"Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women"
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Rich writes like someone yanking a thread and letting the whole garment unravel. Calling lesbian existence a taboo-break is only the entry point; the sharper claim is that heterosexuality isn’t merely a preference but an enforced social arrangement, a “compulsory way of life” that disciplines women into availability. The line’s force comes from how it refuses the comforting liberal frame of “private identity” and drags sexuality into the realm of power, economics, and entitlement.
The phrase “male right of access” is deliberately blunt, almost juridical. Rich isn’t describing individual men’s desires; she’s naming a structural assumption that women’s bodies, attention, and labor are owed to men, whether through marriage, dating scripts, workplace hierarchies, or the quieter coercions of safety and respectability. In that sense, lesbian existence becomes political even when it’s lived quietly. It’s “direct or indirect” because the mere fact of nonparticipation can read as rebellion in a system that depends on women’s participation to look natural.
Context matters: Rich was writing in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as second-wave feminism fought over sex, family, and the limits of “choice” in a culture that preloads the options. Her intent isn’t to romanticize lesbianism as purity; it’s to reframe it as a pressure point where the ideology of compulsory heterosexuality is most visible. The subtext is a dare: if opting out is an “attack,” what does that say about the system being attacked?
The phrase “male right of access” is deliberately blunt, almost juridical. Rich isn’t describing individual men’s desires; she’s naming a structural assumption that women’s bodies, attention, and labor are owed to men, whether through marriage, dating scripts, workplace hierarchies, or the quieter coercions of safety and respectability. In that sense, lesbian existence becomes political even when it’s lived quietly. It’s “direct or indirect” because the mere fact of nonparticipation can read as rebellion in a system that depends on women’s participation to look natural.
Context matters: Rich was writing in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as second-wave feminism fought over sex, family, and the limits of “choice” in a culture that preloads the options. Her intent isn’t to romanticize lesbianism as purity; it’s to reframe it as a pressure point where the ideology of compulsory heterosexuality is most visible. The subtext is a dare: if opting out is an “attack,” what does that say about the system being attacked?
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|---|
| Source | Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" (essay, 1980). |
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