FAMILY STRUCTURE: Mark Barton replies to Chairm Ohn

Chairm Ohn: These three speculative points are subject to assumptions about marriage. First, that sexual preference is not fluid; [...]

Mark B.: I don't claim to speak for lesbians or bisexual men, but the fairly standard experience of self-identified gay men is that their orientation (in the sense of who they're attracted to) is not at all fluid. Same-sex attraction starts full strength at puberty and doesn't waver.

Chairm Ohn: [...] that the experience of mixed-orientation marriages is more spectacularly pointless and unstable than the average marriage.

Mark B.: Which is only to be expected given that one major form of glue holding together an average marriage, namely sexual intimacy, is likely to be largely absent or unsatisfactory.

Chairm Ohn: Second, that gay men who marry women in order to, e.g., have their own children are generally prone to unsavory sexual behavior;

Mark B.: Note that I don't claim that gay men who marry women specifically in order to have children are particularly prone to dangerous sexual behaviour. On the contrary, I doubt that happens very much in the first place. Nowadays there are better ways of having the opportunity to raise children than marrying someone you're not at all sexually attracted to. What I claim is that gay men who marry women in order to be thought heterosexual are prone to dangerous sexual behaviour.

But this is uncontroversial--it's why for example that HIV is coming to be a disproportionate problem for the African-American community. Indeed the first guy I ever slept with couldn't have been a sorrier case study: he was African-American, he had a girlfriend on the side to keep up
appearances, but he was also very resistant to using condoms because he didn't identify with the gay community that all the safe-sex advertising was pitched at. I hope he and his girlfriend are still alive.

Note further that I only mention any of this to underline the fact that merely disallowing SSM will have a negligible effect on whether gay men get traditionally married. The only thing that will have an effect is severely punishing, legally and socially, any other option. But not
only has this been found to be unconstitutional, it would also have the major adverse consequences I point out.

Chairm Ohn: [...] that may or may not be so within or without marriage--as per the common view among gay activists that monogamy need not mean sexual exclusivity in SSM.

Mark B.: Note that even gay activists who think that open relationships are often good also think that these have to be negotiated, and that dangerous sexual practices engaged in unilaterally are inexcusable.

Chairm Ohn: If SSM would have the influence on gay domesticity that its advocates predict, we might expect more same-sex couples would be attracted to SSM (if enacted); and fewer would start mixed-orientation marriages to have children.

Mark B.: I think any suggested influence of SSM on gay domesticity is probably oversold. Gay domesticity arises naturally as soon as homophobia is checked.

Chairm Ohn: There'd be a reduction in the volume of children migrating from man-woman couples to same-sex couples through divorce. It is difficult to imagine that assisted reproduction and adoption could make up the difference. The tiny volume of same-sex households raising children might be expected to diminish below current levels.

Mark B.: My point exactly. Withholding SSM is unlikely to have much effect but to the extent it does it's likely to be counterproductive.
posted by Eve at 3:07 PM | link

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