LJ Idol, Week 13: Current Events (again): marriage, politics and alchemy

[rm]

Marriage, for being the Hot Gay Issue of the moment, is actually horribly complicated, horribly uncomfortable. We've wound up in a position where almost all of us are lobbying for something we feel at least marginally conflicted about. Some of us worry about a loss of gay culture as if marriage will tame and suburbanize not just us, but our history. Others just feel grateful to have so long avoided the stresses heterosexual couples face regarding relationship milestones, and don't know what impact they may have on those relationships going forward. I wonder, certainly, if marriage would be the hot issue if health insurance in this country wasn't so tied to it.

I grew up knowing two things about marriage: that it was mystical and that as a girl it meant success. And I do mean mystical literally -- I've a father obsessed with religion, with faith and he talked constantly about such things at home, about gnosticism, about alchemy. Had these topics been approached with more deliberateness or organization it would have been a great intellectual boon to my childhood, but instead it was mostly awkward, like talking about sex or politics inappropriately at a dinner party.

Marriage, in the convolutions of my family, was so important that it was the subject of lies. I was raised to know that my parents marriage was the first for both of them and was lectured constantly to never have sex before marriage even in the long years where I never knew any boys. I recall telling my mother I was insulted by the speeches when I was twelve. "I don't know any boys and I'm ugly, so you needn't worry." I said it so clinically she couldn't think of a response.

When I was nineteen in an argument with my father he told me I reminded him of his ex-wife, and when I gaped at him, he merely assured me that there were no children from the marriage. I don't know what my mother knows about it, and I only learnt the name of this woman, from a cousin, last year.

You would think, in the face of all this sloppy madness, I would be more sensible about marriage, more clear, but that is hardly the case. When I was barely twenty and fucking a man twice my age, I dreamed of our future life off-shore (this, a long story involving dot.com fantasies) and the five sons I would give him: Julien, Gabriel, Philip, Martin and Daniel; I have had a long partiality to the names of angels, the names of saints. In my mind I would wear long dresses and be solitary and full of knowing sadness. Why I thought I had to have these children to be like that, I can no longer recall.

Of course, I got older and became marginally more sensible but no less sloppy, getting engaged and then un-engaged to a more suitable man at twenty-four, and then arguing mercilessly about marriage and agenda with Michael on and off for years. That is a story I don't know how to recount with accuracy; it seems strange to say, but it is hard to remember now. I did know he was status though -- the big man with the broad shoulders -- and I knew the way other women looked at me when I was with him. Similarly, I knew the way I looked at him with other women. I had surrendered mysticism to politics, and this is the way all myths go sour. I learnt that no one wants a freaky bisexual artist chick with tattoos to be the mother of their children. I know now that my sense of the political in personal life can be as suffocating as that throwaway disregard.

And so it is very hard and quite strange to be a loud noisy voice when it comes to gay marriage. I know that I find the idea of being a wife sexy - for it is possession and worth, it is being chosen, and whether you like it or not, it is being owned, it is a girl being told she is finally pretty enough, finally pleasing enough. Thankfully, I also find the idea of having a wife to be nearly irresistible - for it is loyalty and responsibility and a quiet, secret specialness. I want to get down on one knee before fairy lights and ask for the honor. I do. Even as I know, entering into marriage more practically seems these days to be the product of a series of awkward discussions and mundane concerns; perhaps that is less toxic. I don't know.

My narratives of marriage aren't just grand, but also problematic. More than that, when have I ever asked the government to give me permission to tell a story. When have I ever asked anyone? Not in a long time, and that's important to me.

The legalization of gay marriage in the U.S. is a critical civil rights issue, and of significant importance for all sorts of reasons crass, morbid or mundane: inheritance and tax filings, health insurance and custody rights. But it seems strange to fight so hard for something I'm so aware of the utter illusions of, that seems likely to radically alter the gay culture that nurtured me from the time I was a teenager, and that seems likely to cause some very rough times for some otherwise exceptionally solid couples.

