Relating to sexual attraction toward people of a different sex; describing heterosexuality or heterosexual desire.
From Greek hetero- 'different' and erotic (from Greek eros 'sexual love'). The term parallels homoeroticism to describe opposite-sex attraction.
The term 'heteroerotic' is almost never used in everyday speech—we just say 'straight'—which shows how dominant heterosexuality is that we don't usually need to name it, much like how 'unmarked' categories become invisible in language.
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