Compulsive Hetersexuality Case Study

Compulsive Hetersexuality:

E: Moreover, I also wanted to bring up this notion of compulsive heterosexuality, which is when boys force themselves to be “manly” to reassert their herterosexuality and masculinity to themselves and to their peers. L: Yeah especially in the example of Chad, who was the “stud” of the school. He was the typical masculine guy because he was athletic, handsome, and could get girls, which are the things that guys at River High either aspired to become or pretended to be like so they were accepted by their peers.

E: Exactly, all of the boys at the school were constantly trying to one up each other, especially when it had to do with getting heterosexual mates or having sexual experiences. A lot of the boys felt that

E: I feel like the basketball girls and GSA girls continued this “tomboy” idea into high school, while most other girls start to follow social norms once they reach middle school and high school.

L: Exactly, and to a deeper extent. On page 151, these girls “ were recognized by others as masculine because of the way they ‘did gender’” through their expressions of “their clothes, their lingo, the way they held themselves, their romantic relationships.” Pascoe explains that they resisted gender norms through these multiple things.

E: The way these girls expressed themselves in a way that was very similar to how many boys in their school attempted to prove their masculinity.

L: I agree. I also wanted to relate a key point that Pascoe makes with respect to the power dynamics of the two gender challenging groups of girls. The basketball girls contained the social power necessary to inspire change in the heterosexual and homophobic environment present at River High but were unwilling to inspire any change. On the other hand, the GSA girls aspired to bring about equality and eradicate the homophobia and inherent heterosexaulity present, but lacked the social power required to do so. Both groups were challenging gender roles through their actions, but neither could make a positive change because they lacked what each other