Mixed-orientation marriages where both parties are gay & happy?

February 15, 2019 3:59 PM

Usual depictions of mixed-orientation marriages tend to involve a closeted gay partner and a not-very-willing straight spouse (often a gay man & a straight woman, though sometimes the reverse happens), or a lesbian and a gay man in a marriage of convenience to appease family/cultural expectations. Are there examples where both parties are willing and happy with the relationship? I'm especially interested in a lesbian & gay man happily married to each other (doesn't have to be monogamous), but gay & straight are OK too.
posted by divabat to Human Relations (10 answers total)

Well it's not quite what you're after, but Angela Morley underwent sex reassignment surgery (what we would now call gender affirmation surgery) in 1972 and remained married to her wife Christine Parker, by all accounts happily, until her death in 2009. I've not heard anything really about Angela's sexual orientation relative to her gender, but this BBC audio documentary about her life attests that she and her wife shared "everything but the sex" in their relationship and found their arrangement perfectly satisfactory on the whole. The documentary does not delve further into their sex lives, but it would seem that they were sexually incompatible yet quite compatible as life partners.

A fascinating person, the documentary is well worth listening to if you have the time.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:37 PM on February 15, 2019

I also once personally knew a straight woman who was happily married to a gay man. He came out after their marriage and I'm not exactly sure what the interior of their relationship looked like (I suspect they were basically "just good friends" but I never knew her well enough to really get the inside scoop) but I do know that they remained comfortably and willingly married to each other for many years after his coming out.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:42 PM on February 15, 2019

Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell come to mind, although Vanessa was married to Clive Bell. Also Edna St Vincent Millay was bisexual married to a man; they had an open relationship.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:09 PM on February 15, 2019

It depends on what you define as happy. Josh and Lolly Weed famously were the happy and out mixed Mormon marriage couple for several years. Until they found that they weren't actually happy and divorced.
posted by Candleman at 5:18 PM on February 15, 2019

Best answer: I think you'll like the story of Dennis and Linda Anfuso. She's an intersex lesbian, he's a gay man.
posted by foxjacket at 5:25 PM on February 15, 2019

Best answer: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson

You might also be interested in the novel Marriage of 1000 Lies, though it's probably closer to the "marriage of convenience" model.
posted by dizziest at 5:41 PM on February 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

Andrea Dworkin and John Stoltenberg come to mind.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:45 PM on February 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

This isn't about marriage but some of the pieces in the book PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality might be of interest. The book is over 20 years old now but I read it recently and it felt strikingly fresh and relevant, considering. In particular I remember Carol Queen (who now IDs as bisexual, and did when the book was written, but ID'ed as a lesbian in the past) writing about relating to gay men in a sexual way.
posted by needs more cowbell at 7:55 PM on February 15, 2019

Dodie Bellamy + Kevin Killian!
posted by attentionplease at 7:03 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

One of my professors in university (gay man) was happily married to a lesbian. They were both out, they ran the local chapter of PFLAG, and they had two kids. It was cool, and it worked for them.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 7:25 PM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]