Speculative Thoughts: On Marriage and Narrativized Life

In a recent conversation with a friend, he told me that he had gone on a couple of dates with an "ex" - noting it was his first time "recycling". Yet, in this "recycling" he was anxious because the "ex" wanted serious commitment, perhaps even marriage and my friend unsure of how he thought of such a state was unsure of what to do. In talking with this friend, I pondered why it is marriage for the "gays" has become so important wherein it seems so many gays, many of them young, want to get married. Now, before I go any further, I don't want to make it seem that I think such a want is "bad" or that individuals who want marriage to be idiotic. It's not my life so I say let go and say "I Do". But, my interest is in why, why such a state has become so dominant, so desireable?

As I thought about this why, I realized relatively quickly that marriage talk saturates the lives of the young "gays". The younger generation of gays who came out Post-AIDS epidemic of the 80's and early 90's (the epidemic still rages of course in different ways) and did not see the devastation and loss (myself included) grew up hearing the often homophobic rhetoric about AIDS - a hearing that I would argue still haunts young gay men in interesting ways. So they grew up in the epidemic BUT came of age (and came out) with the rhetoric of marriage. In this shift of rhetorics from AIDS to marriage, the structuring of the gay subject has perhaps been altered. One can look at the website for the HRC to see this as it focuses almost entirely on marriage with one having to search for information on HIV/AIDS. So, the rhetorics and narratives visible to gays have moved from one that was focused on rights for sex and discussions on "safe(er)" sex TO one focused on rights of economic importance and recognition as a "normal" subject.

In this shift of rhetoric, the narratives of the gay life have changed or at least the dominant narrative has been changed/challenged for good and bad reasons. I do not mean to imply that there is only one narrative of course but that the narrative of gay life that was dominant pre-marriage debates and for which the marriage debate often rests on has been challenged by the dominant narrative of the marriage drive. By this I mean, the marriage debate often pathologizes the promiscuity of the "gay" community by wanting to show "we" are not all like that, that we can be "normal". This change to marriage is not solely "good" or solely "bad" as it is always in tension with other narratives that vy for intelligibility - which is in a sense what my speculative thoughts are about.

So, what are these two narratives and why might this be of interest? I would argue that the first narrative is a narrative about sex. It is a narrative that positions the "gay" male as a very sexual, promiscuous being. It is this sex, the act, that in a sense originally gave rise to the emergence of the term "homosexual" and created a "new species" as Foucault notes in his first volume on The History of Sexuality. So homosexuality became defined in part by the sexual act and in different ways became pathologized through medical, psychiatric, religious, and legal discourses for not abiding by the normal "heterosexual" way of doing things. Yet, as these new species (homosexuals, sodomites, etc.) developed a community, they began to fight back (i.e. the Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis). This all notably "leading up to" the Stonewall Riots and the fights to have the APA de-pathologize homosexuality from their manual of psychiatric disorders in 1973. It was during this time that the sex wars were going on and fights were being waged for sexual liberation...Yet, these fights faced significant difficulty with the wave of conservativism in the 80's along with the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Yet, for some the fight continued to argue for sexual freedom. Radical political activists and academics made arguments not for a tightening of sexual promiscuity but for smarter promiscuity and challenging the moralisms that limited possibilities.

However, as these radicals aged or died of AIDS themselves, new activists emerged and new issues emerged. The "movement" changed and began to focus on different rights - namely marriage and adoption. The fight became not to create new possibilities of living in the world, but one of getting access to the world that was already possible. The rhetoric became a rhetoric that sought to become "like them" (straight) because "we" are as Sullivan argued "virtually normal". Being gay was no longer about being different with the potential to disrupt the traditional, but became a side bar that should not detract from being able to be seen as, well, normal.

BUT, what does this mean? I think, speculatively, that it means in part that the gay subject is being conditioned to want to be seen as normal and that "normal" is related to the rhetoric of gay rights - a rhetoric that currently argues for marriage and that through marriage "I" can be seen as not sick, as not pathological, but as a moral, upstanding citizen just like my parents before me. I can create the image of the family that I came from, it is just an image that is slightly different but not vastly for "I" can still strive and achieve the white picket fence and children. I can be a part of the capitalist economic machine that the promiscuous "gay" was a challenge to in some regards.

So, if I return to the beginning of my post...I want to speculate that the drive to be married is not simply an individual wish, but a wish that is in part structured by the discourses that pervasively constrain the possible lives we have access to. Previously, the gay life was perhaps constrained to the sexual, struggling to find more...but now that struggle has placed a shadow on other possibilities. If one wants to fit in and be intelligible, to not have to explain or argue for one's way of living...one simply has to abide by the dominant modes of living, of doing life, which is dominated by marriage speak. "I" want to get married and settle down because it is easier, it requires less stress, less work...not in that being married or committed is simple and stress free...but that it is a different kind of stress that exists within the relationship...it is not a stress or anxiety that is public as "I" must justify my life or ways of doing life because they are not "normal" or "traditional". This is obviously more complicated since a relationship and its anxieties are still "public" and never solely private...but the dynamics of the private/public are different.