You want to know what the gay agenda is? It's a lot of us feeling like we have to keep our ambivalence and inner-conflicts about the marriage issue secret.

Comments

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

"...it is being owned, it is a girl being told she is finally pretty enough, finally pleasing enough."

OMG yes. My thoughts aren't cogent enough today to say much more.

We did discuss a long laundry list of stuff before we got engaged, including who would propose. And to his credit he did surprise me when he proposed and swept me off my feet. So you can have both the mundane and the romantic.

Being a wife is awesome. I love having a husband, but I bet it must be amazing to have a wife. The thought makes me a bit wistful.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

further on "...it is being owned, it is a girl being told she is finally pretty enough, finally pleasing enough."

Not just to the husband, but to society at large. That's often a lot bigger than wives ever expect.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

You are so not kidding. What shocked me was how comforting it was. I finally did something "normal."

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Yes, it absolutely blindsided me. I was all prepared and wary of issues one-vs-one, and the one-vs-society (if you will) knocked me right out, and I didn't even notice at first.

Which is why I absolutely will not ever marry again. Whether or not I "can" marry my next partner. :-P

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

I told my husband we would have to kill each other instead of divorcing. :D

I did a ton of reading about it the year before I got married, thanks to recs from a message board I was using at the time. That helped and I wasn't blindsided by societal change toward me. I was just surprised that some of it was nice.

I'm having a little of that problem now WRT children. I'm 90% sure we are not having kids. But people assume. :/

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was a good little feminist and prepared myself beforehand. The problem is the suckering in part, the nice parts.

I woke up 10 years later and said OMGWTFBBQ.

It's really weird.

Don't even get me started on children :-)

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

Wow. Ten years is a long time. I'm only five years in. :D

Yeah, the whole kid thing is complicated and upsetting.

[spydielives.livejournal.com]

Sixteen, but I haven't given up my "other life" either.

The right man, the right men, the right people in your life make a hell of a difference.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Miss Hewitt's cooks the brain.

[robertainnc.livejournal.com]

This was a fabulous, thoughtful, well written post.

Just wanted to tell you that--thanks for writing and posting it.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

You want to know what the gay agenda is? It's a lot of us feeling like we have to keep our ambivalence and inner-conflicts about the marriage issue secret.

Oh, yes.

I am one of those who fears the loss of gay culture. But in a way, the gay culture that nurtured and mentored me is already gone. I go to the Pride Parade now and it looks nothing like Pride Parade 20 years ago. The bars and gay service clubs are outnumbered by corporations (paying lip service to their gay employees), and churches. Throws are all corporate. People act like fools there to party and drink, not to celebrate gay culture.

But yes, I feel conflicted. I think people who want to marry should be able to marry, period. But for awhile it seemed that the gay community was on its way toward making something new, a new way of relating and forming communities, and I fear that initiative will vanish.

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

I like that you point out the conflicts. It's a tricky thing, pushing for an institution that has historically been oppressive but now also contains all these rights and protections that one might want. But institutions can be changed, and do change, despite oppressive foundations. That is what I hold out hope for.

I know now that my sense of the political in personal life can be as suffocating as that throwaway disregard.

I don't know that it's always suffocating--just suffocating when there's a mismatch. If your partner happens to already been in agreement, it just slips by. For us there was never a question of holding out from marriage till such rights are secured for same-sex couples. We just happened to agree on it. (Though god, the health insurance thing can be annoying.) The only time the political-in-the-personal issue has arisen is really in the realm of housework, though that seems to have mostly been resolved. Anyway, I just think that it's fine and important to have the political in the personal---and that any suffocation that arises comes from a lack of shared values (or inadequate understanding, which can be alleviated through discussion), rather than the presence of the political.

well done

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

thanks for that...you have my vote this week. One other thing...this is really the first time I have read something that shows the inner conflict of the gay marriage issue.

