Who controls love: Men, women, or capital? At first, the question sounds absurd. Love in the modern era is supposed to be the most personal of experiences, untouched by politics or economics. Yet in the age of dating apps, it has become one of the central battlegrounds of contemporary life.

Across the world, an increasing share of people find their sexual and romantic partners online. In Sweden, where we reside, the numbers are striking: one-third of those aged fifteen to thirty-four now date through apps, and nearly half say they have used the internet to look for a partner. Encounters that once took place in workplaces, friendship circles, or local bars are now displaced into digital arenas. However, what might seem like a widening of romance’s possibilities has coincided with a rise in singledom, both in absolute terms and as a share of the population. While some embrace singlehood as a positive choice, others experience it as unwanted loneliness, unable to find the intimacy they desire.

These frustrations have not stayed private. They have become politicized, fueling a new polarization between the sexes. On one pole are “incels” — men who define themselves as involuntarily celibate, convinced they are the losers in a sexual marketplace where women supposedly hold the power. Incels are part of the larger “manosphere,” marked by anti-feminism and misogyny, sometimes spilling over into deadly violence. On the other pole are women who have lost faith in heterosexual relationships altogether, echoing radical feminist claims that intimacy with men is inevitably structured by domination and objectification. In 2019, writer Asa Seresin described this turn toward disillusionment as “heteropessimism,” a concept that has since spread from academic blogs to lifestyle magazines.