Gender

Some thoughts on your special day

doves

You may have noticed on my introduction page (Just up there. It says ‘Hello’) that I mention my lovely wife.

And she is lovely too. But she’s not really my wife. Obviously, since we are both girls. We could be civil partners, should we so desire. But we really don’t desire. We would like to be wives.

We would like to get married.

There are other factors, mostly financial, that stop us tying the knot. But I am determined to hang on until we can get married, and call it married, because I can see no reason whatsoever that we shouldn’t be able to. ‘Marriage’ is just a word – it doesn’t actually belong to any faith or denomination.

I don’t like the term ‘Civil Partnership’. It sounds dull and businesslike, and was created purely to placate the people who don’t want marriage for non-heterosexual couples, and as a sop to those who do. Although it could have a place: if we are going to have equality, let’s do it properly. Same sex partners should be able to get married, and different sex partners should be able to get… Civilled. Or whatever we’re going to call it. Partnered? CP’d? Civilpartnershipped? Let those who want to do it choose what they put on the invites, anyway.

I don’t want that, I want marriage.

Oh, and I don’t want it to be called Gay Marriage, either. Just marriage. No ghettoisation, please. As the excellent stand up Bethany Black said recently on twitter (@BethanyBlack), we don’t go gay shopping for our gay toilet rolls, gay tomatoes and gay biscuits, and pop them all in our gay shopping trolley…*

People have tried to bring procreation into the argument, but marriage isn’t only allowed for people who are going to have children. There’s no special clause in there where you have to promise to breed. If that were true, then infertile people wouldn’t be allowed to get married. Neither would people who don’t want children. And they are. I even know some of them. Anyway, gay people can have children. Lots of them do; and guess what, they don’t just have gay children, either.

The bible may talk about marriage being between a man and a woman to bring forth children, but it has a lot to say about all sorts of things. Like stoning adulteresses, and not eating shellfish, and coveting oxen, and keeping concubines and… I’m not Christian! So why should it apply to my choices in life? The bible isn’t the law. None of it is. Various religious bodies have been picking and choosing which bits of the bible they want to take notice of and which they want to ignore for years. There is no bit of scripture that is relevant to this debate, unless it’s any of the stuff that nice chap Jesus said about love and respect for others, whoever and whatever they are.

If there is any religion that has ever had any legal relevance to The State and The Law in the UK, it’s the good old C of E, which exists purely because Henry VIII wanted to redefine marriage. Okay, yes, there was a bit of Catholic burning went on at the time, but it all worked out in the end! And even that isn’t relevant to this debate, because we’re not talking about Christian marriage for Christians, we’re talking about marriage as a concept.

All of which leads me to ask why, in our brilliantly multi-cultural, multi-faith society (whatever the Daily Mail says) is marriage in a Christian church still a special thing, but not in any other temple or designated place of worship? Jewish and Quaker marriages get a special authority, but just them. Why not everyone else? Do we not have religious equality? Why give rabbis special powers, and not Imams? Why does the law not apply to all religions equally?

I refer to recognised religions, by the way. But, once you say ‘all religions’ people start getting creative about how you define ‘religion’, and it could all get a little complicated, and we really don’t need complications.

So, let’s simplify things.

Why not make everyone have to get a legally registered, secular person to authorise their marriage?

Everyone.
Whatever they believe.

You can have a religious ceremony if you choose, and of whatever kind you choose, but you still need to sign an official document in front of a registered official to do the actual deal. You can be legally joined to your partner of choice by fulfilling the legal requirements to do so, and any further issues with your dogma or deity are between you and them to resolve.

Oh, and just as most jobs, and indeed laws, are not allowed to discriminate against anyone due to colour, creed, gender, age, disability, sexuality, height, hair colour etc, neither are the designated marriage officials. They are representatives of the law, and if the law says it’s okay for homosexuals to get married, then they need to marry homosexuals. With a smile and a congratulatory handshake at the very least. If you want to perform religious ceremonies, join the priesthood.

There is nothing illegal any more about being gay, and we are never going to go back to it being so. In which case, gay people should have the same rights and liberties as straight people. All the same rights and liberties. All the time. I cannot see any just argument against this.

Please note: this is not going to bring forth anarchy. It won’t mean that next, people will be able to marry their dog, their daughter or several concubines. None of those things are legal, and nor are they likely to ever be.

