"Boyfriend" and "Girlfriend" Are Not Pejorative Terms
TNG is taking a much needed break from Dec 19-Jan 4. TNG will return with new content on Jan 5. Until then, please enjoy this post from the past year. Original publish date: 11/26/2007.
Is there anything worse than the label "special friend" when used to refer to a same-sex partner? On Thanksgiving day I went over to my parents' friends' house for a cocktail party that we usually refer to as "The Aquarium" for its spread of glistening, near-breathing shrimp and smoked salmon. I was scarcely in the door when the host, a woman I generally like, asked me how my life was in D.C. and said "Your mom tells me you have a friend." I replied that I had many friends, to which she countered, "you know...a special friend."
I barked "You can call him my boyfriend" so forcefully that a fine mist of ABC seafood settled across her glasses.
I am usually more tolerant of these things, but Thanksgiving is stressful enough as it is and this happened to be the woman's third strike. Her first infraction was pointing at my sisters and announcing "they raised him!" to a crowded room. This is an assertion I would rather be made about the inhabitants of the wolf enclosure at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
Strike two was engaging me in a ten-minute dialogue about off-Broadway plays on the assumption that I was into theater. I haven't been involved with the theater since intoning "It was a mule!" in a 9th grade production of "Fiddler On the Roof," so this line of questioning was only met with blank stares.
Strike three was her use of "special friend." I hate that term. It implies I have met a nice young man with whom I can regularly catch a ball game and fellate, not that I am in any kind of adult relationship. If I am comfortable enough to be asked about my sexuality, why not go the extra mile and use gender-specific terminology? Was she giving me a chance to back out of being out to her? Did she think I would respond with "Yes, I do have a special friend...named Janet...I regularly penetrate her vagina?"
I know that my sister would get asked about her boyfriend, no beating around the bush. My Dad would be asked about his wife, not his "special spouse." I'm out in most realms of my personal life in the hopes that I can make people that being gay is normal and that it is not a delicate, or even shameful, subject. I expect to be met halfway.
I don't know if I should have been a little more polite in my response, but I'm getting really sick of having to make a big deal of my sexuality all the time. Anyone out there have ideas on a better way to handle this?
4 comments:
Not so much a comment about this post, but about this series of posts, generally: any chance the the introductory paragraph with the original post date could have a link to the original post? I'd be curious to read the original comments that went with some of these.
Sadly, it would be really tedious. However, you can search for the original article using the search field in the sidebar.
Sorry we can't be more accommodating. We're taking the break to rest up, not make more work for ourselves. ;-)
hey zack! i definitely agree with you on this. though i don't really hear the "special friend" phrase as often as i hear "roommate". Even my parents and gf's parents refer to us as roommates and I've always had this inner conflict in my mind debating whether or not I should correct them.
But after reading this, I am really going to try to make the effort to correct people because you're right, its not something that has to be treated delicately or not even spoken about at all.
and I question those things too at family reunions. Why is it so casual for everyone to ask my female cousin about her boyfriend, yet no one cares to ask about my relationships when they are just as important as my cousins. I'm going to make it a goal in 2009 to be really out and open.
I have sort of the opposite problem. Guys are always assuming I'm looking for a boyfriend when what I really want is "a nice young man with whom I can regularly catch a ball game and fellate."
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