In my previous post, I noted how, in Greek mythology, the goddess Athena helps guide that culture’s heroes, serving as a model of the feminine influence young men need in order to “fulfill their role as responsible adults.” In The Iliad, she restrains Achilles who, in his anger, wishes to kill his fellow Greek Agamemnon, telling her strapping favorite that she comes to “check” his rage, promising him that if he holds back, “one day glittering gifts will lie before you,/three times over to pay for all his outrage.”
With this action, the gray-eyed goddess demonstrates two of the qualities she seeks to instill in her male favorites: restraint and strategic thinking. For it often seems that without such feminine influence, we men might be more inclined to focus on the present without considering the long-term consequences of our actions. Had Achilles fulfilled his desire to kill Agamemnon, a civil war would likely have broken out among the Greeks, preventing them from accomplishing their (and Athena’s) ultimate goal — defeating Troy. His restraint in the crisis at hand will lead to his glory later in the conflict.
In his rage, Achilles lost sight of the real goal. And it’s not merely in our martial endeavors where we men have difficulty restraining ourselves. It’s also in our sexual pursuits. Too often, we want to gratify our immediate urge for carnal pleasure without considering the long-term consequences of our actions.
For all too long, I was swayed by the arguments of my fellow gay men (including nearly all my gay male friends) that it was okay to “hook up” for casual sex. But, then I began to wonder if my occasional hookups compromised my chances to find what I was ultimately seeking — a long-term monogamous relationship with one man. I resolved that it would serve me better to ignore their advice. And that has not always been easy. For the appeal of the carnal is strong, particularly among us men.
Only in thinking about what I really wanted — and calling to mind the subject of my dissertation — was I able to hold myself back. Once again, this is not an issue of judgment, but of my own personal choice. If others have different goals, it is not for me to decide how they should meet them.
It’s how I came to realize of the importance of Athena — and the principles she represents — to the conversation on gay marriage. For traditional marriage is based upon uniting individuals of different genders, with the woman usually serving as the force of restraint, preventing the man from straying. The issue for gay man becomes how to incorporate the qualities that women bring to marriage to unions which lack a female presence.
With their high regard for that often armor-clad Olympian, the Greeks recognized that a female force was often necessary to help civilize men. Perhaps, we gay men who do not seek to connect with a woman in our romantic (and sexual) lives can, by understanding how Athena served Greek men, find a means to bring those qualities into our lives that women have traditionally brought to marriage.
So, if we’re serious about marriage, we have to bear in mind the qualities of the gray-eyed goddess. As she restrains Achilles from rash action, so too must we find within ourselves the strength that she represents in order to restrain ourselves and so consider the big picture.
Now with gay marriage a reality in Massachusetts, we should strive to let this political change promote a social change in our community. We gay men can do this by integrating the qualities of Athena into our lives.
Cultures have long recognized the transformative powers of this institution on the lives of the individuals who enter this sacred partnership. Just as they recognize its social benefits.
By better understanding the qualities of Athena, a female deity who, in Greek mythology, primarily served men, restraining them from rash action, guiding them on difficult journeys and quests, giving them the tools they needed to accomplish their goals and reuniting them with their loved ones, we gay men can bring the feminine into our own lives and help us make our marriages truly meaningful.
– B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)
Dan, Good post, I know certain people think this is only about rights. They simply want certain results without discussing the implications of their actions. It is very important to talk about what Gay Marriage really means.
What makes marriage such a powerful force in society is because it unites the male and female. You are speaking about the need for men to have the feminine in their lives. As a woman I can tell you it is just as important for woman to have masculine influence in our lives. Which is why marriage is not just a certificate from the government. All couples need to work hard at making marriage work, gay men and women need to work extra hard in order to maintain that balance that isn’t there naturally.
I still think that part of this is about rights, but as far as entering into marriage goes I cannot agree more. It isn’t for the fickle and faint of heart. Marriage means something, even a civil one has a touch of the Divine in such a commitment. Perhaps that comes from my Catholic faith and roots, but I strongly believe in it. If you cannot fully commit your heart, mind, body and soul to another person for the rest of your life than you should not get married. If you cannot truly answer in your heart that this other person is the only one you want to share yourself with, not just in body but everything else as well, till you both grow old and die, you shouldn’t get married. So-called “open marriages” are an abomination in my view and do erode the institution. Gays in Massachusetts have the opportunity now which at present is denied to the rest of us in the other 49 states. Some will fail and quite miserably no doubt, others now can move beyond the struggle to marry to learning to embrace the bond that marriage brings.