Letting people of the same sex get married WILL NOT LEAD TO CARNAGE. Society will not break down. Everyday life will carry on just as before if two adults, of whatever denomination or gender, are able to legally demonstrate their commitment not to fuck around and be recognised as a family unit. And they can have a big party and people will buy them toasters and decent sets of knives, and everyone will get drunk and someone will throw up somewhere inappropriate, and there may be tears, and embarrassing episodes on the dance floor.

Is that too much to ask?
I don’t think so.

I would like to marry my lovely Laurie. Let’s make this happen.

And when it does, you’re all invited.**

 

 

 

(*Unless we’re feeling particularly camp that day. Okay, so sometimes we do. But that’s NOT the legal term for it!)

(**You may not all be invited. Some of you are weird. Yes, you. You know who you are. But you can come and stand outside with banners protesting about our destroying all that is good and holy. And I will defend your right to do that just as strongly as my right to declare my love for another person in a public and legally binding way. But you can’t be in the photos. Sorry.)

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Losing the Lads’ Mags

So, the #losetheladsmags campaign hates ‘Lad’s Mags’, because they ‘portray women as dehumanised sex objects’ and they ‘promote an idea of male sexuality as based on power and aggression, depicting women as sex objects and including articles that feature strategies for manipulating women’.

And, you know, that all sounds good. As in, it sounds bad! No one should want anyone else to be dehumanised and open to violence. I want my daughters to grow up in a society that tells them that however they look is fine, and whoever they decide they are is beautiful. I want them to have a positive body image, and grow into strong, empowered women. If I had sons, I’d want them to respect themselves and everyone they met, whoever they are and whatever their appearance, gender and beliefs.

So far as I can determine from the website, (http://www.losetheladsmags.org.uk/) this campaign has two issues:

1. It wants to protect us from ‘page three style’ covers being on view in major supermarkets. The reason that page three is on page three is so that it’s inside and not on general view, as it involves nipples. Most major supermarkets have modesty covers for anything vaguely sexualised, including gay interest magazines – which is all well and good, unless you want to know what the articles are about this month.
So, we are not actually subject to those images.

2. Employees can and should sue shops they work in because they are being forced to handle objectionable material. But that’s really not going to work if they were already selling them when they took the job. You can’t work in Ann Summers for 6 months then decide to sue them for exposing you to sexualised material. That would just be silly.
So, employees can’t sue their workplaces for things that are already on sale.
Which makes the whole ‘campaign’ a bit of a waste of time.

If you really want to make sure that overly sexualised and unrealistic body ideals are not promoted to the impressionable, then ‘lad’s mags’ are not your target. The true, insidious promotion of dehumanisation of womens’ bodies is right there, at eye level. In the magazines for women, selling us size zero, photoshopped ideals, telling us how to please men, how we should look, how we should orgasm. Telling my daughters that they should diet, and what they need to spend on clothes to fit in.

If you are going to ban things according to their covers, then I give you this. Which of these covers offend you? Which do you not want your children exposed to? Which should be removed from our shelves to protect impressionable young minds?
(Warning: boobs. Do not look if offended by women’s bodies)

mags composite 2

Take Bizarre, which may or may not be included in the very unspecific ‘Lads’ Mag’ criteria. More than anything, bless Bizarre for making a mockery of this whole campaign. I agree they should be top shelf/modesty-covered, along with the tattoo and gay interest magazines, but don’t you DARE ban them. Bizarre, in particular are one of the few (if not only) magazines on general release that positively promote plus size, transgendered, disabled and sub-culture models. Say what you like, but I’ve let my daughters read Bizarre from an early age, and I hope that is one of many things that have made them more accepting of all the various definitions of sexuality and beauty that exist.

Lads’ mags sell to lads. They know who they are. They like cars, beer, gadgets and boobs. They like short sentences and innuendo. And, damn you all, so do I. They are NOT the problem.

The problem is girls’ mags. Deriding female celebrities for being photographed not at their best. Mocking anyone in the public eye who puts on any weight. Questioning the value of any woman who isn’t in a very small and exclusive subset of body image. Making ordinary, attractive women question their worth based on which products they buy, where they shop and how often they have sex.

In all honesty, I’d rather my daughters saw large boobs at eyelevel in the newsagent than stick insect celebrities. But the fact is, they don’t, because we have ‘modesty covers’. So what IS the point of the #losetheladsmags campaign? I struggle to understand, and I say their ire is entirely misplaced.

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