Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution has an interesting hypothesis about who among married or marriage-inclined heterosexuals does and does not support gay marriage.
The interesting question is why there is so much opposition to legal gay marriage (which I favor). You can cite various evil opponents and their evil motives, but there are many good people who aren’t all that enthusiastic about the idea.
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I have a simple hypothesis about the cross-sectional econometrics. If you take the heterosexual couples who engage in the practice which is sometimes “associated” with male gay marriage, I predict those couples will favor legal gay marriage to an astonishingly high degree. Their marriage is already “affiliated” with that practice, and so the notion of legally married gay men (and the practices which go along with that) does not constitute an extra and unwanted affiliation for their marriage ideal.
In a way it doesn’t matter exactly which “practice which is sometimes ‘associated’ with male gay marriage” he means. Although since he’s being so indirect I assume it’s something like fellatio or maybe ass play instead of more obviously common-to-both practices such as setting up wedding-gift registries at Target or working in the yard on weekends.
But if it doesn’t matter what practice he means it remains a good point. Even if they were generally tolerant and of good faith, couples that believed sex should be strictly limited to PIV intercourse when and only when reproduction is intended might also be anywhere from baffled (“but why would they want to have sex if they can’t reproduce”) to outraged. And meanwhile even conservative hetero couples who aren’t adherents of the other Victorian fetish (missionary/PIV-only/reproduction-only/lights-out/female-orgasm-denial) aren’t baffled by the appeal and so are more sanguine about the prospect of other people wanting to do it too. Whatever the mysterious “it” turned out to be.
Just because it’s logical doesn’t mean its true. But as hypotheses about social attitudes go it’s testable with off the shelf data gathering and analysis methods.
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Note: it’s possible I’m just being oblivious and everyone else but me knows what “‘associated’ practice” Cowen’s talking about.
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Update: See also the eternally pragmatic Matt Yglesias “...the more people see gay equality in practice, the less frightening it looks.” Which supports from the other direction my hunch that those mysterious “associated practices” really will turn out to be things like shared interest in gift registries and yard work.
Submitted by 2843 (not verified) on Fri, 2009-04-10 04:24.
My take is that he means that gay male marriage arrangements often leave open some room for "openness" in that they do not subscribe to lifelong monogamy as the only one true way to sustain a partnership. The actual boundaries and agreements as to that openness vary widely among couples and also vary throughout their lives depending on children and life stage and all the other variables that any couple must negotiate over the long term. That openness may mean a shared interest in kinks and experimentation between the two partners or the occasional venturing outside the partnership instead of this conservative and killing notion of "now that you're married it's the end of fun and the beginning of boring suckitude that must be endured."
This is a BIG sticking point in American culture, I believe. We are bombarded with the ideal of lifelong monogamy and measure ourselves and others against it automatically, but in practice, humans in general aren't very good at it. I think it's one of those "elephants in the room" that many people don't want to consider, but many other have quietly gone about negotiating their own mutual understandings. That being said, I think our cultural conditioning makes it hard to think about this topic without some reflexive painful knee-jerks about cheating and jealousy.
Love the blog, BTW...I'm fascinated by the gender role conflict observations in the "no sex class" posts...good stuff!
Submitted by 2843 (not verified) on Fri, 2009-04-10 06:15.
I am pro-gay marriage, but that might be because I don't associate marriage with sex.
Marriage is so much more than sex.
Marriage is companionship, emotional support, fiscal support, a sharing of responsibilities, I could go on and on.
In my opinion the "'associated' practice" might as well be brunch because I spend as much (sometimes more) time enjoying my leisurely Sunday mornings as I do having sex during the rest of the week.
Submitted by 2843 (not verified) on Fri, 2009-04-10 13:13.
I couldn't figure out what practice he was talking about either. The people in the comments seem to think he means anal sex (which would explain why he's being so evasive).
My (opposite-sex) partner and I got married a while back. We did it at Cambridge City hall, the first place in the US that allowed gay couples to marry. (I was there, actually! I'm proud on both counts!)
I was not prepared for the amount of heteronormativity my family projected onto me: half my family members now address their letters to "Mrs. Partner's Name" even though I've been really vocal about explaining that this is not my name, people have been asking a whole lot of intrusive questions about reproduction (no, that's not why we got married), my partner was urged to "take care of" me (eww), I was expected to want a huge Disney-like party (and ended up reluctantly accepting one I didn't want, in order to keep my mom happy).
I don't know what my family members get up to in bed, and I really don't want to know either. I do think that the people who were more insistent on boxing me and my partner into the role of "woman" and "man" tended to have the most regressive opinions on gay marriage and the rights of sexual minorities in general. Personally, anal sex is not my thing, but if Cowan thinks it's the only alternative to me-Tarzan-you-Jane, then he's not being very creative.
Submitted by 2843 (not verified) on Sat, 2009-04-11 18:45.
Huh, I was completely sure he meant anal sex (since that, between men, tends to be the major "ick factor" sex act, especially for straight men), but now that everyone else is uncertain, I'm uncertain, too...