The invention of ‘heterosexuality’

　　异性恋的历史

　　The 1901 Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defined heterosexuality as an “abnormal or perverted appetite toward the opposite sex.” More than two decades later, in 1923, Merriam Webster’s dictionary similarly defined it as “morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex.” It wasn’t until 1934 that heterosexuality was graced with the meaning we’re familiar with today: “manifestation of sexual passionfor one of the opposite sex; normal sexuality.”

　　1901版的《道兰氏医学词典》将“异性恋”定义为“对于异性的一种不正常的或变态的兴趣”。二十多年后，也就是1923年，《韦氏词典》对“异性恋”也给出了类似的解释，即“一种对于异性的病态的情欲”。直到1934年，人们才开始尊重异性恋，并将其定义为“对异性性欲的表现;一种正常的性取向”

　　Whenever I tell this to people, they respond with dramatic incredulity. That can’t be right!Well, it certainly doesn’t feel right. It feels as if heterosexuality has always “just been there.”

　　当我告诉人们这件事的时候，他们的反应都是难以置信。这不可能!是的，这看起来的确不可能。我们觉得似乎异性恋是自古以来就存在的。

　　While heterosexual sex is clearly as old as humanity, the concept of heterosexuality as an identity is a very recent invention (Credit: Getty Images)

　　尽管异性恋从人类产生那天就一直存在，关于它的定义却是最近的产物。

　　There are many reasons for this educational omission, including religious bias and other types of homophobia. But the biggest reason we don’t interrogate heterosexuality’s origins is probably because it seems so, well, natural. Normal. No need to question something that’s “just there.”

　　我们在这方面的教育有许多缺失，造成这些缺失原因有许多，包括宗教偏见和其他类型的同性恋恐惧症。

　　But heterosexuality has not always “just been there.” And there’s no reason to imagine it will always be.

　　但是异性恋并非“生来如此”，并且我们也没有理由觉得它永远都会存在。

　　When heterosexuality was abnormal

　　异性恋的“非正常时期”

　　The first rebuttal to the claim that heterosexuality was invented usually involves an appeal to reproduction: it seems obvious that different-genital intercourse has existed for as long as humans have been around – indeed, we wouldn’t have survived this long without it. But this rebuttal assumes that heterosexuality is the same thing as reproductive intercourse. It isn’t.

　　第一项对“发明异性恋”这一话题所提出的反驳，通常和对繁殖的诉求有关：很明显的是，异性性交活动的历史和人类历史一样长——确实，如果没有异性间的性交活动，我们也不可能存活如此之久。而对此提出的驳斥性观点是，异性恋和以繁殖为目的的性交活动是一样的。但事实却并非如此。

　　“Sex has no history,” writes queer theorist David Halperin at the University of Michigan, because it’s “grounded in the functioning of the body.” Sexuality, on the other hand, precisely because it’s a “cultural production,” does have a history. In other words, while sex is something that appears hardwired into most species, the naming and categorising of those acts, and those who practise those acts, is a historical phenomenon, and can and should be studied as such.

　　密歇根大学的同志理论家大卫·霍尔柏林(David Halperin)写道，“性没有历史，”，一方面因为性“是身体的基本功能”。另一方面，正是因为性倾向是一种“文化产物”，它有自己的历史。换句话说，尽管性是一种大部分物种身上都存在的现象，对于性行为及其实施者的命名及分类，都应历史地看待，我们可以并且应该进行调查和研究。

　　Or put another way: there have always been sexual instincts throughout the animal world (sex). But at a specific point in time, humans attached meaning to these instincts (sexuality). When humans talk about heterosexuality, we’re talking about the second thing.

　　换一种说法：性本能一直存在于动物世界(指“性行为”)。但就在某个特定时间点，人们对这种性本能赋予了其他含义(即“性取向”)。因此当人们谈论异性恋时，实际上是在谈论后者。

　　So what changed? Language.

