ABSTRACT
There is an unfortunate irony embedded in the recent spate of critical attention to heterosexuality, particularly if we see this attention as part of a larger academic interest in “unmarked” and “naturalized” categories. Scholars across disciplines and fields are busy interrogating those hegemonic structures whose power is derived from their uncanny ability to avoid the glare of the spotlight. The recent growth industry in “whiteness studies” provides the most obvious example of this trend, and the new critical heterosexuality studies seems to be following not too far behind. Both of these subfields of academic inquiry are long overdue and hold the potential to be enormously useful.
