on being queer in Boston

[rm]

Everyone stops and asks us for directions and thinks we live here because we're lesbians. EVERYONE. We kiss in public, and then suddenly someone is interrupting us to ask where the T is or a given mall. OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

So many gay families, OMG!

Wearing the suit was interesting and highlighted to me how much there are two Bostons: queer Boston and New England wealthy Boston. New England wealthy Boston involved men looking the _suit_ up and down and then glaring at me. Queer Boston involved certain level of eye-contact and engagement that I was unused to -- both as a New Yorker and as someone still leaning to wear the suit in public and feel like it won't engender unpleasant commentary. The gaze of people here feels so much more informed: is that person trans? is that person gender queer? is that a butch lesbian? People want to know and do the right thing -- the way I look doesn't necessarily make it easy though.

It does feel different to be gay in public here, which surprises me. ALthough, while New York is very safe and Patty and I are very affectionate in public, I realize that it is still often not the norm in NYC. I don't see queer couples holding hands constantly back home. Here I do see it, all the time. It's like that thing about "I'm not a hero for turning you on" -- I'm not a hero for being normally affectionate with my partner here. No one looks at us and smiles, because we aren't the only ones and we're not setting an example.

Did have one particularly bizarre moment in which a man who was clearly with his two wives (in trying to describe that this was a Muslim traditional-seeming family and not a poly grouping more similar that of many of my friends I inadvertantly said something that was offensive to poly poeple. I do not have a problem with poly people or poly relationships, and I apologize. I should also note I was aware of the relationship status between these three people because I had been walking behind them for several blocks and overheard their conversation, and I was not making an assumption about their relationship status based on their clothing or biases about Muslims -- however, I may additionally still be engaging in inappropriate biases for assuming their poly relationship is any different from that of my various friends', I am trying to do good here and feel that I am so clearly fucking this up, and I should perhaps delete this entire story, the original point of which was that there are such a huge variety of relationships and reactions to relationships that I was entirely charmed by the entire thing. Anyway, I fucked up, I've sent individual apologies as well, I intend to do better next time.) Anyway, the man was arguing with the women, because they thought a gay male couple holding hands were so cute ("they were holding fingers!") and the guy was all "it's worse than San Francisco!"

Comments

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

As far as polyamorous groupings, I think each one is different from the other, because everyone wants something different from a polyamorous relationship. Some people refer to them as open relationships, some of them have a centralized couple or person, some of them treat all parties in the relationship more or less equally.

In the case of polyamorous relationships in relation to religious custom, I don't think you've made an offensive generalization. It is true that not all Muslims practice polyamory and polygamy, even in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, but it is also true that a fair number of them still do in both Muslim countries and other non-Muslim countries. In the US, of course, the polygamy wouldn't be legal, but that doesn't necessarily discourage polyamory.

On a complete different note, I'm surprised about the eye-contact thing in Boston. Maybe it's just that some people observing you identified with you, but having lived in Boston for nearly my whole life (up until a few months ago), I noticed that when I made eye contact with people, they usually looked away first (deliberately), or made some sort of forbidding facial gesture, or walked faster, like they were avoiding me. Every time I mentioned it to other people, they said they had experienced it, too, so I know it's not just me. Whereas in Nashville, strangers speak to each other all the time, and making eye contact is not perceived as a threat. I guess Boston, in contrast to New York, might be slightly more socially open...the times I've been in Manhattan, I found that people's avoidance of one another was even more frequent and obvious than in Boston (the Bronx was very different from Manhattan, though). That could be just my observation, though.

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

Actually, I just remembered something...back when Anna and I were dating and we walked around Harvard Square a few times together (and were openly affectionate, holding hands and wrapping arms around each others' waists while walking, or affectionately tousling, etc.), I do remember people looking at us a lot more than when I walked around with Sneider (my current fiance, who is male.) So perhaps the Boston reservedness is only for when you're walking around alone and making random eye contact with people. I'd need to experiment more to see if that's the case. Goddamn curiosity...