　　那么，是什么发生了改变?是语言。

　　In the late 1860s, Hungarian journalist Karl Maria Kertbeny coined four terms to describe sexual experiences: heterosexual, homosexual, and two now forgotten terms to describe masturbation and bestiality; namely, monosexual and heterogenit. Kertbeny used the term “heterosexual” a decade later when he was asked to write a book chapter arguing for the decriminalisation of homosexuality. The editor, Gustav Jager, decided not to publish it, but he ended up using Kertbeny’s novel term in a book he later published in 1880.

　　19世纪60年代末，匈牙利记者卡尔·玛利亚·柯本尼(Karl Maria Kertbeny)造了四个词来描述性体验：异性恋、同性恋，单性恋和人兽恋(即手淫和兽奸)，其中后两个词已经被人们遗忘。十年后，柯本尼才首次在书中使用了“异性恋”这个词，当时编辑要求他为一本支持同性恋合法化的书撰写其中一章节。虽然当时的编辑古斯塔夫·耶阁(Gustav Jager)决定不出版这些内容，但不久后，他在1880年出版的一本书中还是用到了这个柯本尼创造的新词。

　　The next time the word was published was in 1889, when Austro-German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing included the word in Psychopathia Sexualis, a catalogue of sexual disorders. But in almost 500 pages, the word “heterosexual” is used only 24 times, and isn’t even indexed. That’s because Krafft-Ebing is more interested in “contrary sexual instinct” (“perversions”) than “sexual instinct,” the latter being for him the “normal” sexual desire of humans.

　　这个词再次出现是在1889年，那时奥地利——德国的精神病学家理查德·克拉夫·埃宾(Richard von Krafft-Ebing)在一本名为《性精神病态》的描述性障碍的书中，中使用了这个词语。但在这本将近500页的作品中，“异性恋”这个词仅被引用了24次，并且也没有被编入索引之中。这是因为，相对于“性本能”，克拉夫·埃宾对“相反性本能(性变态)”更感兴趣，他认为后者才是人类“正常”的性欲表现。

　　Until this point in our Earth’s history, the human species has been furthered by different-sex reproductive intercourse. About a century ago, we attached specific meanings to this kind of intercourse, partly because we wanted to encourage it. But our world is very different now than what it was. Technologies like preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and in vitro fertilisation (IVF) are only improving. In 2013, more than 63,000 babies were conceived via IVF. In fact, more than five million children have been born through assisted reproductive technologies. Granted, this number still keeps such reproduction in the slim minority, but all technological advances start out with the numbers against them.

　　历史发展到现在为止，以生殖为目的的异性性活动对人类这一物种的进化已经起到了积极作用。大约一个世纪以前，我们就对这类性活动赋予了特殊的含义，一部分原因是我们想要鼓励这种性行为。但是，现在的世界已经大不相同。胚胎植入前遗传学诊断(PGD)和体外人工受精(IVF)等科学技术都在不断发展。到2013年，超过63,000名婴儿通过体外人工受精出生。事实上，超过500万婴儿是在辅助受孕技术的帮助下诞生的。诚然，这在总出生人数上还是一个小数字，但是技术一直在进步。

　　The line between heterosexuality and homosexuality isn’t just blurry, as some take Kinsey’s research to imply – it’s an invention, a myth, and an outdated one. Men and women will continue to have different-genital sex with each other until the human species is no more. But heterosexuality – as a social marker, as a way of life, as an identity – may well die out long before then.

　　根据金赛(美国性学家)的研究，异性恋和同性恋之间的分界线不仅仅是模糊的——它更像是一个虚构出来东西，一个神话，一个过时的观念。男性和女性仍然会发生异性性关系，直到人类不复存在那一天。但是异性恋——作为一种社会特征、一种生活方式、一种性取向——很可能在人类灭绝前就已经完全消失了。

（编辑：何莹莹）