Spike in Space!

[shadowscast]

My husband* had a wonderful surprise for me when I got home from work today: a taped episode of "Andromeda" with Spike in it! Er, well, James Marsters really, but the character was pretty darn Spike-like on the surface, what with the bleached hair and the kinda British accent. Hee! I squealed and everything.

How is it that I didn't know this existed? I mean, I'm an obsessed fangirl. Shouldn't I know about James Marsters having appeared in other sci fi series? (Andromeda's a show I've seen enough eps of to be intrigued, but not enough to really understand what's going on.)

*use of the term "husband" not meant to imply that I'm straight

Comments

Re: Husbands and sexual orientation

[mofic.livejournal.com]

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.

Mo

Re: Husbands and sexual orientation

[shadowscast.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I didn't think you were laughing at anything but the oddness of the interjection. :) And I was perfectly aware that that was odd, which was why I decided to explain it.

The questions you raise are all good ones, in that there's no easy answers for them.

If queer people had equal rights in Canadian society and homophobia didn't exist—if the gender of one's spouse was widely considered as unremarkable as their height—I don't think I'd worry about people assuming I'm straight. It wouldn't matter any more than if they assumed, from looking at my husband, that I prefer blonds. (Also untrue, but irrelevant, you know?) But queer people are still marginalized here (though the situation seems to be improving—equal marriage is just around the corner, yay!) and one part of that is the "Well, nobody I know is gay" syndrome.

And I'm keenly aware of the privileges I'm accorded because I went and married a man instead of a woman. (Hey, I wrote an essay about this once for one of my education classes—I think I'll post it!) I am not out as bi at work—I work at a very conservative private school where I'm on a one year contract, and I don't know of any out staff or students there. If I had a wife instead of a husband, would I have brought her to the staff Christmas party? I really don't know.