More specifically, she cites Krafft-Ebing and Psychopathia Sexualis as launching “ ‘heterosexual’ and ‘heterosexuality’ as biomedical terms in its pages” (18). Nonetheless, by tracing the development of the term in 1868 to its common usage today, Blank deftly reveals how these categories are socially determined. She questions how this fact affects her sexual identity, and she uses this example to underscore how easily the categories of heterosexual and homosexual can be blurred.ĭespite the compelling introduction, the text, not surprisingly, focuses on heterosexuality. This additional chromosome classifies him as an intersexed person. Her androgynous husband was assigned the male sex at birth, but as they later learned from fertility test results, he actually has an extra X chromosome. Ranging from Henry VIII to testicle transplants, from Disneyland to sodomy laws, and from Moby Dick to artificial insemination, the history of heterosexuality turns out to be anything but straight or narrow.In Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality, Hanne Blank sets the stage for the concept that heterosexuality is a construct by sharing a personal story. Illuminating the hidden patterns in centuries of events and trends, this work shows how culture creates and manipulates the ways we think about and experience desire, love, and relationships between men and women. In this chronicle, the author, a historian digs deep into the past of sexual orientation, while simultaneously exploring its contemporary psyche. Yet, within half a century, "heterosexual" had become a byword for "normal," enshrined in law, medicine, psychiatry, and the media as a new gold standard for human experience. After all, men and women had been having sex, marrying, building families, and sometimes even falling in love for millennia without having any special name for their emotions or acts. The idea of "the heterosexual" was unprecedented. Like the typewriter and the light bulb, the heterosexual was invented in the 1860s and swiftly and permanently transformed Western culture.
Summary: In this book the author presents a history of heterosexuality, explores the contemporary psyche of sexual orientation, and shows how culture creates and manipulates thoughts and experiences of desire, love, and relationships.
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