She Is A Lesbian Who Married A Man
By EJ Levy, previously published in salon.com
I was in a bar in Chicago when I told a close friend of 20 years that, despite being a lesbian, I was marrying a man. My friend and I hadn’t seen each other in a while, but we fell back quickly into our old intimacy — those long, rambling conversations we used to have in coffee shops all over Minneapolis. When the subject shifted to an activist group she was part of, I said I’d be glad to help, if they needed a lesbian on their board. She laughed, dismissively. “You can’t call yourself that anymore.”
Of all the weird reactions I’d gotten to my engagement, that one pissed me off most.
I had not been surprised when my fiancé’s friends — Washington insiders with the respect for convention that city inspires — expressed shock when they discovered I was a dyke. We came from different worlds; with my long brunette hair and short skirts, I hadn’t read as queer to them. But no one had presumed to re-label me, to retrofit me to their categories — at least, not to my face.
But here was my fabulous Portland pal trying to claim me for the Bi-Het team (which sounded like a synagogue rather than a sexual identity, and certainly not my own). She wasn’t the only one: An ex-girlfriend and a sophisticated poet cousin said the same thing, as if my lesbian license had been revoked.
So let me be clear, since I can’t be the only one: I am a lesbian marrying a man.
This is not semantics, or splitting hairs; it is fundamental to who we are — my fiancé and I. Immutable as height or eye color.
Call it a kind of intermarriage. I am 5-foot-9, brunette, lesbian, that won’t alter because of our vows; nor will my love of women, though I won’t be dating them. If either of us had to pretend otherwise, I wouldn’t be marrying this man. It is precisely because our love makes room for us to be who we are, rather than cutting us to fit convention that I want to spend my life with him.
One of the things I cherished about coming out as a lesbian years ago was the wonderful sense I had that I was leaving behind received forms of love, those that seemed to have disappointed my parents and friends. We were free to invent our own, something authentic, not roles we shrugged on like a borrowed coat.
Still, I can’t blame those I love for trying to recast me in more familiar terms — as bisexual or straight. I’ve done the same sort of mislabeling myself. I did this with the man I love when we first met.
* * *
When I first sat down beside the man I would marry, I thought, “Too many sport coats, too little hair.” It was ungallant of me, a glib assessment, born of a writerly habit of sizing up characters. I didn’t recognize this habit as defensive, a way of trying to contain what was foreign to me, what might unsettle my world.
My world, if I’d had to sum it up then, was composed of lesbian activists and writers, with a smattering of hip-ish academics at the university in D.C. where I taught then. People in my world subscribed to the Nation and the New York Review of Books, and understood that a reference to the Times always means New York’s. People in my world did not wear sport coats (except perhaps ironically to a “Mad Men” party).
But there was something about this guy that I liked, despite my initial reflexive dismissal. Sitting next to him, I understood for the first time the term “take a cotton to.” I felt as if the fibers of my body were stretching toward him, affectionately, or like iron filings toward a magnet. As he will later tell the story, we’d come to meet other people, but in the crowded wood-paneled lounge we’d ended up next to each other, sharing a drink.
Over that drink, I learned he had been a graduate student in New Haven when I was an undergraduate there. In those days, he had recently returned from the Peace Corps in the Solomon Islands and North Africa, while I was slowly, painfully coming out, finding my way from an economics major to books. We talked about languages we speak — Arabic, Portuguese, pidgin, lousy French — and Shakespeare plays we love, of which he could quote an impressive amount. He told me about early navigation by stars, about having been a race-car mechanic at Monaco, climbing the world’s tallest mountains, his former work with NASA, his current work with a commercial space company charged with being the garbage collectors of the International Space Station, delivering underwear and chocolate bars to the space station and picking up its trash.
Through it all, I found it hard to look at him: The wonderful smell of this man made me want to laugh out loud with pleasure, as did the lovely, slightly mannered, slightly pompous way he spoke (so like my own slightly mannered, slightly pompous speech). And I recognized in that delight, to my great surprise, desire. Later, I will realize that he looks a great deal like my first girlfriend (who looked a great deal like the writer Peter Matthiessen — slender, weathered face, salt and pepper hair) and my last cat (the same green eyes and self-satisfied smile). But when the drink was done, I left without looking back, without imagining anything could come of this.
