One femme’s journey from bisexual, polyamorous matrimony to monogamous lesbian U-haul unions

BY DIANA CAGE

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DeRossi’s marriage will be the first celesbo wedding of its kind and the spotlight holds a certain amount of pressure. No one’s getting exclusive coverage. Apparently DeGeneres and DeRossi are going the egalitarian route like proper lesbians and sending photos out to everyone. This should keep the press from stalking them like hungry wolverines and they’ll get to put out a positive image of queers in matrimonial bliss all over the media.

Seems like everyone’s celebrating, except a few bitchy tabloid queens. For example this nasty quote in Defamer.com: “Ellen has a history of replacing her partners when they get older and Portia is looking a little ropey,” says one tabloid insider. “She’ll totally undermine the gay community if the marriage falls apart.” It’s a good thing the welfare of the gay community doesn’t hinge on my ability to keep a relationship because I’d sink our ship for sure.

In celebration of queers getting gay California marriages, I’m getting a gay California divorce. My divorce is gay because I’m gay, but my marriage was a straight one. It was 15 years ago and I just never got around to dissolving it. I started the proceedings when one girlfriend wanted to get married but dropped the ball after our inevitable painful, drama-filled break up. I picked up the paperwork again when another partner wanted to marry me but then of course, we broke up.

The story of my marriage goes like this: My then-boyfriend Ian and I moved to San Francisco together when we were both 21. I remember the day we walked over the hill from the Sunset district in to the Castro and suddenly all the men were holding hands and we both thought: “Home.”

A year into our new San Francisco life Ian left town for six months to make a film in Southern California. During that time I mysteriously developed a new habit of sitting at the dyke bar in the evening, chatting with the very butch bartender and getting excited when older butches would send me drinks. I was in my bi-now-gay-later phase and scared I’d be rejected for not being a real dyke, so it took a few weeks before I got up enough nerve to actually start making out with girls. Soon enough though I was hanging out at the club every weekend, making out with half-naked girls on the dance floor (it was all the rage to go shirtless at that time). Next thing you know I developed several major crushes and started pining to get laid. One night my biggest, hottest crush wrote her number on my hand as she was leaving. I was so turned on and she was so fucking cool about it; looking over her shoulder as she walked away and mouthing “call me.”

I woke up with a hangover and cried when I realized her number was illegible, smeared from holding a sweaty Corona all night.

Ian came home shortly after that and I immediately confessed my newly realized dykeyness. He said, something like “duh,” and we talked about the ramifications ultimately deciding we were in love and we’d just stay together and see what happened.

Six months later I was working a regular job with benefits and wanted to add Ian to my medical insurance. So one day we just got on the Muni to City Hall and paid 80 bucks to get a marriage license. When the clerk told us you actually had to have a ceremony we were at a loss. We didn’t want a ceremony; we just wanted to share medical benefits while one of us actually had them.

As an answer, one of our friends registered as a minister in the Universal Life Church and signed our license into legality. Her Haight Street apartment had roof access and a Kool cigarette billboard you could climb on to, so we had an impromptu wedding party. Someone went to Safeway and got me a bouquet of purple kale and plastic rings for a quarter. We climbed up the billboard, vowed to never restrict or oppress each other in any way, and our Manic Panic blue-haired, heavily pierced minister pronounced us married. I tossed some kale into a group of wasted friends, Ian got dental insurance and we continued with our bohemian life. We eschewed the terms husband and wife, and everything stayed the same. For the next few years we slept around with various friends, had threesomes and occasional foursomes, and made out with boys and girls of various genders in that San Francisco kind of way. Eventually I fell in love with a woman named Karen and my polyamorous, free-loving bisexual phase came to its natural end. That was 10 years ago.

The thing that strikes me about my half-ass straight marriage is how easy it was for me to get and how much I took it for granted. My lesbian relationships have all been more conservative and traditional than my one straight one. But now that I’m a monogamy-inclined femme dyke living in New York City with a slight U-haulish tendency, I can’t get that same piece of paper.

So now that gay marriage is legal in my home state, I’m officially celebrating with a big gay divorce. I just received divorce papers in the mail and I signed and sent them back on Friday. With a soon-to-be ex-husband and two failed marriage proposals I’m starting to feel a little Liz Taylor, so I’m avoiding anything to do with marriage from here on in. But its good to know California would give me one if I wanted it.

BOYFRIEND MATERIAL

Name: Curtis

Age: 27

Occupation: escape artist, magician (www.MagicofCurtis.com)

E-mail: Curtis@MagicofCurtis.com

Ideal first date: trolling around a lively city street with shops and restaurants. Allowing the evening to sweep us away with nice conversation, fine foods, wine, and yummy ice cream!

Little-known fact: I love to play with handcuffs on stage, but love soft kisses and cute smiles at home.

Are you, or is anyone you know, Boyfriend Material? Fill out the above survey and send a high-resolution image to Lenora.Claire@frontierspublishing.com.