by Joel Derfner
So yesterday I went out and bought five thousand index cards and five thousand envelopes, which means that by the time I leave for my honeymoon—four days before the HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway deadline—I’m going to know my mailing address very, very well.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 5,000.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 5,000.
Sunday, September 12
In order to start hand-writing entries for the HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway I first need to finish hand-writing the wedding invitations and then mail them. They’re a formality, as we already know who’s coming and who isn’t, but if I didn’t send them I would feel incorrect.
The pleasure of your company is requested
at the marriage of
Joel Legare Derfner
to
Michael David Combs
on Sunday, the tenth of October, nine o’clock in the morning
at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
I hope I’ll be able to find a Julius and Ethel Rosenberg stamp or a J. Robert Oppenheimer stamp or something like that but I worry that my tendency toward sentiment will lead me to choose the LOVE stamp.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 5,000.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 5,000.
Monday, September 13
“There were no Julius and Ethel Rosenberg stamps or J. Robert Oppenheimer stamps at the post office,” I said to Mike.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “But I think the LOVE stamp will be sweet.”
“No, I stayed strong. No LOVE stamp. Doris Miller. See?” I showed him the stamps I had bought.
“Who’s that?”
“He joined the Navy but because he was black he had to be a cook or something. Then he grabbed a gun at Pearl Harbor and ended up shooting down like six Japanese planes and being awarded the Navy’s version of the Purple Heart.”
“Oh, that’s nice. You couldn’t manage McCarthyism or the atom bomb, but at least you got racism.”
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 4,923.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,923.
Tuesday, September 14
Rabbi Rachel has emailed us a Wikileaks’ scandal worth of documents about wedding decisions we have to make, which we are taking one item at a time, starting with the list she’s given us of things people say instead of “Behold, you are consecrated to me with this ring according to the law of Moses and Israel.”
I will espouse (betroth) thee unto me forever. I will espouse (betroth) thee unto me in righteousness, and in lovingkindness and in compassion. And I shall betroth thee unto me in faithfulness.
Unacceptable. First of all, why do “forever” and “in faithfulness” get their own sentence, but “righteousness,” “lovingkindness,” and “compassion” all have to share one little espouse (betroth)? Also, the second sentence needs a serial comma.
By this ring you are consecrated to me as my husband.
That’s just taking out “by the law of Moses and Israel” but pretending you didn’t.
Fair is the white star of twilight, and the sky clearer at the day’s end; but you are fairer, and you are dearer, you, my heart’s friend.
Even Mike thinks this one is gross.
Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it.
We’re not getting married in scuba gear. More important, though, is the fact that love is about the relationship between two people, whereas marriage is about the relationship between them and society. Using “many waters cannot quench love” feels, oddly, too personal for a wedding ceremony. My love for Mike and his for me is nobody else’s business, not even our wedding guests’.
I hope Rachel has a backup list.
Mike has rejected every single ketubah I’ve shown him.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 4,864.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,864.
Wednesday, September 15
I’ve told Mike that, since he’s paying for the caterer, the cake, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the rental of the morning clothes, I’ll pay for the honeymoon.
The problem is that the travel agent I gave the deposit to said that the rest of the fee needs to be paid by a week from today, and right now, having paid the deposit and bought the HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards and envelopes, I don’t have the money to buy a pack of gum, much less a trip to the Caribbean.
Whatever. I’m sure some publisher will call me at the last minute to offer me a huge advance for my next book. Or maybe some producer will call me at the last minute to offer me a huge advance for my next show.
I would ask 28 for help, except I’m sure all he would say is that the money will appear when I’m ready for it.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 4,800.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,800.
Thursday, September 16
Why am I thinking of myself as the wife? There’s no doubt that I am. When Rachel was telling us about the customs of a Jewish wedding, I was the one who didn’t want to wear the veil—the idea that Mike could accept or reject a veil never occurred to me. And no way was I ever going to propose to Mike; I told him he had to propose to me. I’m the bride here. I don’t know how to say this without opening up a huge can of worms, so I guess I should steel myself for a session of annelidology: I want to be the girl.
Of course I don’t mean this in a literal sense. Homosexuality isn’t, as a rule, about somebody being the boy and somebody being the girl. I’m a boy, Mike is a boy, we’re both boys, and that’s what allows us to be attracted to each other. We both identify as men. I still remember vividly the shudder of revulsion I felt when my now ex-boyfriend put on a dress and did a striptease—revulsion so strong it had to come from more than just the fact that I’m not attracted to women.
I am also aware of how easy it is for me as a man to talk about wanting to be “the girl” in a society that discriminates against women in employment, health care, and innumerable other facets of daily life. (“Take the pay cut to the seventy-seven cents a woman makes per dollar a man makes,” said a friend of mine when I brought the idea up with her, “and then we’ll talk.”)
