![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livThis is quite a week for the calendar providing blogging topics, with Chinese New Year, Pancake Day / Mardi Gras / Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and the dreaded Valentine's Day all in succession. I really do not know what to do with VD. I don't approve of it politically, though I do like going out for nice meals with people I love, and I keep vacillating between (pointedly) ignoring it, attempting to subvert or reclaim it, and just going ahead and celebrating it anyway.
I mean, part of the problem with VD is the honking great cultural message that relationships like mine are important and precious and worthy of celebrating. I really, really don't think I'm in any way superior because I got married to a man and thus have a publicly visible, primary, romantic, dyadic relationship. Indeed I don't even think that relationship is more important than other key relationships in my life, though by the nature of what it is, it takes up a fair amount of my time and has major effects on my lifestyle choices. But society as a whole thinks I'm a winner because I have this relationship. It is absolutely true that I get many direct benefits, as well as meaningless social status, from being married tojack (otherwise I wouldn't have done it!) and to a lesser extent from being married in general, from having a partner who makes me and my desires a high priority in his life.
But this being the case, if I speak disparagingly about VD, if I complain that the idea of Romance puts too much emphasis on heterosexual, public, dyadic relationships, it comes across wrongly because I do in fact have all these benefits. Bothjack and I have toyed with the idea of having anti-valentine parties, but it just feels weird to do that when we do in fact have a romantic primary partner. OK, so we don't live together, so we're usually (as this year) physically apart on Valentine's Day, and in some ways I do want to make a point of saying that this is not in fact a tragedy, it's a choice we've made. That's still not really helpful to people who really wish they had someone to send them flowers on Thursday, or people who are forced by dire circumstances (as opposed to pursuing well-paid, satisfying careers) to live apart from their partners.
Because I've been unclear about this before, I want to state upfront that I know full well that getting married was a choice I made, it wasn't just a random piece of luck that "happened" to me. It feels like luck in the sense that it was never my life ambition to get married, I never made any particular effort to look for a partner who would be interested in that kind of relationship. And I take no particular credit for the fact that I found someone who wants to spend his life with me, so in that sense it was lucky; I say this as a counter to the idea that married people are somehow morally superior or more mature than single people or people with other relationship structures. But it was still my choice, a choice I could have rejected.
I seriously, seriously considered not getting married; if you've been reading this journal since 2010 whenjack proposed to me you'll have seen me angsting about it. In the end I decided that my relationship with jack looks enough like the socially approved model, being heterosexual, publicly declared, romantic and sexual, dyadic and with the intention of being a lifelong commitment, that choosing not to go through the ceremony wasn't in fact going to do much for equality. I've been debating on Twitter with ![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
nanayasleeps about the value of politically asking for opposite sex Civil Partnerships. She takes the view that CPs were just a way of fobbing off Queer people and are nothing but a second-class version of marriage. I feel emotionally, though I can't entirely justify this, that I would like to convert my legal relationship into a Civil Partnership, and therefore I would like the option to be available. nanayasleeps has sort of partly convinced me, though; there isn't a huge amount of benefit in giving up international recognition of my relationship for the sake of nebulous emotional advantages. And I must admit that now same-sex marriage (if not yet fully equal or gender-neutral marriage, grrr) is seriously on the table, it feels a whole lot less like being married is making a big statement about my gender and sexual orientation (and possibly even relationship structure) which I don't necessarily want to be making. That is vastly less important than the rights of all couples to have access to full marriage, of course. Still, my feeling is that making a big fuss of dyadic, romantic, monogamous, lifelong, household- and nuclear family-forming relationships is itself a problem, even though it's an extremely good thing and worth fighting for for that particular relationship structure is increasingly open to same-sex couples.
The same with VD. You're supposed to have one person you want to give traditional love tokens to and go out for a romantic meal with. It's great that we've now realized collectively that that person may be the same sex as you! But that doesn't necessarily fix things for people who are single by choice or by necessity, people whose relationships don't fit into that particular model of Romance, people who in relationships of three, four or more people, people who have more than one partner, people whose sexual partner(s) aren't their primary life partners, people who can't afford to draw the general public's attention to their relationships and I'm sure there's a whole bunch more I've left out. It doesn't help to value friendships and family connections and close-knit communities and online relationships and all other kinds of love. It doesn't help people who are single as adults beyond the age where this is seen as acceptable, people who actually don't have any person as intimately involved in their life as society expects a romantic partner to be.
People whose relationships don't get much social credit, and people who don't have the relationships they want, are likely to find VD upsetting. I'd like to make things better for everybody in that situation, but I don't really have a way to do so, especially considering that I'm part of the problem in some ways. I'm not going to avoid talking about my husband because some people don't have the practical and / or social advantages that I do. After all, one of the big advantages of being in this kind of couple is precisely thatjack is a major part of my life; not mentioning him would be like never talking about my job because some people are unemployed. Conversely, ranting about how VD is awful and promotes massive inequalities based on relationship status is itself rather tactless, coming from me.
What I am going to do is to link tokaberett's Not-a-darkroom-orgy love meme. As they say: kaberett's because I know most of the people involved, and some of them are people I love very dearly in ways that don't get the same kind of recognition as loving jack does. People have said incredibly touching things in my thread, but that's not why I'm linking, I just wanted to signal-boost a chance for people to get some love and respect and admiration and positivity that's not full of the subtext that you fail at life if you're not in the right kind of couple situation. I should also note that kaberett is moderating incredibly carefully and sensitively, so it's a lot less of a minefield than anony-memes can be.
