Sex

“How old are you again?” my father asks, surveying the black-and-blue arms and legs that I’m proudly showcasing.

“Dad, I’m gay!” I remind him. “I’m allowed to live in a state of perpetual adolescence.”

True or not, it’s a good defense for most scenarios. This particular circumstance required explaining the battle wounds I sustained at a gay wedding when my friend and I attempted to perform a Dirty Dancing type lift after a dozen vodka tonics. We failed. (To say “miserably” would be a compliment.)

That celebration marked my fourth gay wedding in as many years. In fact, my gay friends now outnumber my straights in trips to the altar. If you haven’t been invited to a gay wedding by now, you’re either grossly lacking in social connections or you’re a Log Cabin Republican.

Each gay wedding comes with touches as unique as the same-sex couple at the altar. Of the ones I’ve attended, one kicked off with one of the brides and her pal strutting down the lawn of the Arnold Arboretum, the giant boom box between them blaring a punk anthem. Another was held beneath Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, with drag queen Thirsty Burlington interrupting the formalities by zipping in on a scooter, her skimpy Cher costume startling grandmothers out of their food comas. You can always count on these celebrations to simultaneously honor and twist tradition.

As excited as I always am to find a gay-wedding invitation in my mailbox, I still meet it with a strange mix of emotion that’s hard to experience, let alone spell out on paper. While I recognize that gay marriage is a huge stride toward equal rights, I can’t help but fear the normalcy that accompanies it.

I’ve always looked at being gay as a sort of exclusive right reserved for the deviant and deranged. Those are badges of honor, in my opinion, not traits deserving of the psychological classification or shame that people have historically ascribed to them. In fact, they are qualities that the all-too-average person probably wishes he or she possesses. Seriously, who would you rather have cocktails with — the highschool quarterback or your hairdresser?

Surveying the gay icons of yesteryear, I conjure dreamy images of smoke-filled-lounges and sex-soaked bars; of outlaws, rebels, writers and poets, heroines and harlots. Now we gay people are card-carrying citizens of Corporate America, marriage-license-wielding suburbanites, and — gasp! — child-rearing, minivan-driving Normal People. I’ll admit: it freaks me out.

Since coming out in my late teens, I all but abolished the thought of both marriage and children. I’m not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg. (I think it was the pussy.) Regardless, I guess I wrongly assumed that others thought as I did. In looking to the future, I imagined a giant group of girlfriends, some partnered, others single, all somehow bonded to the idea of the group over the individual. If you need me to put this in a Sex and the City framework, it would be like Carrie pledging allegiance to her girls rather than to Mr. Big. (Ahhhh, now I get it. Hey, where’s my Cosmo?)

At the time, the non-existence of gay marriage made this practically guaranteed. But now we’re non-conformists lurching toward conformity. Does this mean that I want to subvert equal rights for gay people? Hell, no. I am absolutely, 100 percent in support of every right for all letters in the LGBT battle. When I heard that the California gay marriage ban had been overturned, my eyes welled up. These are my rights, I realize, even if I may never take advantage of them. At the same time, I recognize that the utopia of swinging gay singles that I envisioned for my future, all of us white-haired at a retirement-community rave, is not to be. And it’s an image that’s difficult for me to let go of as we usher in more realistic times.

So, yeah, maybe I drink a little more at gay weddings. Maybe I perform a stunt or two that should be reserved for Alvin Ailey. Maybe my father is right that a 31-year-old woman shouldn’t be proudly brandishing her battle wounds. But I’m really not ready for all that grown-up stuff of weddings and adoptions and carpools. My behavior at gay weddings is one part celebration of the significance of this landmark occasion, two parts personal lament.

And for now, I’m perfectly content hanging out with my hot straight friend, trying to do the worm without breaking something.

Jeannie Greeley is a freelance writer who’s licking her wounds. She can be reached at jeannieg@comcast.net.