Personally I am anti marriage for everyone but then I don't really follow the "traditions" that make zero sense to me.

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

You've made me want to write my own thoughts on all of this, but I will save them for my own journal. I am a married woman with a gay father. My feelings about marriage are also conflicted. To resent my parents' marriage seems like resenting my own existence and to be married and enjoy its priviledges when my father and his partner cannot cheapens my own experience.

just a quick edit?

[40sw.livejournal.com]

I don't know what my mothers know about it,

um, did you mean to indicate more than one mother?

anyway, I like this entry best of all of yours I've read- I may try to say something more useful on the topic later- I expect it's mostly down to the universality of ambivalence and relationship angst.

for what it's worth my own belief is that rather than dragging government approval into gay marriage we should take the government entirely out of all marriage.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

It's a difficult topic and you have done (a usual) a very good job of giving me your point of view.

I have a couple of friends who have been together longer than a number of my friends who got married. They will probably always be together. Through various moves they have had to take this foot locker with them. In it is all the paperwork they have had to collect over the years to make sure that they can see each other in the hospital, that their wills are air tight, that the other has the health care proxy in their name, and various other legal documents that most married couples get when they get that one piece of paper that says that they are married. Now they have understanding families that have accepted these two as a couple and they are part of both families. I feel for those who don't have that kind of acceptance and how much harder it must be for them to make sure that the other person is legally in their life.

[abbismom.livejournal.com]

Amen! Rhonda and I have that footlocker too. We still live in fear of our rights being taken away.

[sylvertongue.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. I've been silently enjoying your thoughtful, well-constructed posts for Idol, but this one resonated with me particularly. Also I'm trying to rehabilitate myself from chronic lurkerdom.

...know that I find the idea of being a wife sexy - for it is possession and worth, it is being chosen, and whether you like it or not, it is being owned, it is a girl being told she is finally pretty enough, finally pleasing enough. Thankfully, I also find the idea of having a wife to be nearly irresistible - for it is loyalty and responsibility and a quiet, secret specialness.

Yes. This. I've been trying to articulate this to my partner for awhile; how it is that this independent, trend-bucking, society-trashing woman that I am can still be beguiled by the marriage mythology.

I try to explain that Western women (I can't speak for elsewhere, but suspect this is true the world over) are raised to see our wedding day as the pinnacle of our lives. That's it, that's what you work to your whole life; the day you become a princess and star in your own fairy tale. And no amount of knowing what crap that is can counteract the stories that were told to me when I was small and not yet critical of my world. I hate that I want it, but by the Goddess, I do. And I don't. That I do, all comes down to what you said: finally pretty enough, finally pleasing enough.

Thank you for putting that feeling into words for me.

[coridan.livejournal.com]

I could probably write pages and pages about this, but briefly - marraige, for the vast majority of human history, has really been about money and the production of labor, mixed in with a whole bunch of emotion and myth.

Social conservatives will try to tell you that it's about god and religion and all that, but women and men, coming together, produce *labor* - they make new people. This process also defines how wealth is passed down through generations. Many with wealth in this nation and world have a vested interest in maintaining as much control over this process as possible. The economic stakes based on marraige are huge. It's not just a lifestyle flavor thing.

I'm for gay marraige, as well as for allowing cosnenting aduts to enter into various consensual marraige arrangements. I feel that once gay marraige manages to make it onto the books, then the genie will be out of the bottle. With the coercive bedrock of heteronormative marraige as the only option shattered, great strides will be made in displaying that there are alternatives to the standards currently enhsrined in western style capitalism. New venues for people to organize new economic and political structures will now be a discussable option. Gay marraige is not only a right, it's essential for options for our future to move beyond the horrid consumer based capitalism that is literally devouring our world and making it burn in flames.

Go Go gay marraige and alternative living!

