Heterosexuality



Heterosexuality consists of sexual behavior, practices, and identity predicated on a primary preference or desire for the opposite sex.

F

 * Vive la différence!
 * [Long] live the difference!
 * Attributed to Anatole France. Originally referring to the difference between the sexes; the phrase may be also used to celebrate the difference between any two groups of people (or simply the general diversity of individuals)
 * "Miles Kington Remembered: There's a whole world of difference between the sexes". The Independent (4 June 2008)

G

 * And the L ORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.And out of the ground the L ORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.And the L ORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;And the rib, which the L ORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
 * Genesis 2:18–25 (KJV)


 * The dilemma of traditional sex research lay in the unconscious, but unquestiongly assumed division into opposing drives and hereditary factors. . . The division into heterosexuality and homosexuality, into hetersexuals and homosexuals, is also an artefact that rests on a grave error, namely, on the assumption that a fundamentally different model is necessary to explain heterosexual and homosexual behavior. The entire investigation of etiology was ideologically loaded beforehand because it separated a segment of the sexual contiuum and attempted to make analyses with the help of fundamentally different concepts.
 * Rolf Gindorf, "Scientific ideologies in change: Fear of Homosexuality as an Intellectual Event", 1977.

H

 * After the repast is ended, we return to the dance, and, when the hour of repose arrives, we draw from a kind of lottery, in which every one is sure of a prize; that is, a young girl as his companion for the night. They are allotted thus by chance, in order to avoid jealousy, and to prevent exclusive attachments. Thus ends the day, and gives place to a night of delights, which we sanctify by enjoying with due relish that sweetest of all pleasures, which Faraki has so wisely attached to the reproduction of our species. We reverently admire the wisdom and the goodness of Faraki, who, desiring to secure to the world a continued population, has implanted in the sexes an invincible mutual attraction, which constantly draws them towards each other. Fecundity is the end he proposes, and he rewards with intoxicating delights those who contribute to the fulfilment of his designs.
 * "Japanese Tale", quoted in Mémoires de Madame du Hausset
 * Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI (L. C. Page, 1899)

K

 * Compulsory heterosexuality: The idea that heterosexuality is preserved by gender and sexual binaries and other social forces. This concept battles the idea that we choose to be heterosexual and instead says that heterosexuality is a compulsory (or enforced) state of being.
 * Michael Kimmel and The Stony Book Sexualities Research Group (editors), Sexualities: Identities, Behaviors, and Society (2004), 2nd Edition (2015), p. 680


 * Heteronormativity: Naturalizes the heterosexual identity, or privileges it as timeless and universal.
 * Michael Kimmel and The Stony Book Sexualities Research Group (editors), Sexualities: Identities, Behaviors, and Society (2004), 2nd Edition (2015), p. 681


 * Heterosexism: Describes the biases and prejudices that favor heterosexual people or relationships.
 * Michael Kimmel and The Stony Book Sexualities Research Group (editors), Sexualities: Identities, Behaviors, and Society (2004), 2nd Edition (2015), p. 681


 * Heterosexuality: The term describing emotional, affectional, sexual, or physical attraction to members of the opposite sex.
 * Michael Kimmel and The Stony Book Sexualities Research Group (editors), Sexualities: Identities, Behaviors, and Society (2004), 2nd Edition (2015), p. 681


 * Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheeps and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.
 * Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948).


 * It would encourage clearer thinking on these matters if persons were not characterized as hetereosexual or homosexual, but as individuals who have had certain amounts of heterosexual experience and certain amounts of homosexual experience. Instead of using these terms as substantives which stand for persons, or even as adjectives to describe persons, they may better be used to describe the nature of the overt sexual relations, or of the stimuli to which an individual erotically responds.
 * Alfred Kinsey