What is comphet?

Well, it’s short for compulsory heterosexuality… a term you may well be familiar with, and if you’re part of the LGBTQ+ community you’ve probably experienced it! 🌈

Have you ever had someone assume you’re just friends’ with your girlfriend? Or did you have to say your male celeb crush in high school (even though you didn’t have one!)

Comphet is the societal notion that straight is the default sexuality. And we are here to crush those harmful assumptions. ✌️

#CompHet #QueerHistory #Heartstopper #CompulsoryHeterosexuality

[jdt.jd.]

Comphet is why so many ace folks don't realise they're ace until they're older. I'm active in the ace community now, and I love seeing teenagers finding the label and community, finding out that they're not weird, and they don't have to pretend to be straight or gay. As a teenager even just a decade ago, I didn't have that. I was "ambiguously queer" as one friend put it. Shows like Heartstopper and Sex Education are finally bringing asexuality into the conversation, and I'm so glad for both the teenagers and the older folks who can finally describe who they are without having to try to lie to themselves or others.

[citlaligonzalezgodinez]

It’s hilarious when people say homosexuality is unnatural, when it literally happens all the time in nature.
Thanks for the likes

[silversleeper]

Thank you for acknowledging that ace people can be hurt by this too! I often see the idea that asexuals get to “pass” or are “basically cishet” without realising the effects of being forced to make up crushes, fake date, be put through hormone therapy, corrective assaults…

[xxglowenxx]

Literally last week:

Me: i dont want a relationship
Eldest sister: its okay if youre not ready

"DONT WANT" AND "NOT READY" ARE TWO SEPERATE STATEMENTS

[creativename]

The book about asexuality that is shown in Heartstopper (Ace by Angela Chen) is phenomenal and also brings up this topic. I would really recommend to anyone

[pipolyteroniel]

I do love that you mention ace and aro people, it's very true that this assumption that being straight is the normal way of things hurt us too!
Going further there is the concept of amatonormativity: the idea that romantic love is the be all end all, the normal "love" to feel and that platonic or familial love are inferior types of love. Yes it is especially hurtful to the aro people but it's a toxic standart for everyone to consider that your love for your friends and family is in any way less important than your love for your partner...

[ellies]

I’m 57 and at various times in my life I’ve been called frigid. As a woman this was seen as being one of the worst things you could be. Thanks to you and other lovely young people I am now relaxed and content with who I am and I can’t thank you all enough 😊🤗🙏

[anniestrooo]

All this ace and aro talk next to heartstopper give me a reason to bring up my favorite book of all time!!! The creator of Heartstopper Alice Oseman is actually aroace and has written an absolutely stunning novel about it called Loveless!!!! It’s all about struggling with your identity when you don’t know what being on the aro or ace spectrum is and it is the PERFECT example of comphet!!! This book changed my life and i think anyone should read it regardless of your identity because friendship is the core of the story!!! (And while you’re at it read all of Alice’s other books too!!! Solitaire is all about Charlie’s sister Tori, Radio Silence is all about not knowing what’s next, and I Was Born For This is all about the internet and parasocial relationships!!!) (can you tell who my favorite author is?)

[juliarose]

I love how as an ace I always feel included and seen as Queer with Jessica's content 🖤💜💚

[nomadine]

Ohh I would love to watch your take on heartstopper in general!

[mysticthemanakete]

I wasn't aware interest in sex wasn't inevitably something you just naturally 'grow into' so I was kinda saved by the notion of 'saving one's self for marriage', even if compulsory heterosexuality/cisgenderism hurt me in the long run because of it delaying my awakening. Once we had widely accepted terms like 'nonbinary' and 'asexual' in common parlance, I quickly realised how much they applied to me and made me feel so relieved I didn't need to force myself into doing things I was uncomfortable with for the sake of some guy who might not even like me for who I am. The right person will accept and embrace your (a)sexuality - like my partner <3

[kikicogger]

I remember being told that it was natural for girls to have a short period during puberty where they had crushes on other girls/women, and that it’d go away. In other words, the crushes I had on other girls was a normal phase in my otherwise heterosexual life. When my feels for women *didn’t* go away, I convinced myself all straight women could see themselves loving and kissing a woman- it’s just a “woman” thing. I thought even thinking I might LGBTQ was just me trying to be “different”. I was shocked when during a conversation in college I learned that some women legitimately weren’t attracted to other woman and did not, in fact, want to kiss them. That hiding your attraction to the women wasn’t just a part of being a woman. I was, in fact, not straight.

