BISEXUALITY AND EMOTIONAL STRESSES: Eve, rambling

You are warned in advance: This is a meandering and not especially pointed or polemical post. It's food for thought, though, I think; and I'd be interested in people's comments on it.

This year has been very stressful for me. That's bad, of course, but it has also caused me to notice something interesting: The more stressed-out I am by other things, the more I feel overwhelmed by the thought of a heterosexual relationship. Even airily theoretical contemplation of some potential future marriage and family makes me feel exhausted.

Conversely, settling down with a woman for some reliable, sweet, mutual caretaking of the Rauch's-book-approved kind (plus cats!) sounds fantastic. Someone to sand down my rough edges, to fetch soup when I'm sick, to prod and entice me to be better than I am; someone to cook for.

So why do I react this way? I mean, I know full well that lesbian relationships--being relationships between humans, after all--include fighting, giving up things you really value, illness, and, potentially, tragedy. Maybe some of my reaction is grass-is-greener syndrome: Since my religion definitely rules out lesbian householding (with or without cats), I'm free to idealize it.

But it's also just true that the pressures on heterosexual relationships are simply different from those on homosexual ones. Biology can't be separated from emotions; we have huge emotional freight attached to (the most obvious example) fertility. Conceiving unexpectedly; conceiving with a man you don't trust or don't love; trying to conceive, learning you probably can't conceive; conceiving at a time that's okay-but-stressful--all of these present obvious stresses, and can really challenge a woman's sense of self. And no matter how hard our culture tries to convince us that sex doesn't make babies, all this knowledge and past history is present whenever a man and a woman marry and whenever they have sex. Then, during pregnancy, there is miscarriage and worries over potential miscarriage. And if you do conceive, and do give birth, as most women eventually do--

--Oh, now this is where it gets really heart-shaking. A while ago I read a description of motherhood as "having your heart walking around outside your body." That sounds about right. Suddenly this small stranger is utterly dependent on you--and yet, as he or she develops, determined to be independent. Suddenly this child, who likely reminds you of yourself or the father or both, in all kinds of good and bad ways, is out there getting into danger, getting into trouble, doing things you consider horrible, or having horrible things done to her. And if there's a pain worse than losing a child, and worse than seeing one's child do terrible things (as your child, being an independent person, might do), it is probably the pain of believing oneself to be a bad parent.

And then--to climb down from the heights of love and risk--there are the basic differences between men and women. Whether you think these are biological, cultural, or both, they're there; and they can be, honestly, really grating. Men can be very annoying!

And very attractive. There are corresponding strengths binding heterosexual relationships together: the erotic attraction of what's different (and maybe even "the fascination of what's difficult"), for example. Children bind a couple together (whether the couple likes it or not!), and childrearing can serve as a mutual project of the kind Aristotle found so central to friendship. The risks and the faith they require often bring out the best in people.

And humans mostly don't, I think, want too much choice; we don't want a world where all our relationships are chosen, or contractual. In fact, I wonder if our strange cultural belief that romantic love is this unstoppable, outside force, that one can't control, sublimate, channel, or sustain, is a result of our longing for relationships that we have not really chosen. I can't remember if this is Maggie Gallagher's phrasing--maybe from Enemies of Eros?--but we want "I love you because you're mine" relationships, not solely "You're mine because I love you" ones. So even the strangeness and unpredictability of children is part of the point of children!

Nonetheless--I am less fascinated by what's difficult when other things in my life seem difficult. I am less interested in risk when everything else feels shaky. And so I'm less interested in men when just getting out of bed feels like a challenge.

(I wonder if some of this emotional mess isn't behind that "Girlfriends are the new spouses" piece at Salon.)

Anyway. I said I would ramble, and I did.... To the extent that there's a point to all this, I think it's this: The pressures on heterosexual relationships are very different from those on homosexual ones; and I conclude, from that, that heterosexual relationships need specific and greater societal support than gay ones. Others, of course, will likely disagree; that's what the email link is for. As I said, I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this stuff.

posted by Eve at 4:20 PM VOTE

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