Sunday, April 25, 2004
Definitions
Hmm. I had kind of forgotten that joining up with the blog community, where posting tends to be a lot more personal than on specific topic email lists, meant that I had a whole new audience to confuse by writing about my decidedly untraditional lifestyle.
What I mean is, am I gay, or what? :)
And the answer is...it depends on the expectations of whoever is asking.
Our short humorous answer is that we are "honorary gays". Caro and I have lived together for better than 25 years, raised kids, done the sickness and health bit, are co-mortgagees and each other's main beneficiary--definitely a common law domestic partnership at minimum. (My marriage to the German Guy was just the mid-life crisis talking. Well, okay, and he was/is Teh Hawt.) The only kind of partners we aren't, is sexual.
The long answer gets into the complications. On the one hand, it's not that either of us think it's wrong in any way. So it feels a little uncomfortable to say, "Well, no, we aren't ACTUALLY lesbians," because that sounds like we are rejecting that status out of nasty self-righteous misguided so-called morality. OR that we are such big chickens that we don't mind being liars.
But on the other hand, claiming a status we haven't actually earned would be a lie too. Like we were trying to be like the Cool Kids or something. Panhandle for sympathy and/or fellow feeling we haven't actually earned.
It's confusing, though. Some people think that so long as we haven't actually Done It, we are "only" very very very very good friends. Yet some of my genuine lesbian friends listen to our qualifications and say, "Sure you're lesbians, you're just celibate."
Alrighty then.
We're here, we're celibate, we're...whatever. :) How's that?
What I mean is, am I gay, or what? :)
And the answer is...it depends on the expectations of whoever is asking.
Our short humorous answer is that we are "honorary gays". Caro and I have lived together for better than 25 years, raised kids, done the sickness and health bit, are co-mortgagees and each other's main beneficiary--definitely a common law domestic partnership at minimum. (My marriage to the German Guy was just the mid-life crisis talking. Well, okay, and he was/is Teh Hawt.) The only kind of partners we aren't, is sexual.
The long answer gets into the complications. On the one hand, it's not that either of us think it's wrong in any way. So it feels a little uncomfortable to say, "Well, no, we aren't ACTUALLY lesbians," because that sounds like we are rejecting that status out of nasty self-righteous misguided so-called morality. OR that we are such big chickens that we don't mind being liars.
But on the other hand, claiming a status we haven't actually earned would be a lie too. Like we were trying to be like the Cool Kids or something. Panhandle for sympathy and/or fellow feeling we haven't actually earned.
It's confusing, though. Some people think that so long as we haven't actually Done It, we are "only" very very very very good friends. Yet some of my genuine lesbian friends listen to our qualifications and say, "Sure you're lesbians, you're just celibate."
Alrighty then.
We're here, we're celibate, we're...whatever. :) How's that?
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