Abstract
This study considers the fictional construction of heterosexuality as social and sexual institution, drawing on selected novels of the 1980s by Margaret Atwood and Jenny Diski, with particular reference to The Edible Woman, Life Before Man and Nothing Natural. I argue that the very ordinary daily oppression of women living traditional heterosexual lives, as well as the more extreme ritual humiliation of a woman involved in a heterosexual sadomasochistic relationship, are related products of sexual difference. I conclude with an argument, from a lesbian and radical feminist perspective, for the complete dismantling of the gender system which is the basis of heterosexuality.
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