Unpacking Compulsory Heterosexuality: Coming Home to Your True Desires

For many women and v owners, desire can feel confusing. You may have dated men your whole life, maybe even loved them… but something still doesn’t feel quite aligned. You might feel disconnected from intimacy, uninterested in sex, or deeply unsatisfied, and not know why.

This is where the concept of Compulsory Heterosexuality comes in.

Coined by feminist poet and thinker Adrienne Rich, compulsory heterosexuality refers to the unspoken cultural belief that heterosexuality is the “default”- that women are supposed to be attracted to men, build lives with them, and find fulfilment in that dynamic… simply because that’s what we’ve always been told.

But what if your desire doesn’t actually live there?

What if the reason sex with men has never lit you up, or relationships with them have always felt off…isn’t because you’re broken, but because you’ve been conditioned?

How Compulsory Heterosexuality Shows Up

Comp Het (as it’s often called) can be sneaky. It shows up in so many subtle, everyday ways:

• Feeling like being with a man is “just what you do” as a woman, even if it doesn’t feel deeply satisfying

• Fantasising more about women, but dismissing it as “just a phase” or “everyone does that” (I had this before I started dating my now wife) 

• Struggling with sexual disinterest in male partners and blaming yourself

• Feeling more emotionally or sensually drawn to women, but never exploring it

• Being praised for your beauty, softness, or femininity and being told that “some man is going to be so lucky someday”

We live in a world that celebrates heterosexual love stories everywhere, from fairy tales and rom-coms, to family expectations, to mainstream porn. Queerness, fluidity, and same-gender love are rarely shown as the default, they’re often “the exception,” “the phase,” or “the brave choice.”

But queerness isn’t a phase. It’s a truth. And for many women and v owners, it’s been buried under decades of conditioning, fear, and shame.

Coming Home to Your Own Truth

At Yoni Pleasure Palace, we believe in honouring the full spectrum of desire. We believe your body holds deep wisdom. That your yoni knows when she feels safe… turned on… and truly met. And sometimes, that safety and aliveness awakens in spaces you never allowed yourself to explore.

If you’ve ever questioned your sexuality, or felt unsure about who or what you’re attracted to, you’re not alone. And you don’t have to rush to label yourself.

Sexuality is a spectrum. It can be fluid, soft, unfolding. Your journey is uniquely yours, and there is nothing wrong with you if you’re only now beginning to ask, “What if I’m not straight?”

Healing Comp Het Through Pleasure & Curiosity

Reclaiming your truth starts with unlearning. With getting curious, not judgmental.

Some ways to begin exploring this gently:

• Journal on your earliest experiences of desire. Who were they really for?
  Ask yourself: “What would I explore if I knew no one would judge me?”
• Explore your fantasies without shame - where does your mind go when you feel free?
• Surround yourself with diverse representations of love, pleasure, and queerness.
• Connect with other women doing this work - through sisterhood, circles, or safe online communities.
• Work with somatic practices to awaken embodied desire, on your terms.

And most importantly: honour your timeline.

There’s no rush to come out, define yourself, or change your relationships.
This is a journey of returning, to self-trust, to liberation, to love that feels real.

You Are Allowed to Want What You Want

Whether you identify as straight, queer, bi, fluid, or are still figuring it out, you are worthy of deep, delicious, sovereign pleasure.

You are allowed to listen to your body.
You are allowed to evolve.
You are allowed to take up space in your truth.

Your desire is not too much.
Your curiosity is not a mistake.
Your queerness, if it’s there, is not something to fear. It’s something to celebrate.

At Yoni Pleasure Palace, we are here for your becoming. The one where you take off the mask, and follow the pulse of your truest, wildest self.