Compulsory Heterosexuality Research Articles

Beyond Binary: Exploring the Dynamics of Bi-Curiosity Propulsion and Persistence Among Young Women

Sexual identity fails to adhere to the dichotomous models, transcending to a more fluid quality than normative compulsory heterosexuality. The present study investigates the experience of bi-curiosity, focusing on its initiation among young women residing in urban India. Bi-curiosity, a sexual orientation questioning marked by exploratory experiences, is a possible but not a necessary precursor to bisexuality. This qualitative study explores on the psychological and social factors contributing to a bi-curious orientation. It focuses on the subjective processes of development and maintenance of sexual identity questioning. Three organizing themes emerged from the Reflective Thematic Analysis: (a.) Affective Indicators, (b.) Social Experiences, and (c.) Intimacy in friendships. While sexual identity questioning was propelled by more psychological factors, like physical attraction, fantasy, experienced jealousy toward men, and comfort with the same sex, social and environmental factors contribute significantly. Individual experiences with patriarchy, social attitudes toward same-sex relationships, and their representation on media platforms often reinforce the process. Another important contributor was women’s close friendships with the same sex, which are sites for physical closeness, emotional intimacy, and personal growth, and share these characteristics with romantic relationships. These factors emerged as important reinforcers to the development and maintenance of sexual identity questioning.

“Couldst thou not watch with me?”: Queer Orientation and Unresponse in Swinburne’s ‘A Wasted Vigil’

In his 1866 review of A.C. Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads, John Morley expresses anxieties regarding the poet’s capacity for queer reorientation – his ability to bring transgressive erotic desires within his reader’s field of vision. The following year Swinburne published ‘A Wasted Vigil’, a lyric address to a beloved incapable of “watching with” the poem’s speaker. How does Swinburne address queer reorientation and the affective community between himself and his reader in his poetry? Using a phenomenological approach, this essay brings Swinburne into dialogue with Sara Ahmed’s work on affect studies and queer theory in order to examine the way in which ‘A Wasted Vigil’ articulates compulsory heterosexuality and queer possibility.

“The Kiss and the Cut”: Reassembling the Techno-Orientalist Clone through Multispecies Grief and Intimacy in Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu

Abstract: This article queries the revision of techno-Orientalist tropes in Larissa Lai’s 2018 novel The Tiger Flu , focusing primarily on how Lai repossesses the figure of the Asian female clone and imagines her as a formidable site of radical feminist, decolonial, and anti-capitalist knowledge in a time of planetary erosion and pandemic. I posit that Lai breaks the lineage of techno-Orientalist formations through the survivalist impulses of the Grist Sisters, a species of bioengineered clone factory workers, who move towards abolition from capitalism and compulsory heterosexuality by developing autonomous practices of reproduction, organ transplantation, and inter-generational storytelling. Through the Grist Sisters’ physical and symbolic acts of interdependent reliance and survival, Lai forges multispecies intimacies and embodiments as exertions of a radical politics of care that includes Asian American “women.” Further, Lai’s future world-building centers the multispecies grief of the Grist Sisters as a potent expression of feminist solidarity.

‘Becoming manly’: white South African defence force veterans negotiating masculinity

ABSTRACT This study examines how white South African men reflect on their experiences of being and becoming army veterans, while negotiating masculinity. In the context of ‘high apartheid’, Afrikaner domination of the socio-political landscape, ethnic and racialised inequalities, the veterans negotiated being white English-speaking men through reflecting on, critiquing and disassociating from military masculinity. An English South African masculinity was upheld by distancing from Afrikaner domination and values, violence and compulsory heterosexuality. These findings suggest that while a military masculinity offered men a powerful template to assert their authority as white men, such power was nuanced by English South Africans’ relative political impotence, the domination of Afrikaans as a language and illustrates the heterogeneity in the experience of white veteran masculinity under apartheid. At the same time, however, white English veterans were complicit in and benefitted from whiteness and the power accrued in the country by virtue of race, class and history of British colonialism. We argue that the experience of being and becoming conscripts and the reflection on military masculinity directs attention to the ways in which broader social and political contexts have effects for the shaping of masculinity reflecting hierarchies of power and fluidity.