I think its all about rights. To suggest that gays need to “earn the right” to marry implies that I must atone for the habits of others.
I love the fact that Dan is trying to “revirgin” himself. Thats great and I hope it works out for him. But to suggest that anyone who wants to get married simply must commit to being monogamous and not care about their rights is way off.
Lots of stories abound where wills are challenged, hospital visitation rights are stripped, children taken away, sentimental property is stolen by greedy family members and even graves moved. These are the stories that haunt monogamous gay couples.
And they are the real consequences for gays to not be legally married. They are why it is important that we have that flimsy “piece of paper.”
Perhaps when you find the person you want to be with forever, your opinion will change and that piece of paper will become very important to you.
Also, I still think that if you want to commit you need to get out of CA and settle down in the Midwest. People are more reasonable here…
Is gay marriage going to be good for society? Why? What’s in it for society? Why does society need it? I mean, really need it? That’s the point to argue. That’s what will (1) bring the skeptics around, and (2) teach gay people to understand the institution.
Talking about Athena is on the right track, but let me say it plainly: Gay men, on average, need civilizing. Hooking up is what animals do, not (real) humans.
And keogh – Don’t be such a whiny victim. Get your legal and other arrangements in order, if you can’t marry your partner and are worried about it.
Even Kierkegaard would disagree with the false choice of ‘hooking up’ and a stable, supportive, monogamous relationship. Good, beneficial sexual activity is not necessarily limited to the confines of a commitment (however acceptable those confines may be to both parties). While I admire Dan’s personal standards and ideals, I think it’s a mistake to view sexual activity as only healthy when in a (virtual) marriage. Moreover, I tend to think much of this New Puritanism (as opposed to the Old Debauchery and not pertaining specifically to Dan) that attempts to remove lust from ‘proper’ humanity is a reactionary pendant to the overly sex-positive gay culture of past decades, has its roots in the justified HIV scare, and is likely the new nom de plume of the chronically single. It is a typically human tendency to justify the lack of something desirable when a man tells himself he shouldn’t have it, doesn’t need it, and therefore (he wishes he) no longer wants it, especially when he has the opportunity to pretend he hides envy from others with the pretense of a false morality and particularly if it involves criticizing lesser mortals.
I’m sorry… Did GPW say it was? Or any commenter, that I missed? (I sure didn’t.)
I think I get it now. We’re in “straw man” territory. HardHobbit is arguing with a “Puritanism” not present in Dan’s article, and not present in anyone else’s comments either.
On to more intelligent discussion!
“For the appeal of the carnal is strong, particularly among us men.”
This is rather subjective. I look upon such types with bemused disgust. I’m a male, and find sex quite unpleasant and vulgar, separate from monogamous relationships, and have little need or desire for sex in my life. So if you’re an alcoholic, but for sex, yes, it should be treated and controlled.
I’d like to see the slutty anti-gay sites (in the sense they forward reprehensible stereotypes of what it means to be gay) such as Gay.com post such material as this, though.
Crow, I honestly feel sorry to read above that you find sex unpleasant and vulgar. If you do, you do. But I can’t stop myself thinking that you are missing out on something.
I do agree though, from trying a couple places like gay.com and Craigslist, that certain places tend to be sickeningly slutty.
OK, so folks – With apologies to GPW – Because I know this thread is about GPW’s article, not about me – But I would like to make another plug for these questions:
I really think that’s the key point, that will win over skeptics, once GM advocates have a good answer. Jonathan Rauch is the only advocate I see developing an answer. I hinted at part of my answer, in #4. What’s yours?
