Up Front by Emma Hart

Submissions are now open for Louisa Wall's Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill. They close on the 26^th of October. If you want to make a submission, this page contains all the relevant information, and if you scroll all the way down to the bottom, a button for making an on-line submission. If you're wondering whether or not you have anything useful to say, I'd recommend reading this post at The Lady Garden. 

The bill has gone to the Government Administration select committee. That committee consists of: 

Chris Auchinvole – NAT – voted yes at first reading

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi – NAT – voted no

Ruth Dyson – LAB – voted yes

Trevor Mallard – LAB – voted yes

Eric Roy – NAT – voted no

Holly Walker – GRN – voted yes 

If, like me, you're considering submitting in person, that list of names may give you pause. Somehow I don't think they're going to let me do it alone with Holly Walker... 

Anyway, this is the body of the submission I will be making. (Just the body: check the links for formal formatting boiler-plate, etc.) Supporters of the bill have one almost unfairly huge advantage in making submissions: we can speak about how it will actually affect our lives. Its opponents cannot.

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I am bisexual: sexually and romantically attracted to both men and women. Gender is one of the least important partner traits for me, yet currently it defines my options and rights in choosing the form of my relationship. I support this bill partly because it would finally give me equality not just with heterosexual people, but with myself. I would have the same relationship choices with a woman as I would with a man. Currently, I do not.

My current (male) partner and I chose to formalise our relationship as a civil union. The chief reason for this was that I would not choose marriage when I could not marry a woman. I would not enter a relationship form I would not have the right to replicate with a future partner, should something happen to my current relationship. We are not married because marriage is, as the law currently stands, a discriminatory institution.

I have actually been married. When I was at university, I married my then-boyfriend so that he could have access to a student allowance. That marriage was entirely legal. I fail to see how my loving and committed marriage to a woman would be more damaging to Marriage itself, or anyone else's marriage, than that marriage for money.

I have two children, one male and one female. Today, no-one would argue that they should have different rights on the basis of their genders. Given the roles of both genetics and environment in determining sexual orientation, there's a significant chance that at least one of my kids will be gay, lesbian or bisexual. I want my children to have the same rights regardless of their sexual orientation, and that includes the right to marry. 

I also want them to have an easier time of growing up than I did. I was a teenager in Timaru in the 1980s. I was closeted, because I firmly believed that if I came out, I would be beaten up. Bisexuals have higher rates of suicide, depression, bullying, drug abuse and poverty than heterosexuals, but also higher rates than gays and lesbians. Bisexual women have higher rates of domestic violence than lesbians or heterosexual women. For us, sexuality-based violence is not a theory. It's a very real risk we run all the time, simply by being who we are.

This bill is not a silver bullet for homophobic bullying. But it would keep our government from saying to our persecutors, "You're right, you know. Those people aren't as good as us Normal People." Those in favour of legal discrimination may not condone homophobic violence, but I certainly believe they allow it room to thrive. How can we expect teenage bullies to treat LGBT people as equals when our State doesn't? We need to support our LGBT teens by showing them we believe they're just as deserving, just as much a part of our society, as anyone else.

Oh, Colin. Sorry about the delay: I would have replied to your lovely letter earlier, but I was busy over the weekend choosing my sexuality. 

I like to think of you as basically a decent man, who really believes what he says. There is a point, though, at which your choice to remain ignorant becomes very difficult to reconcile with a genuinely caring person. For instance, you managed to find this Cynthia Nixon quote: 

‘‘I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ’I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice’’. 

 It's your sign-off, you must think it's pretty damn significant. Oddly, though, you didn't manage to find this one: 

"While I don't often use the word, the technically precise term for my orientation is bisexual. I believe bisexuality is not a choice, it is a fact. What I have 'chosen' is to be in a gay relationship.

"As I said in the Times and will say again here, I do, however, believe that most members of our community — as well as the majority of heterosexuals — cannot and do not choose the gender of the persons with whom they seek to have intimate relationships because, unlike me, they are only attracted to one sex.

How did you manage that? One would think, if you were interested in "sticking to the facts", you wouldn't be able to live with just cherry-picking the "facts" (actually, "opinions") that suit you.

I think it's the distinction Cynthia makes between choosing your sexual orientation – who you're attracted to – and choosing your sexual behaviour that you're failing to see. Perhaps it would help if you watched this little clip of some neuroscientists talking about the involuntary nature of sexual arousal.

