#when the character has shame and religious guilt and queer subtext

[moritzakgae]

i think abt moritz’s name a lot. st. maurice and the story of his canonisation. being named after a saint who would rather be martyred than give up his faith must be so crazy when you can’t internally reconcile your inner turmoil with the faith you were raised in. when you would rather die than give up who you are for who you are supposed to be.

[mollrat101]

Deborah & Sexuality: Introduction

Introduction & What is Compulsory Heterosexuality

Read the entire Ava & Deborah Could Be Endgame series here or on A03. 

As much of a mystery Deborah is to us at times, I think Deborah is just as much of a mystery to...herself. 

There are thoughts, feelings, desires, memories and experiences that Deb has pushed to the back of her mind and refused to process. 

As a result, she has become distant from her own authentic wants, feelings and desires. Until Ava comes into her life.

One of those topics I think Deborah hasn’t spent any time reflecting on is her sexuality. 

If Ava and Deborah are ever going to end up in a romantic relationship, there’s a big piece of the puzzle that needs to be solved: The question of Deborah’s sexuality. Is she queer? 

We don’t get any explicit textual evidence, but I would say we get a lot of subtext (i.e. her first lines are her joking about becoming a lesbian) and considering there are a lot of openly queer characters in this show there’s no reason to hide it if Deborah knows she’s queer. So why is it only in subtext?

It’s because Deborah is repressing her queerness. She’s not consciously aware of it yet.

And that’s because of compulsory heterosexuality. 

Because the topic of Deborah’s sexuality is so important and involves multiple parts, I’m going to break this subtopic down into its own series (Deborah & Sexuality) within my Ava & Deborah Could Be Endgame series. Read the introduction to the Endgame series here. 

This will be part 1 where I’ll define the concept of compulsory heterosexuality and overview some of the other topics I’m going to cover later in the series. 

Let’s get started! 

What is compulsory heterosexuality? 

Adrienne Rich, American poet, essayist and feminist coined the term “compulsory heterosexualty” in her 1980 essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”.  

Personally, I found the original text difficult to follow, so I’m going to reference Hannah Witton’s Youtube video on the subject to help me explain this concept. You can read Rich’s original essay for free here. 

“Rich argues that heterosexuality is not natural, especially in women. Heterosexuality is, in fact, a violent political institution imposed on society and its people. Comphet [short for compulsory heterosexuality] removes the capacity of choice and self expression and puts women in a subordinate role to men. 

Everyone can adopt heterosexuality despite their preferences and heterosexuality is assumed until proven otherwise. In comphet, heterosexuality isn’t just assumed, it’s enforced. It is a system of oppression. You will find rewards for heterosexuality and punishments for any other sexual orientation in all institutions, legal, political, financial, medical, religious, educational, social...and, of course, this extends to gender, gender roles and gender expression too. Any deviance from man equals masculine and woman equals feminine is punished in these same institutions too and it’s manifestations aren’t just external in these institutions, they are very much internal too. 

Internalized homophobia is the most obvious one, but when you’re denied self determination and alternatives to heterosexuality are never presented as real, positive options to you, you may actually believe that you are straight, even if you aren’t. It means people assume even their own sexual orientation. It prevents people from truly considering their sexual orientation, giving it a second thought, exploring behaviors outside of the heteronormative experience, or if you do, feeling guilt and shame about that.”

I hope some of this is starting to sound familiar. Because to me? This explains a lot of Deborah’s views, her behavior and her sexual experiences that we know about so far. 

The show establishes something pretty quickly about Deborah: she’s unsatisfied with her life and that especially includes her romantic and sexual life.  

Deb desires a partner but all her romantic partnerships with men don’t work out or don’t satisfy her. In all of Season 1, she doesn’t list or have a single positive experience having sex with men or even having that many positive experiences with men in general, except her gay male employees. 

When we meet her, she has been having an on-again, off-again relationship (?) with Marty, that’s possibly been going on for many years. She jokes on stage and tells him directly that he doesn’t satisfy her in bed, but she keeps coming back to him and nothing changes between them. 

Despite all of this, Deborah doesn’t consider exploring women due to compulsory heterosexuality, which doesn’t make her see that as a viable, positive option or even cross her mind as a real option at all. 

But then she’s introduced to Ava, a woman who has fought against compulsory heterosexuality to think deeply about her sexual feelings and experiences and concludes she is bisexual. 

Likely for the first time, Deborah is spending a significant amount of time with an openly queer woman. 

And Ava completely challenges everything Deb thought she knew about herself, including her ideas about gender and sexuality...and she’s unconsciously falling in love with her. 

I think the culmination of this part of Deborah’s character arc is to recognize and accept her queer sexuality and to finally enter a satisfying romantic relationship with Ava. 

The point of this series is to take a deep dive into Deborah Vance’s sexuality and gather evidence for how compulsory heterosexuality might be affecting her and what that means for her arc going forward and her relationship with Ava. 

In this mini-series, here are several other topics I’m going to cover:

Deborah: Repression & Shame

Deborah’s Discomfort Around Queer Women

Deborah’s Attraction to Ava

Is Deborah Actually Attracted to Men? A Review of What We Know About Deborah’s Sexuality So Far

Deborah’s Potential Queer Arc

There will likely be more topics than just this, but this is just to give you an idea of what’s to come. As always let me know if you have any feedback or if you think of a topic you’d like me to cover. Stay tuned!