I don’t normally wake up in the morning and think about what a homosexual I am. Although it may surprise the readers of my blog, I am pretty uninterested in my gayness, because most of the time I don’t feel any different from anybody else. I have older lesbian friends who are “radical anti-assimilationist” queers, and they shake their heads at me because all I really want is a wife, a house, a dog, and 2.5 children. They think I will be the death of the gay rights movement, but I think I’m a sign of its success because, by and large, I really do feel “normal.”
Most of the time.
Yesterday, Jenny and I went to a bridal shower for a (heterosexual) friend of ours, and the overall effect of it was-- at least for me-- a very sharp slap in the face. I have been mostly spared from the weddings of my high school friends, because I moved out of state right after graduation. So this was my first run-in with the wedding industrial complex as an out gay woman.
The bridal shower was for women only-- there were about 75 of us there. The bride’s cousins threw it for her, and the mother of the bride was beaming with joy, hugging and kissing Aunt Ann and Aunt Suzie and Cousin so-and-so who all came from the east shore of Long Island for the momentous day. Various and sundry family members and friends came and piled gift (upon gift upon gift) on this sagging little card table in the church basement. There was much laughing and talking and eating and cooing over cute kitchen appliances, and complaining about the “men-folk,” and telling the bride all the wonderful things she’d have to look forward to as a married woman. And everyone burst into applause when the mother of the bride presented the bride with a white lingerie set, in the hopes that she’d have a “happy wedding night.”
And Jenny and I sat in the corner drinking champagne, and....we were kind of sad. Bridal showers seem to be-- at least to me-- a hazing ritual where adult straight women welcome a young woman into adulthood. And there are no equivalents for gay women. I didn’t feel like I fit in at this bridal shower at all, because I wasn’t straight and would rather watch football than talk about kitchen appliances. But, goddammit, I am a woman, and I think both my relationship and my femininity deserve recognition from other women, regardless of whether they are gay or straight. I don’t want to sit in the corner and drink champagne, I want to be part of the conversation, because I am just as much of a woman as everybody else in that room was.
The anti-assimilationist queers that I know think that GLBT folks are too intrinsically different from the straight people to live by their rules, so we (the gays) should live in our own separate camps and let our freak flags fly. My problem with this is that my mom is straight, and my sister is straight, and my aunt is straight, and my grandma is straight. I want to be a genuine part of the family, not the weird fruitcake. And I want to be acknowledged as a grown-ass woman by people who aren’t potential sexual partners for me.
I’m sure somebody will accuse me of being too traditional and gender-conformist. But that was what I wanted while I was sitting in the church basement yesterday. It was a huge reminder that I will be damn lucky if my family even shows their faces at my wedding, let alone gives me a shower. Because they think my relationship with Jenny is sinful, radical, and just too far outside the mainstream.
Have you ever met a radical as ordinary as me?
Most of the time.
Yesterday, Jenny and I went to a bridal shower for a (heterosexual) friend of ours, and the overall effect of it was-- at least for me-- a very sharp slap in the face. I have been mostly spared from the weddings of my high school friends, because I moved out of state right after graduation. So this was my first run-in with the wedding industrial complex as an out gay woman.
The bridal shower was for women only-- there were about 75 of us there. The bride’s cousins threw it for her, and the mother of the bride was beaming with joy, hugging and kissing Aunt Ann and Aunt Suzie and Cousin so-and-so who all came from the east shore of Long Island for the momentous day. Various and sundry family members and friends came and piled gift (upon gift upon gift) on this sagging little card table in the church basement. There was much laughing and talking and eating and cooing over cute kitchen appliances, and complaining about the “men-folk,” and telling the bride all the wonderful things she’d have to look forward to as a married woman. And everyone burst into applause when the mother of the bride presented the bride with a white lingerie set, in the hopes that she’d have a “happy wedding night.”
And Jenny and I sat in the corner drinking champagne, and....we were kind of sad. Bridal showers seem to be-- at least to me-- a hazing ritual where adult straight women welcome a young woman into adulthood. And there are no equivalents for gay women. I didn’t feel like I fit in at this bridal shower at all, because I wasn’t straight and would rather watch football than talk about kitchen appliances. But, goddammit, I am a woman, and I think both my relationship and my femininity deserve recognition from other women, regardless of whether they are gay or straight. I don’t want to sit in the corner and drink champagne, I want to be part of the conversation, because I am just as much of a woman as everybody else in that room was.
