What is comphet? How to spot heteronormative pressures in dating

This is the influence of heteronormativity: the assumption that heterosexuality is the default or most socially acceptable orientation. It shows up in childhood crush narratives, family expectations, TV storylines, song lyrics, and even in everyday language. Boy meets girl. Mr and Mrs… and so on.

From this cultural pattern comes compulsory heterosexuality (or comphet for short). Lesbian feminist writer Adrienne Rich introduced the term in her essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, which she says was "written in part to challenge the erasure of lesbian existence from so much of scholarly feminist literature…  and to encourage heterosexual feminists to examine heterosexuality as a political institution which disempowers women—and to change it." Comphet describes the pressure, however subtle or overt, to assume straightness in ourselves and others, even when our experiences don't align with that assumption.

To understand how these norms continue to shape dating and relationships today, we spoke with Rafaella Smith-Fiallo, a sex, relationships, and trauma therapist who works closely with people navigating identity, desire, and societal expectations.

What is compulsory heterosexuality?

Heteronormativity is the background most of us grow up in. Compulsory heterosexuality is what happens when those expectations start to feel personal. 

As Rafaella explains, "Comphet is the sneaky, systemic idea that straightness is the default sexuality. It's something that's expected, taught, and often enforced by misogyny, which assesses the value of cis women by their attachment to cis men." In dating, she says, this pressure can show up as staying in relationships out of obligation, pursuing partners to feel “normal,” or mistaking emotional intimacy for romantic attraction.

Once you start naming comphet, a lot of confusing or misaligned feelings can begin to make more sense. It doesn't give you all the answers, but it can help you reflect more honestly about what you actually want—from your relationships, your identity, and your sense of connection.

How does heteronormative society impact personal relationships?

Many of us grow up with a single dominant storyline about relationships: you meet someone of a "different" gender, you date, you fall in love. Anything outside that pattern is treated as unusual.

Those heteronormative expectations show up early. They appear in casual comments from relatives about your "future boyfriend or girlfriend," in fairytales that pair princesses only with princes, and in the quiet pressure to choose relationships that won't raise questions from others, or from within yourself. You don't have to consciously agree with these ideas for them to shape what feels familiar or safe.

Over time, that pressure can affect how people interpret their own attraction. Research backs this up. A dissertation on plurisexual identity found that many people spent years "performing" heterosexuality, confusing social approval with desire. Some even stayed in relationships because they lacked the language or support to understand what they actually wanted. 

Other research published in Social Sciences shows how deeply heteronormative expectations shape the way people understand attraction and relationship satisfaction, especially for queer participants. When one relationship model is treated as the default or ideal, it becomes much harder to tell whether a choice stems from genuine desire or pressure to conform. As Rafaella adds, unpacking comphet often means learning to separate social conditioning from authentic connection.

Identifying heteronormative pressures in dating

By the time we start dating, heteronormative expectations can be so familiar that most of us don't stop to question them. You might say yes to a date because it’s what everyone around you is doing, or the two of you “make sense.” You might enjoy someone's company, respect them, or the fact that they like you, and assume that must mean you're attracted to them.

You might even tell yourself that the attraction will "grow over time," or that liking someone who is kind, stable, or socially approved should be enough. Rather than questioning the framework itself, that discomfort turns inward.

Rafaella sees this pattern regularly. "You might feel pulled toward someone because they seem like the 'right choice,' not because you want to be with them. Or you might perform in ways that aren't really you, just to fit a dynamic that feels recognizable."

Others move through familiar relationship milestones simply because that's what a relationship is “supposed” to do next.

Some signs of heteronormative pressure in dating include:

• Choosing partners who make sense "on paper," even if there's no chemistry
• Confusing anxiety or discomfort with "butterflies"
• Mistaking admiration or emotional closeness for romantic attraction
• Enjoying spending time together but feeling little desire for physical closeness
• Feeling more attached to the idea of a relationship than the person in front of you
• Moving through familiar relationship milestones simply because that's what a relationship is “supposed” to do next
• Staying because the relationship looks stable or socially acceptable
• Feeling generally "content," but never deeply drawn in

These pressures don't disappear just because someone is openly queer, either. As Rafaella notes, "Even in queer spaces, comphet can show up as pressure to 'pair off' in ways that mirror hetero norms. It can flatten how people experience attraction or desire."

Noticing this pattern may not necessarily arrive as a dramatic realization; it might start as a sense that something isn't aligning. Rafaella encourages meeting that discomfort with curiosity rather than panic. "Get curious, not judgmental," she says. "Ask yourself: Am I here because I want to be, or because I think I should be? Imagine your life without this dynamic—do you feel relief, sadness, peace? Listen to that."

Recognizing these pressures isn't about invalidating your past relationships or questioning whether your feelings were real. It's about giving yourself space to listen to your desires, without automatically defaulting to the expectations you've absorbed.

Heteronormative assumptions and how they affect LGBTQ+ dating

Comphet can shape anyone's dating life, but it often has a particular hold on women, whose attraction to men is widely treated as a given. Adrienne Rich argued that compulsory heterosexuality affects all women—whether lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer, trans, or straight—because society expects them to desire men by default.

