Equal marriage: dawn of a new social
conservatism for the LGBT community?
Now that the
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act has been passed in England and Wales, and
Scotland is very likely to follow suit, LGBT couples will soon have the
opportunity to become conventional and mainstream as never before. So what is
going to be best for our LGBT psyches and for society as a whole: do we walk
through the matrimonial door that has been opened to us, or do we snub it in
disdain or indifference?
It is not
surprising that there are many LGBT people who feel they still have an account
to settle with the conservative institutions of society, and do not feel they
are ready to join a club that has treated us with brutal discrimination in the
past. In my Pink News article of 25 July, I detailed some of the appalling
treatment meted out to LGBT people in Britain only thirty years ago.
A profoundly
homophobic society makes LGBT people feel anxious, guilty and ashamed about our
sexuality, and repressive school environments force LGBT people, when children,
to hide something of fundamental importance to our identity and to our psychological
and social development. When people are treated like that, it will take them a
long time to feel like a full and accepted member of the wider community who
can identify with its values, even for some time after that community has
become more enlightened.
When British
society was so repressive and unjust to LGBT people, it was healthy to be “counterculture”.
Years of suffering homophobic discrimination as a young person will take their
toll. We are made to feel that our sexuality is so abhorrent that we cannot legitimately
interact with society on the same terms as everyone else. Shame, anxiety and
low self-esteem are toxic to the human soul, and the best initial antidote to
them is anger: anger towards homophobic society and towards the people in it
who are responsible for perpetuating the discrimination and ignorance that
cause so much harm.
Anger
emerges with the consciousness that one has been wronged, and replaces the
misguided and socially-programmed belief that one is in the wrong as an LGBT person. Anger is a marker of having
suffered an injustice and of the party responsible being in the moral wrong. As
such, anger restores one’s proper sense of legitimacy in the world, of being a
morally good being, of being someone worthy of respect and decent treatment.
Anger marks a revolution in the consciousness: the beginning of our becoming
active, self-confident, self-affirming and equal players in our social world,
rather than mere passive, anxious and self-deprecating survivors.
When we
eventually overcome internalised homophobia and achieve a degree of
self-acceptance, a great deal of healthy and justified anger can emerge: anger
that is often directed towards a society that was responsible for our suffering
in the past. We may be in no mood to
endorse institutions that are pillars of that society.
The
Conservative Party has had a dismal past history of homophobia, and it is an
institution that still fills may LGBT people with aversion. David Cameron,
supported by many of his colleagues, has made very significant progress on the
journey towards LGBT equality by pioneering equal marriage in the UK. This was
an extraordinarily brave and principled commitment for him to make as the only
conservative world leader to support the measure, and in the face of fierce
political and personal hostility. Unfortunately, many people still remember the
homophobia of Margaret Thatcher, Norman Tebbit and many of their
contemporaries: homophobic politicians whose actions continue to blot the Conservative
landscape. The Conservative Party, and the contract of marriage, are both
institutions towards which LGBT people may still feel a visceral aversion on
the basis of past experience: despite, in the case of the Conservative Party, its
ever-increasing number of members and voters who passionately support LGBT
equality, and its ever-diminishing number of members and voters who do not.
What is the
effect on us of feeling we do not really belong in the society in which we happen
to find ourselves? The counterculture mode that rejects the institutions and
values of the society that rejects us, can initially be an important attitude
to adopt for the development of our self-esteem. However, in that mode, we are
always outsiders: and human beings are never at our most content as outsiders. The
institutions of mainstream society, even after they reform, may still continue
to be tainted by association with the suffering and injustices of the past.
So now, one
of those institutions – marriage – has been thrust into the limelight, and has
become a contemporary symbol for many people of LGBT liberation. As a gay activist in the 1980s, I remember
the institution of marriage being regarded by many gay and lesbian people as a
“petty-bourgeois” and patriarchal institution that had the primary function of
preserving class society and the rules governing the transfer of property
within it, and of controlling human sexuality in an ultimately repressive and
harmful way. The influence of Marxist thinking on the Gay Liberation Front, and
on the political movements that developed from it, was unmistakable.
Gay and
lesbian people still did, of course, get together in couple relationships, but
there was often a sense that we were not working towards a permanent
commitment, and that the expectation of sexual exclusivity in that relationship
was unnecessary or even unreasonable. Nonetheless, a number of people still forged
long-term, committed relationships.
One of the
great flaws in Marxism is that it focuses too much on explaining history in
terms of money and property, and too little on the many other things that contribute
to human happiness, well-being and motivation. As well as being a tremendously
positive experience for many people, marriage can also be a tremendously
oppressive experience for many others: especially for those who are trapped in
a relationship with an incompatible person by a dogmatic religion, or by
financial circumstances; or for people who are victims of physical or emotional
domestic abuse. Yet the legalisation of equal marriage challenges us now to ask
ourselves whether taking this step into a very conventional institution, and
becoming more integrated with traditional, conventional, mainstream society,
might be something that is good for us, as well as good for society as a whole.
