that influencers use their platforms to shift the attitude of acceptable democratic speech. they promote a political agenda explicitly through political messages and implicitly by politicising their private lives. in a large study of 14 women-oriented ideological subreddits, @xcite analysed posts from various topics generated with top2vec and google's perspective api to measure toxicity. several topics were identified, such as dating, dating apps, housework, and ethnicity. in the femcel foot_2 subreddit, many posts were centred around appearance and one's identity as a femcel. it was also shown that femcels had the highest proportion of severely toxic posts. identity attacks from the femcel community towards religious minorities also saw an increase when the community migrated to thepinkpill.co after its ban on reddit. dark femininity: "dark feminine" influencers on tiktok encourage female viewers to assert their value aggressively by engaging in emotional manipulation and plotting revenge against men who have wronged them @xcite . they position their brand of hyper-individualism as necessary for women to protect themselves from misogyny @xcite . similarly, the female dating strategy (fds) community on reddit prides itself on being counter to manosphere misogyny and a safe space for women who date men to vent about relationships with men who devalue, ignore, or abuse them @xcite . in a study of reactionary feminism, kay (2024) analysed dark feminine influencers and the fds community. both "dark femininity" and fds acknowledge gender inequality and misogyny, but view them as something which cannot be overcome. in response, they relentlessly pursue a strategy of individualism by teaching women to weaponise femininity to navigate contemporary heterosexuality @xcite @xcite . they aim to reconceptualise women's labour in so-ciety by encouraging members to target wealthy 'high value' men as financial advice. andreasson (2024) studied fds further by analysing podcasts, opinion pieces, forum posts, and the fds handbook. relationships were described as a transactional part of a community member's selfactualisation. members encouraged each other to evaluate potential male partners ruthlessly and act through negative choice. conservative and feminist values are utilised to maximise female benefit, rather than enforce political ideals. femcels: another part of the femosphere, often related to fds, are femcels. femcels claim they are unable to secure romantic relationships as a consequence of misogyny and physical appearance @xcite @xcite . they feel resentment toward liberal feminism that challenges traditional beauty standards by encouraging women to feel beautiful as they are @xcite . while the two communities are related, fds strongly rejects any association with femceldom. in a comparison of r/trufemcels (trufemcels) foot_3 to both fds and incels on reddit, @xcite found that both fds and trufemcels shared rhetoric of radical feminism. users discuss male entitlement and hatred towards women generated by the patriarchy, while simultaneously holding anti-feminist views. the importance of aesthetics was a strong theme in discussion @xcite . @xcite studied posts on femcel forums by entering the community and observing interactions. according to demographics divulged by users, the community was fairly racially diverse and between the ages of 20 and 40. users expressed profoundly nihilistic perspectives of loneliness and self-esteem. in a study of 1,200 posts from thepinkpill.co, evans and lankford (2024) analysed how often femcels discussed sex, power, revenge, and frustration. discussions about sex were 58% about men, while frustrations were 87% about women's struggles and sexual desires. femcels on thepinkpill.co also expressed ideas consistent with radical feminism and its theories on sexual politics @xcite . hetero-pessimism: hetero-pessimism describes a feeling of disappointment in heteronormative romance coupled with denial of the possibility of improving heterosexual culture @xcite @xcite @xcite . for women who experience heteropessimism, men are considered the root of the problem. it includes a performative disaffiliation with heterosexuality, expressed as regret, embarrassment, or hopelessness directed at the straight experience and heteronormative "good life" @xcite . in a study of videos on tiktok, @xcite distinguishes between traditional femcels and 'femcelcore'. femcelcore influencers aestheticise depression and disillusionment by co-opting the vibe of authentic femcels. however, both groups display a genuine sense of "womanly nihilism" @xcite . the following sections describe the methods and data used to explore the themes of the fds and trufemcels subreddit communities and their attitudes toward relationships, sex, and men from the perspective of hetero-pessimism. ## methods the method of topic modelling has been chosen to answer the first research question in this paper. the specific topic modelling approach employed in this analysis is used to identify topics, particularly those related to relationships and men. it is performed on both fds and trufemcels datasets. semantic axis and liwc were chosen to address the second and third research questions. the