This expectation forms the backdrop many people grow up against, which helps explain why the viral Lesbian Masterdoc (created by Angeli Luz in 2018) resonated so widely. The document wasn't written to tell anyone who they are, but to offer language for feelings that often go unnamed under comphet. Rather than providing answers, it invited people to sit with questions they'd rarely been encouraged to ask, like:

• Do you feel more emotionally at ease with women than with men?
• Do your crushes on men tend to be distant, fictional, or hypothetical?
• Do relationships with men look "right" on the outside, but feel hard to imagine long-term?
• Do your feelings toward men feel closer to admiration or validation than desire?

"People often confuse emotional closeness or admiration with romantic attraction because we weren't given language for other types of intimacy," says Rafaella. "It can make people repress queer feelings or assume they're straight just because they don't hate being with men… It's like trying to read your soul in a language you were never taught."

Because of this, queer self-discovery is rarely a single "aha" moment. Even as queerness becomes more visible—with nearly 30% of Gen Z adults now identifying as LGBTQ+—many people come to understand themselves slowly, often after years of trying to make straightness “fit.”

For people attracted to multiple genders, comphet may add another layer. If you already know you can be attracted to the “opposite” gender, it's easy to assume you must be straight. This can lead to bisexual and pansexual people ignoring or downplaying their queer desires.

Comphet might also be confusing for asexual people, who may feel pressured to experience romantic or sexual attraction they don't naturally feel. When sexuality is framed as something everyone should want, ace identity can be even harder to recognize and validate.

And heteronormative scripts don't automatically disappear in queer relationships. People may still feel pressure to replicate familiar roles, assuming one partner should be more "masculine" or "feminine," more dominant or more emotional, simply because that's the model they’ve seen represented.

This can show up as:

• Feeling pressure to play a specific "role" in a queer relationship
• Assuming one partner has to be the caretaker or the initiator
• Downplaying queer attraction because it doesn't feel dramatic or immediate
• Believing queerness must be obvious or intense to be real

If you're exploring these questions for the first time, or the hundredth, you might find support in our guides to dating when you’re bi-curious, or dating as a recently-out lesbian.

How to challenge heteronormative standards

Unpacking heteronormativity isn't always straightforward. It can bring up a lot of feelings, especially when you start questioning relationships or desires you've long taken for granted.

"There can be grief for the time spent in relationships that didn't fit, fear of hurting someone you care about, or shame for not recognizing things sooner," says Rafaella. "It can also bring up fear of starting over." At the same time, she notes, people often feel relief, along with a growing sense of clarity or self-trust.

Rather than rushing to label what's happening or make a big decision, Rafaella encourages slowing down and approaching discomfort with openness. Paying attention to how your body and emotions respond over time—whether a dynamic brings tension, ease, or quiet relief—can offer valuable information without demanding immediate answers.

How this reflection shows up depends on where you're at. If you're single, it might mean giving yourself permission to explore or date more intentionally. In a monogamous relationship, it might prompt open conversations about what feels good, what doesn't, and whether the dynamic still fits. And in open or non-monogamous relationships, it may mean revisiting agreements and discussing desires. None of this automatically means something has to end, but it can be a good opportunity to address what you might want to change.

If you're navigating this with a partner, it's good to start simple. "Name what you were taught about love, roles, sex," Rafaella says. "Name those ideas as expectations that were placed onto you." From there, she encourages asking your partner(s): "What would we want this relationship to look like if we took the script away?" Rebuilding from that place means centering consent, care, pleasure, and flexibility rather than default roles.

Rafaella suggests turning to books and writers that question the norms many of us grew up with. She points to Alok Vaid-Menon, a non-binary writer and performance artist who challenges rigid ideas about gender and embodiment, and Adrienne Maree Brown’s writing on pleasure and queerness, informed by her work as a Black queer writer and activist. She also suggests spending time with Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sherronda J. Brown, a writer and editor whose work focuses on asexuality, consent, and the politics of desire, or exploring The Invention of Heterosexuality by Jonathan Ned Katz, a historian of sexuality. These perspectives do not tell you who you are, rather, they offer language for what you may already be feeling.

She also encourages finding communities, online or in person, where people are reimagining gender, love, family, and connection. "Those spaces help you unlearn the myth of 'normal,'" she says, "and remind you that there are infinite ways to be human."

When you start to see how external expectations have shaped your choices, space opens up to think about relationships, intimacy, and identity differently.

Writer Anna Pulley captures this feeling well, reminding us that as long as you "keep (gently) questioning, keep checking in with yourself and your feelings, and keep assessing whether the company you keep deserves your time and energy," you're already moving toward a more authentic version of your life, no matter how heteronormative the world around you may be.

Naming comphet, and recognizing how it shows up, can open the door to connections that actually feel right. And if you're looking for a space that supports exploration, openness, and self-discovery, Feeld brings together a community of people focused on connecting more intentionally.