So what do I mean when I say I want to be the girl?
Unfortunately, I’m not exactly sure.
Am I talking about getting to be taken care of ? About being put on a pedestal, about being cherished? About getting to be the special one?
And why are the things that occur to me entirely about benefits and not at all about responsibilities?
Perhaps there’s something about being permitted to express your emotions?
In my last relationship, I suppose I was the boy and I thought of Tom as the girl. I was going to propose to him. Our relationship dynamic allowed him to be more emotionally expressive than I was. Maybe that was why we were so miserable. Maybe he really longed to be the boy. More likely we both longed to be the girl.
My therapist thinks it has to do with wanting to be wanted. My parents were more interested in saving the world than in paying attention to me, so now I’m trying to make up for it by being the one to whom attention ought to be paid.
Actually, that would explain my towering narcissism, too.
But seriously? I need what I need in my relationship with my fiancé because of what happened when I was eight?
Suspecting that the same sort of dynamic might operate in the relationships of other same-sexers, I posted a Facebook status update requesting my friends’ thoughts on the issue. I got a number of “That’s dumb, if somebody needs there to be a boy and a girl he should marry a girl”s and an even greater number of “blah blah blah offensive, patriarchal construct blah blah blah”s. Of course gender roles are an offensive, patriarchal construct, but I was after descriptions of an inner, emotional perspective.
Of those whose responses dealt with what I w
as investigating, a few people said it wasn’t part of their experience at all. But they were a minority. Here are some of the replies I got from others.
“I view us both as two men with a broad array of emotions and tendencies. We equally share responsibility for the household finances, upkeep, etc. . . . We’re both excellent cooks so we alternate chef duties. He’s definitely a better housekeeper so he tends to do more of that just so that he won’t have to live in my disarray. It may tip one way or the other at times with someone taking on more responsibility than is fair, but in the end, the other knows that he ‘owes’ the relationship some payback and it will be his time to take on some of the finances for both, yadda, yadda, yadda.”
“In my relationship we’re relatively balanced but I carry a bit more of the male energy. My past relationships have failed because I either carried too much of it or not enough of it in relation to my partner. I’m blessed to have found my perfect match!”
“While I don’t want to be ‘the girl,’ I do like to think of my partner as ‘the man.’ Ours aren’t traditional roles, but I’ll happily cook for and feed my man, so long as he likes to do the directions and driving. (And it’s always a little mixy because I’m so handy and will build all the Ikea, dig and plant a flower garden, and lay/ grout a new tile or marble floor. . . .)”
“I actually often think about this, and more often than not it fills me with anxiety for some reason. I’ve been in long relationships with women in the past, have not been so lucky with men. There is a definite ‘role’ one plays when in a relationship and it kind of helps keep things on track and running smoothly. Once roles are switched up, it can lead to confusion and sometimes insecurity in my opinion. But labels only limit us, and allow others to feel comfort in thinking that everything has its place. The unknown, uncategorized, and unfamiliar will always be frightening. While labeling is limiting, I find freedom in playing any role that I feel like in that moment. Today, I feel like a garden gnome.”
“I tend to see myself as the boy, because I like to be everything that is brought to mind when a man is in an opposite-sex relationship. I tend to be a protector, pay for things, make the first move, etc. I know that it doesn’t mean I can’t be these things if I thought of myself as the girl, but I guess I’m too worried about controlling where I fall within a relationship with another man.”
“It often comes up and most people in my life joke about it. Sometimes it’s a balance of both, but other times it does come down to stereotypical traits and what society has shown gender roles are. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really bother me that I’m often labeled the girl, but I do think in reality, we’re a mix of both. I like to be taken care of and protected, but I make more money and pay for more things. I know how to pitch a tent, but he will pump my gas.”
“In my past seven-year relationship/marriage, some would say I was the ‘girl,’ wanting to be protected and taken care of, and I cast my ex-husband in the role of ‘boy,’ protector, etc. It’s all true and it led to the dissolution of the marriage. Except I wouldn’t slice it according to the boy/girl divide. I characterize it as me being the ‘child’ and him the ‘parent.’”
“It’s a balance. We switch off. Some days I need attention. Some days they do. I think a healthy relationship switches the archetypal traits of ‘male’ vs. ‘female.’”
So that’s what people gave me.
Having read all the responses to my question, I’m not sure I understand any better, but at least I know that I’m not the only one who finds the issue complicated and difficult to grapple with. I realize that I, too, go back and forth. There are times I feel like the boy as well; whenever anything technological in the house stops working, for example, or whenever there are forms to fill out. But in the matter of our wedding, evidently, I want Mike to be the boy.
Except now instead of Mike I want to marry the guy who said he felt like a garden gnome.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 4,786.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,800.
