Gay and Lesbian Love Relationships
From Encyclopedia of Sex and Sexuality
Love relationships between men or between women have been documented since ancient Greek times. The Greek poetess Sappho wrote of her lover, “We came together like two drops of water.” The Greek philosopher Socrates maintained a relationship with Alcibiades until he was forced to commit suicide for “corrupting youth” (a charge that stemmed from his irreverent ideas, not his homosexuality). Hephaestion was the lover of Alexander the Great and fought at his side. The historical record gets muddled after Jewish and Christian morality condemned same-sex relationships as “unnatural.”
There are many documented examples of women living together in close and intimate relationships in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was not at all uncommon for spinsters to live together and even to sleep in the same bed, maintaining the relationship until death. Historians call these relationships “Boston Marriages,” suggesting that they were lesbian relationships that may or may not have been sexual. There are also examples of bachelors living together harmoniously. But in all cases, homosexual intimacies were expressed privately, away from the condemning eyes of family, friends, and especially the police.
Today gay and lesbian couples live in every part of the country, in cities and in rural settings. Homosexual couples are found in loving, lifelong relationships with all the romance and passion found in heterosexual marriage. These couples are an important economic force in many parts of the country. They buy property in common, sign contracts together, and benefit from survivorship. They demand, but have not yet received, full economic parity with heterosexual married couples, e.g., family medical insurance and legal recognition of the union. Nevertheless, for the most part, the lives of gay and lesbian couples are very much like the lives of other people in their communities. Where competition and dynamism are in the air, as in New York City, gay couples compete in that fast-paced society; where time is measured more slowly, as in our rural settings, gay and lesbian couples mirror the pace of their neighbors.
Gay and lesbian love relationships are now quite common, and in many cases couples are open about their homosexuality. What are homosexual relationships like? In some ways they are very similar to heterosexual relationships, yet they differ in other ways. All couples, gay and straight, want to develop lifelong relationships. Gay and lesbian lovers want to live in a secure home, protected from discrimination and legal harassment. They want to socialize as other couples do. They want the opportunity to raise children as heterosexuals do. In short, they want to be integrated into society like any other family.
There are also differences. Not all men and women are the same, but potential trouble spots in both lesbian and gay male love relationships are often based on the following generalizations. Lesbians seem more demanding of intimacy than gay men, while at the same time they are less demanding sexually. It is quite the opposite with men in homosexual relationships. They prize sexuality above other concerns. Many men appear to experience discomfort when involved in an emotionally dependent relationship with another person, and especially with another man. These characteristics seem true whether we are speaking about homosexuals or heterosexuals and are probably the result of the different socializations of men and women. Lesbian relationships sometimes have a problem called “merging.” In this situation women become too dependent on one another. Gay men, on the other hand, may seek too much independence, especially sexual independence.
Gay and lesbian couples may also have trouble with their respective families, who may be either supportive or destructive of the relationship. Most parents today are at least respectful of their children’s choices of lovers, but others have been known to physically or verbally attack them, withdraw financial support from them (for school, for example), and refuse to allow the son or daughter to ever enter the house again. This is just another example of society’s homophobia.