In fact, we fell in love — through email and a series of long phone conversations and occasional dates over several months, but we were slow to introduce each other to our friends, worried about how they would take news of us.
His friends are mostly astronauts, charmingly cheerful guys, who seem to be straining to seem like ordinary guys, when in fact they have done truly extraordinary things: They have left the fucking planet; they have orbited the earth. When they hear that I am a writer, they are kindly enthusiastic and look up my work online. Then, one by one, the men come to my fiancé and say, with evident concern, “Do you know that she’s a lesbian?” “Yup,” he says. “I know.” Their wives are a little less friendly after that, but they are scrupulously polite.
My cosmopolitan, artist friends are no less shocked. “Wow, when a lesbian falls off the wagon, she really falls off the wagon,” my friend Deirdre says. She was raised in Beirut, has lived and taught all over the world with her Japanese-American husband. But she is clearly a little shocked by our decision to marry. (“We want to get a divorce,” she says of the husband she adores, “so we can go back to being lovers.” They married for the sake of immigration ease but object on principle to the state’s interference in private lives).
Deirdre affectionately calls my fiancé Hem, short for Hemingway, because he is tall and built and owns a rifle and has hunted lion in Africa and has climbed most of the big mountains in the world and builds rockets for a living and a hobby. He is a sort of Freudian projection of a man, and I am a lesbian.
* * *
So why does the label matter? Why care about terms?
Because I learned long ago that it corrodes a life to lie about who you are.
I know plenty of people who identify as bisexual; I am not. The term simply doesn’t apply. I am not, as a rule, attracted to men. I simply fell in love with this person and didn’t hold his gender against him. That won’t change because of our vows, any more than my eye color will. My fundamental coordinates are unaltered.
Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire explains it better than I can: He scoffs at the idea that the Church of England may consecrate gay priests as long as they’re celibate, not actively gay. “At what point is it gay?” he asks. Are two men holding hands gay? What about two men sharing a bedroom with twin beds?
His point is that it is absurd to imagine a demarcation point for gayness — because it misunderstands the nature of being gay or lesbian.
“Gay is not something we do,” Robinson says, “it’s something we are.” It is not about whether you “practice” (though that makes perfect!), or whether you have a partner, or what you do with that partner, or even that partner’s gender (as any gay person trapped in a het marriage knows). It is about who you are, how you experience the world, the eyes you look through, the skin you’re in.
Queer people have understood this for years: For many of us, long before we “came out” as gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender, long before we had a partner to mirror back to us love and chosen identity, we had to choose ourselves. We had to consciously decide who we were and embrace it, aware that we experienced the world in a manner often at odds with the dominant culture, our lives informed by desires different from what we’re told ours should be. That doesn’t change because a partner does.
It’s the difference between a life judged by external versus internal criteria: Who I am internally has not changed, any more than it would have if I had married a woman. What matters are the eyes we see through, not how we are seen.
It isn’t easy coming out, as sad stats on queer-teen suicide and anti-gay violence attest. I tried to avoid coming out for years before realizing I’d not survive; coming out was coming into myself. To pretend I’m straight or bi- would be a lie against who I’ve been, and am.
There are plenty of compromises one must make in a relationship, but compromising who you are fundamentally is not one of them. For me, that’s non-negotiable. Love changes us, but when it’s good, it makes us more fully who we are, not less; it challenges expectations, disburdens us of constraints, to reveal a love that dares speak its name even if it is hard to sum up.
I’ve been changed by this love: I am calmer, fatter, pregnant. But my fundamental coordinates have not changed. It is precisely because our love makes room for us to be who we are, rather than cutting us to fit convention, that I want to spend my life with him, as I’ll affirm when we stand before the rabbi and say, I do.
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35 Comments
king
August 06, 08:17Wow wow wow!!! Very nice piece!!!…just makes me feel good that though am gay am married to a wife that has given me twins!!! Boy and Gal!!!
pinkpanthertb
August 06, 08:22Yea. Lucky you.