language used by each subreddit, in the context of these topics, is compared using psycholinguistic and semantic analysis with liwc @xcite and word embeddings using a semantic axis. by comparing the results of liwc and semantic axis, one can get a sense of how each topic and specific concepts related to gender, relationships, and sexuality are discussed in each community. ## results the following section presents the results of the topic generation, liwc analysis, and semantic axis comparison. to make inferences based on these results, the 2500 topic-assigned comments for each dataset were manually reviewed. the author read each comment, making notes of observations and identifying patterns that may provide explanation for the results of topic correlations, liwc, and semantic axis analysis. ## discussion both communities exhibit hetero-pessimism which they express through strong negative sentiment towards relationships with men. as noted by kay (2024) and @xcite , there is also a lot of overlap between liberal feminist values and "reactionary feminism". however, the findings show there is an obvious difference in the strategies each community uses to navigate these issues as they participate in straight culture. shown by the liwc analysis and the closer association to the negative pole words for 'boy' and 'ex', the fds community has a very negative opinion of men. the topics of abuse, feminism, and safety, also suggest that fds discusses feminist issues. "dark femininity" encourages women to get back at men who have wronged/abused them and protect oneself from misogyny @xcite . the connections between 'single @xcite the negative correlation between the topics of relationships and sexism suggest that fds promotes dark feminine strategies disguised as feminist values and empowerment. the fds community's negative sentiment towards the sex topic may also indicate dark femininity. by abstaining from casual sex, women protect themselves from the harm of getting trapped a relationship with men who "add negative value" to their lives. the positive sentiment in comments on relationships and companionship, along with topics related to family, suggests that these are important for fds. similar to "dark feminine" influencers, the end goal of fds users is forming a committed relationship with a 'high value' man who will provide for them and their children @xcite . while the trufemcels community also expresses views consistent with radical feminist values, the focus is primarily on the unfair importance placed on women's physical appearance. femcels attribute their inability to form sexual and romantic relationships to their looks @xcite @xcite . this is exemplified by the presence of topics like appearance, fatness and body image, as well as the close association between 'single' and 'ugly'. although trufemcels does not display as much negative sentiment towards men as fda, the correlation between celibacy and sexual orientation suggests they also exhibit hetero-pessimism. the associa-tions between 'ex' and 'success', 'attention', and 'other', along with the topics of loneliness and mental health topics, suggest that femcels' inability to form relationships affects their mental health. as femcels feel barred from romantic relationships due to factors perceived as outside their control, their response to hetero-pessimism is a fatalistic internalisation of lookism resulting in resentment expressed toward men and attractive women. ## conclusion this paper presents an analysis of two communities in the femosphere using topic modelling and sentiment analysis, focusing on how each expresses hetero-pessimism and reactionary feminism. it analyses the language and sentiment expressed in discussions of topics related to relationships, sex, and men to show that both communities exhibit hetero-pessimism, but respond to it with different coping mechanisms: dark feminity and fatalism. it draws upon previous studies grounded in feminist theory to interpret the results. both communities discuss how sexism affects companionship, in terms of safety for fds and access for trufemcels. although they present rhetoric consistent with liberal feminism, language towards sex, race, and gender identity is more aligned with anti-feminism. both fds and trufemcels show clear signs of hetero-pessimism. despite having positive views on relationships and companionship, the communities show a negative opinion of women's role in traditional heterosexual courtship and men in general. in response, fds promotes rhetoric consistent with "dark femininity" by encouraging uncompromisingly high standards for themselves and potential partners. trufemcels displays a sense of heterofatalism, acting as a support group to vent frustrations about loneliness as a result of immutable factors like appearance. members internalise loneliness and insecurity, directing blame at men and 'stacies' for their lack of companionship. both communities appear to view the negative aspects of straight culture and misogyny as unchangeable. although these communities purport to oppose misogyny, the type of reactionary feminism and hetero-pessimism they portray effectively reproduces the fatalistic and conservative logics of anti-feminism.