The whole phenomenon of gay marriage, civil unions, committed-relationships and even monogamous-pairings within the gay community is changing it’s character as well as it’s behavior. When I was in college just before AIDS, the entire concept would have been viewed with some bewilderment and derision. The “hubby-at-home” with the white picket fence in the ‘Burbs and the Labrador Retriever was to be mocked…not wistfully sighed-after. And I’ll admit that for those of us, from that generation when the rules changed, still have problems regaining our footing…especially if like myself we live outside the gay-culture in the straight hinterlands of Red America.
Other than on-line, I don’t have contact with any gay men or the gay culture in my business or social life. The nearest gay bar is nearly an-hour’s drive away each-way on bad roads, so I visit only infrequently…and frankly I feel like the Stranger from a Strange Land there as much as at the local straight bar around the corner. I’m just sure where I come-down on gay relationships vs. the old days of casual sex; I’m out of practice.
More douchebaggery from Keogh:
Perhaps when you find the person you want to be with forever, your opinion will change and that piece of paper will become very important to you.
There are those of us who have found that person and I’m STILL not holding my breath. We don’t need “that piece of paper” or recognition from Big Government or anybody else to dictate our hapiness. Perhaps when you grow a pair and stop wallowing in victimhood, you’ll realise it’s not that big of a deal after all.
#12 – I hope you are lucky enough to have both party’s entire family behind you. If not, no matter what contracts you sign, if it isn’t a legal marriage, they all can mean doodily squat. If your “other” has kids, with no marriage and he passes or leaves you, you have no rights to ever see those kids again. If you have joint assets, a family member could claim rights to them. I hope that never happens to you.
Further, the notion I would like to get married to gain fulfillment and happiness is humorous. I could be happy co-habiting forever, I could be happy going from person to person my whole life. Who knows?
Why do you care how I get happiness? If legal marriage is the only thing that could make me happy, why would you want to stop it?
That being said, I think legal marriage is about asset protection, and the residency of children. It makes me wonder how striving for asset, and parental protection is “victimhood”
If not, no matter what contracts you sign, if it isn’t a legal marriage, they all can mean doodily squat.
Well, as the Terri Schiavo case showed, marriage doesn’t solve that problem either.
And as for the rest of keogh’s post, I can translate it simply: “I’m too lazy to take the legal steps that exist now to protect my partnerships and instead am going to sit around on my ass and whine.”
Or, to put it simply, the leftists like keogh and their organizations waste millions of dollars annually in legal costs filing fruitless lawsuits that do nothing but piss voters off, but whine and cry that it costs too much for them to provide a few thousand dollars’ worth of free legal services to help gay couples maximize what is already here.
I think that’s because their point is, not to protect gay couples, but to fight leftist hate battles against marriage — which they oppose anyway.
Is gay marriage going to be good for society? Why? What’s in it for society? Why does society need it? I mean, really need it?
ILC, what would be your answer to the same question, but with “gay” taken out? I ask, because I think that the same reasons would apply to gay marriage.
Dan, another excellent post on gay marriage, and the related issues. And I get to learn a little about mythology as a bonus.
Also, good luck with your new plan of action. I don’t particularly object to “hookups,” but they always seemed awkward to me. Because you would meet someone, and play the game of trying to be interested in what they have to say, and perhaps there is actual interest in the conversation. But if the goal is for a hookup, then what’s really the point. It may make every conversation with what could have been a potential partner just seem just as meaningless as one with a hookup or make one or both think that the only purpose of the conversation is to get to the hookup point.
What may work, and perhaps this is what you are doing, is to decide that you will not go home the first time you meet with someone, no matter what, whether the person is partner potential or not. Make a date, or simply agree to meet up a week later. If you or the other person do not want to meet up again, then you know that the person is not partner potential. And besides, it gives you a chance to look back, and see if this person really is interesting and worth pursuing. Anyway, just my thoughts.
Pat, you didn’t answer question… but I’ll bite, and give your question a try. Society needs monogamous, one-man / one-woman marriage:
(1) To tie down men to the kids they father.
(2) To give each man one woman, making it implicit there’s no point in men fighting each other over women. (I can’t prove this, but I would bet you that polygamous societies have higher death rates due to male fighting, suicide, etc.)
(3) To make it clear to the woman that the man is going to stick around and help with the kids she bears him.
(4) A mini-social welfare system. The man and woman get help from each other first, rather than presuming on the goodwill and resources of the rest of society.