The anti-assimilationist queers that I know think that GLBT folks are too intrinsically different from the straight people to live by their rules, so we (the gays) should live in our own separate camps and let our freak flags fly. My problem with this is that my mom is straight, and my sister is straight, and my aunt is straight, and my grandma is straight. I want to be a genuine part of the family, not the weird fruitcake. And I want to be acknowledged as a grown-ass woman by people who aren’t potential sexual partners for me.
I’m sure somebody will accuse me of being too traditional and gender-conformist. But that was what I wanted while I was sitting in the church basement yesterday. It was a huge reminder that I will be damn lucky if my family even shows their faces at my wedding, let alone gives me a shower. Because they think my relationship with Jenny is sinful, radical, and just too far outside the mainstream.
Have you ever met a radical as ordinary as me?
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Comments
GAWD, YOU DISGUSTING QUASI-HOMO!!!!
Just kidding!!!!!
Having grown up between the radicalism of Stonewall-ites who still felt the repercussions from the days when we were all classified as dirty "fags & dykes" and Gen-Q, whose elementary schools hosted Gay Alliance clubs, I get where you're coming from.
My Suzy and I went around and round on this subject for our Civil Union in California, actually (which we had before our actual marriage).
We finally decided on what was a good, but eye opening compromise = we invited our friends.
Sadly, in our case, neither family was involved. Her family ended up disowning her for getting married and for popping their fantasy "this is just a phase" bubble and we didn't even waste the stamps on mine (good Catholics one and all ::eye roll:: ).
I also love your last line. And I don't think it's too much to ask to want to be accepted by your family, if you love each other.
Bridal showers are pretty silly affairs, aren't they? I really enjoyed the way you wrote this. I guess I didn't realize there was such a thing as an anti-assimilationist lesbian. The lesbians who live in my neighborhood are assimilated to the nth degree -- houses, cars, children, dogs, cats, jobs -- the whole nine yards. I'm sure there are some who aren't, but I don't go to clubs or anywhere else where I might see them. @ Owl_Says_Who: I'm guessing this might be one of the issues you alluded to on my post.
Lezlie
And believe me, I feel the "apartness" and occasional family ostracism just as acutely (my grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary even this summer is a case in point, though I must proudly point out the it was not my 90 and 95-year-old grandparents who were behaving badly).
Let your freak flag fly, wherever your camp may be.
As far as radical goes, I know lots of lovely ladies and gents who have alternative styles, and last I heard, radical wasn't a requirement. We're all ordinary, wishing for ordinary things, ordinary love, and a sense of belonging to something. Personally, I happen to be a straight misfit and am always hanging in the background at family gatherings like this one. I'm not certain it's gayitude that matters...more like attitude, but what do I know? ha!
I think I'm consider to be a radical straight person because I don't want kids even though I love children. And years ago, when I lived with my ex-husband before I married him, I was nearly disowned by my fundamentalist Xtian family members who refused to show at my wedding (which didn't last).
Do whatever makes you feel good. Have a more-inclusive shower (i.e., invite your guy friends and sig-others if you want to change it up). Just live your life and don't worry about the rest of the world.
You sound like a pretty normal, yet cool girl. I wish you and your beloved Jenny all the best in your future. (R)
But, I do realize that when you're gay and are shut out from those rituals, it must feel like a cruel exile. I don't blame you for wanting that recognition and acceptance from the people you love. I wish your family would give you the big shower and wedding with all the trimmings. It truly sucks that they can't do that for you.
:~D
Didn't want them, but yet... it makes me kind of sad... like I should have had them. Aren't all girls supposed to get that?
Yeah, it's oppressive and stupid and I've hated almost every one I've ever been to. But not having it makes me feel left out. Kind of like being 46, childless and single makes me feel left out... but that's another subject.
I think it's the stupid rituals that make us feel left out, yet we want to belong, so we want them. Maybe that's where the problem lies.
It is a plain fact of biology that same-sex relationships cannot result in biological children (the "old fashioned" way) nor do they involve a union of opposite sexes. As some put it, having a same-sex marriage is like celebrating a peace treaty between countries that have never been at war. Same-sex relationships are thus not "the same" as opposite-sex relationships, nor can they be. It doesn't mean that same-sex relationships are "evil" or that the love between the partners is less than the love between a man and a woman.
Marriage involves a celebration of love but not just a celebration of love. It is also a celebration of factors that are only found in opposite-sex relationships. In a way, I suppose you could say that I agree with your "anti-assimilationist" friends.
Throw yourself one. Trust me, if you have any inkling you MAY want one, do it. Pay a friend to do it if you don't want to do it yourself. Something. My five year anniversary is Saturday, and I still get teary, and angry, wishing I'd had some marking of my own adulthood. The wedding is a transition, but it's a shared one - we deserve our own.
