Can bisexuals experience CompHet?
Just gonna start by saying, I’m asking this with genuine curiosity as a lesbian/aroace person. I’m not trying to police language or claim my opinion is objective fact. You do not have to answer if you don’t feel like it, Bisexual people already have to deal with so much invalidating crap from gay and straight people alike, and I don’t want to be part of that problem. Your experience is valid and you don’t have to justify it to anyone, including me. I’ve just seen a lot of discussion about this online and I want to properly hear the other side.
My understanding is that Comphet is when you delude yourself in to believing you like the opposite sex. If you actually like the opposite sex, I don’t understand how you could experience comphet.
Here’s my experience with it: I spent a long time trying to force myself to like men because I felt like I had to. I was totally okay with the idea of being bi, I really clung on to that label for years. But accepting that I was a lesbian gave me this weird sense of grief. I could never have the life I was taught to expect, I could never relate to other girls my age talking about crushes and relationships, no matter how perfect a guy was I could never ever be happy with him. I felt like I was locking myself out of a “normal” life and that was terrifying.
I’ve seen lot of people saying “it’s different for bi people” but didn’t see many actual explanations or examples- and the ones I did see still didn’t sound like comphet to me. One of them was “when a guy asks you out and you feel compelled to say yes just because he’s a guy and you’re a girl” but like… straight people can experience that. That’s heteronormativity, misogyny, or society’s obsession with romance. Not comphet or even a queer-specific experience.
Another explanation I saw was feeling pressured in to having a straight relationship, which definitely makes more sense, but if your heterosexual attraction is genuine then I don’t think having a straight relationship can be a “compulsive” act? I’d probably call that heteronormativity, bi-erasure or even internalised homophobia instead of comphet.
I am open to being completely wrong- I’m not bisexual so I don’t have any right to make statements about the bi experience. I’m asking with genuine interest and a desire to be more educated- do you guys believe comphet affects bisexuals? And if so, in what ways?
Posted Jul 5, 2025, 10:25 PM UTC