So I'm not a huge Dan Savage fan. He writes a funny column and I'm all for sexual openness, but he holds a certain number of opinions that I disagree with (I'm pretty sure that he was adamant for many years that bisexuality was a crock, which is LUDICROUS in my opinion). Now I'm reading The Kid, which is his memoir of adopting a son with his boyfriend. The observational parts are interesting--how the pre-adoption seminar talks a lot about overcoming the pain of infertility, how fights with his boyfriend work--but (how can I put this?) he doesn't seem to like straight people very much.
It feels really obnoxious to complain that Dan Savage is prejudiced against me, but that's how I feel. He makes a lot of generalizations about straight people that I disagree with. He says we like the term "partner" for longterm gay relationships because the term "boyfriend" makes us too aware of all the penises involved. Um, I just think that grown-ups who have been in a relationship for many years sound like high schoolers when they say boyfriend. Trust me, it doesn't make me think of penises. I actually like it for unmarried straight couples, too. I also don't think that every time I have sex it is innately centered around procreation, even if I'm taking precautions against that. I also don't really like how, in certain contexts, he uses only the term "lesbian," and seems to use it as distinct from "woman," as though a lesbian is somehow distinct from a woman.
Who am I to argue gay issues with Dan Savage? Isn't he a more experienced observer of the straight world, just because of the amount of thinking and social commentary he's done about it, as distinct from the gay world? And even if he's wrong, doesn't it seem dumb for me to complain about being judged by someone who has been so judged by society? I don't care. I do my damnedest not to judge him, and somehow he's shoved me into a yucky little box. Annoys me.