‘What’s a D and C between friends?’ Space, intimacy and the medicalisation of unmotherhood in modernist literature

This essay theorises what ‘unmotherhood’—or, living outside of motherhood—means within the specific context of ‘the modern’. Unmotherhood is an actively constructed state; it is explored through the parameters of agentive...

A room of their own: White lesbian coming outs and second wave feminism

While the concept of “coming out” is relatively well-critiqued, few of these critiques trouble the way a near exclusive focus on disclosure positions sexuality as an essential identity. Based on life history interviews with 18 lesbian, pansexual, and queer women elders (ages 65+), I find coming out did not describe disclosing or even acknowledging same-gender desire, but, rather, choosing to act on it. For participants, coming out is the process of forming desire into a coherent identity (lesbian woman), a process that required continued interactions with lesbian existence; contrary to essentialist understandings, desire alone did not enable participants to become lesbians. In this article, I describe the two paths participants followed while becoming lesbians and consider how the historical context in which participants came out, specifically the second wave feminist movement, uniquely facilitated coming out for white women. Ultimately, I argue lesbian sexuality is a richly constructed social identity formed in community and defined by resistance to compulsory heterosexuality. By viewing sexual identity as based on shared political commitments formed in community, this article both corrects an essentializing tendency in the coming out literature and offers a potential point of repair between older and younger generations of lesbians.

Black Queer Men Transgressing Masculine Normativity

ABSTRACT This qualitative study examined how Black queer men (BQM) in college conceptualized gender and sexuality as they navigated hegemonic and toxic forms of masculinity. Mobilizing queer of color critique, we delve into data from a multi-year critical ethnographic study to unearth the worldmaking practices that BQM engage to dislodge and disrupt the omnipresent gender norms they faced within postsecondary contexts. Our analysis yielded three themes related to BQM experiences with masculinities: (a) perspectives on hegemonic masculinities, (b) queering the politics of intimate and platonic relationships, and (c) institutionalized heteronormativity. We argue that BQM experience insidious forms of heteromasculinity, compulsory heterosexuality, and heterogenderism in college. We conclude by offering implications for higher education research, practice, and policy.

Narratives of Compulsory Heterosexuality Struggles of Filipino Lesbians in the Selected Poems from Tingle: Anthology of Pinay Lesbian Writings

Utilizing Adrienne Rich's concept of compulsory heterosexuality, this research investigates narratives and struggles of Filipina lesbians as depicted in selected poems from "Tingle: Anthology of Pinay Lesbian Writings." Rich's theory, which describes heterosexuality as a social imperative and not an option available to women, can serve as a critical lens to understand Filipino literature more fully. This research exposes the profound effect of Rich's conception of society on the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ community members in the Philippines. Through careful investigation using qualitative content analysis, themes of social pressure, economic dependence, and compulsory heterosexuality become evident. The findings underlined the urgency of acknowledging and challenging these deeply entrenched struggles, drawing attention to the potential damage imposed by societal norms and perceptions that persist over time. The conclusion of this research calls for greater inclusivity, representation, and support of the LGBTQIA+ community. Institutions across various sectors should actively foster understanding, acceptance, and celebration of diverse narratives to enrich the human experience.

The Unintended Effects of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in a Maximum-Security Prison for Women: Weaponization, Bullying, and Compulsory Heterosexuality

Research on the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) has overwhelmingly focused on male correctional institutions, neglecting female ones. Sexual violence is also of concern within female prisons, and the need arises to understand whether PREA is achieving the goal of eradicating sexual misconduct in prisons housing women, or if the policy is having unintended effects. Based on results from surveys collected from women (N = 369) incarcerated in a Southeastern U.S. prison, both positive and negative aspects of the act were cited. In terms of the former, the legislation resulted in improvements to prison climate, yet for negatives, participants noted how PREA was being weaponized by staff and peers against other incarcerated women via false allegations. Policy implications are discussed.

