Does Marriage Imply Monogamy? Gay Couples in Massachusetts Negotiate

Does marriage imply monogamy (or rather sexual fidelity)? A NYT Sunday Magazine profile of young Massahcusets gay couples finds some endorse fidelity, some not, but betrays that the marriage laws in Massachusetts make this a very active topic of negotiation:

". . .Still, they insisted they would be 'traditional; in one important way: they vowed to be monogamous. "I know that some gay couples who’ve been together awhile open up their relationships," Marc said, "but we're not going to do that. I mean, we wouldn't be getting married if we didn't plan on being monogamous. To me, that's a fundamental and important part of marriage."

It is for many young gay couples. Frederick Hertz, an attorney and mediator who co-wrote the book 'A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples' and who has helped gay couples of all ages negotiate prenuptial agreements, told me that young gay men get the most impassioned when talk turns to monogamy. "A very common thing I hear them say in my office is, 'If he has an affair, he's not getting any alimony!' " Hertz said. "That’s just not something I hear among older gay men, who often make a distinction between emotional fidelity and sexual fidelity. There’s an emerging rhetoric around monogamy among young gay couples. In that way, they’re a lot more like married heterosexual couples than they are like older gay couples." [MG Note: state law does not always even permit infidelity to affect property distributions, although Massachusetts may be one that theoretically allows it--any family lawyers know the answer?]

I SPENT THE FOLLOWING DAY with the Brandons. They met a year before on MySpace, although this was a source of some embarrassment for the couple, who instead told friends they’d met 'at a concert.' . . . .Like Marc and Vassili, the Brandons said they planned to pick and choose what elements of "traditional heteronormative married culture," as Brandon A. put it, to appropriate. (He loves using words like 'heteronormative.') But the Brandons had different ideas from Marc and Vassili about what appealed to them about 'traditional' marriage.
For one thing, the Brandons eagerly told their families about the engagement and planned to incorporate them into their married lives. . .

The Brandons agreed that they would wait a year or two before marrying; they wanted to finish school before having a formal wedding ceremony. Unlike Marc and Vassili, the Brandons said a wedding ceremony was important — not as a "political statement" or "to get approval from anyone," but as a way to communicate their love to each other. . .

But the Brandons suspected they were untraditional when it came to their thinking about monogamy. As they saw it, one enduring lesson of heterosexual marriage is that lifelong monogamy is unrealistic for most people — especially men. "Most straight people like to talk a great game about monogamy," Brandon A. said. "But what are they actually doing? Many of them have affairs at some point or break up because they want to sleep with somebody else. We're two guys, we’re in our 20s, we haven't been sexual with that many people, and to pretend like we're never going to want to experience sex with another person until the day we die doesn't make sense to us. We’re open to exploring our sexuality together in a way that makes us both comfortable."

Negotiating questions surrounding monogamy was a critical issue for most of the young married and engaged couples I spent time with. . ."

posted by maggie at 10:15 AM | link

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