That said, I agree that bridal showers are a strange affair. I honestly feel bad for the heterosexual women who go through these strange rituals. I went to one once for a good friend of mine, and she was quite visibly uncomfortable when her mom pulled out the obligatory lingerie set. I leaned over to another good friend and said, "Oh, my God, are we actually maintaining the fiction that they haven't had sex yet?" I gave her a drill and a set of drill bits as my wedding gift. She was so happy to open that gift after the lingerie.
Katy Perry sang about kissing another girl and liking it. Speaking as a 69 yr. old hetero male I say "Welcome to the club!" Hey folks look around you. Women have enough obstacles to overcome without gratituitous insults.
And now the last song ever written by a Berlin named Irving
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ3IyCa8bG4
P.S. Both of those kids of mine that you keep saying we can't have say, "Hi". ;~)
I'm the gay one in my family (well, the only one who's out, anyway). And I am both weird and a fruitcake. But nothing makes me feel more "normal" than any family affair. At times I fear that I'm the only one who's sane...
That said, I understand your pain. But, you know what? That's the world we live in. And if you want one hell of a party, thrown by people who aren’t potential sexual partners for you, get your gay male friends! ;-)
I'd rather hang out with ten obstreperous dykes than with one self-righteous straight fuckface like you. Fuck off.
I just don't understand why this sentence is even in this post. Any chance someone could explain it to me?
The only coming of age experience I've ever had (that relates to me being a woman) was the first time I got picked up in a gay bar. I was old enough and cute enough, so a girl picked me up and took me home and showed me what was what.
But, I want to be acknowledged as an adult person in ways other than being "old enough and cute enough." Does that make any sense at all?
@everyone--- I am glad to know that I am not the only person who gets wildly uncomfortable at these sorts of things......I spent a lot of time on Sunday feeling like a failure as a woman!!
and @Amy---- you rock. Ignore the homophobes. Here's to being lesbian shitasses. ;)
And I still think about it because it is rare that a week goes by where I am not reminded that I am a second-class citizen because of who and how I love.
And let's be honest....I am 24, and my girlfriend is gorgeous. I grew up southern baptist. I am making up for lost time. ;-)
You are typical of Salon in that any idea not in lockstep with your point of view is an attack.
Have a little dignity for yourself and the site. I can't speak for mishima the "puppetmaster"... but it was not my intent to generate a negative reaction. Crass folk like you Felix bring down the quality of discussion and Salon. .
You call a fellow poster here "obstreperous dyke," and you have the nerve to say that you don't have "a homophobic bone in your body"? And is hurling ugly, homophobic epithets at people your idea of a quality discussion? Please.
Dyke is slang terminology referring to a lesbian or lesbianism regardless of the person's actual sexual identity. Originally, it was a derogatory label for a masculine or butch woman, and this usage still exists. However, it has also been reappropriated as a positive term implying assertiveness and toughness, or simply as a neutral synonym for lesbian, regardless of individual gender expression.[1]
Dyke is not an epithet. Homophobe denotes contempt for all...
Contempt for one persons ideas clearly is not homophobia. but what would an old fuckface like me know?
I see you are, or seem to be, a well-intentioned person, so --albeit the road to Hell is paved with good intentions-- I will give you the benefit of a doubt and will try to make myself understood. I have many gay male friends, and I am also somewhat of a "dyke fag" --I have almost too many lesbian friends. (They go from lipstick to pro-wrestler, and I love'em all.) We laughingly call each other "queen," "dyke," "homo," and all kinds of derogatory names that we have decided to own and turn into terms of endearment.
However, when a straight person throws one of those words at you, even jokingly, even without meaning any harm, he/she is doing it from a position of power --for the simple reason that there is not really a derogatory term to designate a straight person (well, "straight" itself is pretty bad, but you get the idea). Since it is pretty safe to assume that you are not friends with Amy, your calling her a dyke becomes derogatory by default --whether or not you meant it. So, if you want to maintain a level of quality discussion at Salon or at any other place for that matter, you gotta watch your mouth. It is that simple.
What kind of gender-neutral alternate universe do you come from? Who are you, Mother Theresa's ghost?
And on the other side, the mystery to me is why you think my comments are homophobic. In summary, my view is that same-sex relationships are different from opposite-sex relationships. As far as I can tell, this is the same view that "anti-assimilationist" gays and lesbians have.
