Heterosexuality

Romeo and Juliet,a classic example of a heterosexual couple.

Heterosexualityis asexual orientation.Heterosexualpeople are sexually attracted to the oppositegender,and this may involve romantic feelings, or sexual activity. Another less formal word for heterosexual isstraight.

People who are not heterosexual may behomosexual,bisexualorasexual.Many people in Western society areheteronormative,which means that they believe that heterosexuality is better than other forms of sexuality. This often leads todiscrimination.

Sexual orientation is thought to be caused by genetics and hormones when a baby is growing in its mother. Hormones play a role in making men and women have differences in a region of the brain called the sexually dimorphic nucleus, which is involved in sexual attraction. Men have larger clusters in thehypothalamusthan women, similar to othermammals.

In theCatholic Churchand manyChristian churchesas well as inIslamandJudaism,a marriage can only be made in a heterosexual pair - man and woman. Marriage that is done inhomosexualpair is often seen as a serioussinby those religions.

Related pages

• Heterosociality
• Queer,a catch-all term for non-heterosexual people (used by some)

Other websites

• The Kinsey InstituteArchived2005-11-18 at theWayback Machine