Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality

Beacon Press, 2012

A sweeping social history of heterosexuality from its origins in nineteenth-century Germany to the sex-scandal headlines of today.

Like the typewriter and the light bulb, the heterosexual was invented in the 1860s and swiftly transformed Western culture. The idea of “the heterosexual” was unprecedented. After all, men and women had been having sex, marrying, building families, and sometimes even falling in love for millennia without having any special name for their emotions or acts. Yet, within half a century, “heterosexual” had become a byword for “normal,” enshrined in law, medicine, psychiatry, and the media as a new gold standard for human experience. With an eclectic scope and fascinating detail, Straight tells the eye-opening story of a complex and often contradictory man-made creation that turns out to be anything but straight or narrow.

“Provocative . . . With her eye-opening book, Blank tactfully deconstructs a facet of modern sexuality that most of us take for granted.” —Thomas Rogers, Salon

“Anyone who’s done time at a British public school or a progressive women’s college can tell you that matters of sexual orientation are not strictly either/or. But this book twirls that ‘/’ with panache, spinning a generous handful of yarns about the stories we tell ourselves about sex, love, and identity. . . . A rigorous thinker . . . [Blank] is calm and clear . . . she is deft and nimble . . . [and] exhibits the handsome confidence of a popular historian.” —Troy Patterson, Slate

“Fascinating. Blank takes on the straight life from soup to nuts.” —Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

“[An] amusing, readable synthesis . . . Blank darts from one intriguing, thought-provoking point to another. . . . [And she] offers the provocative solution that soon we will move on from our present fixation on the binary to a more fluid understanding.” —Abigail Zuger, New York Times

“From its thorough but brisk explorations of sexual orientation’s intersections with sex, gender, and romance, this illuminating study examines our presuppositions and makes a powerful, provocative argument that heterosexuality-mazy, unscientific, and new-may be merely ‘a particular configuration of sex and power in a particular historical moment.’“ —Publishers Weekly

“Blank’s tenacious research and insightful arguments make clear how malleable the attitudes of the world we live in really are.” —Michelle Kehm, Bust