Heteronormative

I'm taking a journey to the flip side in this post; since most of my focus has been on non-traditional gender, i.e. not stereotypical notions of male/female, masculine/feminine, I've decided it's time to take a walk on the wild side and explore heteronormativity. Of course, our first stop is Wikipedia for a handy definition of the terrain we'll be exploring. Wikipedia draws the boundaries thus:

Heteronormativity is a term describing the marginalization of non-heterosexual lifestyles and the view that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation. Instances of this include the idea that people fall into two distinct and complementary categories (male and female), that sexual and marital relations are normal only when between people of different sexes, and that each sex has certain natural roles in life. The heteronormative view is that physical sex, gender identity, and gender roles should, in any given person, align to either all-male or all-female cultural norms.

To begin with, I'd like to point out the use of the term "non-heterosexual" in the first sentence; there is a reason this word was chosen! Many people conceive of "homosexual" as the opposite to "heterosexual," but this is problematic. Homosexual refers to "same-sex" relations, which of course are not heterosexual, but it says nothing about non-hetero relations that are also not homosexual. Did you do a double-take there? Yes, there are other possibilities beyond the construction of homo-versus-hetero! What about intersex people? What about transexuals? Transgender? These people do not easily fit into a binary construction of male/female, so then how can it be determined where they fit into a binary construction of sexuality that rests on a binary construction of sex? We simply do not have language crafted to convey such types of people and their relationships; our language is based on our binaristic assumptions, despite their inadequacies. This is why "non-heterosexual" is being used here, because there is no other word to describe all the ground not owned by "heterosexual": homosexual is not the opposite of heterosexual because there are no "opposites" when there are more than two options, even if those other options don't have their own names yet.

Next I'd like to look at "normal," also in the first sentence. How is it that we determine "normal?" According to Wikipedia normal

refers to a lack of significant deviation from the average.

In statistics, this would mean anything falling within three standard deviations from the average (the mean), either way, normal is defined by what most people do, and those outliers, the people who don't follow the herd, who go off the beaten path, well, they get labeled "deviant." But what most people do varies drastically from society to society, culture to culture. That being the case, locking down a norm for the species as a whole is highly problematic: "norms" are often culturally-specific constructions, not "natural" occurrences.

But is this the case with gendered or sexual behavior? Is heteronormativity really a social construct? Doesn't biology demand that we recognize the "complementary categories" of male and female, designed for purposes of reproduction? Even if we decide that intersex people are really just unfortunate abnormalities, "nature's mistakes" (a position I do not agree with at all), there is other evidence to contradict this stance. Though reproduction necessarily requires contributions in some form from a male and a female, the function of sex may not be entirely reproductive. Beyond mere enjoyment, sex often functions among primates as a kind of social grease; bonobos, for example, solve most social problems with sexual activity. Even in less sexuallized primates, "same-sex" sexual behavior is common as a means of establishing and enforcing social hierarchy. Perhaps this is why females have orgasms?* Anyhow, I digress. The point here is that assumptions of "normality," sex, and sexuality are just that, assumptions. Though they tend to get equated with what is "natural," our conceptions of what is normal may be more artificial than we think.

This leads to my final critique of "heteronormativity," the idea

that physical sex, gender identity, and gender roles should, in any given person, align to either all-male or all-female cultural norms

is based upon assumptions that do not pan out upon close examination. One culture's notion of proper female behavior does not align with the next culture's, or the next, or the next. The same can be said of male behavior, sexual behavior, and even how many sexes there are!** So with all this variation across cultures, why do we expect that our particular prescription for male:masculine:likes female and female:feminine:likes male, with all the attendant behaviors including speech patterns, dress, occupations, tastes, etc. is actually "natural" and the "way things should be?" In anthropology, this type of view is called "ethnocentric," meaning, one thinks their own culturally prescribed way of living is the one and only correct way, i.e. "natural." Everyone else is just off their rockers, running about in the wilderness without a clue of how to be a proper human being.

This is the problem, then, with heteronormativity: it takes cultural constructs and pretends they are natural, thereby marking all other possibilities as "unnatural," "deviant," "abnormal," none of which have a positive ring to them in the slightest. It is a form of cultural hegemony: it doesn't recognize it's origins in culture, presumes naturalness, leaving no room in it's version of reality for questioning the basic assumptions of what male/female, masculine/feminine, or sex/gender/sexuality are, much less why they should line up as the schema says they should. It leaves no room for the existence of people who don't fit the system, consequently, it renders such lives relatively, if not entirely, unlivable.

For more on deconstructing in relation to sex/sexuality/gender and on livable lives and hegemony, start with Riki Wilchins, then move onto Judith Butler and Michel Foucault. From there, the possibilities are endless, the horizon limitless and full of potential. Go see what you may find.



*There is a debate over the functionality of orgasm in females: it appears to have no direct physical benefit in reproduction. The panel I attended on the topic at the 105th American Anthropological Association did not, to my recollection, give serious consideration to the idea that females who enjoyed orgasms may be more likely to have sex, and thus reproduce more. I can't recall if the role of orgasm in connection with sex as a social lubricant and/or means of creating and enforcing hierarchy was broached. This is another topic I'd like to do research on!

**This is especially so since many cultures do not distinguish between sex and gender. Intersex people, of course, challenge the notion of only two biological sexes. Biology itself recognizes more chromosomal combinations than just xx or xy, though it does like to assign each variation to either "male" or "female," labeling the variations as "syndromes."