How do you know if what youre feeling is compulsory heterosexuality or not?

Found to be this very helpful. Cannot link it but found it on a blog

"How to know if you are actually atracted to guys or you are just brainwashed through heteronormativity letting you believe you have to give guys a go because you have some kind of connection?
This is such a good question and it’s really important for any woman questioning their orientation/attraction. I’m going to explain the difference using three specific examples of times when attraction gets confusing, but there are a ton of different ways compulsory heterosexuality manifests, so if none of these hit on what you’re feeling, feel free to shoot me another anon.

Attraction vs. Compulsory Heterosexuality

1. Nervousness and Blushing
   
   A ton of romance media and common cultural tropes have this idea that you know you’re attracted to someone if you’re nervous or blushing around them. Because of this, you might feel like you must be attracted to a man if you feel nervous around him, just because you’re experiencing the physical bodily response you’ve been told to expect, not because you actually want to date him.
   
   Actual Attraction: You’re nervous because you’re excited to get to know someone. You find them attractive first and because you’re thinking about your attraction to them, you get self conscious because you hope they might like you too.
   
   Compulsory Heterosexuality: You’re nervous because you are aware that he is attracted to you, and because he’s paying such close attention to you– especially if he’s pushing boundaries or getting too close into your personal space– you become self conscious because you know he’s watching you. You blush because you’re uncomfortable.
   
   
   
2. Hypothetical Attraction
   
   Many questioning women have a hard time sorting through their attraction because of hypotheticals. Our culture, in general, disregards or challenges wlw’s attraction and it gives this anxiety that we need to know 100% that we are not and will never be attracted to men no matter what in order to claim labels.
   
   It’s hard to do that as a young person who is just learning about themselves, flooded with “what if”s about the future. Because of this, you might feel like you can’t rule out being attracted to men because you might hypothetically be attracted to one someday. Who knows?
   
   Actual Attraction: You imagine a hypothetical future where you end up with a man and it feels exciting and makes you feel good and hopeful and happy and right. It’s a nice feeling and is comfortable to think about. Reassuring.
   
   Compulsory Heterosexuality: You imagine a hypothetical future where you end up with a man and it makes you feel uncomfortable, scared, sad, disappointed, wrong. It’s an upsetting thing to think about and you hope it doesn’t happen. You don’t want to end up with a man even if you feel like you could.
   
   
   
3. Sexual Fantasies
   
   Our culture places a big emphasis on sex when it comes to orientation. Some people’s orientation includes sexual attraction and some people’s orientation doesn’t, but most of us feel like our sexual fantasies are the most important indicator of non-straight sexuality because LGBPQ+ people have been so thoroughly reduced to sexual acts and sexual objects in the homophobic culture we’ve grown up in.
   
   Along with that, we’ve also grown up in a heteronormative and cisnormative society that repetitively teaches and reemphasizes the same singular sexual “script” for how sex is supposed to go, over and over and over. They do not teach any others, and it requires non-straight and non-cis people to invent their own sexual scripts individually and with partners.
   
   But as a young person, when you’re aroused, your mind has a very limited template of potential narratives associated with that feeling, so many people default to the same heteronormative script in their fantasies because it’s unconscious and easy. Because of this, you might feel like you must be attracted to men because you imagine abstract situations of sex with men, even though you have absolutely no desire to sleep with men in real life.
   
   Actual Attraction: When you fantasize about men, it is because you’re attracted to their bodies or specific men or the idea of having sex with men. You imagine qualities of their body and you like the idea of what you’re imagining. If you think about the fantasy later that day, you might feel like it’s embarrassing, but you also feel like it’s sexy.
   
   Compulsory Heterosexuality: When you fantasize about men, it is mostly just enacting a kind of narrative. More focused on movement than features– the men in your fantasies might be faceless or blank-featured or their bodies might symbolize some emotion. You don’t really like the idea of what you’re imagining. You might not even be in the fantasy, but instead another faceless woman might be. You might even imagine yourself as the man. The narrative follows the sexual script, but the details are more vague and abstract and might even shift and change throughout the fantasy. If you think about it later that day, you might feel vaguely nauseated or uncomfortable or feel invalidated and wrong.

It’s really difficult to unroot compulsory heterosexuality. My simplest advice on getting through it is this: even if you are attracted to men, you do not need to date them if you don’t want to. If you only want to date other women, then you have the right to that. The rest is less important than the simple reality of what you want right now. "

 

This is the one for me that made me know. It is silly that I realized I was a lesbian because I am not into men. But I think it proves the point of compulsory heterosexuality well (very interesting point/theory by the way).

 

Not an op, what if I feel the mix of both? I have the aspects of both actual attraction and compulsory hetero-brainwashing.

 

If you are able to distinguish beteen actual attraction and compulsory heterosexuality you have come a long way. if you know in your heart that what you are feelng is real then I can't possibly argue with you on that. Awareness is key in order for you to understand your sexuality better. This post is generally for those who do not know if what they are feeling is actual attraction or not. If you feel as though you are attracted to men in certain ways but also women, you would possibly be bisexual. Bisexuality does not have to be 50/50, it might as well be 80/20 where you have predominant attraction to women and some attraction to men. Also, some people do not experience sexual attraction or it takes a long time for it to develop so in that sense you could be asexual/demisexual. You could have a look at the different points and count how many you got as actual attraction vs compulsory heterosexuality to sort of compare. What in particular is it that you experience as actual attraction that is mentioned in this post?

 

Also, (another example) just because someone occasionally experiences sexual attraction towards men doesn't automatically mean they want to spend the rest of their life with one. Instead they might what to do that with a woman. The distinction between romantic/sexual attraction is also important in terms of bisexuality.

 

1. 
   
   It's funny because in 99,999% of cases I can remember I simply didn't like the attention I received. I also remember myself in a small number of cases flirting in an obvious way with a guy here and there because every other girl was doing it and apparently I had to do it too. In some even rarest cases, I liked the attention since hey somebody thought I'm pretty. In only one case I felt like I needed that sort of attention from a male person.
   
   
   I am not sure about this one. I generally find the idea of marriage to a man a scary thought. There has been an exception to that rule, but I'm not sure if it meant what I thought it meant at the time. I was willing to move half-way the planet to meet and marry a man who would be the only one who I thought that'd make me happy. In retrospect I'm glad this didn't happen, however I don't know what to do with the memory of myself believing all that.
   

Yes, so much yes on this one. I'm not sure if I have an exception to this one.

I agree. Thank you tons for this post @RebeccaK and you OP @Sky95 for this question.

 

Thank you all for sharing! I'm glad people are relating to it, I do too. I hope OP will come online and see this. Just to clarify: I did not write this, I copy pasted it from a blog but I was unsure about whether it was okay for me to share the link on here.

 

Thanks @RebeccaK i found your post very insight and has helped me evaluate my own situation

 

I can relate so much to this question, as I am also unsure of whether or not my feeling are "real" or not. I can't completely relate to those points that were posted though, but at the same time, the author did write that "but there are a ton of different ways compulsory heterosexuality manifests, so if none of these hit on what you’re feeling, feel free to shoot me another anon." which means that it could still be the case for me ..

Ahh this is all so confusing. But thanks for asking the question, it was very interesting to read everyones replies.

 

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes it manifests itself in more subtle ways. If you look back at your life so far, did you have any experiences with guys/girls respectively? How did these experiences make you feel? Do you notice a difference? Are there any signs that would suggest you might be into girls? Have a look at this post, you may be able to relate but that depends on your personal experiences: https://forum.emptyclosets.com/index.php?threads/lesbians-was-this-a-crush.468723/