Perhaps the
counterculture opposition to marriage and to the ideal of a long-term,
committed, monogamous relationship, was an example of the baby being poured out
with the bathwater. There was much about mainstream culture that deserved to be
rejected: but marriage is perhaps something that will be better at providing
for our emotional needs as LGBT people than the less traditional and less rule-governed
relationship models that have prevailed to date.
Counterculture
ideals are not the only influence that has forged today’s rather amorphous and
anarchic models that govern LGBT relationships. In parallel with the political
movement to emancipate LGBT people, capitalist markets have developed in
response to the new LGBT clientele. These markets have had the function of
providing places for LGBT people to meet, of increasing our visibility, and of
providing places for our entertainment. Yet capitalism has been far more
successful at meeting our surface needs than our deeper, emotional ones.
In addition
to Internet hook-up sites, there are the pubs, night clubs and saunas that abound
in many major cities of liberal Western nations, which have a particular appeal
to the young. They provide environments where those who feel inclined to do so,
can dance, drink alcohol, take recreational drugs of uncertain short-term and
long-term safety, and meet other people for casual sex. They can be places to
be admired for one’s youth, for an attractive face, for a fit body, for good
taste in designer clothes, for one’s wealth, and perhaps for some impressive,
well-rehearsed dance moves.
Capitalism,
where it is unhindered, can be fantastic at meeting certain basic human needs.
But where the modern commercial gay scene is concerned, it is time to question
whether the deepest needs of LGBT people are being met; and, if they are not,
to question what needs to change in order to make that happen. The commercial
gay scene has been dominant for so long that it would be very surprising if it
has not had a profound influence on how we LGBT people perceive ourselves, on
how we behave, on how we see other people, and on what kind of values we
develop.
We must also
give ourselves permission to think critically about the LGBT commercial scene
and about the values and behaviours that have developed as a result of it.
There is no reason why we should automatically identify ourselves with any
negative values and behaviours encouraged by, or associated with, the
commercial gay scene. It is not “homophobic” to refuse to endorse behaviours
that are common on the gay scene if they are destructive or antisocial
behaviours. If what has developed in our society is not meeting our needs, or
is encouraging attitudes and behaviours that are harmful to us, we are
perfectly entitled to try to change them.
We fought
for years to have the right to have sex without risk of imprisonment or
ostracism, and without inappropriate guilt; and that is a very good thing.
Apart from facilitating social contact and lowering inhibitions, sex, alcohol
and recreational drugs (notwithstanding the potential dangers of all of these) can
have the effect of enabling people to escape momentarily from oppressive
thoughts and worries, and of achieving a short-term feeling of how they might
like things to be permanently.
The problem
is that such behaviours can, of course, become unhelpfully habitual, or even
addictive: and they do not bring about lasting emotional well-being and
security. Especially where the intense euphoria of sexual interactions is
concerned, the belief can develop that nothing should be allowed to get in the
way of the opportunity for legal sexual excitement whenever the opportunity for
it arises. That is not a mindset that is conducive to beneficial longer-term
outcomes, including the longer-term outcome of not losing our capacity for
intimacy, and not losing a valued relationship because of infidelity.
The popular
objectives of short-term satisfaction and self-centred sexual competition that
have developed on the commercial gay scene are detrimental to some valuable
outcomes. These outcomes include the pursuit of intimacy and deep connection; the
making and keeping of commitments that involve personal challenge and
sacrifice; and the inclination to honour and respect other people (and
ourselves) as complex, multifaceted individuals with important needs and
feelings. When we have developed the habit of going for short-term
satisfaction, and when we have internalised the superficial values of the
commercial gay scene, we may find ourselves too easily judging people simply on
the basis of how handsome, beautiful, youthful, physically impressive or
fashionable they are. Recently I read a very disturbing article about a
disabled gay person and wheelchair user who attended a Pride event and was repeatedly
made to feel unwelcome and unequal. Notably, this treatment also came from a
group of familiar people who, in other contexts, had behaved positively towards
the person concerned, but who, in the public forum of this LGBT event, seemed
to become embarrassed by the presence of a person in a wheelchair at their
table. Reading about this made me feel angry and dismayed: but based on my own
experience and observations at LGBT venues over a long period of time, I knew
it was all too credible.
