Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence

"Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" is a 1980 essay by Adrienne Rich, which was also published in her 1986 book Blood, Bread, and Poetry as a part of the radical feminism movement of the late 60s, 70s, and 80s.

"Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" is a text that is constructed to think about and inspire change about lesbian visibility, structures of lesbian sexuality, and the role of literary criticism in relationship to lesbianism. 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. It was written to challenge the erasure of lesbian existence from a large amount of scholarly feminist literature. It was not written to widen divisions but to encourage heterosexual feminists to examine heterosexuality as a political institution which disempowers women and to change it.

"Compulsory “means required or obligatory” and heterosexuality mean the assumption that all romantic relationships are between a man and a woman." The normalcy of heterosexuality and the defiance of that are both political in nature. Adrienne Rich argues that heterosexuality is a violent political institution making way for the "male right of physical, economical, and emotional access" to women. She urges women to direct their energies towards other women rather than men, and portrays lesbianism as an extension of feminism. Rich challenges the notion of women's dependence on men as social and economic supports, as well as for adult sexuality and psychological completion. She calls for what she describes as a greater understanding of lesbian experience, and believes that once such an understanding is obtained, these boundaries will be widened and women will be able to experience the "erotic" in female terms.

In order to gain this physical, economical, and emotional access for women, Rich lays out a framework developed by Kathleen Gough (both a social anthropologist and feminist) that lists “eight characteristics of male power in archaic and contemporary societies”. Along with the framework given, Rich sets to define the term lesbianism by giving three separate definitions for the term. First, Rich sees lesbian existence as an act of resistance to this institution, but also as an individual choice, when in fact, the principles of radical lesbianism see lesbianism as necessary, and consider its existence as necessarily outside of the heterosexual political sphere of influence. Next that, “Lesbian Identity is the sense of self of a woman bonded primarily to women who is sexually and emotionally independent of men.” Lastly, that the concept of a lesbian continuum, suggests that female sexual bonding is the only way that women experience women identification. The lesbian continuum is the overall “range - through each woman’s life and throughout history - of woman-identified experiences, not simply the fact that a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman”. Below are the characteristics in which male power has demonstrated the suppression of female sexuality.

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