Soldier on

Before I went to Iraq my wife used to love it when I would eat her pussy. Since my return she has stopped letting me do it, saying that it now feels uncomfortable — even gross. This is often the only way to get her to come. Why would she stop wanting to be satisfied? And no, she’s not getting it somewhere else; we’ve already been through that. I’m going nuts because I want it to be mutual and wild like it was before. Help!

_Wanna Eat Tang

Give it time, WET. While your time in Iraq was no doubt stressful for you, I can’t believe it was a cakewalk for your wife either. While you were gone you were less her husband (and her considerate, giving lover) and more this abstract source of nearly constant worry and stress. It may take a few months before whatever subconscious anger or resentment she feels — toward you for going, toward W for prosecuting this war ineptly — melts away. Let her know that you’re looking forward to your sex life returning to normal, WET, and then give her the time she needs to decompress.

I fully support gay rights and wrote a letter to the prime minister — I’m up in Canada — supporting gay marriage. But whenever I get into debates about the issue with right-wing acquaintances, they bring up "the thin edge of the wedge" and insist that gay marriage will lead to polygamy. This leaves me stymied.

I have no argument with adults who freely choose to enter into open relationships. My problem is with fundamentalist cults that indoctrinate their followers from birth and are building armies through the practice of one man having multiple young wives and many children. My feminist backbone shudders at the thought of these young women being bred and raised for the sole purpose of personal fiefdom-building.

The argument goes: "If gays should be ‘free’ to marry, then why not ‘religious freedom’ for those who choose a polygamous lifestyle?" I’m curious to hear your opinion on this and am hoping you will supply me with an intelligent retort!

_Stymied In Canada

"Her interlocutors are wrong, wrong, wrong," says E. J. Graff, author of What Is Marriage For?, a terrific, informative, and entertaining book about gay marriage. "They’re assuming that we homos are making a claim to marriage under the libertarian argument that everyone should be free to do as s/he wishes. Wrong. We are arguing that we already belong to the West’s contemporary marriage philosophy — for capitalist and for feminist reasons."

Put your feet in the stirrups, lie back, and relax, SIC, because Graff is going to jam some steel into your shuddering feminist spine: "Once upon a time, the West had a ‘traditional’ marriage philosophy." The husband owned his wife, whatever children she bore him — you know the drill. But capitalism eventually came along — thank God! — and freed us from those confining sex roles. "Each of us now has to make a living independently, based on individual talents and efforts rather than traditional roles. Over time this led to gender equality in both the job market and the marriage market. Between 1850 and 1970, every developed country struck down its sex-based rules, both in labor (i.e., women can be plumbers and legislators) and in marriage (i.e., married women can own property, hold jobs without hubby’s permission, have custody of children, and even — gasp! — say no in bed). The result: gender equality is today’s governing public philosophy, in marriage and in much else. For 150 years, courts and legislatures have changed marriage law to fit this philosophy, under which same-sex couples fit just fine." In other words, heterosexual marriage is not one man taking ownership over one woman, but two individuals, as equals, committing to each other. "The only sex-based restriction left in marriage law," Graff says, "lies in the entrance rules, where it no longer belongs."

Letting same-sex couples make the same gender-neutral commitment that opposite-sex couples make doesn’t open the doors to polygamy. "Traditional polygamy grows from exactly the opposite [of gender equality]," says Graff. "One man owns many wombs and grows lots of household labor. That is precisely the opposite of gender equality and of individual-based capitalism. It violates all our contemporary notions of fairness and democracy. Polygamy would mean heading backward into marriage’s feudal history; same-sex marriage moves us forward into its equal and democratic future." Now get off the table, SIC, and go argue with your right-wing acquaintances.

(E. J. Graff, currently the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center resident scholar, has a new book coming out this month, Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men — and What to Do About It, by Evelyn Murphy with E. J. Graff.)

Harvard Book Store presents Dan Savage discussing his new book, The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family, on October 1, at 5 pm, at the Brattle Theatre. Tickets are $5. Call 617.661.1515.