In which I am a bad member of the queer community

[rsadelle]

Some time ago, I skimmed hederahelix's two-part essay on race and fandom. (I have plans, now that I remember I can add ?style=mine to the end of the URL and make things more easily readable for me, to go back and read it more carefully.) As usual with such things, the two things that stood out to me have little to nothing to do with her main point.

First of all (and this has nothing at all to do with the subject of this entry, but if I leave it out, you'll all ask me what the other thing was), she mentions a particular use of "coyote" and makes a point to say, "...it's a Spanish word, and pronounced accordingly a lot of the time...." I had to stop and think for a startlingly long time about how else you would pronounce it. This reminds me of when Joaquin Phoenix was big and there were all these things about how to pronounce his name, and I thought that was so stupidly obvious, until I realized that not everyone lives in a state with the San Joaquin River/Valley.

Secondly (and this is the part that does connect with the subject line of this entry), she talks about weddings and wedding showers:

Take the bridal shower. My friend's fiancée dropped by one day to tell me that she very much considered me a good friend and would normally invite me to a bridal shower, but since I was a lesbian, she was giving all her lesbian friends the "I'll invite you if you want me to, but I can totally understand how you might consider this participating in your own oppression, so I will totally not invite you if you don’t want me to" pass.

I practically cried I was so happy.

And here is where we diverge and I'm on the "bad member of the community" side of the line: I don't care that much about the marriage issue. Now, don't get me wrong. Of course same-sex couples should be able to get married just like straight couples. Of course the lack of equal legal rights for same-sex couples is a hideous injustice. It's just not that big a thing for me. Let me tell you why, from both the political and personal perspectives.

Political
Opinion polls show us that younger folk are far, far more likely to support same-sex marriage than older folk. So I truly believe that it's only a matter of time until same-sex marriage becomes fully legal all across the US.

I had a coworker ask me this week if I considered myself apolitical. I said, "I don't think about it much; is that a yes?" The more I think about it, the more I dislike "apolitical." It implies that I don't care, which isn't true. I do care about politics, I just don't think they matter that much. I vote, and I believe that if you put energy into the universe around something, then that matters, but I don't believe that if I participated in politics or political discussions, it would make that much of a practical difference in the world. (The only place I can see for a real possibility of difference is in local politics, for small enough of an area.)

I think this is something of a generational thing: for my grandparents' generation, everything is family and religious communities; for my parents', politics; and for mine, advertising. Advertising campaigns including same-sex couples and other lgbt folks as just ordinary people would, I suspect, go a lot farther toward influencing our culture than anyone giving speeches about equality.

Personal
I'm not partnered, and even if I were, I'm not sure I'd want to get married. What's particularly odd about this is that while my parents have been married for 38 years, and they were very committed to being good parents (which they very much were), neither my brother nor I are interested in getting married, and neither one of us wants kids.

Then there's the subject of attending other people's weddings. I've been to five weddings in the last two years. (Fun fact: four of them were cousin weddings, which tips our generation over into more than half [6/11] of us married. Of the unmarried, there's one unpartnered lesbian [me], one unpartnered straight woman, and three straight people [one man, two women] in long-term relationships.) Some of those weddings were hideously flagrant displays of heterosexuality; others were very nice expressions of love, commitment, and family.

I think I've been remembering hederahelix's post and thinking more about it recently because allegram and dedalvs got engaged a few weeks ago. allegram called me at work the next morning (she couldn't wait until I got off work) to tell me about it, and to ask me to be her maid of honor. We've been very close friends for 18 years. Our own families are each other's second families. Of course I said yes unhesitatingly, and I'm totally excited to do it. (The worst thing about her call was that everyone else on my team who was in the office that day was on a conference call at the time, so I couldn't immediately babble to someone who knows me fairly well.) For me, this is absolutely and completely about being there for allegram and about participating in what will be a very special day for her and dedalvs. I have a hard time thinking about it as anything like "participating in your own oppression."

The one thing about weddings that does make me think about/be disgusted with the oppression inherent in the system is the bouquet toss, and not because I'm a lesbian but because I'm happy being single. When the DJ/bridal party/cousins attempt to pressure and coerce every last single woman into participating (and I never do, because I'm more stubborn/determined than any of them), the message that sends is that of course every single woman's goal is to get married, which is certainly not true.

Comments

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

You know what's amusing about the garter/bouquet toss. I can't speak for the bouquet, but with the garter belt, I know exactly how my male friends and I think about it. Basically, we're guys: you throw something up in the air that only one person can catch, and we want to try to jump up and grab it, be it a football, baseball, basketball or garter belt. The garter belt toss, for us, will not go beyond that level. It's essentially an institutionalized version of 3 flies up (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Flies_Up) (in fancy clothes).

[allegram.livejournal.com]

Sweetness, it's not a garter belt it's a garter, throwing the belt would be a whole different thing!
But yah, I hate it when people are bullied to participate in things like that. It's the invocation of ridiculous symbolism and superstition. I used to do anything I could to avoid catching the bouquet (not because it would hasten my marriage but because it would hasten all the aunties trying to force my marriage...). I am going to do one at my wedding but anybody who tries to force participation is gonna get hit upside the head with my bouquet...
For those people who enjoy the symbolism of it that's great, (I personally don't think most people want to get married, and like catching a bouquet is going to help!) I'm mostly doing it because it can be one of those fun vestigial traditions, as long as nobody gets scary or creepy about it...
And I hope my wedding won't be a smug hetero-fest. You let me know if it's getting there and shake some sense into me, ok?!

[dedalvs.livejournal.com]

Garter, garter belt, football--whatever.

So you're saying that we can't divide the seats into male and female seats, so that each pair of seats has exactly one male, and exactly one female, and that this pair will then be seat partners for the duration? And we can't force the men to wear lumber jack outfits and the women to wear pink dresses? And on these lumber jack outfits and pink dresses will be the male and female symbols, and we can't have a game where you have to match the two symbols up by inserting the one into the other? Because that's what I was hoping for...

As it stands, two of my male friends are going to exit together. And there's still a bridesmaid spot open for my friend James...

[rsadelle]

I trust you to have your wedding fall on the very nice expressions of love, commitment, and family side of the line.

[rsadelle]

You're such a traditionalist.