One gay writer puts it this way:
"A new way of understanding gay people is that being "gay" and being "heterosexual" are radically different — like yin and yang — two separate and different parts of the whole, the human species. As gay people, our function in human evolution is different from the evolutionary function of heterosexuals (reproductive survival). Not only is being gay important and substantial, it has a significant evolutionary and social purpose and provides gay people with innate purpose that guides our behavior, our lives and our many contributions to society."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-kilhefner5dec05,0,2467579.story
As I have stated many times in comments on OS, marriage is fundamentally about children, or stated differently, "reproductive survival." This is true even though some same-sex couples have children (through some means outside of the relationship) and some opposite sex couples don't. Institutions are defined by their norms, not their exceptions, and marriage is about having children in the same way that going to college is about education (even though some students treat college as a trade school or four-year party).
The roles, values, and ideals associated with marriage are designed to shape heterosexual behavior for the benefit of children that may result from the union. For example, being a virgin until marriage is a traditional value associated with marriage. If followed, it ensures that children will not be born outside of and prior to the marriage. In the case of homosexuals, virginity until marriage simply doesn't matter. There's no point to it, since homosexual relationships are sterile.
So back to the bridal shower. Perhaps it's a corny tradition, but with heterosexual couples there is at least a reason for it and a tradition behind it. With homosexual couples there is absolutely no reason for it. With hetero couples the "wedding night" marks the time when procreation could potentially begin to occur. No such event exists for homosexual couples.
I'm talking about obvious biological facts, and I fail to see how any of it is homophobic.
Safe Bet: "You might want to cut & paste the same comments however, because you ALWAYS say the exact same thing."
You guys are always griping about the same thing. The only difference is whether it ends up on the cover.
FelixLizarraga writes: "@Mishima 666: Dahling, if that's a moniker and not your real name, as I suppose it is, it shows that you are not literate enough to know that's the name of a GAY Japanese writer..."
What does it matter if he was gay (or bisexual)? He also had his own private right-wing militia, the Tatenoki. I don't have a private militia either. And Yukio Mishima wasn't even his own name. Yukio Mishima was a pen name. If he can use it as a pen name, why can't I? I really don't get your point.
Well, let's say that a "consistent homophobe" with a moniker like Mishima is somewhat of an oxymoron, to put it mildly. I find that less bewildering, though, than your medieval conception of marriage. Modern marriage is a legal contract between two individuals that has other legal and financial repercussions --among which, of course, is the matter of securing a future for their legally recognized children, whatever their biological origin.
It is also a social validation of the union of those two individuals. Which is the whole point of the post. nyctheaterqueen wishes, and rightly so, that her relationship could get that sort of validation from her family, but social and religious reasons make it impossible. It is a beautifully written post, and she makes her point very clearly and poignantly. It takes a "consistent homophobe" to come here and tell her, and us, that gay people have no right to any of that and that we should just crawl under a rock and die. Or commit suicide in masse, like all those teens that are dying everywhere because of people just like you.
Oh, and by the way, that quote upon which you base your reasoning is wrong at so many levels, I don't really know where to begin... "Evolutionary functions"? What kind of Lamarckian babble is that?
You say that marriage is a "legal contract." It has certain elements of a contract, but is not only a contract. In fact, it that's all it were, then same-sex marriage would be no more controversial than any other contract. My view, that it is much more than a legal contract, you interpret as a "medieval conception." But then you note that the author of the post desires the "social validation" of marriage. I would argue that social validation is an example of one of the "medieval" aspects of marriage.
Felix: "It takes a "consistent homophobe" to come here and tell her, and us, that gay people have no right to any of that and that we should just crawl under a rock and die."
No one has a right to redefine a social institution, such as marriage, in order to construct the institution around one's personal wishes. As far as "crawling under a rock," its a free country, and a same-sex couple has every right to believe what they want to about their own relationship, regardless of what I think about it.
Felix: "Oh, and by the way, that quote upon which you base your reasoning is wrong at so many levels, I don't really know where to begin."
That's fine. It's not my quotation, but that of a gay author who happens to be an anti-assimilationist. So your disagreement is really with him. My point is just that not all gays and lesbians see heterosexual-style marriage as an appropriate goal, and I happen to agree with them.
This whole business of, if you are black, its ok to use the N word is wrong. Or if you are gay, its ok call each other fags.. Not in my opinion. A word should never be a term of endearment and an insult depending on who uses it. That is bullshit and pisses everybody off... on both sides. My opinion.
I am sure you are aware of the tragedy in Belgrade over the weekend..... sickening. Be thankful you live in such a more tolerant yet imperfect society. Peace.
Makes me think about fitting in, badly or not. If the ability to select idiosyncratic details artfully is the secret to universalizing even the most "radical" life, you have that ability as a gift.
I can't relate to them, with their talk of babies and husbands and taking kids to soccer practice. They can't relate to me.
I feel like a different species.