BTW, know any other bisexual or straight freaky tattooed chicks who are looking for a dependable partner? :)

CB

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Health care access is hardly the only issue, but you know that. Taxes, veterans' rights, parents' rights, Social Security survivors, and over a thousand other Federal rights or benefits alone, leaving state things aside.

I have suggested in the past, to couples who want to marry but remain supportive of those who cannot do so legally, to include donations to Lambda Legal, the Alternatives to Marriage Project, and so on in their wedding registries. This seems to work out fairly well without slapping guests in the face with a lot of politics when they just want to celebrate your happiness. (And where possible, get legally married in a state which does allow same-sex marriage, thus paying your state licence fees to that state.)

For me, the mysticism and 'romance' was less of a factor, probably because I determined at sixteen that I was unlikely to ever marry and had never really had that romantic ideal even beforehand. (Oddly, I've been with my existing partner for so long that many people, from grocery clerks to good friends, assume we are married, which can be amusing or annoying.) But the legal issues, the law, the civil marriage, has always seemed unfair to me. Anyone can choose not to marry.

ANd besides, I'm a bisexual polyamorist. Same-sex marriage is just one step in a long road to what I think of as equality.

Marriage is also visibility, it's a census checkbox. It's one more step out of the closet. WHen my elderly, rather sheltered Midwestern grandmother saw news coverage of the marriage-fest attempt here in San Francisco, she said "I had no idea there were so many people like that. I don't think it belongs in church, but I don't see why they can't have a civil union."

It's the little things; BRIDE magazine carrying lesbian wedding tips on every grocery store shelf, cake toppers in a single gender, and so on that will help bring visibility of queers as "just like you" to many of those sheltered souls. And while I hope that someday my grandmother could learn to tolerate a bunch of freaky mis-gendered pierced tattooed punks living in group sin as well, this is a necessary first step.

[spydielives.livejournal.com]

I am on my second marriage, now, because I didn't listen to my heart the first time. I wanted a child, and for that one had to be married... right? I pretended to be something I wasn't (monogamous, straight) for nearly four years. Then I met someone... and I have been head-over-heels for him ever since.

Except that I have always been myself with him. In return for my honesty, I have relationships that friends have envied. My life is good. I am almost a fairy princess now.

This is definitely my favorite of your entries.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I think that the whole debate would be over and done with if we , as a society, finally once and for all enforced the seperation of church and state.

From a state point of view, the changes are minimal - if any. There is no real need to put a checkbox for straight or gay on a marriage certificate. Tax filings, inheritance, social security , et all are just things where you fill in the name(s) and sign the papers. It would not even require severe changes in the forms.

On the other hand, every objection I've ever heard to gay marriage is rooted in religion. " It ain't natural .. goes 'gainst Gods way " and other Huckabee-esque things. To this I say what I say to every religious zealot who wishes to impress their beliefs on others : if you don't like it , and your religion doest not allow it - then don't do it. The fact that your religion does not allow for it does not give you the right to force that on people who do not follow your system of beliefs. This country was founded on religious freedom, and we need to get back to that.

If we were to hold a once and for all debate and final decision on gay marriage, and as part of the process agreed that anyone who mentioned religion was instantly out of the decision making process, the decision would be swift and clear. It would be on the books, and we could all go back to dealing with other things that need our attention.

In the end of it all, marriage is nothing more than a human made construct based on society and religion - which are also constructs. Arguing over whether or not a supreme being has sway over two people wanting to legally and socially enjoin is about as sensible as debating who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman.

As far as gay culture, I can't claim that I've been part of it however I've lived side by side with it in reasonable harmony for quite a while. If that culture arose out of need when the dominant culture was not accepting, it should change if the dominant culture suddenly became accepting. I would not see that as a loss, but as a victory. However realistically I believe there will be factions and people who will dislike and fight against the acceptance of " different " for as long as the world turns. How prevalent that force is depends on how we as a culture educate our future generations.

[abbismom.livejournal.com]

Another great post, again you'll be getting my vote. You've generated a lot of discussion...a mark of a truly inspired topic and well-written piece.