Of those, only the last one transfers to gay marriage. But to gay marriage I would add:
(a) To give lesbians more security for their kids.
(b) To make it clear to gay men that they are supposed to settle down, get over themselves, stop thinking they can be “17 forever” (or that they should try), and stop spreading HIV or what have you.
So no, the benefits to society of gay & straight marriage aren’t the same – though they overlap a little bit.
And, my real point, when gay marriage advocates just talk about the “equality” and “benefits” they hope to gain – rather than the adult responsibilities they hope to shoulder; the childish freedoms they intend to give up – They just underscore that they/we aren’t ready for it.
In my comments in response to another post, I had a few less-than-positive things to say about gay hookup culture, and although others have elaborated in some useful ways here, I’d like to say a few things more myself. Personally, I don’t find sex with someone I barely know to be especially pleasant or appealing. I realize not all people feel this way. Even though I’ve not had many serious relationships, I’d argue that there is a definite difference in sex with someone you know and trust than with someone you have just met or who you have only chatted with online. Sure, at a purely hormonal level the semi-anonymous encounter sounds appealing, but one reason humans have the ability to reason is so we’re not simply at the mercy of our biological drives and so on. As ILC’s comments suggest, it’s a sign of responsibility and maturity. For too many gay men, though, I suspect that their identity as gay men –and part of that is the whole hookup culture–is heavily linked to what were at one time feelings rooted in adolescent rebellion against conventional social standards and norms, but which have coalesced for them into a lifestyle.
No argument here, Kurt.
Hooking up, again, is how most animals go about mating. The impulse to hook up physically arises in the part of our brains that we have in common with animals. The particular pleasure or “joy” of it is sort of an animalistic, intoxicated joy – not unlike the pleasure of heavy drug or alcohol use. Knowing such pleasures experimentally, let’s say, is part of self-knowledge – but enshrining them into a whole philosophy of life, as some gay men have done, is literally stupid (i.e., disregarding of needs that arise in the neocortex – the distinctively human brain)… and ultimately self-destructive. Watching otherwise-intelligent gay men rationalize it, or shriek “Puritan!” if anyone questions it, confers a different (and admittedly less intense) pleasure: that of watching the theater of the absurd.
Oh, and to be clear: “Sex with someone you know and trust” doesn’t have to mean marriage. (No false dichotomies here; others can have that territory.)
ILC, I’ll try. I agree with the settling down of men (and women) into a marriage as beneficial to society, and see how the same with gay persons would have the same benefit. But I also believe that if one decides that homosexuality and homosexuals are okay, and are productive members of society, as I believe, that it benefits society to include them in all the institutions that straight people are included in. This include marriage.
Your reasons for (heterosexual) marriage are fine. Your reasons imply, to me at least, that you wouldn’t have required some behaviorial test for straight persons. I don’t know if your second reason for marriage is applicable today. If so, that leaves marriage of gay people and straight childless couples with the same benefits to society. In that case, if we really believe that gay marriage does not benefit society, then we should look at all of marriage, especially marriages for couples who have no intention of having children.
Another thing. Even if I had no intention of getting married, I would still support SSM. Yes, there are responsibilities that come with the rights of marriage. But I would understand that if ever got married. And if I didn’t want those responsibilities, then I wouldn’t get married. But I wouldn’t want to deny others who will take on that responsibility.
Pat: sorry if this is oversimplifying, but I hear you saying that in your mind, gay people should be included in marriage basically because straight people are included in it. Which reduces to: basically for benefits / equality.
I hear you saying that if it benefits society to have straights settle in marriage, surely it must benefit society to have gays do it to. No. Not obviously. I think we have to articulate the benefit to society much better than that.
I don’t pretend it’s easy to articulate. I’ve done my best in #16 – and that’s probably not very good, or will get better over time.
Of course it’s applicable. I’m talking about ongoing issues of social structure. Show me a genuinely polygamous society, and I will show you a backward society – one filled with violence of men toward women – and, what I was addressing in my point (2), of men toward each other. The less-backward societies would be the ones that have learned to set aside polygamy in practice.
