Category Archives: hegemonic heterosexuality

On Marriage

[This is a post for Forward Thinking. The question is "What do you believe should be the purpose of marriage in our society today? What do you personally see as the purpose of marriage for your own life? And finally, what responsibilities, duties, and/or obligations do you believe marriage should entail?"]

The first question is really easy for me to answer. I think marriage is a collection of rights and responsibilities which we as a society have agreed to give to people who are in some kind of Important Non-Familial Relationship with each other. I don’t think it’s any of my business to police what sort of Important Non-Familial Relationship that is– romantic or non-romantic, sexual or non-sexual, monogamous or nonmonogamous, for life or until they get bored of each other– any more than I would non-marital relationships. (Which is to say that there are moral obligations, like not to abuse each other, and Best Practices, like communicating regularly. I have a lot of Opinions about other people’s relationships actually.)

Like, honestly I’m trying to think of a situation where I’d treat marriage different than non-marriage. Children maybe? Given that children generally do better with more than one parent who is stably and reliably involved in the child’s life,* marriage is often a useful tool for people who want to be parents.

On the other hand, I have very specific ideas of what marriage would mean for me personally.

I have wanted to be married as far back as I can remember, possibly because my parents are the single most functional relationship I have ever witnessed. They’re not Hollywood in love, with the passionate tearful declarations and soaring music and Big Misunderstandings. They’re just… quietly each other’s best friends. They have each other’s backs. They’re in this– whatever it is– together.

When I was very young, I decided that I would get divorced in cases of abuse, infidelity (later, when I discovered that I was poly, changed to “severe betrayal of trust”), my partner and I both being utterly miserable in the relationship even after we’ve tried everything we can to fix it, or my partner’s decision to divorce me. The idea is that I choose to have a relationship with you– even when I don’t want to, even when I’m pissed off at you, even when the only thing I want is to walk out that door and never come back.

Part of it is that, if I selected my life partner well, it is more likely that Future Mes will be happy in the relationship than that Future Mes will be unhappy, even if that seems implausible in the moment. For one thing, I did get married to the person. For another, age and depth of relationships do in fact make relationships richer and more enjoyable, at least in my limited experience. (It turns out, if you have borderline personality disorder and don’t realize it, and if you can only be happy in poly relationships and you’re trying for monogamy, you’re really bad at relationship stability.) I mean, technically all I have evidence for is “Ozy prefers relationships of a year and six months to relationships of two weeks and passionately hates New Relationship Energy.”

Part of it is that I find the decision to be unhappy for the sake of some higher passion to be… aesthetically pleasing; it’s the same sort of aesthetic pleasure I get from people sacrificing for their art or science. I don’t know why; I assume this is one of my Arbitrary Preferences. Of course, I’d expect that my marriage would be happy more than it’s unhappy– but you don’t exactly need much commitment to stay in a relationship that’s good.

Other than commitment, what would I be looking for in my Hypothetical Marriage? Domesticity: I don’t think it’s an accident that a lot of my romantic daydreams revolve around cleaning and cooking and budgeting. Yes, really. Do you want to see the Word documents with hypothetical budgets, or will you take my word for it? Fortunately, domesticity seems to be in high supply in life partnerships.

And I want someone who’s my best friend. I want to read books or sit on the computer late at night in companionable silence. I want to play around with ideas with them. I want that sort of creepy hivemind you get where you can say “the thing” and they’re like “but what about” and you’re like “yeah, right, but still.” (Seriously, my parents do that and I can’t even understand what they’re talking about half the time.) I want someone who understands that I’m always going to be in a triad with my partner and writing and, ideally, is going to make it a quad. I want someone who complements my weaknesses and enhances my strengths, and to be a better person because I’m with them.

Things I don’t care about: sex. Really don’t care. I mean, I’m poly, I can get sex elsewhere, and sex really isn’t that important to me in a relationship regardless. I like holding hands and snuggling and kissing and having my head petted, but if we do all that and never interlock genitals I don’t care. It’s very odd to me to see people talk as if all marriages must be sexual relationships: why is a relationship of friendship and commitment and mutual support somehow less valid because you aren’t participating in one admittedly very enjoyable recreational activity?

Still odd, although slightly less stupid, is the insistence that marriages must be romantic. Romantic love is a storm of emotion that often makes you want to be with someone forever, so of course people assume that if you’re in romantic love you must be together forever. But I think a lot of people think two friends marrying is Less Real Somehow, which is just bizarre. And while it is perfectly valid to get divorced because you’ve fallen out of love with your partner, because anyone is allowed to end relationships for any reason, I find the assumption that falling out of romantic love automatically ought to lead to divorce to be silly. You can still be partners even if you are no longer lovers. It’s totally valid!

*Although many times this is not possible. I in no way intend to shame single parents, who are usually good people struggling with a very difficult job.

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Platonic Affection and Trevin Wax

Lately a lot of atheist bloggers have been making fun of Trevin Wax‘s theory that gay sex is bad because men can’t be bros without being mistaken for gay anymore. And to be fair there are a lot of really laughable aspects to his theory: for instance, he seems to believe it is some kind of Inevitable Law of Nature that when one person gets more free someone else gets less free. (Maybe that explains the whole “we’re propping up dictators to protect our freedom” aspect of US foreign policy. America is just trying to hog all the freedom for itself.)

Despite that… well, I kind of agree with him.

Wax is right that many same-sex friendships avoid displays of affection for being thought of as “gay.” Of course, this is the result of homophobia and the fact that far too many people think of “gay” as an insult, not the natural result of gay people being public about their sexual orientation. But then he’s a homophobe clutching at increasingly desperate straws, what do you expect, rational argument?

There are very few ways of expressing affection in American culture that are not instantly read as romantic. “I love you”? Romantic. Snuggling or holding hands? Romantic. Thoughtful little just-because presents? Romantic. Commitment to maintaining your relationship over the long term or even spend your lives together? Romantic. Agonizing about whether to break up with someone, or crying into your ice cream when you fight? Romantic.

So therefore we tend to assume that all really intense friendships are really sexual or romantic. See the idea that men and women can’t be friends, the people who refuse to allow their romantic partners to be friends with people of the same gender as them and, yes, the homophobic fear that being friends with someone of the same gender makes you gay.

American culture makes a lot of really toxic assumptions about friendship. For one thing, we tend to assume that a romantic relationship– even if new and fragile– is always and everywhere more important than a friendship– even if old and deep. Sometimes the friends themselves believe it and end up ditching their friends for a romantic relationship only to return after the inevitable breakup. For another, many people seem to believe that friendship is something that diminishes in importance as you get older. In middle school, your best friend is the most important person in the world, and in college, bros before hos (fistbump); but soon enough prioritizing friendship means you’re a manchild who refuses to grow up, and you wind up forty years old with no friends but your spouse.

I agree with Dean Spade‘s wise words that we need to move towards treating friends more like we treat lovers and lovers more like we treat friends. To have boundaries with and reasonable expectations of our lovers, and to value, commit to, and deeply cherish and invest in our friendships.

Suzanne Venker Continues To Be The Worst Person Alive

Suzanne Venker, best known for theorizing about the imaginary war on men in an article I criticized here, has decided to answer a few burning questions for us. For instance, when she said for women to “embrace their femininity,” what did she mean?

Well, let’s just say the post begins by quoting Tracy McMillan, also a leading Worst Person Alive candidate, and gets worse from there.

Oddly, I agree with some things Venker says. Our culture is incredibly femmephobic: as a culture, we hate, fear, and despise feminine things, including gentleness, compassion, sensitivity, deference, adornment, giggling, and the color pink. Unfortunately, some aspects of the feminist movement have fallen prey to this cultural femmephobia and portrayed “women’s liberation” as the liberation to be as masculine as the dudes. (See also: pretty much anyone who criticizes staying home with children as anti-feminist.) But turning from hating women to hating things associated with women is not a feminist victory.

Femininity is powerful. Hard femmes who will kick your ass without breaking a nail. Self-sufficient people who can grow their own garden and can their own food and bake their own bread and would do just fine if dropped in your hypermasculine zombie apocalypse fantasies, thank you. Soft power and manipulation and killing with kindness. Solidarity and self-love found in nail salons and teenage sleepovers. The self-sacrifice and devotion required to be the primary caregiver of some pretty damn cool kids. Lipstick and foundation as armor to shield you from the daily microaggressions of a misogynistic society intend on grinding you down. That matters.

The problem I encounter is when Venker suggests that women have to be feminine and men cannot. A woman can honor and respect the feminine, and still choose not to be feminine herself. Similarly, if a man wants to embrace femininity, he should be perfectly welcome to do so. Of course, if a woman wants to embrace femininity or a man not to, that is also wonderful. Every gender presentation should be open to people of every gender.

Ms. Venker, however, has science for us!

Fortunately, there’s been an explosion of brain research in the past several years to help explain male and female anatomy. The best books are Dr. Louann Brizendine’s “The Male Brain” and “The Female Brain.”

I presume this is some odd use of the word “best” I was previously unfamiliar with, given that Dr. Brizendine’s book is notoriously full of inaccuracies and errors.

Neuroscience is incredibly new. There’s a lot of really basic things we don’t understand yet, like “why do we dream?” and “how is language implemented neurally?” and “what neurochemical things are happening when Ozy can’t get out of bed because life hurts so much?” If we can’t explain things like that, why would you assume that we can state categorically that and how men and women are different?

Of course, I would be very surprised if it turned out there were no inborn differences between men as a group and women as a group. I even have some guesses about what the differences might be. Nevertheless, you cannot ignore that culture and upbringing plays an enormous role in how people behave, not to mention that thanks to confirmation bias we tend to notice people who fit the stereotypes and not notice people who don’t. People can continue to believe a stereotype that isn’t true just because they believe it. (Yeah. Brains are kind of awesome.)

The second half is another one of those “I agree, but no” situations. For instance, Venker says that if marriage and lasting love is your goal you must become comfortable with sacrifice and capitulation! I entirely agree with this. I mean, I wouldn’t say “capitulation” exactly, but as far as I can tell in every long-term committed relationship there are a certain number of “I love cabbage but she hates the smell, so I won’t eat it” and “his dream is to live on a boat, so despite my apathy about the water off I go” issues. If you’re going to wait for someone who is exactly compatible with you in every way… well, you’re going to be waiting for a long time.

Unfortunately, Venker’s idea of what you’ll have to sacrifice has absolutely nothing to do with actual compatibility issues.

Just because you make your own money doesn’t mean your guy can’t pay the bill. Just because you value independence doesn’t mean you can’t take your husband’s last name. Just because you can do the same job a man can do doesn’t mean you need to let him know it.

Um what.

The first two are just… bizarre. I honestly have a hard time imagining someone being like “I didn’t want to get married to her, but then she let me pay the bill and mentioned wanting to take my last name, and now I am in LOVE.” But what they lack in relevance they make up for in anti-feminist cliche goodness. Seriously, what next, is she going to pull out the “who opens the door?” thing? (By the way, the optimal rules are “the person who invites pays” and “the person with the coolest last name keeps it.” Can someone give me a column at Fox now?)

As for the third… call me a feminazi, but I think being dishonest is a really bad setup for a relationship. If he doesn’t love you unless you pretend not to know how to reduce a fraction, kick ass at video games, and kill scary bugs, he doesn’t love you. He loves the imaginary you that you made up to keep from hurting his manly pride. If that’s something you want in your relationship… well, your kink is not my kink. But it sounds like a sad and empty way to love for me.