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8 — OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS — JANUARY 1999

  Altenatives I0 Marriage l0I‘

SKEETER

BITES

 

sisxeerensiunens

appy New Year. So here
Hwe are ‘in the final, year-
long countdown to the

year 2000. This is the time when
I write my New Year’s resolu-
tioins, then count the time before,
one by one, I break them.

For 1999, however, 1 made
only one resolution: to clear up
some unfinished business in the
Great Marriage Debate. And l’m
keeping that resolution by asking
you, Mr. and Ms. Queer
Vermonter, the following ques-
tion: -

Why are so many of you so
adamant in your desire to get
married legally at a time in histo-
ry when more and more people
— that’s right, straight people -
are saying “To hell with mar-
riage!” and engaging in alterna-
tive forms of partnership?

Did you know that there are,
according to the Census Bureau,
a record 5.6 million unmarried
partners living together in the US
—— only 30 percent of whom are
same-sex? And their numbers are
growing.

For the first time in the
nation’s history, more than half
of all first-time births in the US
are of babies born to unmarried
women — only 30 percent of

. whom identify themselves as les-

bian or bisexual. Clearly, the
social revolutions of the ‘60s and
‘70s long ago wiped out the stig-
ma attached to what was used to
be called “unwed motherhood.”
It seems almost incredible, but
the Census Bureau even reports
that a whopping 74 percent of

Assault Charges
‘Upgraded

continued from front page

his mother says she won’t allow
him to go back to school.
Neither defense attorney
David Nicholson nor prosecutor
Rosemary Gretkowski would
comment on the case.
The Vermont District Court

has scheduled Curavoo’s hearing ‘

for January 13th.

Curavoo could face expulsion
from school in addition to stiffer
legal penalties if convicted on
the elevated charges. The maxi-
mum fine in the case doubles
from $1,000 to $2,000 and the
maximum jail sentence increases
from one year to two.V

VIDLUNTEEB

We need
help

(but you knew that).

1:02/4:14-’01TM C.

 

Americans define a family as “a
group of people who love and
care about each other,” regard-
less of whether they’re related by
blood or not, regardless of
whether they’re married or not.
So why, at a time when legal
marriage is losing its appeal to
i-ncreasing numbers of straight
people, are queers so hell-bent on
partaking in what is obviously a
crumbling institution? It makes
absolutely no sense to me, espe-
cially with the growing variety of
alternatives to legal marriage that
are now available. I
l’m a Pagan, and it’s been a
long-standing tradition for Pagan
couples to “handfast” — form a
trial marriage without legal sanc-
tion —— for a year and a day. After
that 366-day period (367 days in
leap years), ifthe couple decides
to stay together, then there is a

formal commitment ceremony. It
is the couple’s prerogative to
decide whether to have their
commitment legally sanctioned.
(Only about half elect to do so.)

Domestic partnership, all the
rage among queer couples in the
late ‘80s and early ‘90s, has
become increasingly popular
among straight couples, especial-
ly those under 30 and — sur-
prise! — over 60.

In fact, some senior couples
— particularly those whose pre-

Queers Ann straights  

vious spouses died — choose
domestic partnership because
they would actually lose signifi-
cant financial benefits they
receive if they married legally.

Clearly, the social revolutions of the
‘60s and ‘70s long ago wiped out the
stigma attached to what was used to
be called “unwed motherhood ”

. There is even an organization,
the Alternatives to Marriage
Project, that provides resource
information and support to per-
sons who choose not to marry
legally, regardless of sexual ori-
entation. It is an especially valu-
able resource for polyamorous
individuals in multi-partner rela-

tionships. ATMP maintains a
Website at www.netspace.org
/atmp.

So with all these alternatives
available out there, why tie your-
selves down with a marriage
license?

RADIO, RADIO — Regular
readers of this column know that
I host a weekly jazz and R&B
program on RWGDR-FM (91.1),
the community station of
Goddard College in Plainfield. I
am happy to announce that I am
now also a part—time DJ at The
Point (WNCS, 104.7 Montpelier;
WSHX, 95.7 St. Johnsbury;
WRIT, 103.1 White River
Junction). 1 host the Saturday
late-night show, “The Point
Overnight,” from midnight to
6:00 a.m. The Point also cyber-
casts on the Web at
www.pointfm.com. V‘

cRow's

 

BY CROW COHEN

monogamous -from about the

mid-’70s to the mid-’80s. By
that, I mean 1 fiercely clung to an
analysis which I learned from
my radical lesbian feminist sis-
ters. It went something like this:
monogamy is related to the patri-
archal concept of male “owner-
ship” of women and their off-
spring. Via compulsory hetero-
sexuality, men are empowered
by society to be heads of families
and by extension, heads of
church and state, owners of land,
rulers of the world.

Since, after all, you really
can’t continuously uphold this
tyranny by violence alone
(although the threat of rape, bat-
tering and outright murder of
women are the underpinnings of
male dominance), one of the
methods used to seduce women
into cooperatingwith their
oppressors is romance. Enter the
shining white knight with can-
dlelight and roses who will
sweep m’lady off her feet and
“protect” her for the rest of her
life.

So we radlesfem revolution-
aries came up with some anti-
dotes which we deemed “sexual
freedom.” Here’s the formula. 1)
Declare yourself a lesbian,
which is the strongest statement
a liberated woman can make that
they are no longer interested in
male approval or attraction. 2)
Since monogamy breeds delu-
sions of “ownership” and pro-
motes possessiveness, make love
with whomever you want when-

(ever you _want, then “work

Iused to be militantly non-

through” those antiquated feel-
ings of jealousy and competition
with support from the communi-
ty (better known as “process-
ing”). 3) The safest way to pull
all this off is to sleep with your
friends. Having a series of “sex-
ual friendships” is much more
revolutionary than seduction,
intrigue, and privatized coupling,

ocoonoonooooooonuono

which are all by-products of
romance.

It didn’t work for me. I
remember a few years ago sitting
at my kitchen table with a young
lesbian friend of mine as 1
described this non-monogamous
theory so many of us dykes in
Burlington swore by when we

I were all flying around under the
banner of “sisterhood is power-
ful.” She said, “Yeah? How did it
go?” I burst out laughing and
couldn’t stop. It was like describ-
ing the events leading up to
World War II and casually being
asked, “Yeah? How did it go?”
The prolonged laughter was
obviously a release of years of
accumulated pain.

The reason it didn’t work for
me was that 1 denied my deep-
seated need to link intimacy and
commitment with sexuality.
Perhaps that’s a patriarchal con-
cept, but I think it’s more likely
related to one of the profound
gifts of female conditioning —

to value relationship and com-
munication of feelings above all
(as opposed to male conditioning
to conquer the world at all costs).

It was a politic that also did
not promote spiritual discipline
— that is, delaying immediate
gratification in order to stay still
and face those terrifying fears of
intimacy so many of g us have

Enter the shining white knight with
candlelight and roses who will sweep
m ’lady ofl her feet and “protect” her
for the rest of her life.

(probably due, in all fairness, to
growing up in families full of
emotional, physical, and sexual
abuse). .

But can’t you be intimate and
committed to more than one per-
son at a time? Maybe. I can’t
though, especially since it’s such
damn hard work. It’s like trying
to keep two or more long, long
trains on the track at the same
time. (You know, where you shut
off your car at the RR crossing
waiting for it all to go by? Life
stops and you just sit there and
wait, reading esoteric messages
on boxcars, wishing like hell you
could move on.)

I believe that one ofthe miss-
ing links back then was that this
community endeavor (that’s
exactly what it was in this small
town and small state) was not
girded up by strong commitment
to ethical principles that we all
more or less agreed on and con-
stantly reinforced for one anoth-
er. Nor was there the nurturing it

Mononamv

takes to help each other face the
obstacles within that get in the
way of practicing tolerance,
patience and compassion.
Jealousy and competition were
rampant because we switched
from one lover to another (or
piled one on top of the other —
sometimes literally) before we
gave ourselves time to grieve -
to confront those demons within
that drive us to hurt one another
and that cause excessive guilt,
shame, or self-hatred. In other
words, we simply didn’t give
ourselves the time and space to
feel the loss when the relation-
ship turned sour. To quiet down
and be with loss is hard stuff.
That’s when asking for help
comes in handy.

What can I say? We were
young. Our hormones were rag-
ing. We were revolutionaries in a
hurry. We did the best we could.
Some of us became great friends
with our ex-lovers. Some of us
were able to explore our sexuali-
ty in a more or less safer context
than the patriarchy had to offer at
the time or even now, probably.
What have I learned? That
adherence to ethical principles
ultimately leads tojoy, freedom,
and fulfillment with or without
sexual companions. Can non-
monogamy (or polyamorosity)
ever work well? Perhaps, but if
and only if we truly have
evolved into a “tribe” that has in
place a system of ethics that
works in our lives. Otherwise,
it’s a setup for another flimsy
revolution that falls apart due to
abusive behavior. Goddess
knows, there have been lots of
those. V