I mean, part of the problem with VD is the honking great cultural message that relationships like mine are important and precious and worthy of celebrating. I really, really don't think I'm in any way superior because I got married to a man and thus have a publicly visible, primary, romantic, dyadic relationship. Indeed I don't even think that relationship is more important than other key relationships in my life, though by the nature of what it is, it takes up a fair amount of my time and has major effects on my lifestyle choices. But society as a whole thinks I'm a winner because I have this relationship. It is absolutely true that I get many direct benefits, as well as meaningless social status, from being married to
jack (otherwise I wouldn't have done it!) and to a lesser extent from being married in general, from having a partner who makes me and my desires a high priority in his life. But this being the case, if I speak disparagingly about VD, if I complain that the idea of Romance puts too much emphasis on heterosexual, public, dyadic relationships, it comes across wrongly because I do in fact have all these benefits. Both
jack and I have toyed with the idea of having anti-valentine parties, but it just feels weird to do that when we do in fact have a romantic primary partner. OK, so we don't live together, so we're usually (as this year) physically apart on Valentine's Day, and in some ways I do want to make a point of saying that this is not in fact a tragedy, it's a choice we've made. That's still not really helpful to people who really wish they had someone to send them flowers on Thursday, or people who are forced by dire circumstances (as opposed to pursuing well-paid, satisfying careers) to live apart from their partners. Because I've been unclear about this before, I want to state upfront that I know full well that getting married was a choice I made, it wasn't just a random piece of luck that "happened" to me. It feels like luck in the sense that it was never my life ambition to get married, I never made any particular effort to look for a partner who would be interested in that kind of relationship. And I take no particular credit for the fact that I found someone who wants to spend his life with me, so in that sense it was lucky; I say this as a counter to the idea that married people are somehow morally superior or more mature than single people or people with other relationship structures. But it was still my choice, a choice I could have rejected.
I seriously, seriously considered not getting married; if you've been reading this journal since 2010 when
jack proposed to me you'll have seen me angsting about it. In the end I decided that my relationship with jack looks enough like the socially approved model, being heterosexual, publicly declared, romantic and sexual, dyadic and with the intention of being a lifelong commitment, that choosing not to go through the ceremony wasn't in fact going to do much for equality. I've been debating on Twitter with The same with VD. You're supposed to have one person you want to give traditional love tokens to and go out for a romantic meal with. It's great that we've now realized collectively that that person may be the same sex as you! But that doesn't necessarily fix things for people who are single by choice or by necessity, people whose relationships don't fit into that particular model of Romance, people who in relationships of three, four or more people, people who have more than one partner, people whose sexual partner(s) aren't their primary life partners, people who can't afford to draw the general public's attention to their relationships and I'm sure there's a whole bunch more I've left out. It doesn't help to value friendships and family connections and close-knit communities and online relationships and all other kinds of love. It doesn't help people who are single as adults beyond the age where this is seen as acceptable, people who actually don't have any person as intimately involved in their life as society expects a romantic partner to be.
People whose relationships don't get much social credit, and people who don't have the relationships they want, are likely to find VD upsetting. I'd like to make things better for everybody in that situation, but I don't really have a way to do so, especially considering that I'm part of the problem in some ways. I'm not going to avoid talking about my husband because some people don't have the practical and / or social advantages that I do. After all, one of the big advantages of being in this kind of couple is precisely that
jack is a major part of my life; not mentioning him would be like never talking about my job because some people are unemployed. Conversely, ranting about how VD is awful and promotes massive inequalities based on relationship status is itself rather tactless, coming from me.What I am going to do is to link to
kaberett's Not-a-darkroom-orgy love meme. As they say: with the message that monogamous heterosexual relationships are the most important kind of relationship [...] a healthy dose of respect and love might be no bad thing. I am a bit scared of love memes, they seem like a fandom cultural thing that I don't fully understand. I signed up to
kaberett's because I know most of the people involved, and some of them are people I love very dearly in ways that don't get the same kind of recognition as loving jack does. People have said incredibly touching things in my thread, but that's not why I'm linking, I just wanted to signal-boost a chance for people to get some love and respect and admiration and positivity that's not full of the subtext that you fail at life if you're not in the right kind of couple situation. I should also note that kaberett is moderating incredibly carefully and sensitively, so it's a lot less of a minefield than anony-memes can be.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-13 12:21 pm (UTC)My model of v-day seems different from Liv's - it's not, in my brain, a day about traditional relationships celebrating themselves openly (although clearly now it has grown to encompass this), it's a day about secret love making secret hints that it exists. It's the anonymous card, the secret bunch of flowers... So I don't think it does, traditionally, at least in my head, celebrate existing romantic relationships that fit obvious models. It celebrates the fact that sometimes love isn't easy and people pine and don't know how to say things and that sometimes people are much fonder of you than you know they are.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-13 03:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-13 04:43 pm (UTC)[As a grown up I am not sure what I feel about anonymous declarations of secret love. I think they're fun and exciting, but I think they're also a bit confusing, and I hate not knowing things! I think a world where people communicate in a straight forward way about how they feel and what they want is a good one. But, hmm, a secret admirer is still a delicious idea in many ways...]
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-13 06:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-14 10:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-14 10:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-14 02:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-14 02:39 pm (UTC)