So I have been thinking about a few things lately, that are somewhat related, yet not in a direct way: Gay Marriage and Gay Shame.
I will go into my rant about Gay Marriage first. I have always been a person who has NOT wanted to get married, become a wife, wear a ring, make gaybies or anything. This was the case even when I was straight. I didn't want to assimilate into the capitalist, heteropatriarchal norms for our society, which says you only make sense if you are a part of a couple and if you are in a marriage. I think this is dumb. One shouldn't be defined by their relationship, one's existence shouldn't be called into question based on whether or not they have another half, and most of all gay marriage is NOT the way towards true equality. I wrote a paper about this latter part last spring quarter. I explained that the idea of gay marriage provides an affective fuzzy feeling that makes people cling to it as an ideal for the equality of the gays. I wrote that in fact, gay marriage went against a queer political agenda.
Ok, so I take issue with myself on this matter. It may be stupid or way too pragmatic, but I have flipped much of my overarching feelings about gay marriage. While, I do not think it definitely is the way toward an equal society, I now see gay marriage as both a rite of passage and for many a mode of survival. I would consider my last relationship to have been a marriage, a marriage without a ceremony, but a marriage nonetheless. While I actually celebrate its end, I see how screwed I have gotten in the situation. If we were a hetero couple and we had achieved common-law status, I would be entitled to receive alimony payments. I am a graduate student and I am poor. I relied pretty heavily on my relationship to sustain my existence, financially that is. And now that it is over, because I am not straight, I am not entitled to any of the benefits of my former partner's earnings and the fact that I sacrificed a lot for her to be in the position she is in. It's like I got a T-Shirt that says, "I was in a three year relationship and all I got was a lousy nicotine habit." Of course, this is a knee-jerk reaction and I do not feel quite this way about the relationship, I do feel like it is really shitty that the other person has been pretty much able to get out unscathed, meanwhile, I feel an actual shift in the way I am able to live.
On that note, marriage is a rite of passage for many into the land of adulthood. It is the point in time in which your parent's consider you to be taken off their hands for good. They no longer have to worry about supporting you because that becomes the job of the partner, or for folks to work out together. While I do not like or appreciate this logic, society does view marriage this way (That you Sumner McRae for pointing this out to me!) On top of this, I feel that marriage puts you in a different place of implication with the person you are in a relationship with. Meaning, a marriage bond is harder to break then a break up is, so, I think people have to think more thoughtfully and in some ways more critically before liberating themself from the relationship. When you are a person who has been in a relationship and put forth a lot of emotional labor to make things work out, it sucks (for lack of a better word) when that relationship simply ends, with little explanation and with no implication, especially financially to the other person.
So, I have shifted my opinions about gay marriage. I actually think it is a good and necessary process. And I support people who do it. As for those who say it isn't queer to be married and it is assimilationist, I say, you must be in a fairly privileged position to feel this way, where you are financially stable and not reliant on someone else, or you have ways of negotiating relationships (and their end) better than I do. I get that marriage as it stands is not ideal, but I do believe there are ways to "queer" marriage, to not do it normatively, and I also think there are ways to raise children in this way. And if I decide to have children (obviously not from my body) I want to make sure that if I am with someone that they aren't just going to wake up one day and say peace out, I'm done. Since I think I do want to be a mother (WTF?!?!? WHO AM I?) I think I also want the commitment of marriage eventually. Obviously it won't be legal, unless I move to one of the many more progressive countries/states that allow gays to be married, but hopefully, going through the process will force (Yes, force!) the relationship to gain a level of permanency, none of my relationships have ever achieved before.
Now to Gay/Queer Shame: Its compelling to juxtapose shame and marriage together, mainly because an argument against gay marriage is that it forces bodies into disciplinary regimes, ultimately to try and rid them of the shame they are imbued with for being gay. Basically, by getting married bodies become steralized/desexualized for the hetero masses, thus, eliminating shame. I think a similar thing could be said for g/l/b/t folks who attend church, it has the potential to rid them of the shame/guilt they feel for their non-normative sexual orientation. But this isn't even the way I have been thinking about queer/gay/lesbian shame.
Instead, I have been thinking about my mother and the rest of my family (sans my uncle), and how fortunate I am to have a mother like her and a family like I have. If you have ever seen Queer as Folk (videos posted below) and know Mike's mom, Debbie, then that is the best comparison I have for my mother and her amazing-ness in regards to my sexuality. I swear the woman throws me a mini-Pride Parade every time I see her. I am lucky, she is supportive of me and who I am, and the people I choose to be with. I realize my fortune when I read stuff about queer shame and interact with people who are learning how to deal with their sexuality in regards to their families and in their lives as queer people. While I have always primarily been around the "We're Here, We're Queer, Get Used to it!" folks, I am becoming more aware of the people who do not live this way, or are just learning that it is ok to live this way. I don't know what it is like to be silenced by my family for being queer, I don't know what it is like to not be accepted, for my girlfriends to not be accepted. What I have come to understand is, it is much more traumatic than I ever could have thought. So I don't have a ton to say about it, just that the shaming process is a very complicated one, and even more complicated for those people who do not abide by the rules of gender conformity. Not only are they shamed for their sexual orientation, but for not "doing" gender properly also. I mean I have no conclusions as per usual, but, I love my mom.
The end.
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