The Sun

The heterosexuality is the attraction of an individual towards individuals of opposite sex. A Woman towards a Man and vice versa, or in the animal world, a male towards a female and vice versa.

Definitions

Greek Heteros (different) . The " term; hétérosexuel" appears only after the formation of the word " homosexuel" , to which its creator, Karl-Maria Kertbeny, opposed initially the " term; normalsexuel". Although found in its letters since 1868, the adjective is not published before 1880, in German language. In French, the adjective appears in 1891, and the name " hétérosexualité" in 1894. The abbreviation hétéro also exists, in a more familiar context.

The term of heterosexuality is used to indicate:

the Sexual orientation of a person towards people of the opposite kind. For example, one will speak about the heterosexuality of a woman when this one tests an attraction sexual (and possibly emotional) towards certain men.
the condition of a person who is defined, in terms of sexual Identité like hétérosexuelle.
sexual practices between people of opposite sex.

The heterosexuality, obvious in biology by the desire of the sexual pressure (very dissociated, at the human one, of the instinct of reproduction) and the physical conformation of the sexual Specificities, is not reduced to it in all the human society. The precise causes of the heterosexuality like social behavior, which can be related to this biology, are not established, in the actual position of knowledge, which those of the other sexual orientations.

Aptitude for the reproduction

The heterosexuality differs from the Homosexualité by the object-choice, in the psychoanalytical language. Both however are as built one as the other, and if it is easy to define the heterosexuality by opposition and as the negative one of homosexuality, it is more difficult to define it in itself. The criterion of the reproduction appears central, even if it is far from being systematic. The preserving psychoanalysis presents the heterosexuality like a final state of the sexual development, in conformity with the reproductive purpose shown like a teleology, an ultimate goal.

The history of the heterosexuality merges to a certain extent with the Histoire of the family, and the demographic policies (Natalisme, Populationnisme) who promote the heterosexuality massively. As the care of the children was traditionally reserved for the women, often making Maternité their single identity, the Féministes often saw in the heterosexuality an apparatus to reproduce the inequalities between women and men (see patriarchate).

But the sterility, the Contraception like the forms of Conjugalité without sexuality (Tantrisme, Platonic love or Chastity), reduce considerably the range of this criterion: to be heterosexual does not amount reproducing. Moreover, the forms of Homoparentalité S put at evil the idea of a monopoly heterosexual of the family. If the only reproduction remains the prerogative of the meeting of a male gamète and a gamète female, according to the companies the education of the children is not inevitably reserved to the biological parents.

Initiation and life of couple

With the Adolescence, the appearance of the secondary sexual characters causes a strong differentiation. The anguish in front of sexuality and the Tabou S support the Flirt S without passage to the act. Sexual initiation represents a required passage at the time of the marriage for the traditionalists families, or like a preparation with this last in the freer families. On this occasion, the homosexual experiments are more tolerated as gropings before a heterosexuality wanted like indépassable. The interest for the other sex is a Norme, which takes the form of a constant socialization. The people having another orientation are often long in assuming themselves.

Fidelity seems a decisive criterion, but it proves to be fragile: the Adultery, the long tradition of the cocufiage in Occident and the recourse to the Prostitution confirm it, the sides Polygamie and free Union. The conjugality, if she is in general denied with the non-hétérosexuelles people, is much more widespread, and the movements for the Homosexual marriage attest force of the conjugality out of the hétérosexuelle sphere, whether it is in the form of exclusive couple or " ouvert". Apart from the conjugality and couple, the Célibat concerns the people of any orientation.

Complementarity: sex and kind

The female criterion of the complementarity in /male, which rests on the thought of the " difference of the sexes" , a Essentialisme which one finds of Aristote to Francoise Héritier, is quite as illusory: effeminate men or male women can be heterosexuals. The sex and the kind are not recut inevitably: a woman attracted by a male woman remains homosexual. There are many manners of living its heterosexuality, far from the Machisme, according to its preferences of sexual practical kind and .

Thus, the sexual identity, according to the adopted sexuée identity, can appear astonishing, like these examples drawn from autobiographies or fiction: when François Coupry entitles one of its works I am lesbian (1978), which takes again to one of the characters of the film the Passengers of Jean-Claude Guiguet, a man heterosexual regarding himself as a woman. During in is Marie-Aude Murail, which in its first autobiographical book Passage is identified with a boy, attracted by the boys: a gay, therefore. One speaks then about PoMosexualité. More still, the case of the transsexual/the, which they have of the homosexual desires or heterosexuals, comes to renew the designs of the heterosexuality, according to whether one takes into account their starting sex or their sex of arrival. The Virilité is thus not inevitably the counterpoint complementary to the Féminité.

Porosity of sexualities

Moreover, the heterosexuality as homosexuality are regarded as exclusive Monosexualité S. But the Bisexualité comes déconstruire these orientations monolithic and to disturb their edges. The bisexuality disturbs and the bisexual ones are often wrongly classified among the homosexual ones or the heterosexuals. The constraint with the heterosexuality, in the form of social pressures, often tolerates in fact the bisexuality provided that it remains discrete, while discouraging the homosexuality by means of the Discrimination and of the violences homophobes. (See Liberation movement merry.)

The scale of Alfred Kinsey makes it possible to apprehend human sexuality in term of " continuum" , the sexuality of a good part of the population concerned with a dominant orientation more or less tinted by phantasms or experiments " autres". The three orientations are recut, and these allosexuality S is opposed jointly to the autosexuality and the Asexualité.

A privileged identity

The heterosexuality is generally only the Sexual orientation accepted and spread in the companies heterocentrists. The characteristic of the heterosexuality on the other sexual orientations is to be naturalized by the dominant speeches (in particular religious) and to pass for only sexuality, the others being seen like Déviance S. the constraint with the heterosexuality and the inequalities between the sexes are forms of oppression related to the heterosexuality. The heterosexuality could be seen like a coercive system, when it was imposed, or when it supported the inequalities between the sexes.

In the patriarchal companies , one of the privileges of the heterosexuality is the claim with the universality, and the recourse to a higher epistemological point of view on other sexualities. Certain intellectuals cultivating this point of view present sometimes the heterosexuality as threatened by the movements of recognitions LGBT: nothing is less sure. These movements do not aim to the disappearance of the heterosexuality, or to weaken, from the point of view of the social recognition the marriage; and the Hétérophobie remains a fanstasme. Majority, the heterosexuality is not only protected: the public policies very often contribute to discriminate other sexualities.

In the patriarchal companies , where sexual repression is exerted on all the sexual forms of expression of the pleasure in love, the highly desirable state which the pleasing heterosexuality with a paradox represents. For some homosexual having integrated the Homophobie, in the United States of America, all the means are good to become heterosexuals: therapies of reconversion, aversifs treatments, electric shock S… . The difficulty “of converting” and the strong rates of “failures” (it happens that the attempt leads to the refusal of any sexuality) show that to become exclusively heterosexual is not an obviousness, even if one wishes it.

Homosexuality, bisexuality and heterosexuality interact and maintain the constant exchanges. The description of the arbitrary and conventional character of the heterosexuality under its false obviousness does not come to call into question of the feelings, the practices and a culture in any event dominant, but makes it possible to restore its social character to him. Many the Rites of Seduction, expression of the Desire and the multiple forms of conjugality seems as many unsuspected richnesses.

References

Random links: