It is a serious topic, and I'm sorry if it seemed like I was laughing at it, rather than just at the perceived oddness of the interjection. You do live a heterosexual lifestyle, so to what extent does queerness enter into it? I think part of it has to do with how strongly you identify by sexual orientation. Because when we're talking about homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality, we're not necessarily all talking about the same things. Those can be terms of orientation, or sexual behavior, or of identity. It's really easy when they all line up together, but they don't always. For some that's more important than for others. So to some people if they've made a decision to live monogamously in a same-sex or opposite-sex relationship, bisexuality just no longer obtains. It's like interjecting that one is sometimes attracted to tall people when one's longterm lover is short. For others it's a major point of identity.
And then beyond internal feelings of identity, there's identity politics. You do have heterosexual privilege. Does having it mean accepting the privilege? Is pointing out that one isn't straight trying to have it both ways - accepting privilege but distancing oneself from it? And how does the whole changing legal climate where you live affect that? It lessens the privilege differential, certainly.
Anyway, I do think this is all interesting stuff and topics I've thought about a lot. I was in a (legally unrecognized) marriage to a woman for over 25 years, and we had three kids together. We're all affected in many ways - legal and social - by that lack of recognition. FWIW, I referred to her as my spouse. Wife seemed too gendered to me, but I wanted to make clear that our perfectly valid marriage was not on a different plane or of a different (lesser) level of commitment than those that received the privileges we did not.
Re: Husbands and sexual orientation
And then beyond internal feelings of identity, there's identity politics. You do have heterosexual privilege. Does having it mean accepting the privilege? Is pointing out that one isn't straight trying to have it both ways - accepting privilege but distancing oneself from it? And how does the whole changing legal climate where you live affect that? It lessens the privilege differential, certainly.
Anyway, I do think this is all interesting stuff and topics I've thought about a lot. I was in a (legally unrecognized) marriage to a woman for over 25 years, and we had three kids together. We're all affected in many ways - legal and social - by that lack of recognition. FWIW, I referred to her as my spouse. Wife seemed too gendered to me, but I wanted to make clear that our perfectly valid marriage was not on a different plane or of a different (lesser) level of commitment than those that received the privileges we did not.
Mo