Basically...I suppose my interest in this is how the narratives, the stories we think about telling in our lives are constrained, as they must always be, by the dominant stories we are told. The process then is excavating these narratives to find out other possibilities that lie "beneath" to imagine a story line that is different, livable, and not solely survivable but thrivable.

A Note on Marriage

Kenji Yoshino in his recent legal analysis for The Advocate of where to go from here with the passage of Proposition 8 notes that “Social theorist Michel Foucault once said homophobes were much less threatened by gays departing for a one-night stand than gays in a committed relationships” with Foucault stating that ‘It is not the departure for pleasure that is intolerable, it is the waking up happy” (p. 39). Yet, I don't believe Foucault was advocating for marriage – as if one wakes up from marriage happy.

I do believe that Foucault was arguing about/for the new modes of being or doing relationships that “homosexuals” opened up - of which marriage is not. One night stands and the intimacy such relationships create are in fact a way in which people – gay and straight – wake up happy and find pleasure but it is these relationships that are de-legitimated by the government and that threaten the notion that monogamy and marriage are the only options available for people to "wake up happy". We do not see political activism around these modes of being and doing life because these are the modes of being and doing that are threatening to the sanctity of "marriage" and the pedestal that it seems to occupy on the symbolic political level...

Fallying For Marriage: A Case Against the Marriage Drive

Fallying for Marriage: An Argument Against Marriage
A Fally is a rally based on a fallacy. A fallacy is a “component of an argument which, being demonstrably flawed in its logic or form, renders the whole argument invalid” (thanks Wikipedia for the refresher). Starting here, I would like to talk about marriage rallies or more so marriage fallies AND how such rallies are really fallies based on problematic arguments. I write this not to de-legitimate these rallies or those persons taking a part in them – although you may very well read this as doing so. I also do not think that their arguments are completely invalid. I commend them for their activism, bravery, and passion – I myself may take part in them as we all have our contradictions and need for solidarity . I write this however so those of us who do not fight for this “marriage” thing in certain ways can have our views expressed AND not simply pushed aside like a pesky bug or worse seen as being in “bed” with the enemy. To make it clear, I am not a fan of Focus on the Family, I am not a fan of religious zealots. I am not a fan of hate. What I am though, is tired…tired of this marriage debate having only two sides and becoming more and more like Dubbya’s notion that “you are either with us or against us”. I am tired that we have spent millions fighting this fight while LGBTQ youth sleep on the streets, HIV/AIDS research and program funding decreases, schools fail to address issues of difference, and a whole host of issues that are pertinent to the “LGBTQ” Community (and I would argue the community at large) are pushed aside and often ignored. So, here goes…
I am not with the marriage advocates and I am not with those who oppose marriage based on religious and moral grounds. I do not hate myself so please don’t try to pathologize me as suffering from “internalized oppression” or “internalized homophobia” because I do not agree with the mainstream gay plight for marriage. I do not buy into there only being these two sides. Rather, I am with the unnamed side in this debate – the “queer” side, the ugly underbelly, that sees such a drive for marriage as rather problematic and based perhaps on some shakey, fallacious grounds. I see this drive for marriage as potentially limiting the exploration of new forms of relationships, new ways of finding intimacy, new ways of being with others…while some will argue that we need the freedom to marry, I argue that in the unfreedom we currently live in with regards to marriage, there are modes of being, freeing modes that perhaps should be explored and fought for, modes that do not simply abide by what we know, but produce new avenues – however fleeting – of being in the world that do not simply require “us” to be like “them”…

So, here is my argument for a different way in this world so obsessed with wedding bells, gifts, wedding dresses, and tuxedos…I note though that these thoughts are heavily indebted to the work of Michael Warner and Judith Butler who have both written about the problematics of marriage.

1) Love is often times used as a device to argue for same sex marriage. Why shouldn’t two people in love be able to marry? How can you look at this beautiful same-sex couple that has been together for years and deny them access to this hallowed institution of marriage? How could you be so hateful to not want to grant people the right to show their love for one another? How could you deny them the right when it doesn’t even affect you? These are all good questions, they have some emotional pull…They are kinda effective at pulling at the heart strings…Keith Olbermann in his recent emotional plea relied on love to argue that this is not an issue of politics (huh, it’s not?) but one where you either stand on the side of love or not…But first, since when did marriage become about love and why is it that one needs the government to legitimate one’s love for a partner? Or perhaps I should ask, since when did the government care about there being love in a marriage…last time I checked, you just had to sign a piece of paper that was for all intensive purposes a contract, a entering into a union, a rather non-loving document really. So, Keith, I agree that love is important, but marriage is not the solution, it does not make those who don’t love those who are different (those “haters”) all of the sudden love difference. Love is more difficult and marriage is not the solution to showing love, having love, or being in love…I can be in a committed relationship (gay/straight/lesbian/polygamous/monogamous/open) without governmental interference and still have the stability and permanence that has oddly been tied as coming with marriage?

