Non-traditionally married
“I just Amazon-primed the KingCock Ultra 3000 strap-on to wear on my girlfriend this Saturday,” I replied matter-of-factly to my co-workers over a bowl of lukewarm, but exceptionally coconut-y chicken korma at Namastay, an Indian restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. In my head, duh. I had to physically restrain myself from word-vomiting personal details about my sex life in a professional setting when a colleague asked about my wedding. I had to put a straitjacket on my non-straight tongue to keep it from enthusiastically waving the blue and magenta bi+ flag in their faces like my life depended on it while breaking naan with the epitome of heteronormativity in America, straight soccer moms from suburbia.
Back in my hotel room, I stared at the ceiling while my rumbling intestines danced the Cha-cha-cha with Indian spices. What had motivated this strong urge to comically overshare? Then it dawned on me: Bonding over honeymoon destinations, wedding registries and – universe forbid – hyper feminine A-line princess bridal gowns, completely erases my identity. I am a polyamorous bisexual slash queer woman in a partially ethically non-monogamous marriage with a man and in an open relationship with a bisexual woman (who is also married to a man by the way). I do not fit into the same heterosexual, monosexist and monogamous (also known as ‘normative’) box as these women. Just visualizing myself as a mini-me marzipan cake topper in a little white dress feels amputating. It’s like spotlighting one part of me and chopping off the other.
That’s why saying “husband” in conversation makes me cringe (still better than “hubby” which makes me gag). I prefer the equal “partner”, a gender neutral term usually reserved for non-het relationships. It’s a subtle hint at my queerness that makes my marriage feel slightly less heteronormative than Cayleigh’s, pronounced "Kay-Lee", based somewhere in Middle America with a white picket fence and 1.2 children. It’s also why my PARTNER and I decided against throwing a lavish wedding. Well, and because we reject the ridiculous capitalist norm of having to spend “at least 30k” on a party with not one outrageously expensive Vera Wang dress, but three, caviar amuse bouche and swan ice statues in the Bahamas screaming, look how much ridiculous money we have, loser!!!!
I also can’t help but flinch at “wife”. As a feminist, it’s impossible to separate the word from centuries of female suppression and literal identity erasure considering women are still expected to give up the essence of who they are to become one: their name. When I hear “w-i-f-e”, like an AI text-image generator, my mind’s eye automatically projects this terrifying image of a 1950’s housewife. The corners of her mouth are stapled to her cheeks forcing a perfect smile. She’s clutching a turkey carving knife so hard her porcelain knuckles are drained of blood. It’s clear she’d rather use it to poke into her lifeless right eye than give thanks for another miserable year as an unpaid servant who could be legally raped at any given moment. That’s post-traumatic stress disorder epigenetically passed down from generations of enslaved women for you (it’s a thing: recent studies have shown suffering triggers changes in gene expression that last for generations).
When my mother passed away from small-cell carcinoma, more commonly known as smoking-induced lung cancer, I felt a similarly strong urge to overshare with any stranger willing to listen. After just 3 days post-diagnosis, I listened to my mother’s rattling death breath become air. I was a changed person. Different from most people. This was my new identity and I wanted the world to know about it. When it comes to my sexuality and romantic relationship model of choice, I am different from most people too. Although I tick the ‘married’ box on my tax forms, I think, exist, love and fuck outside that box. And I want the world to know that. Identity may exist within, but it’s only when our true, authentic selves are visible to the eyes of others, we begin to fully feel like ourselves.
Who knows, maybe next time I shake hands with someone new, I’ll completely blow societal expectations to smithereens by cutting straight to the chase: “My name is Dany. And I am married to a straight man. But I am also a polyamorous bisexual.” Hopefully, society will be more open to other forms of sexual and romantic relationship constructs in the future in order for these statements to no longer sound or feel mutually exclusive and we can – to use my favorite word – marry those identities. I imagine braiding them together like two strands of challah dough to make something new worthy of its own name. The list of labels to describe sexual orientations and gender identities has grown dramatically in recent years. In a similar way, marriage is a spectrum. So, why not create an umbrella term for marriage models that deviate from the traditional straight-soccer-mom norm? I propose ‘non-traditionally married’ to house specific sub-terms like bi-poly to describe the wide range of non-traditional identities and practices possible within the traditional social construct of marriage. This would allow invisible bisexuals in het-marriages like myself to be seen without having to come out to everyone they meet by introducing themselves like at an A.A. meeting or casually bring up KingCock over curry samosas. It’s a box I’d love to tick on my W2.