It is often
the case that LGBT people dread turning fifty – or forty – or sometimes even
thirty – because of a consciousness of how our status on the gay scene, and
ability to attract youthful mates, will diminish as a result. Far too commonly,
we LGBT people become almost obsessed with our weight, with our body shape,
with our wardrobe, with our hair, with our complexion, and with various
status-associated trappings apparently associated with being a popular gay or
lesbian person. At the same time, this is often accompanied by a serious
neglect of the development of our inner selves. Even when we have invested a
great deal of time, money and energy in a smart, fit physical appearance, our
difficulties in reaching out to other people, in achieving intimacy and
connection, and in doing truly worthwhile things with our lives that give us the
inner satisfaction and confidence we lack, simply continue to cause us dissatisfaction
and alienation.
The
possibility of marriage now presents the LGBT community with a new option: the
option of transcending the counterculture that we have needed in the past, and
of transcending the commercial culture that has historically served us fairly
well, but that has never met our most important needs. We have the option to
prioritise the pursuit of our need for intimacy, for genuine acceptance, and for
authentic connection, over the possibility of short-term excitement, and over
unrealistic expectations whose pursuit has distracted us from making realistic
and achievable improvements in our lives. One of the most common causes of
unhappiness in people’s mature years is a sense of loneliness and
disconnection: and, of course, it is the same kind of loneliness and
disconnection felt by many younger people who yearn for intimacy, but who discover
that such a yearning does not get met on the commercial gay scene, including on
the Internet hook-up scene that capitalism has cleverly provided in recent
years.
Being
willing to commit to one person, to try to make that relationship work in the
long-term, to invest in the intimacy of that relationship, and to protect it
from derailment by making it sexually exclusive, all involve a big leap. On
account of the consciousness that has developed in mainstream LGBT culture,
that big leap may go against the grain for many of us.
One thing
that big leap entails is the abandonment of the aspiration for perfection. Very
few people meet their ideal partner, whether in terms of their sexual
attractiveness, or of their attentiveness and degree of considerateness, or of
various other possible qualities on the Perfect Partner Checklist. But neither
do we ourselves need to be perfect. The high premium placed on appearance and
youthfulness on the commercial gay scene has had the same kind of damaging
psychological effects on LGBT people as have the fashion industry and youth
media on the self-esteem of teenage and even pre-teenage girls. All too often,
we feel we must always aspire towards perfection – the perfect body, the
perfect outfit, the perfect set of gay-scene-consistent opinions and cultural
tastes, the perfect sex life, the perfect partner for our arm – and we feel we
need this perfection to compensate for basically not feeling good enough. And
we only have to look at the inevitable effects of social exclusion and
stigmatisation of LGBT people for years on end, as well as at the ruthlessness
and depersonalisation of the commercial gay scene, to see that there are some very
clear explanations as to why we often feel so diminished deep-down.
But the
truth is that we are good enough,
just as we are. We will benefit from abandoning the negative, depressing and
stressful belief that we, or our life partner, must be nothing less than perfect
in order to be “good enough”. We will also benefit from shedding the romantic
notion that a great life partner will transform our lives beyond recognition,
and meet all our emotional needs. Ultimately, we may have a lot of work to do
on ourselves on our path towards emotional well-being. But our partner may well
be on the same path, and he or she might be a great person to share that
challenging journey with us. Suddenly casting him or her aside because sex is
not so exciting any more a year into the relationship, and because someone more
thrilling has (often temporarily) turned up, can be an irreversible act of
wanton destruction towards someone who is a fantastic soul-mate.
When the
disposable consumerist culture invades our intimate relationships, that natural
point in a relationship where sexual excitement starts to wane and a new phase
of deeper connection and intimacy begins, can be a very vulnerable time for
many a good relationship.
Old habits
die hard, and a number of people will find it very difficult to make an exclusive
commitment to one person, with the hope and intention that the commitment will
be maintained for life by both parties, so long as the relationship does not
become in some way abusive or permanently marred by infidelity. Many of us have
been deeply wounded in the past by betrayal in relationships we had believed to
be secure, and pursuing intimacy will always carry a risk of being badly hurt,
rejected, and let down. But perhaps there really is something to be said for
having someone on whom one feels one can always depend, with whom one can share
the joys and the tribulations of life, and who genuinely cares about our
well-being.
The satisfaction
of being needed and loved by that person, and of feeling the same way towards
them, are supported by the organically-evolved and socially-endorsed ancient
framework of marriage, where public declarations of commitment are made to one
another, and nobody is in any doubt as to what is expected. We see from
heterosexual marriages that, sadly, around half of them do not last; and it is
sometimes the case that couples really do discover they are incompatible. But
having that framework, and that aspiration, available to us now, may well encourage
many LGBT people to think about whether we can make our peace with a very
conservative institution, should we be fortunate enough for the opportunity to
tie the knot with someone special. As the old Chinese proverb says, “If you
keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve
always got.” In the context of marriage, perhaps doing things differently, and
becoming more socially conservative and mainstream, will be a transformation that
furnishes many of us with a new sense of belonging, connection and
authenticity.
