![]() ![]() it’s usually a symptom of compulsory heterosexuality-male celebrities/fictional characters are completely unobtainable crushes and thus it allows the lesbian in question to distance themselves from men. Lesbians are allowed to like male celebrities and fictional characters. this can be really difficult to remember at times, and it might take you a while before you can fully love women without feeling like you’re somehow “wrong”, but just know that there are a million other women who are in the same boat as you are, meaning that this is a problem with society and not with you. If you love women but feel fake about it, just remember that those feelings are the product of a patriarchal society which has conditioned you to believe the false idea that you are defined by your ties to men. Many lesbians STILL struggle with compulsory heterosexuality even when they know they don’t want men. Lesbian isn’t a dirty word and being a lesbian is beautiful. If being in relationships with men isn’t appealing to you, if you can’t truly see yourself ending up happy in relationships with men, or if your attraction to men makes you uncomfortable, you may be a lesbian. You can be attracted to men or not know if you are because of compulsory heterosexuality and it doesn't mean you want to be with them. Ask yourself if you can have healthy fulfilling relationships with men and actually wanna be with them. If you’re questioning if you’re a lesbian, it's way more important to ask yourself if you can be truthfully happy with a man than if you’re attracted to them. (And if you’re not one of the binary genders, this can be even more confusing.)Ĭompulsory heterosexuality is built into you from the moment you’re born into this time and place, and it takes a long time to dismantle it. In a million tiny ways we’re taught that only relationships with the other binary gender are valid. We’re trained from birth to believe that we will find someone of the other binary gender, fall in love, have sex, etc. Compulsory heterosexuality is what forces lesbians to struggle through learning the difference between what you’ve been taught you want (being with men) and what you do want (being with women), which is why so many lesbians have dated men at some point.Ĭompulsory heterosexuality is very similar to heteronormativity - the assumption that straight is the default. So… what happens if you want to be with women? What happens if you’re not attracted to men at all? When you’re trained from childhood to see romantic/sexual relationships with men - and only men - as major life goals, how do you separate that from what you want?Ĭompulsory heterosexuality is the voice in my head that says I must really be het even when I’m in love with a woman. We literally cannot exist in public without men loudly grading us on how well we’re pleasing them visually. Our magazines are full of sex tips on how to better please men, our movies are about how we’re supposed to fall in love with men. We’re supposed to be pretty for men, we’re supposed to change the way we talk so men will take us more seriously, we’re supposed to want a man’s love more than anything else. Women are taught from a very early age that making men happy is our job. This is because compulsory heterosexuality easily ties in with the misogyny that causes women’s sexualities and even identities to be defined by our relationships with men. It affects people of every gender, but it’s mostly been studied as something that affects women. “Compulsory heterosexuality” is exactly what it sounds like - being straight is something our culture tries to force on us. “Compulsory” is the opposite of “optional”. gender, sex, LGBT, tumblr, lesbian manifesto, am I lesbianīut I like fictional men/male celebrities.Īttraction VS. A look at female sexual orientation sexual identities. Copy of Am I a Lesbian? Masterdoc Copy of Am I a Lesbian? MasterdocĪm I a Lesbian? What is Compulsory Heterosexuality? How do I know if I’m a lesbian? Exploration of how societal conditioning can lead lesbians to have conflicting feelings and attraction toward men. ![]()
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