Compulsory Heterosexuality

Compulsory heterosexuality, often shortened to comp het, refers to the social assumption and expectation that heterosexuality is normal, natural, universal, and intended for everyone. In a heteronormative society, non-heterosexual ways of living, relating, and desiring are thereby devalued, made invisible, disadvantaged, or excluded.

This does not mean that heterosexual people are not truly heterosexual. Rather, the criticism is that heterosexuality is presented as the only self-evident and socially preferred option. This can lead people to not recognize their own non-heterosexual attraction for a long time, to suppress it, or to interpret it as a “phase,” an exception, or a personal failure.

The term became especially well known through Adrienne Rich’s 1980 essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Rich analyzed compulsory heterosexuality as a social institution that, in particular, makes lesbian existence invisible and subject to control. The concept is an important reference point for later theories of heteronormativity, queer critique, and feminist social analysis.