What is Compulsory Sexuality?

What Creates Pressure?

It’s undeniable that our culture and media is obsessed with sex. Naturally, the representation, miseducation, and stigmatization catalyzed by the media can have detrimental impacts on one’s own understanding of sex and sexuality. With the number of stories on tv, advertising, books, and music about sex, romance, and love, it’s easy for us to feel like we should be having and desiring a certain type of sex often, and if we don’t either have that sex, or desire it often then something must be wrong with us.

What is Compulsory Sexuality?

There is a societal belief known as “compulsory sexuality,” a term borrowed from Adrienne Rich’s 1980 essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence and used by the writer Shorronda J. Brown, author of Compulsory Sexuality, who defines the topic as “the societal belief that s*xuality is something we are obligated to participate in, that everyone desires sex and that it is normal and healthy and required to have sex.” It is generally rooted in the idea that everyone should be having sex the “right way,” usually meaning penis-in-vagina between straight men and women.

How Can It Be Harmful?

Compulsory sexuality can be particularly harmful to people who are asexual, or ace for short, a broad and complex queer identity for those who experience little or no sexual desire for themselves and others. However, compulsory sexuality can create problems for many people, regardless of your e*xual orientation, given the impacts it can have in creating unrealistic or romanticized ideals or expectations of love, romance, sex, creating narrow definitions of sex and sexuality, explicitly and implicitly centralizing heteronormative standards, and leading many to feel like there is inherently something wrong with you if you deviate in any way from these expectations.

Angela Chen, author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, writes “because sexual variation exists, there is no universal vision of liberated sexuality.” In other words, your sexuality and sexual or non-sexual journey is completely yours to define and create and/or co-create with yourself and others, on your terms, based on what feels right and good to you; that is pleasure, and that is your birthright. You have the right to evolve on your terms, and experience liberation in the most unique way that feels good for you.

What To Do Next

Do you feel like you could help people along the way in their sexual journeys to find healing, empowerment, and joy? Enroll in the Tier 2 Pleasure Psychology and Sexology Certification program here and start your personal journey to becoming a certified sexologist today! 

Do you feel like you yourself could benefit from sex therapy or coaching? Get to know one of our phenomenal therapists and coaches here and schedule a free 15-minute consultation today!

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Jamie Azar is a sex, relationship, and intimacy coach, educator, writer, and mindfulness practitioner. She specializes in dismantling limiting beliefs, deconstructing, and destigmatizing harmful narrative constructs, to help clients reframe and redefine their understandings of selfhood, sex, sexuality, and relationships. She also integrates somatic based therapy, breathing, relaxation, and focus techniques to further encourage the mind-body connection, and to help clients develop tools to regulate their nervous systems.