As a frequent reader of books on gender and sexuality studies, Hanne Blank’s Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Hetrosexuality, immediately caught my eye. What could she mean by a short history? I thought that heterosexuality was as old as our species experienced attraction. I wondered if the book would be as futile, just a whole load of information that I was already aware of. So I had to purchase it to see just what makes heterosexuality worthy of analysis.
Blank lays out her argument for the need for this book early on, and I must say it is a convincing one. Most people, myself included, assumed that heterosexuality has existed for ages. But in fact the term only appeared in 1869 as part of legal arguments against the introduction of a new German law which would have catastrophic effects for people attracted to people of the same sex. There is actually a history to be studied here, how heterosexuality spread and embedded itself in the consciousness of society, like a tick.
But Blanks’s demands of her readers do not end there. She asks us to stop assuming that what we consider as the “normal” or the default” sexuality are actually the normal or the default. To demonstrate this Blank discusses her own background and relationship which is absolutely fascinating. Blank’s partner has Klinefelter’s syndrome which means that he has an extra X chromosome. When a person thinks only in terms of hetro or homosexuality, where does that place Blank’s relationship? Her partner identifies as male but is it this or biology which counts? Blank injects humour into her story by detailing the often hilarious and face-palming moments when other people defined her relationship, lesbian, ex-gay man, trans* and straight, without ever of course asking Blank or her partner how, or if, they define themselves. It is a really engaging argument which hooks in the reader from the start.
Straight by Hanne Blank
To back up her assertions Blank packs the book with medical and legal history. She covers everyone from Sigmund Freud to Marie Stopes, to William Acton and the Catholic Church. Blank examines how the medical and legal arenas of social life battled for control over the exploration, definition and control of human sexuality. Fear not if you are a lay person in either field, Blank’s style keeps it simple and clear without dumbing it down avoiding readers to loose interest.
From my past reviews readers will see that I take the inclusion of women very seriously. No women, no pass. Women receive plenty of attention in this book, which I thought was fantastic. Heterosexuality, Blank argued, is based on gender expectations, especially those of how women are considered to be. Just as some people think that homosexuality is strange and undesirable, people once thought that women enjoying and wanting sex was bizarre and dangerous. Sex was for making babies according to the official doctrines, and Blank shows how much damage this did to the lives of women. The chapter which discussed women’s battle for personhood in marriage and control over their own bodies was heart-breaking and maddening. The stories about women receiving the contraceptive pill for the first time sent me to tears, pity I was on a public bus at the time!
Hanne Blank from her website
An important thing that this book does is allow those people who identify as heterosexuals to confront and claim their history. Blank details how heterosexuality itself has evolved over time. Once-upon-a-time the only type of sex permissible was not just defined as man and woman sex, but the missionary position only, at certain approved times of the year! Marriage was also once about business, land and honours; it was only the Victorian middle-classes who started to make a point of marrying for love. Blank’s charting of the history of relationships between men and women was really interesting and relevant today, think of how many anti-marriage equality advocates try to argue that relationships have never changed.
An element of this book which I very much appreciated was a discussion about class and sexuality. Blank detailed how the working class were often defined as sexually deviant. They were irresponsible, dirty and lustful, filling cities with their impulsive and wild offspring. Here Blank highlights an important hypocrisy, even though these people were engaged in what could be termed permissible heterosexuality, the powers that be, the upper classes, still considered their heterosexuality as lesser than theirs. This class element of often ignored in books of this time and it was refreshing to see it included.
There is also plenty of myth busting in this book. Blank detailed, for example, that the Victorians actually discussed sex quite a lot. In fact they discussed it more often than any previous generation. We also get to laugh at the silly myths that previous generations believed in for example that reading, becoming a monk, being education, being religious, and cross-dressing (women wearing trousers) would turn you into a deviant. I would be doomed. The inclusion of what we would now consider to be absurdities breaks-up some of the more emotionally difficult sections of the books.
One group of people who come under particular harsh criticism in the book were scientists. This is again a very interesting angle which I have not seen much of in the gender studies literature. Blank claims that scientists are looking for an exception to the rule without actually proving that the rule actually exists. By carrying out experiments where they examine people with same-sex attraction and not examining people with opposite-sex attraction they are doing bad science by assuming a default. This is sympathetic in some ways as Blank explains that much of this is done to prove that sexuality is biological and therefore natural and worthy of legal protection and guaranteed personal freedoms. One can’t get away from the implication that it makes however, that straight is the normal and anything else is abnormal or the exception to the rule. Listening to Blank’s descriptions of scientific experiments on gay men were particularly harrowing and it was some of the toughest parts of the book to read though.
There are some oversights in the book however which I found disappointing. Much of the debate and history discussion of same-sex attractions was focused on gay men. There was very little information about lesbians. This may be because mainstream discussion and obsession same-sex attraction tends to focus on gay men to the exclusion of lesbians or bi women in same-sex relationships. For example there is that old legend that relationships between women were never outlawed as people did not believe they actually existed. However I am aware that there is now a wealth of information about this history now published, and it would have been great to see more of this included. The book was also focused on Europe and the US, so if you are looking for a more global discussion this may not be the book for you.
I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in gender or sexuality. It turns out there is more to Straight than it may seem.
Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Hetrosexuality is available in hardback, paperback and kindle formats.
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