Evidence of Ambivalent Sexism in Female Video Game Character Designs

ABSTRACT This report shares the results of a systematic, quantitative analysis of themes resonant with ambivalent sexism in playable female video game characters. Applying principles of ambivalent sexism’s underlying concepts of paternalism, compulsory heterosexuality, and gender differentiation, we developed a coding scheme for assessing themes in character personalities, stories, and other aspects of their characterizations. We sampled games developed in Japan and the United States released between 1983 and 2017 (N = 398) and derived data from primary texts (i.e. video game content) and paratexts (i.e. character wiki entries). Our results provide evidence of sexist portrayals for playable characters. Evidence of sexist portrayals emerged with meaningful associations observed among theoretically relevant concepts (i.e. capability, sexualization, development location). We discuss our findings with respect to ambivalent sexism theory and the sociocultural contexts of video game development in Japan and the United States.

De fyrstefødte og fyrsteløse

With a deconstructive method and theoretical starting point in Raewyn Connell’s theory of masculinity as well as various queer theoretical perspectives, this article examines the gender-critical potential of Cecilie Eken’s science-fiction trilogy for children The Karana Galaxy (2018-2019). The thematic interpretation points to an unraveling of conventional gender perceptions in which diversity triumphs over conformity. But does the text indeed break with heteronormative assumptions, or are the descriptions of gender and sexuality (or the lack thereof) more like a modified version of gender binarism? The analysis shows that The Karana Galaxy both transcends and respects the logics of the heterosexual matrix. At the surface level of the text, the genders in the galaxy are defined by compulsory heterosexuality. At the same time, the text’s depiction of female masculinity breaks with these logics. Thus, the text can be interpreted as a homoerotic love relationship between a man and a masculine woman. However, the text’s bid to portray alternative forms of gender identities seems to contradict such a reading. Overall, the article therefore concludes that although the conventional understanding of masculinity and femininity is modified in The Karana Galaxy, the text’s constructions of gender and sexuality are still shaped by binary logics.

What Is a Lesbian Document? Platforming Archival Description, Documents, and History in Sweden

As Joanna Drucker (2014) convincingly argues, “Most information visualizations are acts of interpretation masquerading as presentation" (p. 10). This article investigates the visuality and built-in argumentations of the Alvin interface for digitized Swedish cultural heritage, focusing on how the platform defines a document and the effects this definition has on the accessibility and interconnectedness of documents related to lesbian and feminist histories. This paper addresses how (failed) systematization and an emphasis on large quantities of documents and metadata breathes new life into outdated historiographies and renders documents and information related to feminist and lesbian histories and connections between these histories invisible. In doing so, platforms reinstitute divisions and stereotypes about feminist and lesbian history criticized by Adrienne Rich in her seminal essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Platform designers must begin to take seriously queer and feminist researchers' emphasis on context and the need to build flexibility, interconnectivity across private/public boundaries, fuzziness, and incompleteness into cultural heritage platforms from the outset.

Reading the queer in Black Mirror’s “San Junipero”

ABSTRACT The present paper seeks to analyze the queer aspects that are present and at times coded in “San Junipero,” an episode of Black Mirror, through the lens of queer theory. The episode is subversive in the sense that it imagines a somewhat optimistic future for queer individuals, where even though its principal characters die at the end, they are given an alternate afterlife within the simulated reality of San Junipero. The present paper looks at some of the recent scholarships on queer television and attempts to situate “San Junipero” as a queer televisual representation within that framework, in order to enquire whether or not the episode subverts conventional narratives that support heteronormative politics. By drawing upon Gilad Padva’s theorization of queer nostalgia, the paper examines how the episode queers the concept of nostalgia by reimagining the 1980s as a time when same-sex couples could get married. It also attempts to read Yorkie’s closeted lesbianism with Adrienne Rich’s concept of “compulsory heterosexuality”. The article further looks at how the episode offers a moderately alternative vision to the “Bury your gays” trope. Finally, the paper presents another reading of the episode where queer union is possible only in realms distinct from everyday reality.

