Gay Love Stori - Relatnships, Weddgs, Marriage |

Contents:

• HOW TO HAVE A GAY OR LBIAN RELATNSHIP
• GAY LOVE, STRAIGHT SENSE
• AGE DIFFERENC GAY COUPL
• GAY RELATNSHIPS CAN BE MORE STABLE THAN STRAIGHT ON

HOW TO HAVE A GAY OR LBIAN RELATNSHIP

It's not enough that both of you are gay. How do you know if you’re gay?

Don't leave your partner twistg the wd - particularly if you're not out, and 's a member of your fay makg a gay joke or sultg gays. If any such issue aris at your place of work, there may be anizatns is the area that you n ntact for advice, such as the Gay/Lbian Center or GLAAD (Gay/Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn) the Uned Stat. They started hostg weddgs after their own venue told them — the week of their weddg — that would not acmodate a gay uple.

Comg of age wh “a very nfed inty, ” wrer Andrew Solomon was certa he had to make a choice between creatg a fay and beg gay. The margalizatn that attend growg up homosexual saw ank exprsn Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Inty, his 2012 exploratn of how parents raise children who are markedly different om themselv any one of a number of ways.

GAY LOVE, STRAIGHT SENSE

” He now liv openly as a gay spoe and father. Gay men and lbian women typilly report siarly tortured experienc reckong wh their own sexualy, nstantly lculatg the sts of hidg or revealg one of the most fg arcs of beg, self-policg their behavr for mannerisms that might betray their clatns before they themselv are prepared to acknowledge them. It’s a ttament to urage that so many eventually do, spe the possibily of rejectn om those clost to them and a self-hatred ternalized om a wir culture that still often revil homosexualy.

For Solomon, as for many gay men and lbian women, the very stggle to be and to love on their own terms is reemg. Straight or gay, we all have a sire to be eply known, yet often fear that some private flaw mak ultimately unlovable.

Some, however, reflect the unique social legacy of homosexual partnerships.

AGE DIFFERENC GAY COUPL

And some stem om doublg, the pound dose of a sgle genr, which sometim brgs out the bt partners (emotnal openns among lbians)—and sometim the worst (domance stggl between gay men, emotnal enmhment lbians). When partners don’t have to divi up rol by genr, they are also ee to share rol, and many gay upl do, reports Boston psychologist Richard Miller.

Lbian partners are pecially apt to work as a team, says Maya Kollman, a New Jersey–based therapist whose practice clus both gay and straight upl. Add to that the fiance assumg a stigmatized sexual inty and a claratn of homosexualy be an act of sexual liberatn, as “we n have whatever sex we want.

GAY RELATNSHIPS CAN BE MORE STABLE THAN STRAIGHT ON

“Our sexual IQ is bigger, ” says psychologist Joe Kort, who teach at the Universy of Michigan and se both heterosexual and homosexual upl his clil practice. “Homosexual upl know more about what they like and don’t like sexually. Touchg, kissg, oral and masturbatory experienc—even for many gay men “this is exactly what their sexual repertoire nsists of, ” adds Miller.

Rare is the heterosexual uple who enjoy the sexual eedom gays reap by breakg through the big taboo of homosexualy. Homosexual partnerships are potg the way.

” In fact, at the fish of therapy ssns, psychologist Kort urg all the heterosexual and gay male upl his practice to “fd your ner lbian. For homosexuals, sexual liberatn enpass the past as well as the prent. By ntrast, the more open sexualy of the gay male muny, says Miller, mak male upl fortable sharg their sexual experience, even tappg .