Actually, despite my glib headline, today's Washington Post had a good story on how many gay men decide to get married and then turn around and betray their straight female spouses. The legalization of gay marriage, the removal of the gay stigma, would help people avoid these doomed relationships.
A lot of straight women I've spoken with feel this kind of infidelity is much more traumatic than being left for another women. Mostly because the very underpinnings of the heterosexual marriage relationship is destroyed by the deception. They ask themselves questions: Is or was there any real physical or sexual attraction between us? What was my role in the relationship? Loving wife or cover for his career? Did we have unprotected sex after he had unprotected gay sex? Why didn't I notice his unerring fashion sense and love of musicals?
I'm still amazed that men and gay women still believe getting married is an option. Whether you're Larry Craig or James McGreevey -- see gay is a non-partisan issue -- pretending to be someone you're not just violates the trust of too many people. And where is your dignity? Your sense of honesty and self? If you're gay at least be a man about it.
If you really want to see how gay the straight world is, just check out the personals on Craig's List. Personally, I'm always amazed at the large number of "straight MWM" who are looking for a "discrete buddy". (I'm also stunned at the number who are into cross-dressing and transvestites. I'm sorry, but that's just weird.)
Within the confines of the gay community you can still hear the lament about the disappearance of the gay bathhouse, a longtime staple of gay and straight culture for many decades.
Oddly enough, while the bathhouse is identified as a particularly gay phenomenon, they were originally a place for closeted men to socialize and physically connect. The closing of bathhouses at the early stages of the AIDS epidemic pushed many married-but-gay men towards different outlets: public parks, truck stops, prostitution, the burgeoning "976" hotline phone industry of the mid- to late-80s.
However, as the rules of behavior regarding HIV and its transmission became better understood, clandestine sex clubs emerged in major urban centers. (Some politically well-connected bathhouse owners were allowed to keep their businesses open, too. Seattle, Miami, NYC, San Jose, Detroit all have very public bathhouses or sex clubs.)
Thanks to the Internet, you can be happily married, have a slew of kids and still have a pretty healthy gay sex life.
But this isn't great. It's really kind of awful: for the spouse, the children, for the closeted man. It's like living a dark half-life, one of shame and deception that eventually eclipses the whole.
It's been a topsy-turvy week for gay marriage: While Maine narrowly voted down the right, Washington passed an "everything but marriage in name" referendum that's really a kind of a "back of the bus" kind of law: A separate-but-not-quite-equal piece of legislation that just goes to remind people like me that with a well-planned campaign of lies and deception our rights could be taken away in the blink of an eye.
I'm not a big fan of marriage in general. For me it's very much just a legal agreement between two consenting adults, but when I see those shows on TLC and Lifetime about Bridezillas and all that crap, I just roll my eyes and realize it's just some multi-billion dollar industry. It's also the one high-profile institution where organized religion gets its claws into what is basically a secular function.
Still, I've gone to some amazing weddings and teared up when the bride walked down the aisle and was given away by her father. (I may be a cynic, but I'm not heartless.)
The right for gays and lesbians to marry, the very public, state-approved act of legitimizing marriage would be such a psychological boost for so many closeted men and women, it would in the end save a lot of marriages: By letting people choose and marry the people they're supposed to be with, not who they feel they have to wed to keep up appearances.
I am not naive enough to think that gay marriage will make infidelity (gay or straight) go away, but I think it will help people be more honest about who they are and what they want. Besides, honesty one of the underpinnings of all healthy relationships and being truthful is always a good place to start.
in reference to: Straight ex-spouses offer quiet voice for gay marriage - washingtonpost.com (view on Google Sidewiki)
A lot of straight women I've spoken with feel this kind of infidelity is much more traumatic than being left for another women. Mostly because the very underpinnings of the heterosexual marriage relationship is destroyed by the deception. They ask themselves questions: Is or was there any real physical or sexual attraction between us? What was my role in the relationship? Loving wife or cover for his career? Did we have unprotected sex after he had unprotected gay sex? Why didn't I notice his unerring fashion sense and love of musicals?
I'm still amazed that men and gay women still believe getting married is an option. Whether you're Larry Craig or James McGreevey -- see gay is a non-partisan issue -- pretending to be someone you're not just violates the trust of too many people. And where is your dignity? Your sense of honesty and self? If you're gay at least be a man about it.
Within the confines of the gay community you can still hear the lament about the disappearance of the gay bathhouse, a longtime staple of gay and straight culture for many decades.
Oddly enough, while the bathhouse is identified as a particularly gay phenomenon, they were originally a place for closeted men to socialize and physically connect. The closing of bathhouses at the early stages of the AIDS epidemic pushed many married-but-gay men towards different outlets: public parks, truck stops, prostitution, the burgeoning "976" hotline phone industry of the mid- to late-80s.
However, as the rules of behavior regarding HIV and its transmission became better understood, clandestine sex clubs emerged in major urban centers. (Some politically well-connected bathhouse owners were allowed to keep their businesses open, too. Seattle, Miami, NYC, San Jose, Detroit all have very public bathhouses or sex clubs.)
Thanks to the Internet, you can be happily married, have a slew of kids and still have a pretty healthy gay sex life.
But this isn't great. It's really kind of awful: for the spouse, the children, for the closeted man. It's like living a dark half-life, one of shame and deception that eventually eclipses the whole.
It's been a topsy-turvy week for gay marriage: While Maine narrowly voted down the right, Washington passed an "everything but marriage in name" referendum that's really a kind of a "back of the bus" kind of law: A separate-but-not-quite-equal piece of legislation that just goes to remind people like me that with a well-planned campaign of lies and deception our rights could be taken away in the blink of an eye.
I'm not a big fan of marriage in general. For me it's very much just a legal agreement between two consenting adults, but when I see those shows on TLC and Lifetime about Bridezillas and all that crap, I just roll my eyes and realize it's just some multi-billion dollar industry. It's also the one high-profile institution where organized religion gets its claws into what is basically a secular function.
Still, I've gone to some amazing weddings and teared up when the bride walked down the aisle and was given away by her father. (I may be a cynic, but I'm not heartless.)
The right for gays and lesbians to marry, the very public, state-approved act of legitimizing marriage would be such a psychological boost for so many closeted men and women, it would in the end save a lot of marriages: By letting people choose and marry the people they're supposed to be with, not who they feel they have to wed to keep up appearances.
I am not naive enough to think that gay marriage will make infidelity (gay or straight) go away, but I think it will help people be more honest about who they are and what they want. Besides, honesty one of the underpinnings of all healthy relationships and being truthful is always a good place to start.
in reference to: Straight ex-spouses offer quiet voice for gay marriage - washingtonpost.com (view on Google Sidewiki)
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1 comments:
Snap! Great analysis, Ant'ny, v. rational, explicit, opinionated and FAIR.
And you know I know.
Smooches,
AmyA.
www.AmyAlexanderInk.com
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