[AnonymousOnimous]

Thank you for including Ace and Aro!
As an Ace person on a Facebook Group for Asexual people, the number and degree of Ace people suffering from Comphet is remarkable.

[gabbytheartfriend]

The beginning of this video encapsulates how I felt as a little girl about my bisexuality. I thought that all girls had special feelings towards certain girls, but surely that was different than having a crush on a boy, right? 😅 Turns out, no…

[Rydralain]

This kinda helps explain why my relationship with my attractive opposite-sex best friend was weird. I kept feeling "interested" in her, but it didn't feel right. I think it was this expectation that I'm *supposed* to have those feelings, so I mistook my intense platonic love as romantic love. Being bisexual is difficult sometimes.

[Daelyah]

My eldest uncle's wife told my teenage self "love the sinner, hate the sin" when it came to homosexuality. She **can** have a good heart, but she got mixed up with tainted perspectives in religion, when her own traumatic past pushed her to cling to religion for stability. Top it off with my dad being very much so against anything that isn't cishet, even after I outed myself as queer to him (when I was finally living on my own), it's difficult to live with the conflicting feelings of still caring for my kin while acknowledging the person that I am will never truly be accepted by them.

[Tisapanda]

I learned about comphet from a very cheesy movie called; But I'm a cheerleader. When Megan is being interrogated in the conversion camp and she's saying she's straight, because everyone looks at everyone else getting changed of course they do. Then she puts two and two together screaming; I'm a homosexual! While crying. It's a dark movie done in a cheesy way.

[SEHmmmmmm]

Like others have said, thank you for recognising this exists for aroace people too. It’s taken till my late 30s to go “Ohhhh, Ace *is* actually a thing!”. It doesn’t feel alien to me. Society still makes me feel like an alien though but…, I’m no longer circling, back and forthing, other sexualities. Nor struggling quite so much with the “reasons” thrown about like “it’s a trauma response”, “it’s because you find yourself repulsive”, “it’s “the autism”…”. It is massively invalidated, misunderstood and medicalised. First Pride in my new town, it was *so much fun* being asked “So you don’t have feelings?” and “But you’ve not closed to mind to finding someone because I wouldn’t want you to miss out…”. Ugh. Still working out the romantic stuff… Maybe aro but also maybe pan. I feel like I’ve always been capable of (platonic) crushes on all genders. But the world’s message to me (brought up girl) has been “You feel that way about that woman because you want to be them and you feel that way about that man because you want to be *with* them” but the feelings were the same, or “the other way around”, or both or neither but still my version of a crush. I have typed a lot. Hello anyone who has made it to the end…!

[diemhummel]

Im ace. Always have been

How do i know that?
I genuinely thought, as far back as 3rd grade, that “crushes” were just people you PICK and then act like you like.
YOU COULD JUST PICK SOMEONE.

And then when i was in middle school and people were starting to kiss and stuff, i thought they were joking. Like. It was just a very bad wide spread joke.
And then in high school i thought i was broken because i didnt like the person/people everyone said i would be perfect with.

Im 25 now and couldnt be happier to have been born AroAce.
Its like watching everyone else walk around in 9 inch heels and im over here wearing house slippers.
Less hassle. Less fuss
Yah i know im missing out on some stuff simple because i CANT feel it.
High heels are super cool and look rad, but im glad i dont have to deal with them.
Im more than happy to just chill, no stress or heartache in my fuzzy house slippers.

[victoriab]

As an ace person, comp het seriously screwed me over for a few years before I came across asexuality. I had things that other people interpreted as crushes - I wanted to be near a person, speak to them, get to know them - and so, consequently, I interpret those along the lines which comp get provided; those related to my same sex as just really wanting to be friends, and those related to the opposite sex as crushes. Even when I felt no desire to have sex, I felt like I ‘had a crush’ and therefore ‘must’ want sex and just didn’t realise it. So I forced myself into situations which I did not want to be in, on the basis that I’d previously had a crush and therefore ‘must want it deep down’. Even my partner was worried that I wasn’t fully consenting, but I assured them that yes I was, just get on with it. Of course, looking back, I realise I absolutely was not fully consenting, but was essentially coercing myself into something that ended up being significantly painful, due to the expectations I had of myself due to comp het. In some ways, I was perpetrating corrective rape on myself - and I have no individual I can blame for the trauma.