Colossus
August 06, 09:59I agree, we seem to excommunicate those who get married, like they turned their back on a ‘pact’. We forget that as human beings we are all different and live our lives differently. Though we hate being labelled, we are the ones who still got labels inside labels. Kudos on your twins, i pray i get that someday and my woman fucking days would be over, kinda!
Khaleesi
August 06, 10:31I truly like that ‘excommunicate those who get married’ a good friend of mine recently got married, a part of me felt sore that our days of sitting together for hours and gisting about boys had come to an abrupt end, I realised with horror that as he’s a few years older than I am, soon it would be my turn to be forced down the aisle just like he. finally, I excommunicated him when 2 weeks after his wedding, he actually had the ‘guts’ to call and tell me that ‘it was time to stop bitching around, start getting to know girls and think of getting married to a woman’ … reasonably or unreasobably, I felt betrayed and shortly after cut him loose even though I still miss him sometimes …
Iduke
August 06, 08:57King I’d love to know u. Gimme ur twitter handle please.
king
August 08, 19:29Eh!! Not too big on twitter sorry…but my email is lagosking@hotmail.com….oh am unashamedly Top by d way!!!
simba
August 06, 09:37Lucky her and others who could pull it..lets not forget some don’t get erection with opposite gender.
therealsalte
August 06, 09:48This is an interesting read though its very hard for one to ever find this kind of love who understands even the darkest and dirtiest part of our fickled soul.
JustJames
August 06, 10:36*scratches head* lesbian but fell in love with a dude. I really need to do some thinking on this.
At least it’s not a forced marriage like the ones in naija.
Khaleesi
August 06, 10:38“Gay is not something we do,” Robinson says, “it’s something we are.” It is not about whether you “practice” (though that makes perfect!), or whether you have a partner, or what you do with that partner, or even that partner’s gender (as any gay person trapped in a heterosexual marriage knows). It is about who you are, how you experience the world, the eyes you look through, the skin you’re in.
I once dated a bisexual guy who had a girlfriend, he was a late bloomer and had been very much into girls until his twenties, he could never understand my inability to connect both physically&emotionally with women & always harassed me to get a chick as this would cover us both better if we both had women in our lives. I tried and tried and tried to explain to him that being gay isnt just about having sex with a man, for me its about who I am which is expressed in virtually every sphere of my life. he could never understand this& this is a major reason I view bisexuals with some suspicion and confusion, I really dont know what to make of them.
this is a great, eye-opening piece Pinky!
Absalom
August 06, 12:21Uh…This woman is talking about something totally different from a hetero sham union. She’s not even endorsing that.
She is openly lesbian, still loves girls, is not attracted to men; she just happens to have fallen for THIS particular man. She’s talking about defying labels to be who you are, regardless of how bizarre it looks. (Her case is bizarre indeed) So, if you’re a gay man keeping his cover on in a straight marriage, she wasn’t talking about you! *runs away*
king
August 08, 19:34Eh!!! Eat your heart out Absalom….as it stands ave been married to my wife now for 5 years and am so growing into her….really know now that if I was ever gonna marry….i never missed d mark in dat dept….so yes I do love her…and now even more so I adore my twins!!!!! they just make earth simply heaven!!!!
sensuousensei
August 06, 13:26Oh my gosh! I love this article. This sent my head spinning with so many ideas I could write an article of them! I hate labels. I always have. Labels fetter the creative human spirit; a spirit of infinite possibility and expression. I have always believed that all so called exclusively heterosexual guyz can fall for a man, an exception to the rule. And all so called exclusively homosexual guyz can fall for a girl. All you need is the right circumstance and the right person! I’m talking love here not just sex. Love is powerful; it is that which can explode every label and subject everything else (including sex) to itself. So to all men and women I say, don’t label yourself as gay and straight. Just go out into the world…AND LIVE!!!
JustJames
August 06, 15:03If she doesn’t like labels why is she still labeling herself as a lesbian? I think what she doesn’t like (and most people don’t like) is to be forced into a label they are not comfortable with.
