Sarah Haskins and the Cult of Couplehood

Sarah Haskins is famous online for her hilarious feminist comedy sketches on Current TV. Here is one that deals with dating advice. The constant cramming of this garbage down single women’s throats is a key element of the singlist, matrimoniacal culture. I refer to this as The Cult of Couplehood. Rule number one: all single women are of course looking to couple up at all costs!

I Love Me Some Colorado!

As both my sister and her husband graduated from the University of Colorado, members of my family have an affinity for this state. Especially now.

http://designatedbeneficiaries.org/

This is a fantastic website that explains the new designated beneficiary law that recently took effect in Colorado. Nancy Polikoff has blogged extensively about this new law. Now here is my dream come true: “The Federal Designated Beneficiary Act of 2010″

Dare to dream folks…

The Trouble with Single Childfree Women

They must be stopped. They are dangerous. American society has a fear of single childfree women. Can you really blame them?

Most people are under the impression that once a woman reaches a certain age (usually before 30), she is supposed to “settle down.” That is, she is to get married and get on with the baby-making. However, those who follow the settle-down advice often find themselves in a quandary. They wonder why adjusting to this supposedly perfect family life is so difficult. They wonder why the marital bliss that everyone promised would naturally flow their way has been so elusive. So what is the reason for all of this? According to this author, when a woman gets married and has children her life as she knows it is over. This is a life she has spent 5, 10, sometimes 20 years building. She loves her family, of course, but she begins to resent her husband and children for the unhappy state of her life. Because traditional family life is so over hyped, women are led to believe that NOTHING, not friends, volunteer work or a great career, can make them happier than marriage and children. The part they never mention is that some women are already happy. They have wonderful lives, they are financially independent and socially active and perfectly content. Some women are beginning to realize that they do not want marriage or children. They like their lives as they are.

It is these women that are dangerous. Because unlike other women, they cannot be shamed, blamed or tamed.

The culture demands that we tame independent women, but since we can’t brand them as witches and drown them anymore, we must find some other way to diminish their power. So we shame women by calling them sluts for having the audacity to take control of their own sex lives, to ask for sex when they want it and tell their partner how they want it. We shame women for using contraceptives and abortion, which allows them to enjoy sex without the consequence of motherhood. We scare them with the image of the old hag that grows old alone and tell them that they will never attract a good man if they keep having all that enjoyable sex and working at that fulfilling job that will never love them back. After the shame comes the blame. “Unhappy, little girl? It’s your fault. If you would just do what we say, get married, have the kids, and go broke buying clothing, beauty and diet products, you would be happy!!!” Single mothers get the brunt of this. Single motherhood is blamed for every social ill you can possibly imagine: crime, drug abuse, high school drop out rates, and low college attendance among certain populations (black people and poor people – which many believe are the same thing). The solution for the federal government is to coerce poor mothers into get married, while the Wedding Industrial Complex sells happily every after to the middle and upper class women.

Once women are shamed and blamed, they can more easily be tamed. The shame leads them to stop having free and active sex lives and focusing on those great careers. The blame leads women to look for husbands and mortgage their house to pay for the perfect wedding. And once women have been shamed and blamed into submission, they are tamed and are no longer a threat.

The single childfree woman is immune to this. She has no interest in marriage, so she is not shamed into thinking she will never find a husband if she has sex before marriage. She has no desire to mother so she cannot be blamed for society’s ills and will never be guilt tripped into marrying her child’s father simply because the government believes marriage is better. She will not quit the job she loves because she is made to feel guilty for working and paying another to care for her children during the day. She is truly free. She cannot be tamed. And she is not alone. As of the 2000 census, there are about 5.3 million of her.

Memo to The Patriarchy: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

An Unlikely Bride

There is one very important thing that I have learned in the short time I have been running this blog: Unmarried couples are summarily fucked in more ways than I can count. Granted, there are some states (California and New Jersey to name a couple) that are friendly to unmarried couples, but once a couple crosses state lines (or even county lines or city limits) their rights can change dramatically. This is a risk that my partner and I are not willing to take.

