Making love in an alley

I just read this morning that the 1913 law that was being used in Massachusetts to impede the marrying of out of state same-sex couples was being repealed. But I'm not going to talk about that, so if you want to read it click the link.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/30marriageweb.html?ref=us

And no, this isn't going to be a story that features me with my face mashed against grimy brick, under a flickering street lamp, behind a dumpster in the throes of man-love. Get serious folks, I have some class. Instead I want to talk about this article and the back alley. Same-sex marriage is unprecedented. Not just because years of social stigma and legal discrimination are slowly coming to an end, but also, and perhaps more radically because it presents the gay community with a chance to change the way it's perceived by the world. We are, finally starting to be seen as normal. Long term couples, professionals, some with kids...those are the faces confronting my parents and the rest of middle-class, conservative America on the evening news broadcasts. These images are also confronting the gays themselves. For the first time we are seeing ourselves outside the context of our enclave of gay bars and trendy night spots found in more liberal cities and towns outside the country. Even more alarmingly is that a chorus of support is welling up outside of these "pink ghettos" as well.

While I do not consider myself a "good" homosexual (you now the kind that are so gay they set folks on fire when they walk down the street) I do not think I'm out of the norm either, but parts of gay marriage are surprising me, making me confront things, feelings, if you will that I had long left buried in the back of the closet that I walked out of. I decided a while back that I was tired of being "selectively out". The kind of out that you can talk and joke about with your friends but makes you go white in the face when someone brings it up in mixed company. Now that doesn't mean I just introduce myself, and while I'm shaking someone's had casually mention that I like men. That's just tacky and certainly not the quality I want to be highlighted in the whole "first impression thing". That alone has made me confront a number of issues that have been hounding me since 7th grade. Silly things like being afraid I'm lisping my essses or talking overly with my hands or if something looks "too gay". There are some things you just have to learn to live with.

The demons I now seek to exorcise are of a deeper, more intimate nature. They are tied to the beliefs I was brought up with, shackles that never seem to entirely come off, the invisible Scarlett Letter I wonder if all gays and lesbians continue to wear on their souls no matter the outside appearance of their bodies. Marriage makes a long term relationship not only possible but also actual and binding. Now instead of being forced, like my gay ancestors to live with a "roomate" I can now have a husband, and we can send everyone a Christmas news letter! Marriage is also giving a new level of acceptance to gay kids and teens who are now seeing themselves not only on the news but also prime time tv. They are coming out sooner, stronger and healthier than I ever did.

Instead of quick liasons and furtive glances,a quick exchange of sexual currency, they're dating, out in the open, with out getting the shit beat out of them all the time. The need for the back alley is disappearing. Since it's safer to date today than it used to be, the need for a quick sexual encounter to validate yourself is also going. They're making the older generation change the way we look at ourselves and in confront whatever vestiges of shame we still possess.

I've never made love in a back alley. But I have moved in the shadows, looking for love, wanting to be noticed while at the same time hoping not to attract the wrong kind of attention. I've learned (as I think many gays have) that casual sex is far less damaging (in the short term) than a relationship you can't recognize, a love that you can only whisper. I wonder if we have a hard time investing in relationships as a community because we haven't ever seen one up close that's long lasting and healthy. I never saw a gay couple growing up. And certainly when I was coming out, casual sex was a way to be gay without having to look at my face in the mirror and tell myself that. I had my gay self (that I tried to ignore) and my other self, the person that everyone saw. Merging the two was long and hard and took an eating disorder to accomplish. Sometimes I still look for the safety of those two divergent personalities, only to discover they are now a Siamese twin that can't be seperated.

And so same-sex marriage is working on ending the need for making love in the back alley. I think however, changing everyone's mind about doing it there is another story. Until we learn, as a community to stop looking for the quick fix, for anyone's love and for trying to ignore our gay self in these things, that is where we will stay and that is all the outside world will see.