Re: Modern Love: Gay Divorcée Edition

1

Even the Vows section hasn't given me too much to loathe recently.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:27 PM
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My partner's entire department of mostly male surgeons sent the perfect present for lesbians: a generous gift certificate to Home Depot.

This is actually the perfect wedding present for a lot of people. I will keep it in mind!


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:34 PM
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Dsquared linked to a perfectly awful advice column the other day, but I wouldn't really like to see us analyzing it regularly. I say we bring back Crazy Hometown Letters to the Editor.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:37 PM
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It's ridiculous to find that column really depressing, right?


Posted by: Zippy | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:38 PM
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That is pretty good, but not as good as your post, Becks, which is pithy and amusing.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:39 PM
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Crazy Hometown Letters to the Editor, seconded. Now that Rauchway seems to have abandoned "above the fold," I require more views of what Real Americans are thinking/reading.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:41 PM
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Someone did actually email me their crazy hometown letters to the editor the other day. I'll keep the resurrection in mind.


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:46 PM
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I had boycotted the weddings of many straight friends (and political allies in our battle for equality), resenting them as one by one they chose to embrace their privilege, leaving us gays and lesbians stranded.

That was douchey.


Posted by: cerebrocrat | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:49 PM
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Well, yeah. OTOH, it really kind of brought home to me, "what, exactly, is the *point* of boycotting marriage?"--whether it's gay people not attending their friends' weddings, or straight people refusing to get married. It seems a nice little capsule example of the pointlessness of irritating moral purity "politics."

Also, yay cerebrocrat, I'm glad you're back! (That rhymes!)


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:52 PM
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Yes, yes. Of course, ridiculous. It's just life. Forgive me for talking to myself.


Posted by: Zippy | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 6:59 PM
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Why did you find it depressing, Zippy?


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 7:02 PM
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Where's the navel-gazing selfishness on the part of the author? I'm disappointed by this mere simple tragedy of lost/betrayed love.


Posted by: Klug | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 7:07 PM
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Mostly a maudlin mood brought about by beer, I guess. But after that, the dark tunnel of divorce in places where it wasn't before. Silly, as I said.


Posted by: Zippy | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 7:07 PM
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I wouldn't say it's ridicuous, or silly. It's bittersweet, certainly, to see the effects of the other side of the double-edged sword. It's hard to watch anybody's dreams flicker out.

(Not making a divorce-lawyer joke here.)


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 7:19 PM
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From the mouths of several divorced straight people in my office:

"Gays might as well know the misery that is marriage."

Bonus:

More business!! A non-marriage breakup can be very expensive (ie lucrative to me!!!!)


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 7:26 PM
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Just have to live off the past I guess:

For instance, remember "I remember her in her puffy ski jacket and hand-knit wool hat and mittens, lumbering back from sightseeing."?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 7:30 PM
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The marriage boycott is extremely overdetermined, if you have a lick of sense.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 7:30 PM
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You could always dissect The Ethicist. With a real scalpel.


Posted by: DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 8:13 PM
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You know, I read that and thought "Becks will find nothing to snark at. And oh, look a new market for will!"


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 8:35 PM
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I appreciate your support, Cala.


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 8:49 PM
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21

Doubles your potential market.

It was interesting to see the same starter wife dynamic play out.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 9:03 PM
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Well, I found it depressing. why would it be silly to find that really depressing?


Posted by: lesbianacademic | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 9:59 PM
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Because lesbians are *always* complaining about something?


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 11:01 PM
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23: yeah, but isn't THAT depressing too?


Posted by: lesbianacademic | Link to this comment | 04-20-08 11:33 PM
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The author is a genuinely awesome person whom I have had the pleasure to meet once or twice in the L.A. social justice/politics worlds.


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 2:19 AM
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21
Doubles your potential market.

Doubles? I'm pretty sure that gays and lesbians don't make up half the population.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:19 AM
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Eh, whatever.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:24 AM
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I found it depressing, but with a nice bit of het/homo comity: Surgeons are always assholes!


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:26 AM
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I thought about becoming a surgeon to defy the stereotype, but I realized that being cooped up with surgeons for four years would probably turn me into one of them as well.


Posted by: Fatman | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:44 AM
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It's not just a problem of surgeon's personalities. If you're a young married doctor toiling away through your residency, you are working 80 hours weeks, not including paperwork, and you'll barely see your partner.

Four to seven years later, you'll wake up, realize that you don't actually know a damned thing about your partner that isn't years out of date.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:49 AM
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30 is true of all doctors, yes.


Posted by: Fatman | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:50 AM
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And similar of young lawyers. But they tend to be married to other lawyers, so who is the victim??


Posted by: Fatman | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:51 AM
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Also,for surgeons the solution is always to cut something out.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:51 AM
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What did the lesbian say to the asshole surgeon?

"Cut it out!"

Wait, that's not a joke at all.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:53 AM
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"Gays might as well know the misery that is marriage."

Between that and the earlier fights over gays in the military, I someimes wonder whether the folks who are in charge of TheGayAgenda™ are drawn mainly from the hardcore masochist wing of the movement.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 9:54 AM
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In the past I have proposed that only women and gay men should be allowed to marry or join the military. Neener-neener, suckers!


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 10:10 AM
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I found it depressing, but with a nice bit of het/homo comity: Surgeons are always assholes!

This stereotype comforts me every time I think of the surgeon who got away...


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 04-21-08 2:18 PM
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