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

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

We kiss in public, and then suddenly someone is interrupting us to ask where the T is or a given mall.

This so funny!

It's interesting to hear how MA has changed since equal marriage. I have this whole theory about how equal marriage in New England is an expression of the persistance of Puritan culture (building on Albion's Seed), but it hasn't gelled yet.

Theory about how equal marriage in New England is expression of the persistence of Puritan culture

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

In all sincerity, I don't see how. I would argue that the existence of equal marriage in Canada is an expression of the persistence of Victorian culture, which is the opposite theory.

I would be open to discussing it further, however.

Victorian equal marriage??!?

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

the existence of equal marriage in Canada is an expression of the persistence of Victorian culture, which is the opposite theory.

I am fascinated. Tell me more.

One of the features of Puritan culture, as outlined by David Hackett Fischer, was a kind of somber realism about sexuality. For instance, the practice of bundling for courtship -- which permitted a *heck* of a lot of sexual contact, just no intercourse. Anne Bradstreet's poetry also speaks of a sexuality which is not *repressed* so much as it is *private*.

More generally, as Fischer shows the Puritans came from East Anglia, and their subculture within Britain was very closely-related to the culture of Holland. I think it not at all coincidental that The Netherlands was the first country to legitimize same-sex marriage.