First, there is the issue of medical decisions. Yes, there are advanced health directives and DNRs (Do Not Resuscitate orders), but would a hospital even recognize these in an emergency? Would I have to run home for certified copies or call my lawyer? Would the hospital staff even acknowledge me? My partner does not get along well with his mother and his brother is a drug addict. In addition, we are a mixed race couple and many people in his family have a serious problem with this. We do not want these people making medical decisions for him.

The second issue is health insurance. Currently only a handful of state and local governments and more recently the federal government (but only  in certain instances) have allowed domestic partners to have access to health benefits. It is not mandated in private industry and even at companies where benefits are available to domestic partners, it often excludes heterosexual partners. I recently had surgery and may need follow-up treatment. My partner’s job may transfer him out of state soon and I may not be able to find a job right away. I am trying to arrange to work remotely at my current job, but nothing is guaranteed. I cannot afford to go without health insurance and I cannot afford to purchase private insurance. It is too dangerous for me. I am also contemplating a career as a freelance writer, which will leave me without insurance.

There is a third, less tangible reason to marry this man: I love him madly. Seriously. This is like Movie Love, and I don’t mean that Nora Ephron chick flick romantic comedy love – that’s for lightweights. I mean real love. Think Dr. Zhivago. Think Thorn Birds. Think Katie and Hubble in The Way We Were…hopefully it will work out better for us than it did for our protagonists in the aforementioned films, but you get the idea.

So one night on the phone I proposed to my partner. A week or so later, he agreed to get married.

I can’t help feeling guilty – like I am betraying the Unmarried Rights community or the feminist community or something. My rational mind knows that’s ridiculous, but feelings are rarely rational. I thought about shutting down the blog. However, I spoke with some people and have decided that I can still blog about the discrimination that unmarried people face. The consensus was that I still have credibility on this issue, both as a lawyer and a person who has spent my entire adult life single. If some of my readers disagree, I completely understand. I would hope that I can serve as a kind of Pied Piper to the other side. A person who can educate the smug married types on how life is at the bottom of the totem pole.

So there it is. I am coming out of the closet…as a Bride.

I’ll conclude with another Barbara Streisand number (I know, I know…but I’m a white middle-aged gay man trapped in the body of a 31 year old black woman). This is a bit silly, but stick with it – it’s funny!

Apparently, You Can Beat a Dead Horse

Caitlin Flanagan by way of Time Magazine has given us yet another inane, inaccurate and downright insulting matrimaniacal article. A few highlights:

“There is no other single force causing as much measurable hardship and  human misery in this country as the collapse of marriage.” Hmmm…I can think of some other things causing human misery: Poverty, lack of affordable healthcare, the toxicity levels in our food and water, terrorism, war….feel free to add to this list, dear readers.

“…[I]n all cases, the kids living with both parents drastically outperform the others.” Bella DePaulo did a brilliant job of explaining how this is bullshit…for the 47,874th time!

Regarding lifelong marriage: “We want something like that for ourselves; we recognize that it is something of great worth, but we are increasingly less willing to put in the hard work and personal sacrifice to get there.” So unmarried couples are just phoning it in?

“A lasting marriage is the reward, usually, of hard work and self-sacrifice.” But how much of yourself do you have to sacrifice to make a marriage/relationship work? Eventually you can get to a point where you don’t recognize yourself anymore.

“What is the purpose of marriage? Is it…simply an institution that has the capacity to increase the pleasure of adults…[o]r is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function: to raise the next generation…” Is it impossible for these people to imagine that many people just aren’t interested in raising children?

Basic translation of this piece: I am better than you because I am married with children. My life has more value than yours, you single barren sluts  and miserable welfare queens.

Anyone else tired of these Smug Married Suburban Soccer Bitches? I know I am.

Rate Your State Part 8: South Carolina

It’s a lovely story, really. Boy meets girl, boy marries and has kids with girl. Boy becomes Governor. Boy tells his staff he is going hiking, but really goes to South America for sex with his Argentine mistress.

The boy we are referring to is, of course, South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford. Yes, marriage is sacred in The Palmetto State. Marriage is so “special” in South Carolina that no other family member, not related by blood, will inherit if there is no will. So if, God forbid, one of those lovely women from the Rosie Family Cruise HBO documentary (you know that adorable lesbian couple who were desperately trying to conceive via artificial insemination) were to die without a will, the other would be shit out of luck. They live in South Carolina.