The odd thing is, I tend to assume everyone knows this from personal experience. You get that kick in the pants from someone or you don't. You can't make your body not do that – and you can't make it do it, either. When you said you thought you could choose to be gay, I think you meant you could choose to have sex with a man, not that you could choose whether or not to get an erection. That would be insane.

Thing is, Colin, even if there were no genetic factors involved in sexual orientation, even if all the factors involved were environmental and our desires are shaped by our childhood experiences and hormone exposure and the amount of tolerance in our lives, by the time we get to marriageable age, it doesn't matter. Whether it was my genes or my three older brothers or my liberal upbringing, my orientation is set. I cannot choose who or what arouses me.

And you know, I did some googling of your quoted sources today (at least the ones that actually exist) and after about half an hour of reading about the Gay Agenda and the effectiveness of "reparative therapy" (a fabulously creepy euphemism for brainwashing) I'd started hating People as a whole. I recommend the whole of the BBC documentary The Making of Me for a balanced look at what science has found and not found, but if you want to rage-cry at your desk, start watching this at about 6:30. It's a man describing the "reparative therapy" he volunteered for.

They put me in a mental institute... so I'm going in as a scared young man... met the psychiatrist, he sat me down, told me what was going to happen... Halfway through the hour they injected me, which made me violently ill, both ends... so for the first hour I'm lying in my own excrement, listening to [a tape of him describing his own sex life], and that lasted an hour, and an hour, and an hour... for seventy-two hours...

And still, he somehow wouldn't choose to be straight. Homosexuallity and reparative therapy: one of these things is disgusting.

And Colin, if there were environmental factors involved in determining our sexuality (and of course there bloody are), what makes you think they'd make us gay, and not push us to be straight? You really think people wake up one day and think, "You know what? I don't think my suicide risk is high enough. It's kind of dull, being bullied and abused this little. I think I'll be gay." Why do you think that's more likely than, "I don't want to lose my family, my church, my friends. I don't want to be beaten up. I think I'll go on pretending to be straight."

We can't choose our orientation. We can't choose what gets our rocks off. But you're right, in a way. We can choose what we do about it. We could choose to deny our desires and live in constant grinding misery. We could walk away from any chance of a truly fulfilling relationship. We could live lives devoid of fire and passion and love. But why the fuck should we?

If I had the choice, tomorrow I'd be here, celebrating Louisa Wall's bill passing its first reading. If you do have the choice, please consider going. For me. And for celebrating all of us being able to be who we are.

As you all know by now, Louisa Wall's marriage equality bill has been pulled from the ballot. And I guess you've all been waiting in breathless anticipation to find out how I feel about it. 

Yeah. Me and and Colin Craig: we're not going to surprise you with our views on gay marriage. 

I honestly think this is going to be a bit less shitty than Civil Unions, just as Civil Unions was a bit less shitty than Homosexual Law Reform. The tide of public opinion has turned, and most politicians recognise that. Yes, we're going to cop some abuse as hardened bigots panic at the realisation that their world is coming apart in a sea of general tolerance and not seeing what all the fuss is about. We need to take care of each other in the face of the verbal and sometimes physical violence their terror is going to engender. 

But if you've seen this, or read the quotes, you might realise, as I have, what we're mostly going to see this time around: barefaced weaselling. Stand up Brendan Horan and Tony Ryall: you're distinguished by now being less deserving of my respect than Richard Prosser. 

With all the desperate squirmy fourth-form "can't remember how I feel about a major social issue" bullshit going on, I can see how it might be hard to work out how individual MPs really feel. Luckily, we live in the internet age, and there are tools available to help. 

Marriage Equality has a list of MPs and their stated positions on same-sex marriage. The numbers at the top show you how close we are to tipping this, and how many MPs are strangely undeclared still. In my native electorate, the choice between Ruth Dyson (pro) and David Carter (still banging the rocks together) is pretty stark. Right now, though, I'm living in Christchurch Central, and Nicky Wagner is down as "unknown". So I'll be writing her a letter and asking. And when I have an answer, I'll tell Marriage Equality so they can update their list. 

If an MP's been around for a while, you could also use this site to correlate their votes on Civil Unions and the Marriage (Gender Clarification) bills, which should give you their attitude to marriage equality. Oh look, there's Nicky Wagner. Goodness. 

It may be, though, that when you go to the effort of asking, all you get back is purest weasel. So I've provided a little Weasel to English translation below.

