10 Surprising Facts About Heterosexuality

When I began work on my book Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality, I often got teased by friends who wondered whether, in working on the history of something so commonplace, I was going to come across anything that wasn't already common knowledge. Surely, they thought, it would all be very straightforward, very vanilla, very Leave It to Beaver, and if there were anything in there they didn't already know about, they'd be surprised.

As it turned out, this was far from true. The history of heterosexuality is actually a motherlode of remarkable and sometimes deeply strange stuff, from the broad-brush conceptual to the kinds of tidbits you add to your cocktail-party repertoire. Not only does the history of heterosexuality offer up surprises that make you rethink what "heterosexual" is and means, it also makes you realize how little we really know about this thing about which most of us assume we already know everything we need to. The following are 10 of my personal favorites.

 

 

 

Comments

[dt26ntx]

08:33 PM on 02/14/2012

this article is ridiculous...JS

[Jose Perez Hernandez]

10:44 AM on 02/14/2012

Again, as an interesting exercise in logic, replace the term "left-handed" for the word "gay", predjudicial statements regarding homosexuality would become completely fallacious.....silly.

[JohnT1919]

01:12 AM on 02/14/2012

Interesting read.

[AllegroTroppo]

10:39 PM on 02/13/2012

Comedian Andrew Dice Clay offered a definitive, if crass criterion of heterosexuality:" Whenever go to the beach and I see some guy's hairy behind, I never say to myself:" Oh yeah! I am NOT leaving the beach until I get his phone number."

[okokok]

11:51 PM on 02/14/2012

He flatters himself. Or, at least he used to....

[maxfax]

10:34 PM on 02/13/2012

I recall the day my Grandmother could not get her own credit card without Grandfather's signature, in the 1970s.

[cwebster]

03:13 AM on 02/14/2012

I remember those days.

[CASnyder]

07:57 PM on 02/13/2012

"3. The 'Science' Of Mutual Heterosexual Orgasm" is poorly written in that it conflicts with her "1. May 6, 1868" premise - she should have discussed it using the original words used in the late 1800 to early 1900 sources.
"7. When Going Down Meant Going... Down" if the view of the authorities & physicians of the late 19th century were typical of much of the population, it sounds like the lesbian couples then might have been far more sexually fulfilled then other women of the time. Sounds like "scientifically correct"..."mutually pleasurable and simultaneously climactic" marital coitus would be as rare as a snowball in he11 if he's not allowed to stimulate her to help her climax with him.

[Kate Berry Mann]

07:53 PM on 02/13/2012

#8: I do love the Oscar Wilde quote about the subject (written in 1895), "I know perfectly well whom she will place me next to tonight. She will place me next to Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent...and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public."

[Jose Perez Hernandez]

11:03 AM on 02/14/2012

Wilde as a pioneer still took the UK at least 75 years before being de-criminalized there. His dialogues took place amid the arts and the upper classes, and remained slow to free the workers from the exact same sexual oppression. That syndrome could be compared to certain countries mostly in Africa yet to end backward stultifying laws. Interestingly, South Africa leads most other countries in the world due to its revolutionary struggle that developed an inclusive constitution. Nicaragua became another parallel regional first under the Sandinistas. Dutch women helped to write Nicaragua´s liberal new constitution over strong objections from the ultra-conservative Cardinal Obando y Bravo.

[Bushwhacked]

06:03 PM on 02/13/2012

Thinking out loud. Old cartoon: Eve topless holding an apple; Adam staring at her chest, "Hey, I dig them apples!" Our appetite for food and for sex are innate. Without either we'd perish. We enjoy eating, especially when we're hungry. We all enjoy varieties of cuisine, preparation ways of sharing food to our taste. IF our favorite meal were the only thing we could eat, we would tire of it. Cannot the same things be said of sex? Perhaps the notion that sex is bad and dirty rose from the days of plague. Today, adults know how to both prepare and consume food safely and how to enjoy sex safely with each other. And we know that too much of anything is not wise. Gluttony for food or sex can be the crutch we use to avoid or mask problems. Like drugs, they trigger that euphoric chemical in our brains. Self-control is the key. Nearly 36% of U.S. adults and 17% children are obese, though you don't see complaining about this conspicuous consumption ( http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/01/17/u-s-obesity-rates-level-off-remain-high/ ).
Whether gay, straight or bi, choose a partner to share your life with, then enjoy sex and food safely. Know that loving your partner is a choice of selflessness - of putting their needs before your own. Partners, spouses and parents do it daily and it is hard because we are innately selfish, so celebrate that love.

[tjamman]

07:49 AM on 02/17/2012

And get a little 'on the side'...

sooner or later 'partner' is gonna get a bit BOOORRRIIINNNGGG...

just sayin'...

[oregonian68]

05:55 PM on 02/13/2012

By "western" history, we're talking "Christian" history and "most" of western history wasn't Christian at all.. And no one knows what really happened in people's bedrooms. Just because certain things such as "foreplay" were given a name doesn't mean they didn't occur. Straight bashing is no cure for gay bashing. Geez.

[AllegroTroppo]

10:44 PM on 02/13/2012

By "western" history, we're talking "Christian­" history and "most" of western history wasn't Christian at all..
Sorry but the antecedent and consequent parts of that sentence are in direct conflict Try again.

[Jene88]

01:47 PM on 02/16/2012

I don't think you're right, allegro. I think I'm seeing sarcasm in Oregonian's first sentence.
Western history is Christian history, no getting away from that. And, what I think he's trying to say is that Christian didn't act very Christian. Can't argue with that.

[silvester1]

04:35 PM on 02/13/2012

While I love #2, I'm not sure I know what it has to do with heterosexuality that we didn't already know--that heterosexual marriage was essentially a contract legitimizing a relationship of virtual enslavement. It might even stand as a cautionary fact to qualify the desire for gay marriage (who really wants to reproduce such a system????).

[NoWayMan]

04:35 PM on 02/13/2012

the idea or "science" of mutual hetero orgasm has been around a lot longer than 100+ years.

[provgrays1]

04:28 PM on 02/13/2012

All terms don't need to be purely "scientific" to have meaning and import. If you're talking about mathematics, science and other exacting fields, it is important. Why didn't this post offer scientifically correct replacement words for heterosexual and homosexual?

[rick raton]

03:43 PM on 02/13/2012

Here is a surprising fact about heterosexuality. Heterosexuals are born that way.

[silvester1]

04:29 PM on 02/13/2012

So are homosexuals.

[DessieRandom]

05:05 PM on 02/13/2012

Prove it.

[Ssebo]

01:33 PM on 02/13/2012

So before the word "gravity" was coined we were all floating in space because gravity had not yet been defined and there was no word for it.

[chamberwindow]

02:30 PM on 02/13/2012

Gravity is not a social construct. It's slightly different.

[tjamman]

07:56 AM on 02/17/2012

Right, a pubescent teen has to be told...

[oregonian68]

05:57 PM on 02/13/2012

Fanned.

[TrollingForKnowlege]

01:18 PM on 02/13/2012

#4.....if a group of people insisted on hopping on one hand instead of walking then walkers would have to be defined against this group that stands against it.