Friday, September 17
“Do you think if I asked really, really nicely,” I said to Mike, “people in the neighborhood would stop handing me flyers to vote, in the upcoming Congressional election, for a candidate who believes in ‘the Judeo-Christian tradition of marriage?’”
“No.”
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 4,765.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,800.
Saturday, September 18
I spent the day at the library, where I figured—accurately, as it happens—that nobody would be handing out flyers about the Judeo-Christian tradition of marriage, in an attempt to discover what the Judeo-Christian tradition of marriage actually is. And let me tell you, those politicians are way off the mark.
“Mike,” I said when I got home, “guess what I learned today.”
“To obey me?”
“Funny. No, I learned that there’s a good reason I’ve always hated the term ‘Judeo-Christian.’”
“It would have been better if you’d learned to obey me. But go ahead. What’s the reason?”
“Well, you know how I’m like, Christians are the only people who ever say ‘Judeo-Christian’ and it’s really just another word for Christian?” (Seriously: have you ever heard a Jew use the term “Judeo-Christian” other than Dennis Prager, radio host and embarrassment to Judaism?)
“Yeah.”
“That’s because it’s always been just another word for Christian.”
The term first came into the vernacular, it turns out, with the rise of Hitler to the east; American Nazi supporters kept forming groups with names like the Christian American Crusade and the Christian Aryan Syndicate and publishing periodicals like The Christian Defender, so if the good guys wanted to make it clear that they weren’t German sympathizers they had to use something else, and lo and behold! “Judeo-Christian” was born as a way to say “we’re Christian and we think Nazis are bad.” After the war, however, even though the Nazis were gone, Christians couldn’t go back to “the Christian tradition” without implying that they thought Hitler had had the right idea, so “Judeo-Christian” stuck, which was lucky, because almost immediately people needed a term that meant “we think Communists are bad,” and “JudeoChristian” served nicely. Then, around the time same-sexers started pointing out that the Constitution applied to us, too, the Cold War ended, leaving “Judeo-Christian” free to become “we think gay people are bad”; after September 11, 2001, the term stretched to cover Muslims as well—nothing like a good twofer—which gets us to where we are today. “Judeo-Christian” is and always has been a term used by the majority to mean “us—and, more importantly, not them.”
The problem is that the term “Judeo-Christian” doesn’t make any sense.
The reasoning employed by those who call anything “JudeoChristian” goes, as far as I can tell, something like this: The Jews have the Old Testament. Jesus just added a bunch of stuff and made a few edits to what was already there, so really Christianity is Judaism plus the New Testament. The only difference between Jews and Christians is that Jews don’t believe the messiah has come yet, while Christians believe Jesus was the messiah (which in itself seems to be about as logical as saying that the only difference between war and peace is that war has a lot of people shooting each other with guns, but nobody asked me).
The problem with this view is that the Old Testament, which Jews call the written Torah, is only half the law. (I didn’t need the library for this; I remembered from Sunday school—really, guys, you should give Mrs. Grossman a raise.) It’s linked inextricably to the oral Torah, which is essentially the instruction manual for the written Torah. When Moses was up on Sinai, after he’d taken all that dictation, God said, okay, so those are the rules, now I need to explain how they work. And Moses was like, um, Buddy, I’ve already developed a repetitive stress injury from writing this down, and I still have those ro
cks with commandments carved into them to carry back with me, how about I just take a breather and listen really carefully and promise to remember? So he did, and when his meeting with God was finished Moses explained the instructions to all the guys he’d picked to run things once he was gone, and they all told their kids, and they all told their kids, and so on and so forth, until the Romans destroyed the Holy Temple in 70 A.D. (as a Jew I ought to say C.E., since as far as I’m concerned I’m not living in the year of anybody’s lord, but I recognize that one has to make compromises) and with it what was left of the Jewish nation.
The deracinated Jews began to scatter all over the world, and as they did so they figured that, since there was no longer a group of people whose job it was to keep track, it might not be a bad idea to start writing this stuff down. A century or two later somebody collected everything he could get his hands on and wrote a sort of Cliffs Notes to the oral Torah called the Mishnah (which later on got its own Cliffs Notes, called the Talmud). The problem was that by this time Rabbi Yochanan, living in Yavne, had written one thing, while Rabbi Akiva in Bene Berak had written another, and Rabbi Tarphon in Lod yet another, either because they remembered things differently or because they figured the instruction manual could do with a little updating, and there was nobody to say which of them was right, so the Mishnah and the Talmud had to include all of them. In this way, these texts are kind of like the anti-Pope. When the Pope speaks ex cathedra in the Vatican, that’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, forever and ever, or at least for a century or two until the Church is shamed into recanting it. In the Talmud, when anybody says anything under any circumstances, sure, what the hell, the more the merrier, that’s true too.