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”概念为“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”也给出了类似的讲解，即“一种对于异性的病态的情欲”。直到1934年，大家才开始尊重异性恋，并将它概念为“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.”
当我告诉大家这件事的时候，他们的反应都是很难置信。这不可能!是的，这看着的确不可能。大家感觉好像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
尽管异性恋从人类产生那天就一直存在，关于它的概念却是近期的产物。
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.”
大家在这方面的教育有很多缺失，导致这类缺失缘由有很多，包含宗教偏见和其他种类的同性恋恐惧症。
But heterosexuality has not always “just been there.” And there’s no reason to imagine it will always be.
但异性恋并不是“生来这样”，并且大家也没理由感觉它永远都会存在。
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“创造异性恋”这一话题所提出的反驳，一般和对繁殖的诉求有关：非常明显的是，异性性交活动的历史和人类历史一样长——确实，假如没异性间的性交活动，大家也不可能存活这样之久。而对此提出的驳斥性看法是，异性恋和以繁殖为目的的性交活动是一样的。但事实却并不是这样。
“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·霍尔柏林写道，“性没历史，”，一方面由于性“是身体的基本功能”。其次，正是由于性倾向是一种“文化产物”，它有我们的历史。换句话说，尽管性是一种大多数物种身上都存在的现象，对于性行为及其推行者的命名及分类，都应历史地看待，大家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 . But at a specific point in time, humans attached meaning to these instincts . 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。但就在某个特定时间点，大家对这种性本能赋予了其他含义。因此当大家谈论异性恋时，事实上是在谈论后者。
So what changed? Language.
那样，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·柯本尼造了四个词来描述性体验：异性恋、同性恋，单性恋和人兽恋，其中后两个词已经让人们遗忘。十年后，柯本尼才初次在书中用了“异性恋”这个词，当时编辑需要他为一本支持同性恋合法化的书写作其中一章节。虽然当时的编辑古斯塔夫·耶阁决定不出版这类内容，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” than “sexual instinct,” the latter being for him the “normal” sexual desire of humans.
这个词第三出现是在1889年，那时奥地利——德国的精神病学家理查德·克拉夫·埃宾在一本名为《性精神病态》的描述性障碍的书中，中用了这个词汇。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，并且也没被编入索引之中。这是由于，相对于“性本能”，克拉夫·埃宾对“相反性本能”更有兴趣，他觉得后者才是人类“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 and in vitro fertilisation 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.
历史进步到目前为止，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推动作用。大约一个世纪以前，大家就对这种性活动赋予了特殊的意思，一部分缘由是大家想要鼓励这种性行为。但，目前的世界已经大不相同。胚胎植入前遗传学诊断和体外人工受精等科技都在不断进步。到2013年，超越63,000名婴儿通过体外人工受精出生。事实上，超越500万婴儿是在辅助怀孕技术的帮忙下诞生的。诚然，这在总出生人数上还是一个小数字，但技术一直在进步。
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.
依据金赛的研究，异性恋和同性恋之间的分界线不止是模糊的——它更像是一个虚构出来东西，一个神话，一个过时的观念。男士和女人仍然会发生异性性关系，直到人类不复存在那一天。但异性恋——作为一种社会特点、一种生活方法、一种性取向——非常可能在人类灭绝前就已经完全消失了。
（编辑：何莹莹）
