Heterosexuality

History of Heterosexuality as a Medical Term

Heterosexuality is a modern concept that made its way into English as a medical term late in the nineteenth century and gained popular usage in the first half of the twentieth century. It emerged at the same time as the term homosexuality, and the emergence of these concepts together marked a change in the ideology of sexuality. Nineteenth-century norms, especially among the middle class, posited that humans naturally wanted to procreate, and that a desire for sex for any other reason was abnormal. Beginning in the 1890s, the German sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing and others argued that desire for sex itself was normal and natural, as long as that desire was for the other sex and included the desire to reproduce. The 1893 translation of Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis was the first work to use the term heterosexual to refer to a person attracted to the opposite sex. Krafft-Ebing set up an oppositional relationship between heterosexual and homosexual, and he defined heterosexuals as being normal, and homosexuals as being deviant.

Sigmund Freud built on Krafft-Ebing's concept of heterosexuality and gave it much of its current meaning. Freud argued that all humans were driven in large part by sexual desire, and that the inappropriate development or channeling of that drive made one mentally unhealthy. Freud saw this desire as having little, if any, basis in the desire to reproduce, instead attributing sexual desire entirely to the desire for pleasure. He considered a lack of heterosexual desire to be a sign of mental illness. Freud is also important for locating the formation of heterosexuality or homosexuality not in the nature of the individual, but rather in one's childhood experiences. His theories of psychological growth posited heterosexuality as the end result of successful sexual development. A truly mature (and masculine) male, he argued, would invariably desire women. Of course, these writings did not immediately change Americans' perceptions. Freud would become most influential in U.S. popular culture after World War II.

Heterosexuality and Changing Ideas of Masculinity

The term heterosexuality came into popular usage in the late nineteenth century at about the same time that masculinity was becoming a widespread term. Victorian (especially middle- and upper-class) ideals of manhood had prized selfcontrol, civilized behavior, and same-sex platonic love. Middle-class Victorians considered love by a man (whomever the object) to be ideal—as long as that love was without sexual expression. They considered sexual activity for any other reason than reproduction to be a wasteful drain of bodily energy.

In the late 1800s, however, ideals of manhood and of love began to change. Growing numbers of middle-class men, fearful that urban-industrial life had threatened masculine vigor by severing their contact with nature, embraced a new model of masculinity that idealized men who could not entirely control their physical passions. Physical aggression and the inability to rein in sexual desire were two of the most important aspects of this new masculinity. The concept of heterosexuality became intertwined with this new idea, since it assumed the appropriateness of physical sexual desire itself. The developing association between masculinity and heterosexuality was also encouraged by the Darwinian ideas of natural and sexual selection, which were gaining popularity at this time. These ideas suggested that the “fittest” men were those who had physical strength with which to defend themselves and instinctually desired to have sex (and therefore reproduce) with as many women as possible. Instead of being signs of moral weakness, such manifestations of overt heterosexuality as adultery and premarital sexual experience increasingly came to be viewed as signs of masculine virility.

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