The Heterosexual Questionnaire

I discovered something awesome today in my Sociology of Gender class. It's called the Heterosexual Questionnaire. It's designed to make visible the heterosexism and heterosexual privilege that is built into our society and often overlooked by people. The concept: taking questions that homosexuals get asked all the time and flipping them around to suit heterosexuals. The idea is to show heterosexuals how insensitive and stupid so many of these ideas are.

Here are some sample questions: 1) What do you think you caused your heterosexuality? 5) If you have never slept with a person of the same sex, is it possible that all you need is a good Gay lover? 7) Why do you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality? Can't you just be who you are and keep it quiet? 10) A disproportionate majority of child molesters are heterosexual. Do you consider it safe to expose children to heterosexual teachers? 14) How can you become a whole person if you limit yourself to compulsive, exclusive heterosexuality?

I think this questionnaire is incredible. So much of our cultural ideas (and myths) about homosexuality are built on the (incorrect) idea that heterosexuality is normal and homo- or bisexuality is abnormal. We don't notice the privileges that heterosexuals have in our society (like the fact that my boyfriend and I can walk down the street holding hands without having people sending confused or disgusted glances our way). This questionnaire provoked a great conversation in my class today; except for the guy who basically said, "But some (gay) people are ok, and then some are so out there, it's like why can't they just not be so loud about it?" (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.) Of course, several people immediately responded, but the best response was a girl, who had just pointed out that as a gay woman she has dealt with questions like those in the questionnaire a lot, told him that "We HAVE to be loud to try to get what we need in this forced heterosexual world." Yeah, girl! My professor also had a good response, pointing out that he was just repeating question #7. The sad thing is that I'm pretty sure he still doesn't realize that he said anything that might be unfair or offensive to others.

Anyway, everyone should check out this questionnaire, it's great!


*The Heterosexual Questionnaire was created in 1972 by Martin Rochlin.