Labels aren’t such a bad thing. They help keep some sense in the world. However, when people say that there is a limited number of ways a human being can be then that’s where the issue with labels arise.
sensuousensei
August 06, 16:48Maybe we can label things to make sense of the world but we should see them for what they are: an attempt to make sense of the expansive variety we encounter in this world. Its our attempt to simplify reality and it is thus NOT reality itself. Therefore, we should not fight to preserve them, make a dogma of them or take them too seriously…
JustJames
August 06, 20:12Sensei… If someone asked you your sexual orientation what would you say?
Gay? Straight? Bi? Asexual? All labels.
I agree that humans are fluid. But to think that labels are useless or to disregard them entirely would just bring confusion into the world.
I’m not fighting to preserve them or anything. I’m just saying that they are useful when used properly.. not necessarily the evil things we are beginning to turn them into.
pinkpanthertb
August 06, 20:39This I like.
sensuousensei
August 07, 08:35We are saying the same thing, James. It is useful but shd not be taken too serious. You haven’t said anything different.
kendigin
August 06, 15:29Confused bitch.
king
August 08, 20:00Ahahahaha lol!!!
Dennis Macauley
August 06, 16:19Human sexuality is very fluid! it’s not black and white, there are 50 shades of grey in between. Some gay men do fall in love with a particular woman as happened to one of my pals recently! I just told him, as long as it makes you happy! Go for it!
We shouldn’t make such people feel like they betrayed us or broke a secret pact we made while drinking from a calabash of blood (Ala nollywood movie)! Love is love afterall! Isn’t that what we preach?
Chizzie
August 06, 17:50I didn’t read the whole of this, lost interest when I saw brunette ( assumingly Caucasian) and lesbian, so for a black male gay African living in the most homophobic country on earth, it was a bit hard for me to relate. Westerners and first world citizens amuse me atimes, I think they take their liberty and freedom for granted. Why come out as a lesbian only for you to marry a man later on, and yet identify as a lesbian? Call it whatever u what, to me it reeks of impulsiveness and greed… Especially coming from a standpoint where I’d give anything to come out and marry someone of the same sex as mine whilst still being accepted by my society and family
Not a fan of this Lady who ever she is
pinkpanthertb
August 06, 19:16To be frank, neither am I.
sensuousensei
August 06, 20:33Both of you agree at least. That has gotta count for something, abi? 😀
pinkpanthertb
August 06, 20:39Oh shurrup, Sensei.
Khaleesi
August 06, 19:49Nice one Chizzie, she’s confused and taking her liberty for granted. I guess we can equate her to that straight man who falls in love with just one gay guy and will have gay sex only with him but with no one else… like Dennis said, sexuality us very fluid with an infinite variety of shades in between …
aquastar112
August 10, 09:02lmao. yea. a shame realy
DeadlyDarius
August 06, 23:02So sad that the reality in our neck of the woods is people getting married to conform to society’s standards or bend to family opinions….freedom to be happy is all I want & will get in my life, that’s for sure
kendigin
August 09, 14:02either ur not in naija or ur below 28
Smith
August 06, 23:44Love dis Blog…kudos! Considerin d privilege they have over there to be WHO U ARE…..i totally agreed wit d friend dat she has lost it by wat d word LESBIAN stands..when a bottle of coke is mixed wit fanta,my sistas,wat do we call it?
victor
August 07, 09:07Yeah,it happens, I have had my bestfriend do it for only me and is disgusted by other guys,just girls and me, many of my gayfriends tried but he just couldn’t and since we brokeup he just went back to girls
king
August 08, 20:06I relate!!!!
Unoma
September 27, 18:39Simply put, this is bullshit! Makes absolutely no sense to me!
pinkpanthertb
September 27, 18:42Hahahahaahhaaa!!! The lesbian haf speak!
THE QUESTION: TO MARRY OR NOT TO MARRY | KitoDiaries
September 09, 06:58[…] I won’t delve much into this. A story about a lesbian who fell in love with a man was published on this blog. Read IT HERE. […]