23, No, I don’t think your oversimplifying my remarks. Rights/benefits has always been a big part of my argument. I think part of the problem is that I have always taken marriage for granted as a good thing that benefits the couple and society, and should be extended to same sex couples that want to marry. So when you asked how SSM would benefit society, it also made me think why marriage at all benefits society. So I asked for your reasons. Children are definitely an important element, and was listed as two of the four reasons. Now couples past childbearing age and young couples with no intention of having children get married without a second thought. So for these people, that leaves your 2nd and 4th reason. Although there doesn’t appear to be an issue of violence among gay men fighting for multiple partners, SSM could, as you say, “civilize” gay men. So it appears to me that SSM would benefit society the same way that marriage of childless straight couples benefit society. Further, there is additional benefit to those that want to adopt children, as there are still plenty of children in need of permanent homes.
Also, as I mentioned in another thread was my belief that there is nothing inherently wrong in homosexuality, and homosexuals are productive members of society. Further, I am proud of my relationship and feel it is as worthy as any other, and think that most gay persons feel that way. And by denying marriage to homosexuals is basically saying to the young gay person that he is not worthy of the same rights as others. I’m not advocating victimhood or excusing wrong behaviors because of it, but it’s there. And if it seems petty, then try picking some other characteristic that 3-6% of the population has, and decide that these people cannot get married. If you want, you can tell these people that they can have domestic partnerships, though, and they can go to lawyers, etc., to get as many rights as marriage they can if they want. Then compare the results to gay persons. If you think the gay leftists are whining, you haven’t seen anything yet. No, this silly argument doesn’t justify SSM, but it counters the argument that we are being any more petty and selfish than anyone else would be under the same circumstances.
Also, I don’t disagree with your point about polygamous societies. My point is that I’m not sure how relevant it is today. For example, if marriage was totally abolished, then like gay persons, straight people would be able to obtain some of the rights through lawyers, etc. So even though they are not married, they still can be domestic partners (or some other term). I don’t think that we would turn into a polygamous society. But I can’t say I’m certain of that.
Good.
No. It’s just acknowledging a difference. Gay couples, in fact, aren’t straight couples. Just as, in other contexts, we have to acknowledge that women biologically are not men and vice versa. No issue of equality there – just a fact.
And again, (1) I agree that exchanging promises with the person you love is a basic right, but (2) I disagree receiving a special State license to privilege it is.
I think we might.
Also, the point about marriage is not that straights “could obtain some of the same rights” without it, but that society wants to have a big, easy-opening door with flashing lights for any straight couple who might be thinking of a commitment. Because it benefits society.
Now, I happen to believe the same is true for gay couples – that society would be better off if it had a big, easy-opening door with flashing lights for gay commitment, that mothers could push gay couples into through their nagging. I really do. And I’m trying to think of how we could explain that better to the skeptics. So as to win their support. Instead of just trying to tell them, basically, “You owe us.”
No. It’s just acknowledging a difference. Gay couples, in fact, aren’t straight couples. Just as, in other contexts, we have to acknowledge that women biologically are not men and vice versa. No issue of equality there – just a fact.
If it was just acknowledging a difference, I would be okay with it. But’s it well more than that. And because of this difference the young gay person cannot be granted the same special “privilege” when the time comes, that a young straight person will. Some states are bridging that gap, and that’s a good sign, at least.
As a married gay man in Massachusetts, I find much of the hypothetical and prescriptive conjecture about marriage between two men espoused by my brethren disturbing.
Of special concern are assertions such as Dan’s that “[t]he issue for gay man (sic) becomes how to incorporate the qualities that women bring to marriage to unions which lack a female presence”. This framing of this as a central “issue” misses the entire reality of my marriage: the union of two men in a committed relationship.
Neither my husband nor I wish to emulate the imposed societal norms, or stereotypes, of a marriage between a man and a woman. One of the joys of our marriage is the opportunity we have to define our marriage ourselves, free of pre-conceived ideas of what our marriage should be. We entered our union as two men who strongly desire to be true partners in life, both during monogamous periods as well as non-monogomous periods during our relationship.
Why limit our thinking about marriage and attempt to fit the round peg union of two men into the square hole of its straight analogue?