So, for those who argue that you need marriage to show your love to your partner…perhaps I will ask that you re-examine your notion of love and why you would need anyone beside your partner to legitimate that love. I have no doubt that those couples who seek the right to marry are anything but in love. I can look at the images of couples holding hands and see their love…so I am not denying the importance of love…I am merely denying the notion that marriage legitimates that love and that “we” need the government to be a part of our love – It Doesn’t and we should fight for the deconstruction of the government’s involvement in legitimating and therefore delegitimating relationships (be they gay or straight). Of course I recognize that the ways in which marriage is talked about that “love” has been “wedded” to marriage…but let’s be real and recognize that such is not the case.

2) Ahh, but you say that it’s actually not about love…that’s just rhetoric to get people to feel sympathy, empathy, or something good emotionally to “get out the vote”. What this debate is really about is the benefits…the over 1000 governmental benefits that are provided to the wedded couple. “We” deserve equal rights for our relationship because our relationship is just like “theirs” – those individuals who “fit” the traditional definition of marriage. We are normal and if we are normal we deserve the rights that are afforded those who are normal. Again, a good argument…yet, perhaps we should ask, why again should the government be able to legitimate and therefore de-legitimate a relationship? Why again are we fighting for the government to define the “proper” relationship between persons so that “proper” relationships are awarded certain benefits for fitting in? Why, I ask, are there benefits to being in a certain form of a relationship to begin with? Why do we privilege one form of relationship (two-people who are presumably heterosexual) over any other (two or more people who are on the spectrum of “sexuality”)? Simply adding “same-sex couples” to the definition does not deal with the issue that there are still relationships that are and will be disadvantaged because they do not fit and perhaps do not want to fit the new “definition” of marriage? These relationships, still disadvantaged, are relationships between not only “gay” people but also “straight” people…and people anywhere else where ever they define themselves…making this not an issue of “gay” vs. “straight” but between the “normal” vs. “queer” conceptions of relationships.

3) But, wait…you are saying that these are good arguments (thank you), they illustrate the problems with this whole marriage debate. YET, shouldn’t people have the choice to get married? Shouldn’t it at least be an option? I often hear it asked that “shouldn’t marriage be a possibility for same sex couples”…often defended…“so that we can be just as miserable as straight people”? These are really good questions…why shouldn’t marriage at least be an option for same sex couples? Shouldn’t choice be an option? I would argue that it is not that simple – choice is complicated. The ability to choose to marry disciplines not only “ourselves” to conform to the norms that marriage “law” will create BUT it also disciplines those who do not want the choice because that choice occludes the choices that are already present in the “unfreedom” of marrying. This drive for “choice”, the “choice” to marry is then inevitably a disciplining tool to take away the choice of those who resist the normal, the ideal of the married couple. Furthermore, making marriage an option, does little to combat the “hate” that I would argue is a hope that underlies the marriage debate…that if we can show “them” that we are normal and have normal homes in which to raise the future of our nation, then all will be well in the world. But, the “we” of the marriage debate does not include those who don’t seek normalcy, those who are the one’s often violated physically, verbally, and symbolically (often by the “gay” movement itself), those that are seen as “bad” representatives of the movement. Marriage, as a choice, simply makes those who do not fit the marriage wagon more and more outside the movement, more and more violated for refusing to be a part of the normal gay movement and “choose” to be that which is being fought for…These individuals are sometimes told that their time will come, that the wagon will come back to pick them up…but so often if we look at the history of movements, rarely does the wagon go back. I ask then why do “we” seek to have a choice that we know will cause harm to those who are already on the margins of our movement…normalizing ourselves while further forcing them to be less like they want to and more like us…the one’s who are just like “them”, the normal happy couple…

So, I conclude with this…perhaps the success of bans on gay marriage are a good thing…perhaps these successes will allow “us” to re-think the arguments and fight the bigger battle around the normalizing forces that seek to delegitimate those relationships – be they the current same-sex relationships that seek marriage OR those queered relations that don’t and perhaps never will seek marriage BUT still deserve respect and perhaps the “benefits” currently awarded to a small notion of relationships. Perhaps, oh perhaps we can fight for ways in which we imagine new ways of being with one another that do not buy into what is already there…finding our chances at being “a little less alone in the world” not through legal recognition around an institution that has been so detrimental in so many ways BUT through solidarity and coalitions that challenge such normalizing forces to make life more livable not just for those who might fit in, but for those who challenge and defy social sanctions.

Yet, this battle will never conclude, everyone will not be included, as the horizon is always illusive…utopia is but a mere fantasy…but perhaps we can make life a bit more livable, creating little paths, little moments where the horizon of possibilities comes a bit closer to reality…but inevitably is always off there, in the distance, forever on the horizon. Marriage is not the solution to the problems that plague our hesitancy around sexuality…it merely displaces the burden of difference, making some of “us” feel better, perhaps “normal” while excluding others, perhaps giving them less choice in being anything but “normal”.