{"id":1533,"date":"2009-03-03T10:02:14","date_gmt":"2009-03-03T15:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1533"},"modified":"2009-03-03T10:02:14","modified_gmt":"2009-03-03T15:02:14","slug":"hey-gay-and-grey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2009\/03\/03\/hey-gay-and-grey\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Gay and Grey?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"No way!<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Over 40 and Over Men?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a> reads a headline gracing the cover of this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s MORE magazine.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m intrigued.\u00c2\u00a0 I look inside and read: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153More and more women are living the ultimate do-over: falling for another female.\u00c2\u00a0 Meet the gay and grey generation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s me.<\/p>\n

While not feeling particularly grey, my family and I have been living \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the ultimate do-over.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I buy the magazine and bring it home, compelled to devour every word of this narrative \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a narrative that my family and I are living out, that is just now beginning to make its way into the cultural conversation.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A normal part of coming out as an adult is the feeling of being an adolescent on fire, caught in the body of a 40 to 50 year old,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says my friend and colleague Joanne Fleisher, author of Living Two Lives: Married to a Man and In Love with a Woman<\/a>\"\".\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, the memories\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I was that adolescent on fire (my friends will attest!) in my mid-40\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.<\/p>\n

AND married. Just like the women profiled in MORE.<\/p>\n

Together with Joanne Fleisher, I have since facilitated groups and weekend workshops for heterosexually married women who are struggling with their attractions to women. The emotional agony is palpable as we sift through the consequences of these feelings \u00e2\u20ac\u201c particularly as they impact husbands and children.\u00c2\u00a0 In my own experience I came to use the term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153autobiographical rupture\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u201c it so aptly described the abrupt tear I felt in my life story.<\/p>\n

The fact that this story is being told in a mainstream women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s magazine is of great significance: it familiarizes the public with another narrative of sexuality, and decreases the isolation women so often feel in the process. Perhaps too, it is the harbinger of a future in which we will focus on the quality of relationship rather than the gender of the partner.<\/p>\n

I related to the women in the MORE piece, but was keenly aware that it was ultimately not an individual process; particularly with young children, the entire family becomes engaged in the unfolding story and decision making that ensues. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel really \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcout\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 until I told my children. Come to think of it, I found the entire \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccoming out\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 process rather bizarre \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to claim my heterosexuality, after all.<\/p>\n

While the MORE piece had a focus on sex and dating, I would have liked to have more discussion about the reactions women can anticipate \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they are a window into how we think as a culture about sexuality and identity.\u00c2\u00a0 In my case, the reactions were (a) that my marriage somehow wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcreal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and (b) that I must have had these feelings all along and just didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t acknowledge them.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither was true.\u00c2\u00a0 But the rush to categorize obfuscates the real questions: Why do we need these categories in the first place? What are the consequences of being a member?<\/p>\n

Ok, ok, so those are big questions for a small article in MORE magazine. But that article tells a big story \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one that apparently, we are ready to hear. I think mostly of the woman who reads this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s MORE magazine and does not live in or near gay friendly places, who faces this crisis alone and confused; for her, this small piece can become a lifeline.<\/p>\n

Thank you, MORE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No way! \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Over 40 and Over Men?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reads a headline gracing the cover of this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s MORE magazine.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m intrigued.\u00c2\u00a0 I look inside and read: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153More and more women are living the ultimate do-over: falling for another female.\u00c2\u00a0 Meet the gay and grey generation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s me. While not feeling particularly grey, my family and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1913,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8959,21554,129,5007,21789,176],"class_list":["post-1533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-families","tag-marriage-today","tag-media","tag-pop-culture","tag-sexual-freedom","tag-sexuality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}