Enclaved non-heteronormativity and pragmatic acceptance. The experiences of Polish female football players

The aim of this article is to discuss how Polish non-heterosexual female football players cope with institutionalised normative heterosexuality, which functions in Poland on several levels. The study is based on 25 in-depth interviews with professional Polish female football players. The interviewed women experienced heteronormativity within Polish society, which precluded negotiating the status of homosexuality in the broader social context. The processes of de-normalisation of heteronormativity are also difficult in the field of football. Although many football coaches and club managers display ‘pragmatic acceptance’ of non-heterosexual female players, this attitude is not always accompanied by respect for different sexual orientations. The ways in which female football players deal with such circumstances resulted in creating a safe space of ‘enclaved non-heteronormativity’ within the team. It is a space which protects from socially dominant compulsory heterosexuality. We discuss the role of this enclave and its potential for social change in football cultures in Poland.

Sexuality, Disability, and Aging: Queer Temporalities of the Phallus

Sexuality, Disability, and Aging: Queer Temporalities of the Phallus

Queer Transgressions in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction: Gender, Nation, Politics

Queer Transgressions in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction: Gender, Nation, Politics

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt and the Double Time of Motherhood

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt and the Double Time of Motherhood

Self-fashioning Queer/Crip: Stretching and grappling with disability, gender and dress

The convergence of queer studies with disability studies has imagined new possibilities of sexuality, gender and the body, and developed Queer/Crip as a theoretical framework. Queer/Crip scholars map out connections between queer and crip theories by examining how compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory able-bodiedness are entangled in the service of normativity. This article uses a Queer/Crip framework to explore how queer, disabled people use their everyday dress practices to construct their intersectional identities, as well as to stretch and navigate dominant systems of gender, sexuality and disability. Drawing from wardrobe interviews with 40 disability-identified men and masculine non-binary people, we present sartorial biographies of four queer, disabled participants from this larger sample. These participants come from diverse locations of both marginalization and privilege across races, gender identities, classes, disability embodiments and other social positions. Our analysis reveals that queer, disabled participants’ everyday dress practices dismantle dominant systems of gender, disability and fashion. However, participants also grapple with self-fashioning their disabled and queer identities based on the various ways in which they are intersectionally privileged and marginalized. This article contributes to research on queer fashion by demonstrating how applying a Queer/Crip framework and centring disability dress experiences opens-up understandings about queer embodiment and dress.

