Good Luck, Babe: Everything you need to know about compulsory heterosexuality

Am I straight or doing what I’m told?

In case you haven’t heard of her and your ears and soul have been deprived of gay-pop-trance-cuntry-bliss,  Chappel Roan is a queer musician soaring to literal superstardom. She’s your favourite artist's favourite artist, with mega stars like Elton John fangirling all over her. Roan’s Midwestern drag aesthetic and lyrics like knee deep in the passenger seat & you're eating me out, are making our queer (and non-queer) hearts ache and throb.

This week, Roan’s goodluck babe, a song about compulsory heterosexuality, is currently one of Billboard's top 10. Mid bop this song makes us question how heteronormativity gets in the way of being able to love and fuck who we really want. Upon release, Roan said it herself, goodluck babe is “about wishing good luck to someone who is denying fate”. She sings of a love that got away, a woman who dismissed their relationship as nothing more than a fling and chose to be with men, despite the undeniable, unforgettable feeling between them. But in a few years, Roan warns she will wake up next to him in the middle of the night, thinking about what could’ve been. 

When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night

With your head in your hands, you're nothing more than his wife

And when you think about me, all of those years ago

You're standing face to face with "I told you so"

All too many queers have felt the hard truth, when sexuality, desire, identity is something you can’t choose or look away from. When Roan says, “You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling” it is an uncomfortable reminder of the many ways we’ve had to subscribe to hetero-norms to stay safe and to feel accepted in society, not to mention that being straight feels like it should be the norm because it’s the only blueprint we’re taught for living and loving. We learn very early on to deny happiness in pursuit of a more ‘perfect’ or acceptable partner, knowing full well that we won’t find it in a straight dynamic. In the lesbian yearning anthem, Roan mourns a could-be love story, and laments the closeted lesbain who kisses 100 boys in bars in an attempt to fuck the gay away and prove to herself, and the world, that she’s straight.

Comphet, short for Compulsory heterosexuality, originated as a term in Adrienne Rich’s 1980 essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Existence”, its origins are from black lesbian feminist theory. Rich coined this term to scrutinise the ways heterosexuality is not only assumed but enforced upon us by a patriarchal and heteronormative society. The renaissance of comphet emerged with Angeli Luz’s 30-page document,  The Lesbian Masterdoc published on Tumblr in 2018. Many lesbains and queer women are familair with this life changing and affirming tool, written for women questioning and exploring their sexuality and identity. The section Attraction Vs. Compulsory Heterosexuality emerged from Luz’s personal process to understand how she had limited the possibility of being queer because of societal conditioning. 

Comphet assumes everybody’s straight, until you come out to everyone you’ve ever met. But this coming out isn’t just something you have to do once, sometimes it feels like we’re coming out to someone new everyday, “no she’s not my bestie, she's my girlfriend”. It is the assumption that straight is the default, until you reveal to the audience in front of you that you’ve gone against the grain. No one ever asks When did you know you were straight? But I think every queer person has had to answer the question when did you figure out you were gay? All queers have their unique, and connecting experiences of comphet, but it’s worth acknowledging the origins of comphet within lesbianism, the theory emerged as a reaction to Rich’s observations of lesbian exclusion from feminist spaces and literature. Society is sceptical of Lesbians, who are either disturbingly sexualised and seen as objects in fantasies or are seen as faulty, unable to subscribe to being loved or wanted by a man. I grew up hearing jokes about butch hairy lezzos, only going for women because no man wanted her. When cis men are de-centred from romantic relationships it creates a disruption in patriarchal dominance, but if a woman kissing another woman's supple lips is enough to scare the patriarchy it must be pretty fragile after all. 

Comphet can be so integrated into societal expectations that we may be unaware of the many ways we enable this oppression, but there are endless examples. Like, you have a crush on someone of the same gender, but label it as a ‘girl crush’ or a ‘bromance’ because it doesn’t feel right to be queer. You resent others who are queer because you follow society's rules and they should too. You’re attracted to queer people, but despite wanting to kiss, date, love or fuck them, you pursue a different gendered partner. You feel uncomfortable when a partner has a best friend of a different gender because you think all straight people will be attracted to one another.

Comphet is not just something that affects us in the few moments we’re having sex, it affects our whole lives, because we can’t separate our sexual desires or attractions, they are deeply woven into our identity. They are with us as we move through the world. The pressure of comphet affects the way we feel emotionally, mentally and physically. Many clients have shared with me that they feel uncomfortable discussing dating, they feel numb, detached or disconnected from themselves, they dread, fear or feel confused before a romantic or sexual encounter in a ‘straight’ sexual experience. They feel like they’ll never find someone they really love. 

It can be an ongoing process to rewire these ways of thinking and feeling. Which makes it that much more painful when we see others conforming to comphet. Roan’s song is also felt by anyone who’s ever been an experiment. One client recently said, she ‘will never date a straight girl again’, she’d had her heart broken by another woman who was ‘bicurious’. The woman said that long term she wanted to marry a man because she wanted to have kids easily. My client said that another woman told her that she’s into women, ‘like, for sex’, but would never date a woman because it’d be too hard to talk to her family, and she likes men enough so it’ll just be easier to end up with a man. 

Over the years there has been criticism of comphet as a theory, it’s important to acknowledge not everyone feels safe or comfortable to come out to family and friends. There’s no denying that for decades it has been dangerous to be openly queer, as it can lead to social ostracism, bullying, abuse or murder. For these reasons it can feel easier to stop the feelings, or try to ignore them. Another criticism of comphet, and even goodluck babe, is that they are at risk of leaning into bi-erasure. Bisexuality is valid and real, it doesn’t make you any less queer but unfortunately biphobia exists in queer spaces too. We obviously haven’t heard the perspective from Roan’s protagonist, she could be bisexual, and for many bisexuals they feel comfortable in their attraction to someone regardless of their gender. At the same time, many lesbians like Angeli Luz, have also said that they originally came out as bisexual only to realise that their attraction to men was because of comphet. 

In working with the complexities of this in session, I often find myself talking with clients about sexuality as a process. We’ve all had a first experience, so it’s important to validate and respect where someone may be within their expression of queerness. Comphet can be so loud and dominating that many people don’t realise they’re queer till much later in life, and whilst stopping the feeling is something queers have been taught to do for decades, sexuality isn’t something we can turn off or look away from. Having conversations about comphet on such a large scale, being able to dance, then cry, then feel a little bit turned on all within a key change is transforming the way we understand sexuality. As one fan put it; “Chappell roan is dismantling comphet one billboard appearance at a time. Amen”

I wrote this story for my body and soul column, you can read it and my other articles here.