Do you believe in compulsory heterosexuality?

Destresse · 2021-02-28T10:22:46+00:00

Ah, I don't think I fit the definition of what you're asking since I never dated any male, but I did manage to convince myself I wasn't a lesbian for quite some time.

Basically, I'm not very in touch with myself, my body, my feelings. Or I used not to be. And I felt very little. So the one time I would feel something, and it'd be about a man, I'd go "oh must be love," even when it was fear I was feeling. I just couldn't identify any of my emotions. First time I started staring at girls' lips or breasts, at 17, I of course noticed the difference, but I was so ashamed and I really didn't want to be a lesbian I just thought "whatever, it's normal, everyone is a little bi, I can still be straight" and I just ignored the fact I wasn't staring at boys at all. After all, my straight friends didn't talk about boys either, so it was easy to think we were the same. Next, it was the first time a guy expressed interest in me, when I was 20, and I froze and immediately changed the subject and then ignored him forever. Knee-jerk reaction. And I thought "what the heck is wrong with me, I don't want to be alone forever do I?" Then my attraction to women just got stronger and I thought it was society hyper-sexualising women that was poisoning me or something lol. I started worrying, a bit, about how I always, always avoided anything relating to my love life. Friends who talk about it included. But no, it did not click. At this point my brain had become an expert in denial lol. I came up with all sorts of theories about why I didn't want to date men, and not once did "i'm a lesbian" cross my mind until I read another lesbian describing her difficulties accepting herself. And then the dam broke and I spent something like two months recovering from that discovery, suddenly becoming hyper-anxious and sad and feeling like my world was crumbling down to ashes. Which it kind of was, to be honest lol. I had constructed this fantasy world where I could be straight, and in one day it all came crashing down suddenly.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is how it goes for most late-bloomers. The society we live in makes it painfully easy to think attraction to men is every minor feeling you have ever had for a man, be it admiration, envy, and more worryingly even fear, stress, and loathing. And attraction to women is normal because "women's sexuality is fluid" or something. For a long time I bought the lie that female homosexuality just doesn't exist. First time seeing (or reading) someone like me was what did it. I'm grateful to all lesbians who share their experiences and hardships, as well as describe their feelings and desires so clearly, who write blogs about it, because I would have realised way later without them. What cemented it and shut up the obsessive "what if you're just fucked up" voices in my head was actually flirting with women and being sexual with them and seeing just how easy that was. Simply something I actually wanted. And I thought "wow, all this time, this was how people actually felt when crushing on someone? I finally get it"

Ironically, I have never felt more like I belonged with my fellow humans than at this moment lol. Desire and love are just so important, and I am so glad I will never again live my life without feeling either, now that I know what they are.

reluctant_commenter · 2021-02-28T09:41:02+00:00

I'm not sure I endorse the term "compulsory heterosexuality" but I'll take a stab at the main idea that you suggest:

I personally don't understand how people can believe they are having real crushes on men while also supposedly having repressed crushes on women, without the physical cues being a huge and dead give away.

^ The bolded part is the key. Three example scenarios where someone doesn't acknowledge their physical cues:

Being in a homophobic religion/family/region/whatever where homosexuality is shamed and threatened. Some people may just have a ton of cognitive dissonance, esp. if they are trying to keep themselves safe, and while lying to their acquaintances/family, end up partly convincing themselves.
Lack of body awareness due to trauma. Lesbians-- being both female, and homosexual-- are at higher risk for being sexually assaulted than the general population. (Gender nonconforming people are also at higher risk for sexual assault/abuse and lesbians are more likely to be GNC as well.) One potential result of undergoing such trauma is a mind-body disconnect. End result: inability to observe the physical cues of your own arousal.
Lack of body awareness due to a disorder, e.g. autism spectrum disorder. People with ASD are more likely to have a mind-body disconnect.

As for the term "comphet" itself... I'm mixed. Yes, there is a lot of pressure for women to not acknowledge their same-sex attraction, especially in certain areas of the world. But, that "comphet masterdoc" is full of bullshit. I've become a lot more cautious when I see the phrase "compulsory heterosexuality" thrown around (thanks, in part, to some very thoughtful comments on this sub a while ago!).

