Will we ever get rid of "compulsory" heterosexuality? Covid has helped and social networks are doing their part too - TikTok is experiencing the most tumultuous discussions
There is always room for improvement in the world, but the truth is that topics that might have been the only major taboo until relatively recently are now resonating much more in society. One such issue that troubles many people is so-called compulsory heterosexuality. What does this established term actually refer to and how much has our perspective changed over the years?
If you've ever dated people of the opposite sex, but over time began to realize that you weren't that attracted to them, or you placed too high a demand on potential opposite-sex partners that they simply couldn't meet under any circumstances, then it wasn't your bad luck in dating, nor was it your pickiness. Instead, you unwittingly probably encountered compulsory heterosexuality. But it' s not as simple as it might first appear with this concept. For it is far from just a matter of sexual orientation.
Compulsory heterosexuality is essentially a systemic mechanism that suppresses and denies queer people's naturalness and forces them to conform to the expectations and norms of a heterosexually set society. Simply put, it is actually a kind of re-education that is meant to "process" queer people to the point that they themselves will seek out publicly tolerated heterosexual relationships and think that this is their true orientation. And this by no means sounds like a triviality to be taken lightly.
It probably doesn't take long to explain that the practice of compulsory heterosexuality can have a very bad effect on the psyche of queer people, because it actually distorts it from the ground up. At the same time, identity and behavior are merged into one, and this is another, no less fundamental error. It is simply time to admit that not everyone is naturally heterosexual. And while it seemed that despite all of this, compulsory heterosexuality would be a part of our society for a long time to come, during the coronavirus pandemic, queer people began to find more courage than before, and platforms like Twitter and TikTok were literally flooded with discussions on the very topic of compulsory heterosexuality.
A lot more people started to access LGBTQ+ content that many would normally miss. Everyone became fixated on self-reflection and began to question not only their own decisions, but the state of society as a whole. And what actually contributed most to this internet revolution?
American poet Adrienne Rich. Less than a decade after her death. In the Czech Republic, we don't normally hear about this name so much, but it is very well known to Americans and connoisseurs of Anglophone literatures and cultures. Adrienne Rich is often described as one of the most influential poets of the second half of the 20th century. But this moniker is no cliché - it is rightly deserved. For Rich was not "just" a poet, but also a feminist who was truly worthy of the label. In fact, various essays can be found in her work, and in one of the most famous of these (you can find it in the original under the title "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence") she was the first to use the term "compulsory heterosexuality".
What starts to spread like an avalanche through the internet is then practically unstoppable. And that is the case with the rediscovery of Adrienne Rich. Questions like "can lesbians like fictional male characters" or "can you identify as a lesbian if you have liked men in the past but are no longer attracted to them" have become the most searched phrases . So it's clear that people are not indifferent to this topic and that many of us have focused on getting to know ourselves more intimately during the pandemic. Now we can only hope that this wasn't just another viral and creative and curious way of passing the time, but that the awareness will continue to be successful. At this point, though, it's pretty clear that at the very least, Adrienne Rich's name won't just fade into obscurity.
