26 September 2007

marriage riles me up

my ninang in toronto has been unsuccessfully and a bit successfully trying to send us here in pinas pictures of her son's wedding, my cousin's wedding, the one i grew up with in marikina. been trying to browse for the last couple of hours. something's wrong with the sending...

but i am happy for chet; the wedding invites came as early as three months ago and mine has been magnetized on my ref door since then. i told him if i had the money and if sked permitted, i would have flown to mississauga first chance i got to be with him on that momentous event (this is his first wedding, at the age of...i think 28 or 29). alas, neither permitted this poor unfortunate soul to fly out there and witness the grand event. still, i am happy for him.

chet's been my surrogate brother since we were kids growing up in marikina. but they migrated to canada early on even before he reached high school. so close are we that i even questioned his sexuality once when they last visited here in manila over some laps in a pool somewhere. being the non-macho shit that he is, i kinda suspected he was gay. yes, i am that one-track minded: non-sexist men to me are either gays or gays waiting to come out. he was neither. he was just a very very nice pinoy boy. although he was not secretive about gay advances to him back in toronto and all, and his extensive knowledge of church street, toronto's gay district, where he got his ear piercing and where QUEER AS FOLK US VERSION was shot (i just died of envy with his stories of this). his was a warm heart that i could talk to for hours, and wanted to ever since we last met...

his bride is a cute one, hot to be precise but i didn't want to scare her with my dykey comments. what i saw was good enough for me: my ninang and tito eli are happy enough for him, along with his two younger brothers and our other family members. so life is peachy...

but somehow, this reminds me of how us, being lesbians gays bisexual transgenders, do not even that societal privilege to be with the one we dearly love. what if our partners get sick and all, could we vsit them and be with them at the hospital? a resounding NO! that's because any relative up to the whaterver degree of consanguinity could be with them, but us? hell fuck no. kami lang naman ang partners for life, pwera lang ang benefit ng marriage and all. ano pinagkaiba? MALAKI.

the one film sequence that made me endlessly cry buckets before was that vanessa redgrave portion of IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK 2. she was a les who is a lola na whose partner died and then all of a sudden, her partner's relatives were talking everything in their house as if the things were theirs, not hers and her partner's. sad. made me sad because at the time i watched that, i was with someone whose family i was sure would act the same way, even if she explicitly said to her mother that one of her bank accounts would go to me in case she dies and all. fat chance. she almost wanted to build a house, gastos all hers, in a lot to be given to me by my parents as inheritance. but what if we split up? house is hers, lot is mine? hay no way dude. no way. so i killed that fairy tale long before it even began.

ewan. mahirap.

we at UP Sappho before debated over what our stand is on gay marriages. we are for it, or the simple reason that whatever heteros get in legal protection, we homosexuals should also get it. that's why i don;t get it when a writer colleague of mine before asked me why lgbts need to ask marriage pa when we got each other na happily living with each other. so binalik ko sa kany yung tanong. sabi ko "e kayo ng asawa mo, bakit kayo nagpakasal?" wala siyang masagot kundi yun na ang "natural progression" ng relasyon nila, magpakasal. sabi ko, why can;t lgbts have the same progression then? bakit kayo lang kinakasal? wala siyang msagot.

and there you have it. marriage is not actually the be all and end all of relationships. thanks to divorce and anulment in the US, these vows could esaily be dissolved. but i really wonder why some women prefer to be with husbands that don't treat them as human beings... or worse, make them happy, in whatever way.

kaya kayo diyan na nag-iisip na you got the losing end pf the bargain just because you have marital problems and all, whether kinakaliwa kayo ng asawa niyo o kaya may alzheimers pneumonia TB or cancer ang sawa ninyo, PAKATANDAAN NIYO NA AT LEAST, KAYO SA SOCIETY NA TO, PINAGBIGYAN KAYONG ASAWAHIN ANG MGA PUNYETERANG ASAWA NINYO. di tulad naming bakla, tomboy, bi o tranny na nagtitiis sa informal relationship na kahit man lang common law provisions e di nag-a-apply sa amin dahil sa HINDI NAMIN MAPAKASALAN ANG MGA PUNEYTANG MAHAL NAMIN SA BUHAY.

so should we feel sorry for you na mga may asawa na tinotorotot, may leukemia o kanser ang mga waswit, and whatnots? HELL FUCK NO! at least, tandaan niyo ito, MAY PAGKAKATAON KAYONG PAKASALAN ANG MGA PINAKASALAN NINYO, SAMALNTALANG KAMING MINSAN MAS DEBOTO PANG MAG-ASAWA KESA SA INYO E HINDI HINAHAYAANG MAGSAMA BILANG LEGAL ENTITIES NA MAG-ASAWA.

putangina niyo. yung suwerte niyo binabalewala niyo lang. samantalang kami, kapag ma sakit at naosipital ang partners namin, di kami puwede dumalaw dahil HINDI KAMI KAANO-ANO. samantalang kayo, mag-asawa pero di nagpapansinan, pero puwede lumabas pasok sa simbahan, sementeryo, ospital. di tulad namin. DI TULAD NAMIN!

kaya sa susunod, bago kayo magsalita ng mga salitang nakakasakit sa mga di tulad niyo, mag-munimuni muna kayo kung insensitive kayo o hindi.

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