ALTERNATIVES TO MARRIAGE: Maggie (cont.):

What is the evidence on the demand for marital or quasi-marital benefits among the gay community? Well, first of all take a look at the Netherlands, which has had quasi-marital benefits for unisex couples since 1997 and full marriage rights since 2001.

Neither of these institutions appears to have much effect on the taste for sexual variety among gay men. A new study in the scientific journal AIDS found the average gay man in a long-term relationship had 8 outside partners in a year. (For a newspaper account, go here.) As I mentioned below this is I think not because gay men are peculiarly promiscuous, but because this what happens to male sexuality when the need to please and be good for women is removed. I think it is very revealing of some of the difficulties that gay men face in trying to mimic an institution that developed to regulate male-female sexuality. Why is it, for example, that the concept of open marriage (which was vigorously promoted in the 70s you may recall) fell flat among heterosexuals, but seems to be the most common arrangement in lasting domestic partnershps between men? In addition to female preference for monogamy there is another powerful factor: male sexual jealousy.

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard or read some variant to this tale: a bored and/or unfaithful husband decides the solution is an open marriage. He talks his wife into sleeping with some guy. She resists at first, but eventually she tries it. And all hell breaks loose. Because men just cannot tolerate the idea of another man sleeping with their wife, even if he is the one who thought the idea up. It is beyond or below reason. To me the most interesting thing about the data on open relationships between gay men, is the window it reveals on how fundamentally different the basis of these two different kinds of relationships (male-male versus male-female) is. People, men and women, straight and gay, can all be jealous. But this violent and instinctive male sexual jealousy just does not seem to be aroused in the same degree in sexual friendships between two men.

Meanwhile how many gays and lesbians live in registered marital or quasi-marital partnerships in the Netherlands? Answer: Just one out of seven. See the data, here. (In the Netherlands, more gay men than women marry or register their partnerships, btw.)

What about in this country? I tried to get a rough estimate of what proportion of gays and lesbians in general, and in same-sex partner households want quasi-marital benefits by looking at statistics from Vermont. This is only a rough estimate, because the Census Bureau stats on the number of unmarried same-sex partners are from 2000 and the civil union stats are from July of 2000 to December of 2001.

But it should be a window at any rate. In the first year and half in Vermont there were exactly 478 in-state residents who entered civil unions, while in 2000 there were 1,933 same-sex partner households. So just under 25 percent of gays and lesbians who were in a partnered household were interested in marriage benefits. There were 7,390 gay and lesbian households in Vermont in 2000. So about 6 percent of all gay and lesbian households sought quasi-marital benefits. What proportion of all households were these? There are 240,000 households in Vermont, so a total of two-tenths of one percent of the Vermont population benefited from civil union legislation.

What about medical benefits? This is for many people one of the most compelling issues. In 2001 , I asked the top ten companies listed in HRC website as offering same-sex partners health insurance benefits and asked: what proportion of your employees take advantage of this benefit? All but one refused to release this data. But General Motors treated it as a perfectly normal question and told me: Out of 1.3 million employees exactly 166 extended health insurance benefits to a same-sex partner. One-one hundredth of one percent. If people need health care, let’s get them health care. But neither marriage or civil unions are likely to be an effective tool for extending important health protections to gays and lesbians.
posted by maggie at 4:04 PM | Link |

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