ju s t out ▼ fe b ruary 7, 1907 V 21
THIS THING CALLED
our friend from the office finally agreed
to come to one of your parties. Now you
get to introduce her to the one you love.
“Hi. I’d like you to meet my partner—no, that
sounds like we own a business together. Really,
this is my lover—but sex is only a small part of
our relationship,” you babble. “Meet my
spouse. Oh, that just sounds silly.”
By the time you finish the introduction, the
party’s over. As you pick a strawberry from the
fruit tray off your white carpet, you decide there
has to be a way to describe the one who means
so much to you that is both appropriate and
accurate.
Perhaps there is no one right answer to the
question of what the person with whom you
spend your life is called, but almost everyone
has an opinion.
Author and syndicated columnist Leslda
Newman, who wrote the children’s book
Heather Has Two Mommies and edited the
more recent collection
of poetry entitled My
The phrase
Lover Is a Woman,
“longtime
said she seldom uses
the term lover.
companion”
“It sounds like all
and words like
we do is have sex, and
friend or
while of course that’s
roommate often
part of our relationship
it’s much more than
don*t fully
that,” Newman said.
explain the
She said she does
relationship.
n’t use partner because
it sounds too busi
nesslike,
but
she
sometimes uses spouse when around straight
people.
“I tend to say girlfriend around lesbians
because I like the friendliness of the word and
everyone knows what it means,” she said.
Newman, though, has chosen another term that
better fits her situation.
“My word of choice is really ‘butch,’ as in
‘This is my butch.’ That just about sums it up,”
she said.
Merle Yost, an author and private practice
psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif., said he calls
the object of his affection his partner.
“In my practice, I am finding that partner is
becoming a term that is used by couples of dif
ferent orientations,” he said. “I believe that
partner is the term that is beginning to be used
by people to describe all unmarried relation
ships.”
He knows the term has problems, but he still
prefers it.
“While partner has a business tone, it is
more inclusive of all the parts of the relation
ship,” Yost said.
San Francisco Chronicle reporter David
Tuller said he used the term mate for his signif
L©VE
Y
Lover, Partner, Friend?
,
Even if we win the right to legally marry we still won’t know
what to call the one we spend our life with
by Gip Plaster
icant other, who died last year. He said he
believes the term lover is passing from the
scene and that a companion sounds like some
thing people have when they are old.
“There’s not really a good word to use,”
Tuller said. “Spouse seems strange. Husband
seems forced in some way. Life partner is sort
of pretentious.”
Some couples use the term co-husband or co
wife to stress the equality of their relationship,
while some same-gender couples are comfortable
with the straight role titles “husband” and “wife.”
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The phrase “longtime companion” and
words like friend or roommate often don’t fully
explain the relationship. “Significant other” or
“other half’ are convenient terms, but again
they often don’t provide an accurate picture of
the relationship to which they refer.
“Partner” or “life partner” is the choice of
about a third of women and a slightly smaller
percentage of men, according to one survey.
Conducted in 1988 by Partners Task Force for
Lesbian and Gay Couples, the survey found that
30 percent of women and 40 percent of men use
Ml Cod’s
Children
the term lover. Only 1 percent of the men and
women who responded used the terms husband
or wife. But that was in 1988.
“Our survey is the most extensive ever done
specifically on same-sex couples, and it has been
only six years since it was published,” said
Damian, task force co-director. “Cultures usual
ly don’t change that fast—fads perhaps, but cul
tures take more time.”
The terms people use seem to vary by social
setting, Damian said. He also said some things
may have changed since the survey.
“I would be inclined to think, anecdotally,
that these days there seem to be more men who
call their partners husband—under certain cir
cumstances,” he said. “I have not heard les
bians use the term wife as much, perhaps
because of the second-class position it has in
our culture.”
When lesbian or gay couples decide to hold a
ceremony to publicly acknowledge their rela
tionship, it creates a
whole new set of lan
“Significant
guage problems.
other ” or
Ceremonies once
called holy unions or
“other h a ir
are convenient commitment ceremonies
are now often called
terms , but
marriages.
again they
“I believe we are
often don 7 pro adopting the relation
ship language of our
vide an accu
and society,”
rate picture of parents
Yost said.
the relationship
Tuller said the
term
marriage is often
to which they
used in quotation marks
refer.
to perhaps show the
incompleteness or inac
curacy of the term. He adds that the whole issue
of terms for same-gender relationships is a
“moving target” and something with which soci
ety is “struggling.”
Margarethe Cammermeyer, the colonel who
was discharged from the military for admitting
she is a lesbian, is in a committed relationship,
so she has an opinion on this issue too.
“Among gay and lesbian couples, the term
marriage is often used to imply a committed
relationship but it lacks legal and social legit
imization,” she said.
In referring to her partner, she said the lan
guage simply fails her.
“My partner and I have a committed, loving,
caring and devoted relationship which surpasses
any single word created by a society afraid to
acknowledge difference.”
Maybe that is the answer. The language’s
relationship words simply don’t do a very good
job of adapting to couples for whom they
weren’t designed. But that won’t help much at
your next party.
PCC Cascades
Terrell Hall
Rm 122 7-9pm
February 18,
1997
Followed by a
panel discussion
Free
Sponsored by
DMrrflWNPSp^^
A Documentary featuring
Rev. Jesse Jackson
Cornel West
Sen. Carol Mosely-Braun
Phlll Wilson and Congresswoman
Maxine Waters speaking out on
Black lesbian and gays
The Urban L a a fa a at Portland
Portland Community
Collas«