LesChameleon · 2021-02-28T10:08:59+00:00

Let me tell you my experience of living with comphet (as I am not from the US, but from a rather conservative Catholic country).

I was born in a small town, and growing up, I noticed that I'd sometimes suddenly want to get closer to a certain girl from my school or neighborhood. Back then, I used to think "Oh, she's so cool! How come I didn't notice her before? I really wanna become her friend!". So, I'd go on and actually get closer to the girl in a typical friendly way and interpreted that as just a really strong friendship. Cue: most of these strong friendships would only last for 4-8 months because 1) I kinda wanted more (but at that time didn't know that I craved a romantic relationship) and I would get jealous if she spent more time with other people, 2) the girl eventually gets a boyfriend and I am left with this confusing feeling that I just can't pinpoint and thought like "damn, I wish I was that guy so I could date her". Never once before I graduated HS did it occur to me that I could actually date a girl without being a guy. Why?

When all you see around is heterosexual relationships + religion + small town with no openly LGBT couples (or if there are it was never lesbians, just gay men), it really creates something in your mind that just makes you think that the attraction you feel for girls is invalid or "just in your head" and that "you just haven't met the right guy yet". So, I just remained single in high school (waited for the right guy lol) and then thankfully I moved away for college to a place where I actually met lesbians so things fell into place after a couple of years. In between, I once actually confused the platonic, friendly feelings for a male friend as attraction, but anything physical literally repulsed me, while, with a girl, even simple things as kissing drove me crazy. So the physical cues were a dead giveaway for me, but I can also totally understand how someone else can remain in denial for years.

What I really can't understand though, is someone claiming to be a lesbian while actually being in a long-term relationship or marriage with a guy. I also once dated a girl who had previously been in only one relationship, 4 years with a guy, and after that she only dated girls and claimed she was a lesbian. I was curious about it and she said that she "had feelings for him because he had a nice personality, but she didn't enjoy sex". To this day, I don't understand if girls like her are actually bisexual, or if they just don't know how to recognize the signs their bodies send them and settle for something because it's accepted in society. (Note: she also comes from a very dysfunctional family so she never had a model relationship to look up to, and I am sure this affected her perception of relationship and sexuality.)

Hydiee · 2021-02-28T10:44:22+00:00

Of course, but not in correlation with that stupid master doc

weirdlyhaunted · 2021-03-01T04:20:22+00:00

I grew up in an extremely dysfunctional family where the baseline was feeling bad about yourself and being anxious about literally everything. So when boys started showing interest around puberty, I mistook that feeling in the pit of my stomach (which was dread and bad anxiety) for butterflies and went with it. Oh, I suppose I should mention that my dysfunctional family got extra fun when my dad converted to very conservative christianity when I was still a little kid, so I spent my formative years learning that gay people had something wrong with them and I so desperately wanted to feel like I was normal and not in a fucked up emotionally abusive home that I never even considered whether I might be a lesbian until many, many years later, after I got into therapy and on antidepressants. The "female sexuality is fluid" bullshit did some damage, too. Any attraction I did allow myself to feel for women was rationalized away as "well, they're objectively attractive, all straight women think so, too." I'm better now and I've cut off the toxic family members. But I still have so much baggage to work on that I'm terrified of starting anything with any woman, because I don't want to fuck up someone else's life.