Lesbian Potentiality and Feminist Media in the 1970s by Rox Samer

Reviewed by: Lesbian Potentiality and Feminist Media in the 1970s by Rox Samer Cait McKinney (bio) Lesbian Potentiality and Feminist Media in the 1970s by Rox Samer. Duke University Press, a Camera Obscura Book. 2022. 304 pages. $107.95 hardcover; $28.95 paperback; also available in e-book. Feminist theory and queer cultures often locate lesbian feminism a bit out of time, a formation that is over(ish) but drags on, affecting present movements. In Lesbian Potentiality and Feminist Media in the 1970s, Rox Samer enters this fray with a metaphor about being tongue-tied. Lesbian is a hard word to say, they suggest, both technically—as the transition from the slow, smooth les- to the hard, quick -bian requires a sudden shift in embouchure—and also conceptually, in that some associate the term lesbian with transphobia and white feminism. For Samer, speaking the word lesbian "always feels like molasses," because there is urgency in uttering the word but its lineages are a mouthful. This image is bound up with the author's emphasis on the gendered body, located in time, as what we always think and theorize from.1 The slow, careful being with 1970s lesbian media that unfolds in this book is geared toward a different kind of historiographic opening, which Samer names lesbian potentiality. With this concept, Samer puts forward a new theory of lesbian media history as offering alternative visions of sexual and gendered life, visions that emerge from concrete experiences of lesbian conviviality, including the film screening, video workshop, and fan newsletter. Lesbian documentary and science fiction, they assert, enact worlds without patriarchy, prisons, or binaries that wound. These visions are "potentialities" because they present former [End Page 209] futures that were never realized, that are indeed unrealizable, but that generate ideas scholars and activists committed to liberation "may want to imagine within the ongoing project of forging freer futures."2 Samer emphasizes that potentiality has implications for historiographies of media and of social movements, which are freed from the burden of making something progressive and linear out of the past to revel in historical contingencies as they either resonate onward or don't. "What happened and what did not happen" is as important in Samer's method as "what could have not been but was and what could have been but was not."3 As Samer puts it, sounding a bit weary of trends in media history, "there are historiographical alternatives to simply converting past potentialities into a resource in the service of our imagined future."4 Freed from the burden of being a precedent for feminists and queer people "today," lesbian media in this book are allowed to be expansive, messy. In this process, Samer paints lesbian as a structure of feeling more than an identity category and a capacious concept for which people who might call themselves trans today have always had affinity. Samer builds on the work of Giorgio Agamben to carefully contextualize lesbian potentialities as existing and concrete rather than generic. Unlike related theories such as José Esteban Muñoz's aesthetic focus on queer futurity, potentialities are not abstract or utopian.5 Rather, they emerge from grounded conditions of lesbian feminist collaboration across media, politics, and affective life. Samer finds these lesbian potentialities in counterpublics formed around documentary film and video and science fiction fandoms, each of which take up one-half of the book. In the first two chapters on documentary, Samer begins with a study of film distribution, an under-theorized aspect of 1970s lesbian feminism's cultural infrastructure. Investigating the origins of Women Make Movies and some of their lesser-known contemporaries, Samer frames the traveling film screening as an eventful space where audiences labored to generate, negotiate, and revise meanings between their local contexts and the feminist politics of the films they watched together. Feminist distribution is a culmination of activist-artist labor, technologies and systems, and routines through which audiences are invited to encounter media. Returning to the concreteness of lesbian potentiality, Samer shows how film distribution as a system combines with dialogic consciousness-raising as a practice. This conjuncture happens in and through a political vision of what an end to compulsory heterosexuality...

‘Bending’ against straightening devices: queer lived experiences of sexuality and sexual health in Bangladesh

BackgroundDespite global data around increased health risks among sexual and gender diverse populations, lived experiences of young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and others (LGBTQ+) people are often ignored in mainstream health research. This is particularly evident in countries such as Bangladesh where the rights of sexual minorities are not recognised. This article looks at queer lived experiences of sexuality and sexual health within such a context. We use the phenomenological framework of heteronormative ‘straightening devices’ – mechanisms working to direct people towards heterosexuality, gender conformity, and procreative marriage – to identify ‘invisible’ structures upholding normative sexual behaviours and see how young people in Bangladesh navigate these in their everyday lives.MethodsThis article is based on qualitative data collected in Dhaka, Bangladesh over nine months in 2019 as part of the first author’s doctoral research. Using thematic analysis, we draw on experiences of normative sexual expectations from biographical in-depth interviews with 14 purposively sampled LGBTQ + individuals aged 18 to 24.ResultsRespondents identified heteronormative expectations around gender norms of traditional behaviour and presentation for men and women as well as parental expectations of compulsory heterosexuality through marriage. These straightening devices existed at multiple levels, including individual, interpersonal, community, and societal. The four main themes around straightening devices include marriage norms for women; harassment of feminine-presenting bodies in public spaces; heteronormative healthcare; and consequences of not embodying heteronormativity.ConclusionOur study highlighted young people’s everyday experiences of having to ‘bend’ to – and against – heteronormative straightening devices at home, in public spaces, and within institutions such as healthcare in Bangladesh. The exploration of queer experiences provides new insights into context-specific ways in which sexual and gender diverse people understand themselves. Further research using the framework of straightening devices can help public health professionals to identify more ‘barriers’ confronted by sexual and gender diverse young people.