I understand the sadness of the loss of the edginess, the uniqueness of gay culture...but as we slowly move towards acceptance into and by the mainstream, we look more mainstream.

Having said that, I know a delightful lesbian couple who have been monogamously together (in their eyes, "married") for almost 50 years. So, homebody homo couples who raise children have been around for a long time. They just aren't as exciting and visible as the people living more flamboyant sorts of lifestyles.

When this issue first came up with my Dad, he blinked and said, "I don't understand gay marriage at all. Gays don't want to get married." He adopted, like so many of his and other generations, the stereotypical view of gays being promiscuous and underground and non-committal.

My answer? "It would be nice to have that choice."

And that's the bottom line. Having the choice doesn't mean you are pressured into marriage at all. I also know lots of variety of relationships....threesome marriages...open marriages...singles who are quite happy having a good time with lots of people. But the point is, can consenting adults who truly want to get married get married?

I also had to laugh at "no one wants a freaky bisexual artist chick with tattoos to be the mother of their children." There's lots of folks who choose freaky bisexual artist chicks with tattoos to be the mother of their children...including my wife! ...you probably meant the type of guy you were used to.

Again, congrats!

[ithinkitisayit.livejournal.com]

I know it's not the same thing (and a very lame consolation prize), but couldn't you and Patti still take the marriage vows, even if you don't get "legally" married? It seems to me that you're in love with the commitment aspect and the legal part is the added bonus (I understand not being allowed to get the health benefits of being married being an insult and all though. I'm not trying to diminish that, or pretend it doesn't exist/isn't important).

I know I plan on only getting committed to a significant other, because I'm terrified of someone else making me go into debt, and I'm terrified of making someone else go into debt. Yeah, the health benefits are great, and maybe I'll change my mind when I actually *discover* a significant other, but for I'm mostly planning on the whole commitment thing (including rings), and not so focused on the legal benefits aspect.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

"...it is being owned, it is a girl being told she is finally pretty enough, finally pleasing enough."

The myth of being a wife is very real. What can I say? It is still, in flashes, attractive to me. But being a wife can mean anything. It can mean someone who is cherished and deeply supported by her partner. It can mean someone who is raped and abused by her mentally ill partner who cannot work and drinks every day. It can mean both at the same time.

I can't say I'll never marry again. I can't say I will, if the choice is there, either. (Mostly, because I feel so embarrassed!)

Denying gay people marriage is just one more way of dehumanizing them and pretending that this myth of marriage belongs to straight people, it is true, it will take you away (and it can, but not in the way they want you to think). Allowing real people of whatever sexual orientation to wed would be one step closer to admitting, "Yes, it is a dream we've all invented, it can be whatever we want it to be."

[walkertxkitty.livejournal.com]

Well written with a sharp perspective and sensitivity for the issues surrounding the subject.

My first marriage was of the type you describe for your parents: he offered, my family accepted, and the two families worked out a deal so that we were married within the year. Not even the church, the participants, or the dress and colors were up to me. Disaster (he was an abusive bastard).

My second marriage would probably have gone officially unconsummated in any way if we hadn't needed to merge insurances and finances. It was a purely practical decision. He and I still talk about how it doesn't really feel like we're married because the traditional expectations and behaviors just aren't there. The only thing that piece of paper impacted was how certain financial institutions and courts defined us.

[don-negro.livejournal.com]

I had surrendered mysticism to politics, and this is the way all myths go sour.

Great line; great entry. It's something I've thought a lot about in the nearly three years since my marriage ended, and you articulate it very well.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

You have expressed some of my most confusing thoughts/opinions about marriage beautifully. Thank you.

[elva-undine.livejournal.com]

Marriage is *so* complicated, and you know... nobody tells you. They gloss right over it and say "But it's fine" and "everyone just makes it work." But it isn't, and they don't always. Just be honest. Great entry.