oofreesouloo · 2021-02-28T11:17:54+00:00

Great post! I'm not really sure what comphet is anymore, because as someone else here said, I've heard already so many different definitions lmao. But I can speak a little bit about my experience. I'm currently 23 by the way. Since I was born that I had absolutely zero homosexual visibility, be it in movies, from family members, from friends etc etc. The ONLY reality that was shown to me as a child and a teen was that girls dated boys and boys dated girls. So, as a child, I thought that was the only option for me and as I thought the idea of dating "cute", I wanted to have someone so I would basically "choose" my boyfriends and a few weeks later I would get fed up of my current and would move to another boy I "chose" LMAO. Remember, I'm talking about 6-11 years old. But as soon as puberty hit (14 years old), meaning I started to actually feel sexual, physical attraction for the first time, and guess what? It was towards girls, women! And I realised at the same time what I felt towards my girl best friend wasn't a close friendship but love and what I felt towards all those dudes I "chose" was just friendship and I thought they were cool dudes lmao. Because with dudes i wouldn't ever get jealous, and if they left me I would be "okay whatever" and I would get fed up very quickly of them as romantic partners LMAO. With my girl best friend I experienced for the first time what was feeling reaaally jealous, when I saw her with her bf. I was shocked at first because I had been convinced since childhood that I liked boys and I didn't know anyone homossexual at the time. I thought I was like some sort of alien I swear... Since pubery, I've never pursued men ever again, only women and I'm actually a gold star lesbian lmao (the "bf's" I had as a child, we didn't do literally anything. We would simply ask each other if we would date each other and that was it lmao) . I don't know if this counts as comphet or not, but I thought I could share this.

BUT! I feel like nowadays there are lots of women who use comphet as an excuse to claim to be lesbians when theyre NOT. "Oh, I only like fictional male celebrities". "Oh, I only like Harry Styles". Dude, lol. A lesbian doesn't care about males at all, and doesn't have "exceptions" lmaaao.

MannyMandrake · 2021-02-28T09:27:50+00:00

What is compulsory heterosexuality? I've seen so many different definitions. I thought it's about societal pressures and expectations for everyone to be heterosexual, not about having crushes on the opposite sex.

lovelyspearmint · 2021-02-28T21:23:54+00:00

I had supposed crushes on boys and men when I was younger, and I definitely think it's a mix of me wanting to seem normal and not really being exposed to gay people in general (no family or friends were (openly) gay). I was unaware at the time that I had autism spectrum disorder, and so I unknowingly acted as if I were interested in men as a way of masking, which is a defense strategy for autistic people to mimic how others behave to appear normal. I only realised around uni that whenever a man was close to me, I would feel revulsion and cut things off immediately. I thought it was because I was inexperienced, but I started to notice that I felt the exact opposite when I was in close proximity to women I found attractive.

I definitely think there is a pressure on women to be in relationships with men, not to mention lesbians used to rarely be portrayed in a good light in media, or their love would be a doomed one, often with the death of one or both women. Had I had more contact with lesbians in my formative years, I might have seen the signs earlier, but then I would have had to tackle the knowledge of being a lesbian in a girl's high school, so perhaps it was for the best, considering I didn't feel confident enough to kiss or sleep with men anyway.

SickOfThisShit · 2021-02-28T22:02:20+00:00

I had a few 'crushes' on guys when I was in elementary and high school. I mean they weren't really crushes looking back on them they were me picking guys I thought I could like because in my friend groups the question of 'which boys did you like' would come up all the time or we'd do quizzes on what your dream guy is like and I'd have to come up with answers. At the time though I didn't realize I was gay and the crushes I did have on some of my friends just didn't register as crushes. The idea I could have feelings for another girl just wasn't something on my radar. I wasn't surrounded by homophobia or anything, its just all the media I saw and all the relationships I witnessed were women being with men. The idea I could be anything other than straight just didn't occur to me until much later.

babystud · 2021-03-02T08:01:08+00:00

i knew i was gay from elementary school but being in a christian family that was obviously a no no so i decided to ignore it till highschool. In middle and high school i would literally have a “crush” on a guy for exactly 3 weeks every once in a while but end it as soon as it looked like like I’d have to do anything more than surface level “i like him”. Even in university i forced myself to bed 1 man of every race cause i desperately hoped that i was just very bi and hadnt found my type yet. So i don’t think i went through comphet, more like comp ”dont be lesbian so then u can still end up with a man and be typical”. That weird masterdoc and its version of comphet did nothing to help and I really think its just a wikihow for girls who want to be ~queer~ when they obviously arent.

radlesbian · 2021-03-04T21:25:24+00:00

Absolutely. I'm a detransitioner and compulsory heterosexuality is one of the things that caused me to transition FtM.

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