My friend sent me a podcast the other day: “You have to listen to this,” she said.
I clicked on the link she sent to the episode — “Heterosexuality is a Trauma Response” by Binchtopia. Part of me chuckled when I first saw it and nearly rolled my eyes. Really? I thought.
I sat down and listened to the episode while cleaning my room and was surprised by how much it resonated with me. As I was listening to the hosts talk about how growing up, women are taught that our end goal is “find man,” I couldn’t help but think of all the time wasted pining after someone who barely showed me interest. I thought about how the media, TV, movies, our parents, shove this message down our throats: that finding a husband is the most important thing for a woman. That single people—all genders—have somehow failed in life.
And although women often get more fulfilment from our female friendships than male romantic partners, we’re also taught early on that these relationships come secondary.
How many times have we stopped hanging out with our friends in pursuit of a love interest? And how many times did we crawl back to our girlfriends after said interest disappoints us in some way?
I know this is not the case for all—as the hosts discuss in the episode, with one of them in a long-term committed partnership — but there is something deeply wrong with how our relationships are constructed.
When I first thought I might be gay nearly ten years ago now, I felt like everything I thought to be true was crashing down. I remember feeling immense disappointment that I wasn’t going to have that fairy-tale ending I always wanted growing up. I’d watch a movie where the guy gets the girl and they share a passionate kiss under the rain and think, that’s never going to be me. What am I giving up?
This is compulsory heterosexuality.
Compulsory heterosexuality—or comphet—is the idea that heterosexuality is a “political institution”. It is so ingrained in our culture, we mistake any kind of connection with a man as romantic. It says that heterosexuality, for some, is learned, not innate, which is what we’re taught growing up. As Angela Luz writes, in The Lesbian Masterdoc, compulsory heterosexuality is about understanding “the difference between what you’ve been taught you want (being with men) and what you do want (being with women).”
But I think we can reframe this to simply say that it’s about unlearning what we’ve all been taught and about relearning our desires—whether that is being with women, or men, or whoever, in ways that bring more joy and fulfilment to our lives.
Of course, we have been shifting away from that narrative in recent years. We are seeing more and more people questioning these gender and sexuality norms and seeking relationships that fit their wants and needs. We are looking outside the box of heteronormativity, and even monogamy, to find more fulfilling ways to be in relationship with one another.
Lately, I’ve been avoiding dating women, for a myriad of reasons that I should probably unpack. But a big part of that has been this idea of compulsory heterosexuality. I’ve been feeling afraid again of what that might mean if I met a woman and wanted to be with her.
After that existential breakdown all those years ago, I realized I didn’t have to “give up” anything — because being with a woman is not a sacrifice, but a gift. Women have brought so much beauty to my life. And maybe if we had more films showing the girl getting the girl, like we are seeing more of today, I wouldn’t have felt such a loss when first confronted with those feelings.
I’m bisexual, and I do like men and want to be with men, so it now begs the question of how I can fit a romantic relationship into my life in a healthy way.
This is what I mean: most of my heterosexual relationships have been with men who have not done the work on themselves. Men who haven’t met me partway in a partnership. I, like so many of my friends, have lost myself in love. I have bent over backwards to make something work when my partner is out with his buddies getting drunk and not texting me back.
It’s not to say I’m perfect by any means; we all play our part in relationships that don’t work out.
But what challenging compulsory heterosexuality asks is that we deprioritize our romantic relationships with men (if we do want to be with men). In the past, women had to marry for economic and social purposes. But now, we have more of a choice. We don’t have to settle for anything that chips away at our wholeness. Instead, we can refocus our energy and attention to other pursuits and relationships.
It’s important to reaffirm that the patriarchy hurts men too. I know that the men who avoided, cheated, ran away at the first signs of danger or commitment, are in need of compassion and empathy. But it is also not our job to fix them.
I do hope that the more representation we see, the more space we will all have to question the gender norms that have long oppressed us.
No matter the label we put on all of this, what’s important is learning to question what we have been taught that no longer serves us. And that begins with who we are told we should love, and with unlearning how we are taught to accept love.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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