Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, by Adrienne Rich PDF

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Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, by Adrienne Rich In Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, Adrienne Rich argues that heterosexuality is not “natural” or intrinsic in human instincts, but an institution imposed upon many cultures and societies that render women in a subordinate situation. Further, ignorance of the institution of heterosexuality, taking it for granted that all women are heterosexual, and negligence of the historical and current existence of lesbian can be a great detriment for any theory, especially feminist ones. In this essay I shall examine Rich’s formulation of male identification, as a norm in patriarchal society, and women identification, as a form of rebellion mainly located in lesbian continuum, and argue that the key step of Rich’s theory is her understanding of heterosexual desire as constructed. Rich does not use the word “heterosexuality” to mean one’s preference of member of the other sex as one’s sexual partner; on the contrary, she is precisely questioning what we take to be a “preference”. Rich argues that heterosexuality, like capitalism, colonialism, and racism, is a political institution that disempowers women, induces false consciousness and is maintained with force and violence. As a political institution, is it “founded on male interest and prerogative” (32). Referring to Gough’s outlines of characteristics of male power in many patriarchal societies (men have the power “to deny women sexuality”, “to force it upon them”, to control their body and reproductive ability, etc. [18]), Rich claims that the violence and domination of male power is “a pervasive cluster of forces, ranging from physical brutality to control of consciousness” and part of the mechanism of enforcement of heterosexuality on women (20). One example of the false consciousness developed in the institution of heterosexuality is the male identification of women. By male identification, Rich means that women take up the values asserted by men and men’s dominant social status as a fact. Male identification, Rich quotes here from Barry, means internalizing the values of the colonizer and actively participating in carrying out the colonization of one’s self and one’s sex…. Male identification is the act whereby women place men above women, including themselves, in credibility, status, and importance in most situations… (25) Therefore, the false consciousness of male identification renders women subjected to the institution of heterosexuality where men can secure their interest – a large part of which is their sexual access to women. Rich gives a few genesis stories of patriarchy and hypothesizes that men control women not out of fear of women’s mystical power, but out of fear of losing their sexual access to women (22). Therefore, heterosexuality is institutionalized and imposed as a norm, a nature, or a preference for women, while it actually disempowers women and use all kinds of force if they ever try to rebel. Rich does not give an account of women identification as clear as the one on male identification, but she does trace women identification and women rebellion against heterosexuality in lesbian relationship, mother-daughter relationship, sensual intimacy between women (for sharing a richer psychic life than men have), activist coalition, etc. We might estimate that women identification would mean for women to question men’s values and supremacy in society and to value women’s relationships, community, and power. A most violent work of the institution of heterosexuality is to wipe out these traces in history as well as in current society, so that women do not gain power from them to question the heterosexuality they live in.

Part of Rich’s discussion of heterosexuality is to de-naturalize “desire” to the other sex, but to formulate the political institution behind the naturalizing discourse, and it is important to examine how the notion of desire is understood here. Rich describes how men’s desire toward women and women’s desire toward men are seen in the heterosexual world: men’s sexual desire is overwhelming, unstoppable, “all conquering”, and always carries a sense of adolescent immaturity (23); for women, it is characterized by the sexual and erotic responsibility as a wife, and the construction of “love” and romance that asserts that women are naturally drawn to men, “even when that attraction is suicidal” (35). However, in a society where the childcare and emotional devotion are mostly from mother, why do women later “choose”, or “naturally” feel attracted to, men? Rich argues, it is the force of the heterosexual institution, the violence upon deviants, and the false consciousness of male identification at work: women become heterosexual because some find their safety and life only in this disempowering institution, some cannot know whether there has ever been any escape, some get erased from history, some grow to believe that men’s overwhelming sexual desire is the fact that they live with, etc. Women’s sexual desire for men, according to Rich, cannot be explained by nature or biology as long as it is alongside the disempowerment, violence, false consciousness in the institution of heterosexuality. The naturalization of women’s sexual desire cannot be read without questioning the power and domination within the institution. If this is the complicated layers of construction of women’s heterosexual desire, I wonder about the other two desire-routes in the text. Men’s heterosexual desire is defined by the patriarchal society as dominant, violent, and often sadist, which increases, if not justifies, men’s violence toward women. Is it possible that this sexual desire is also constructed, not “natural”, to secure men’s initiative to gain their sexual access to women? Women’s erotic desire toward women is seen by Rich as an opportunity to break through the heterosexual domination, and she further claims that it will realize its political power if it transforms to “conscious women identification” (36). How are we to understand this rebel desire? Is it more “natural” because women tend to look for substitute for their own mothers? Is it richer because women develop more emotional abilities from childcare? Is it more liberating because it confirms women’s sexuality, and the camaraderie formed between women has the power to free one from the male identification? And how deeply embedded are these understanding in the heterosexual institution?...