Yes, The Palmetto State is indeed, heartless.

The way some South Carolinians behave, you’d assume they think they are still living in this time.

Reston Hospital Rocks!

No single shaming when I went in for my surgery last Friday! They let my boyfriend see me in the recovery area, and the doctor spoke with him like he was family (which he is !) after my procedure. No questions asked. It was sweet!

Props to Reston Hospital in Reston, Virginia for recognizing that we live in the mordern world where not everyone is married!

The Single Girl Slut Shame

I have had several gynecologists in my life. Seven to be exact. I will not reveal their names, but let’s review a few of them shall we:

There was Dr. Because-He-Was-My-Mom’s-Doctor. I didn’t really pick this one, as the name explains. He was a very cold, stately person with a comb-over and no sense of humor. Exactly the kind of guy you want working in your Nether region, right?

Dr. Tennessee: She was great, but had to leave the state I was living in at the time because she could no longer afford the malpractice insurance. She moved back to her home state of Tennessee.

Then there was Dr. I-Inherited-My-Practice-From-Daddy: She was a spoiled Long Island Princess who slut-shamed me in the worst way. I came in for a consultation for sterilization. First she would not even discuss it with me because she thought I was too young to know any better. Then I asked her about IUD’s and she said: “An IUD would not be right for you. There can be complications in patients that contract an STD when they have an IUD. Since you are single, you are likely to have a large amount of sexual partners over the next ten years.”

OK, say it with me: W….T….F….!?!?!

So Single = Disease-Ridden Slut? Apparently it does according to Dr. Inherited-My-Practice-From-Daddy.

And now we have my new OBGYN. Let’s call him Dr. Reasonable. When I visited him a few weeks ago for a sterilization consultation, he walked me through the two different procedures (tubal ligation vs. Essure), told me that Dr. Inherited-My-Practice-From-Daddy had been totally full of crap, and gave me an ultrasound to make sure I have no cysts, as that would complicate either procedure. By the way, if you ever have a chance to take an ultrasound tour of your girly parts, I would suggest doing it. It is fascinating! Although I find the process of reproduction to be more freaky Sci-Fi, rather than natural or miraculous, as others do. “Babies are a Miracle!” Maybe if you are post menopausal or your Uterus has hung a “No Vacancy” sign, but generally, babies tend to happen when you have unprotected sex. Nothin’ miraculous about it, honey.

In short, Dr. Reasonable did not judge me, but gave me accurate medical information and treated me with respect. He then told me to think about it and if I decided that I wanted to go through with the sterilization, he would be happy to do it for me. I have decided to think about it over the summer.

Medical treatment without judgment. Ah, the way life should be.

Anti-Marriage vs. Anti-Marital Privilege

I want to clarify something for those of you who may be new to the “Singles Rights” or “Unmarried Rights” Movement…or whatever we are calling it.

There is a difference between being Anti-Marriage and being Anti-Marital Privilege. I fall into the second category. I will attend a wedding of a good friend that I am invited to – I will be going to one in NYC this Labor Day. I am not anti-marriage anymore than I am anti-child simply because I do not have children.

I am simply opposed to the injustice of the unmarried (and the childfree) being demeaned, disregarded and forced to pay socially and financially simply because they do not fit into the standard heteronormative box. I want all adults and children to be valued equally regardless of what form their family takes.

Hope that is clear.

Rate Your State Part 7 – Maryland

Tracy Turnblad rocked the Corny Collins Show in “Hairspray”, which was set in Baltimore. Maryland has given us notable people such as Jada Pinkett Smith, Anna Deveare Smith (who portrayed National Security Adviser, Nancy McNally on “The West Wing” for 6 seasons), Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Parker Posey, Matthew Weiner (creator of AMC’s “Mad Men”), and Billie Holiday.

A whopping 221 years after ratifying the Constitution on April 28, 1788, Maryland has made a few strides in relationship equality. The state provides  rights for domestic partners, but they are not nearly as comprehensive as other states. And needless to say, no protections for them when a partner dies without a will.

Haven’t given out hearts in a while – I’m getting ancy!