My fellow sister wives
Parsing a TikTok trend. Plus: sports bras, abortion euphemisms, and E. Jean Carroll in the weekend roundup.
I keep noticing two little words on TikTok. I’ll click through to the comments on a viral thirst trap from a man who is courting women’s attention and encounter a variation on the following:
So glad to be here with my sister wives.
I came straight to the comments to be with my sister wives.
Hello my sister wives 💖
Sister wives. How to parse, exactly?
It’s an over-the-top expression of desire, which is routine in these kinds of comment threads. There’s often talk of drooling and giggling and screaming. “GIRLLLL DINNNERRR,” read a comment on a video from Quinnickle, the Rubik’s Cube dude. “Alexa, add to cart,” said another. A comment on a video from Thoren Bradley, the wood-chopping guy: “I just imagine that… that log is me… split into pure bliss.”
These comments aren’t just meant to express desire; they’re meant to make other commenters laugh. Women outdo each other with wit and outrageousness. It’s about collectively experiencing desire, all while having a sense of humor about the whole thing. There is, dare I say, a sisterhood in this desiring.
That’s why I find the “sister wives” phenomenon interesting.
This particular “sisterhood” gestures toward a conservative patriarchal arrangement, the image of a man owning many women. In this moment of feminist backlash, at a time when tradwives and “stay-at-home girlfriends” are part of the discourse, there’s certainly a negative take to be had here. But in all the “sister wives” talk, I’m mostly inclined to see the same irony and outrageousness of joking about wanting to eat a man for “girl dinner” or have him chop you up like wood.
The absurdity is a measure of desire—and it’s in service of community, too.
To the links
The New Yorker profiled Jacqueline Novak to coincide with the release of her blowjob comedy special (which I wrote about here). She talks about wearing a sports bra during her performances, despite feeling like it’s not what she’s “supposed” to wear. As she puts it, “Why do I feel the audience is owed a separation of my breasts?”
In the 19th century, “Female Renovating Pill” was a euphemism for abortion.
on E. Jean Carroll’s current case against Trump: “In the stories we tell about rape, women are so often the objects of violence, lacking agency to stop it, subject to terror. … But through the court cases, Carroll is trying to change the narrative.”