 

"In the big picture, it's not that important... We've been focused on the broader economy."

 - "I can only fuck up one thing at a time."

 

"I don't know what's in the bill."

 - "Nobody's read it to me yet."

 

"I thought they could, quite honestly."

 - "Fuck, don't ask me, I don't even know where I live."

 

"I've not given it any thought."

 - "I just lied right to your face."

 

"It's not exactly the biggest issue of the day."

 - "I'm straight. My family are straight, all my friends are straight,  my colleagues are- wait, what?"

 

"I'll support the bill through to its first reading."

 - "I can do maths. This is going to pass without me. If I oppose it (because, EW), I'll look like a dick for nothing. But also, I can do maths. By the time this becomes law, I'll have retired to the place on Maui.

 "I will canvass the views of my constituents."

 - "I have no conscience of my own, so I'll be borrowing someone else's."

 

"I'm too busy solving Treaty grievances."

 - "Get back to me in another hundred and sixty years."

 

"I think marriage is a heterosexual institution."

 - "And that big yellow thing... that's a bus, right?"

"I'm not taking a position at this stage."

 - "Someone will tell me what to do."

 

*fleeing in the face of the question "Do you support gay marriage or not?"*

 - "I'm not going to lie to your face. Bye."

 

Please feel to contribute your own translations, or Weasel for translation, in the comments.

The last couple of days, there's been a bit of a blow-up on Twitter. You won't have noticed, because it's completely unimportant, but it's been a nice distraction for me. Otherwise, my life has just been full of packing and moving while our house undergoes EQC repairs. I have seen all the wallpapers and all the vinyls in the city, and frankly a nice bit of political ridiculousness and feminist outrage makes a refreshing change. 

There's this guy, Milo Yiannopoulos*. Mostly he's known as "that gay guy who argued against gay marriage on Newsnight". A couple of days ago, he wrote a superb piece of link-baiting, in which he said; 

It couldn’t possibly be, could it, that the politically correct public sector consistently over-promotes women, who are often ferociously greedy and lazy but great at fighting their corner, bitching, back-stabbing and boasting to get their hands on promotions and pay rises? 

Brilliant. The only piece I've seen lately that surpasses it for cynical traffic-generation was Stuff's "the Crusaders only win because they cheat" opinion column. 

Where it got interesting was that Yiannopoulos got into a fight over it, with Zoe Margolis. And he tweeted this: 

Sex bloggers don't get to assume the moral high ground. Ever. What they do for a living is incredibly damaging to women.

 Is there a difference between writing about sex for money and having sex for money? Not really. What a grubby, humiliating way to make rent. 

This is where I have to step up. And say more than the obvious "fuck you, buddy". 

While Yiannopolous didn't come close to shutting up, unfortunately he didn't explain how Margolis's work is "damaging to women". Popping by her hugely-popular long-running blog, it's still very hard to tell. Perhaps it's the charity work, or her vocal support of decent sex education. 

I first ran across her blog many years ago, before I started writing here, and it was a revelation. Someone was talking about sex, frankly and honestly, and relating experiences I could identify with -  for the first time. This is what sex bloggers do. Margolis is also a perfect example of how high the personal cost can be. 

I'm quite willing to bet that nobody has ever walked up to Yiannopoulos and told him that his writing has changed their life, made them happier and more at peace with themselves, made them feel like they're not the only person in the world who feels that way. 

Sex bloggers talk about things we're not supposed to talk about, not seriously. Because we don't talk about it, it can be difficult to realise the immense breadth of perfectly natural, perfectly all right, sexual feelings and experiences. The more people who are prepared to talk, publicly, about their own personal experience, the more complete the picture becomes. We feel affirmed when we can identify, and (hopefully) curious and intrigued when we run across something very different from our own headspace. The more we know about, the more able we are to make informed and intelligent decisions about our own lives. We acknowledge more paths to happiness. 

We learn, too. Blogs like Ask Constance (NSFW!) don't just feature smutty pics, but also the kind of really useful sex advice you never got in Sex Ed at school. Common sense, level-headed advice without giggling or censure. And you know what? It's sex bloggers who talk about the down sides, too, and how to cope: sexual abuse, complicated borderline consent issues, slut-shaming, how we're pressured into sex and pressured into not having sex. 

