Compulsory Heterosexuality

The way people in the LGBT community are looked at is that they are looked at as nothing but abnormal people and are treated like they’re not even human. In this case, lesbians are seen in this harsh way in the eyes of some males because they would think that these women are only saying that to turn them down. While reading Adrienne Rich’s article “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”, I saw how she points out how there are some males who would force themselves on women and how there are lesbians who would still go out with a man even though they don’t like them in that way. What Adrienne specifically said is:
Some of the forms by which male power manifests itself are more easily recognizable as enforcing heterosexuality on women

than other. Yet eat one I have listed adds to the cluster of forces within which women have been convinced that marriage and sexual orientation towards men are inevitable, even if unsatisfying or oppressive components of their lives. The chastity belt; child marriage; erasure of lesbian existence (except as exotic and perverse) in art, literature, film; idealization of heterosexual romance and marriage--these are some obvious forms of compulsion, the first two exemplifying physical force, the second two control of consciousness. (Rich pg. 8).
What this set of lines show is how there are some males who would force themselves onto these women who are lesbians and if the women refuse, they might take even more drastic measures to get their way. Another reason I chose this line is to show how some of these women would force themselves to be in a relationship with a man to please the people around them. Most of the time, the males would force themselves on to the women who are lesbians, but there are cases where the women who are lesbians would force themselves to go out with a man. The reason I chose this article to help prove my point about how people in the LGBT community are treated is that a lot of the stuff Adrienne Rich said in this essay shows exactly what goes on in the world of lesbians and in the world of male heterosexuality. I feel like this article can relate to both the poem and the short story because of the contents that’s in there. Both the poem and the short story addresses how the characters are treated due to their sexuality and in this essay, it explains what lesbians go through in everyday life because of their sexuality.