The New York Times magazine wrote an article about gay marriage amongst the twenty-something set.
One thing I’ve noticed in my few years as a gay boy is that millennial gays generally seem to want to get married some day, and they’re confident that it’ll be legal in their lifetimes. They want to have kids, a house in the suburbs, and a Golden Retriever. Maybe a Cocker Spaniel.
Gay boomers have their own established culture. In my experience, they don’t want a wedding, and they don’t want to register at Crate & Barrel. Kids aren’t even a consideration (unless from a prior hetero relationship), and oftentimes partnered gay boomers maintain separate residences.
(This is all highly subjective conjecture, based on the few older couples I know personally and what I read in the gay blogosphere. Please feel free to send counter-examples.)
A few older gay guys I know have derided me for wanting a monogamous marriage to a man. They say only, “You’re young and idealistic. You’ll understand when you’re older.” I think the implication is that these men have some sort of sexual arrangement with third parties.
That kind of argument doesn’t fly with me. I might be young, but I know what I want. After coming out, it didn’t even occur to me that I wouldn’t settle down and get married. I can relate to the desire for stability and legal validation expressed by the men from the NYT article.
After all, gay guys of my generation were raised on headstrong Disney heroines who ended up happily ever after with their princes. Why shouldn’t we expect the same for our own lives? Ariel mournfully singing about not fitting in and wanting something more… that was me, only at eight years old I hadn’t quite realized it yet.
Even so, I’m generally freaked by the idea of marriage, gay or straight, before the age of 30. The kids in the NYT article look like Pod People (or Log Cabin Republicans, whichever is worse). They’re too saccharine, and the photos accompanying the article are deliberately evocative of Leave It to Beaver. They look like they’re trying too hard to impress.
Maybe I’m cynical because I’m a child of divorce. Most of my friends growing up had divorced parents. Every member of my family in my parents’ generation has been divorced at least once, and we even have a family pre-nup.
I might be young and idealistic about gay monogamous marriage… but I am so getting a pre-nup.
So will you pass judgment on me if I marry before 30? ;)
Your right about the prenup.
Around 5th grade I realized that I had only one friend whose parents weren’t divorced. His parents divorced the next year, and then mine the year after.
I also found the the pictures in the article creepy. Haha. Very Stepford.
I don’t understand why monogamous relationships can’t work. I suspect that if monogamy is an issue, then you really don’t like the person enough, or you’re not that invested in the relationship.
@Corinne: Maybe a little but I’ll still come with an awesome gift and get really drunk at your reception.
@Jansen: I’m right there with you on the monogamy thing. I personally think that if you can’t be monogamous with your partner, it’s probably time to split up.
Hey, thanks for posting that article. My husband and I are both in our 20s and were married in Mass before moving down to MD. I easily related to those guys.
@Jansen, I agree. Life is about choosing the best of the good options you’ve got and living it to the extreme. I can’t be a firefighter and a model and president and a problogger and a SAHM…at least I couldn’t do any of them very well if I tried to do them all. I think marriage/commitment/monogamy is the same way. You pick who you like best and you live the hell out of that relationship. That’s not to say it’ll always work, but I think it’s possible.
We talked a bit about this in my GSA. Most people expressed the desire to be married someday as well as the fear that their parents wouldn’t take it seriously (this being at a Christian college). I think it’s seen as a real possibility nowadays and even quite normal.
(I hear ya on the pod people. cute but slightly off…maybe they’re smiling too much, like those 50’s housewives.)
Marriage is trendy. because the issue is forced to the top of the gay consciousness these kids expect it.
Statistics still say twentysomethings are unattached.