Article by Mike Miller in RedState
This Just in, According to the BBC, 'Heterosexuality' Was 'Invented' in 1934—any Questions?
Sometimes on the weekends, after I’ve written two to three news cycle-related pieces, I kick back and write about something light. You know, out-of-the-mainstream kinda stuff. Like heterosexuality as we know it, was not only invented, it was invented in1934. OK, not exactly light, but out of the mainstream, just the same.
So suggests BBC Future in an article titled “The Invention of ‘Heterosexuality.” Shall we dig in?
The 1901 Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defined heterosexuality as an “abnormal or perverted appetite toward the opposite sex.”
More than two decades later, in 1923, Merriam Webster’s dictionary similarly defined it as “morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex.”
It wasn’t until 1934 that heterosexuality was graced with the meaning we’re familiar with today: “manifestation of sexual passion for one of the opposite sex; normal sexuality.”
And there you have it, boys and girls.
The author then opined, “Whenever I tell this to people, they respond with dramatic incredulity. That can’t be right! Well, it certainly doesn’t feel right. It feels as if heterosexuality has always “just been there.”
Um, maybe because heterosexuality has always just been there?
I mean, not to get all science-y and stuff, but if heterosexuality has not always just been there — heterosexual desire, as it were — where did all the people come from who were (are) not heterosexual? I’m being facetious, but, I mean, yeah.
So, the author tells a story about a “man on the street” video, “from a few years ago,” in which people were asked if they thought homosexuals were born with their sexual orientations. Responses were varied, said the author, with most respondents saying something like, “It’s a combination of nature and nurture.”
The interviewer then asked a follow-up question, which was crucial to the “experiment.” Experiment? The non sequitur question — obviously asked based on the interviewer’s POV:
“When did you choose to be straight?” Most were taken back, confessing, rather sheepishly, never to have thought about it.
Feeling that their prejudices had been exposed, they ended up swiftly conceding the videographer’s obvious point: gay people were born gay just like straight people were born straight.
The author’s conclusion from the so-called “experiment”?
The video’s takeaway seemed to suggest that all of our sexualities are “just there”; that we don’t need an explanation for homosexuality just as we don’t need one for heterosexuality. It seems not to have occurred to those who made the video, or the millions who shared it, that we actually need an explanation for both.
Au contraire, per the author: “Heterosexuality has not always ‘just been there.’ And there’s no reason to imagine it will always be.” Sorry pal, I — and billions of my heterosexual friends — beg to differ; based entirely on my earlier, non-science-y observation about procreation and the beginning of mankind. And stuff.
The author then goes off on a long narrative about the differences between heterosexuality and reproductive intercourse, with which I’m not going to waste column space, but suffice it to say he views “sexual instincts” and “cultural production” as non-mutually-inclusive. See what I mean?
The article delves painstakingly into sexuality through the 1800s and early 20th century. Again, click on the link and read the whole damn thing if you choose; I just don’t recommend the time sink.
Then this, as the train finally nears the station — and not a minute too soon (emphasis, mine):
Once upon a time, heterosexuality was necessary because modern humans needed to prove who they were and why they were, and they needed to defend their right to be where they were. As time wears on, though, that label seems to actually limit the myriad ways we humans understand our desires and loves and fears.
[…]
Heterosexuality is losing its “high ground,” as it were. If there was a time when homosexual indiscretions were the scandals du jour, we’ve since moved on to another world, one riddled with the heterosexual affairs of politicians and celebrities, complete with pictures, text messages, and more than a few video tapes. Popular culture is replete with images of dysfunctional straight relationships and marriages.
[…]
The line between heterosexuality and homosexuality isn’t just blurry, as some take Kinsey’s research to imply – it’s an invention, a myth, and an outdated one. Men and women will continue to have different-genital sex with each other until the human species is no more. But heterosexuality – as a social marker, as a way of life, as an identity – may well die out long before then.
Where to begin? Obviously, the piece was written from a narrative we’ve come to know and not necessarily love. But, my fellow heteros, it appears that “our kind” might die out before “climate change” — AKA: “The existential threat of mankind” — comes for us. [sarc, of course]
Seriously, though, how long before this insanity makes its way into America’s public education system? God knows it wouldn’t be the first example of an attempt to program young kids. And it is soooo quintessentially leftist; it’s not enough to accept and treat with respect the LGBTQIA community (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, and agender). The radical left must attack and ultimately destroy heterosexuality.
Oh, and any questions? Yeah, I got nothin’.
The bottom line:
Live and let live. Just don’t force yours on mine, and I won’t force mine on yours.