 Sex bloggers walk a fraught and hideous balance between helping people by talking about their experiences, and protecting the privacy of their partners. They risk unwanted attention – everything from persistent stalky hitting-on to death threats. Sex bloggers risk losing jobs, friendships, relationships, peace of mind and the ability to sleep. I know, because I am one. The idea that I put myself through this, and what I and many of my friends do is "damaging to women" is both appalling, and so ridiculous it's almost amusing. 

Milo, dear? Hush now. You're embarrassing yourself.

 

*I'm assuming his Twitter handle is not, unfortunately, a Dangermouse reference.

Over the years, I've had sex for some really stupid reasons. I know that's hard to believe, but I have. I've had sex with people because it would be rude not to and I didn't want to make a fuss. I've had sex because it was there and I had nothing else to do. I slept with a guy once because my best friend was having sex with his best friend and otherwise we were just sitting around. And once I had sex with a guy because I was really mad at another guy. 

That last is the only one I regret. And even from that, I learned something, and got a really good story to tell in bars. It's quite possible that I'm just not good at regretting things. Basically, I never think, "That was dumb, I really wish I hadn't done it." And the better you know me, the more astounding that assertion will seem. Even the worst of my sexual and romantic experiences were Valuable Lessons I'm glad I had. Not just about what to do or not do, but about who I was and what I wanted. 

I must be wrong, though, because Family First has gone to all the trouble of flying in a qualified medical professional to tell me how people should have sex. 

Teenagers are being let down by sex education that doesn't tell them it's best to wait until you're an adult and have one sexual partner for life, a visiting physician says. 

In sexuality - "and I'm not talking about morality, I'm a physician" - the ideal was one sexual partnership for life, delayed until adulthood.

"People that are able to achieve that - not that this is so easy - never have to worry about these myriad health issues."

I'm obviously a terrible parent, because the idea of someone telling my children they should abstain from sex until they're married fills me with horror. She doesn't want kids getting hurt, which is admirable, right? Pre-marital sex gives you STDs and cancer and terrible emotional trauma. Whereas only being allowed to have one sexual partner ever is in no way psychologically damaging. She'd know, right: she's a psychiatrist, after all. And she's not talking about morality, so it must be Science. 

To me, 'no sex before marriage' always sounds like telling kids they're not allowed to learn to ride a bike because they'll fall off and get hurt, but on their 21^st birthday they're going to ride the Tour de France. Wouldn't you want them to practice first? Yeah, they'll pick up a few bumps and bruises along the way, but that's how you find out what the fuck you're doing. 

I'd be horrified if one of my kids told me they wanted to marry the first person they'd had sex with. If they wanted to marry someone they hadn't had sex with, that might be enough to make me lock them in their room and not let them out until they'd come to their senses. The idea of them only discovering their sexual identity after they'd married someone with whom they were incompatible – or never discovering it at all – terrifies me. You can't treat life-long misery with a course of antibiotics. 

Give Miriam her due, she appears to have no interest in my son. She's got it all worked out for my daughter, though: 

Women's health focuses on preventing pregnancy, but fails to warn that motherhood cannot be delayed indefinitely... Women complete their PhDs at 35, and realise the hardest challenge lies ahead: getting their Mrs,. and becoming an Mo.M. 

(Interestingly, no-one in Miriam's world appears to be anything but straight. And oral sex causes cancer, which 'one partner for life' will keep you safe from. So I'd be interested to see her explain why men have a higher rate of HPV-related throat cancers than women do.) 

I'm not, obviously, the kind of parent John Key means when he says "parents". Nor am I the kind of Mommy Miriam is aiming to terrify. I'm the kind of parent who somehow never gets mentioned, who's more interested in their child's happiness than their career prospects or their chastity. I didn't turn into a reactionary conservative when I bred. I don't actually know anyone who did. I can tell you something about my kids, though. I love them, and Miriam? You can fuck right off. How dare you try to foist the ineffective torture of abstinence on them? If you were any kind of "expert" you'd know it doesn't work. 

My kids were raised by a village of amoral atheistic liberals. That means, hopefully, they get to know the joy of sex, in as much of its wonderful variety as they're comfortable with. Their lives will have broader goals than marriage and breeding. They'll love, and they'll lose. They'll break their hearts, and bruise their hips on hand basins. Any joy comes with the possibility of pain, of loss. That's the point of living. 

I've accepted, like any sane person, that I can never keep my children completely safe. But I can certainly keep them away from Miriam's ilk, and their horrible fundamentalist bigotry and bleakness.