Compulsory Heterosexuality: School Bars Dateless Girls from Prom

This is extremely bizarre. A Staten Island high school has banned girls from the prom if they don’t have a male date. It’s a girls-only school, which probably means that proms generally have a huge number of girls and not that many guys. Maybe the principle is pitying the boys at the prom, feeling they shouldn’t be outnumbered. There’s other speculations.

“That makes sense only because it probably controls the chaos,” Valente said. “You know you’re there with somebody, you’re less likely to go crazy.”

By the way, explanation for the academicese in the title: compulsory heterosexuality isn’t just about compelling people not to be gay. It’s about the social pressures to perform heterosexuality that are put on everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. Even if you’re straight, you can be subject to this pressure if your straightness doesn’t conform to the get married/have kids/participate in the rituals of American heterosexuality. And so a straight girl who is banned from the prom because she wanted to go with girl friends instead of a date is getting smacked with compulsory heterosexuality, as is the lesbian student who is now banned from going with her actual date.

This article also drives home how high school is, no matter how the music and fashions change, stuck in this bizarre time warp. For example, this quote: