Thursday, March 16, 2006
"Brokeback" Marriages
Right after the Academy Awards ceremony, the New York Times in its March 7th, 2006 edition ran an interesting, long story on married heterosexual couples who are not what they seem on the surface. They referred to them as "Brokeback Marriages," drawing on the recent film, "Brokeback Mountain."
For those of you who have been in Outer Mongolia recently, enconsed in your yurts, you've missed the hottest "date" movie of the year, and the odd thing is that it's a "gay cowboy" movie. "Brokeback Mountain" is a film about two cowboys who fall for each other, but are pretty hetero otherwise. They marry and father offspring. But life is not swell. They still have feelings for each other, so the illicit relationship continues over time, over wives, over children.
So the Times dropped in behind the slipstream of this marital brouhaha, and discovered - lo and behold, wonder of wonders - that our brave cowboys are not alone. Many couples share their predicament. The husband discovers he has a bisexual streak and he wants to diddle a boy or two. The wife gets all freaked out and can't handle things. Often she ends up feeling hurt and angry, and from there it is but a hop and a skip into divorce court.
As the readers of this column may have noticed, I am inclined to take a different viewpoint. So I sat down and penned a letter to the editors at the Times. Basically saying, I was terribly saddened by the reactions of decent, well-meaning people. Is it to be assumed automatically that every married man having illicit sex on the side with other men is gay? Why is there no room for a bisexual option? That was my point. So much unpleasantness and outright misery could be avoided I think if people can really look at the situation and see accurately and in detail what is really going on there. Because that is the only way a path to communication can be opened up that is meaningful.
When I hear stories like the Times reported, I feel so incredibly lucky I met my partner Dave. I knew going into the relationship that he was bisexual, and active, whereas I was bisexual but had been inactive in recent times. We were both ok with that.
To the point where I even contemplate, and dare I say, look forward to, him bringing a guy home for the two of us to entertain.
For me, the fact I can even contemplate doing this would blow away a lot of the women in the Times article. But that's the charm of our relationship, we share love mates at times as part of the process by which we affirm our tie together.
I want to sit these women down and talk to them, and suggest something radical to them: you can have the same.
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For those of you who have been in Outer Mongolia recently, enconsed in your yurts, you've missed the hottest "date" movie of the year, and the odd thing is that it's a "gay cowboy" movie. "Brokeback Mountain" is a film about two cowboys who fall for each other, but are pretty hetero otherwise. They marry and father offspring. But life is not swell. They still have feelings for each other, so the illicit relationship continues over time, over wives, over children.
So the Times dropped in behind the slipstream of this marital brouhaha, and discovered - lo and behold, wonder of wonders - that our brave cowboys are not alone. Many couples share their predicament. The husband discovers he has a bisexual streak and he wants to diddle a boy or two. The wife gets all freaked out and can't handle things. Often she ends up feeling hurt and angry, and from there it is but a hop and a skip into divorce court.
As the readers of this column may have noticed, I am inclined to take a different viewpoint. So I sat down and penned a letter to the editors at the Times. Basically saying, I was terribly saddened by the reactions of decent, well-meaning people. Is it to be assumed automatically that every married man having illicit sex on the side with other men is gay? Why is there no room for a bisexual option? That was my point. So much unpleasantness and outright misery could be avoided I think if people can really look at the situation and see accurately and in detail what is really going on there. Because that is the only way a path to communication can be opened up that is meaningful.
When I hear stories like the Times reported, I feel so incredibly lucky I met my partner Dave. I knew going into the relationship that he was bisexual, and active, whereas I was bisexual but had been inactive in recent times. We were both ok with that.
To the point where I even contemplate, and dare I say, look forward to, him bringing a guy home for the two of us to entertain.
For me, the fact I can even contemplate doing this would blow away a lot of the women in the Times article. But that's the charm of our relationship, we share love mates at times as part of the process by which we affirm our tie together.
I want to sit these women down and talk to them, and suggest something radical to them: you can have the same.
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