Catherine Zappone and Ann-Louise Gilligan are fighting in the High Court over the next couple of weeks to have their marriage recognized in Ireland. If they succeed, it will have a subtle but powerful effect on the constituency I care most about: gay men. Not that I don’t care about the plaintiffs’ personal struggle, or that of other lesbians; the case for them is an important one, especially financially.

For women in Ireland, the most pressing issues are mainly visibility and economic independence from men. Marriage in this country used to be about men claiming ownership over women, akin to cattle or sheep, and once women can marry each other in this country, it will be the last nail in the coffin of the concept of wives being the chattels of men, which was only removed from our statute books 25 years ago, in the Family Law Act.
The many injustices that women have suffered in their marriages have, rightly, fuelled serious debate and the introduction of many progressive changes in family law over the past few decades, including the introduction of divorce. I would see the successful outcome of the Zappone/Gilligan case, and/or the introduction of civil marriage between members of the same sex in Ireland, as being the pinnacle of the fight for women’s equality in many important areas of the law, and I hope that day is not too far away.
But what about men? The psychological and emotional reality of marriage, or committed relationship of any kind, is fraught with complications for many men, to a degree that mystifies many women, and many men that view relationships from a traditional perspective. As an aside, it is only relatively recently that research is showing that domestic violence is a two-way street: just as many men are victims of it as women. Perhaps more men are willing to admit it to their doctors these days, which can only be a good thing. But when people resort to violence, it means that all other routes to self-expression have failed, and the healing required can only come through acquiring a level of emotional literacy that is very difficult to achieve for many men.
Catching up with the excellent second series of Six Feet Under the other night, a snippet of dialogue between thirty-somethings Nate and Lisa epitomised a difference in attitudes to relationship between men and women perfectly for me. Nate, manfully wading into the deep waters of keeping a sensitive wife happy and jointly parenting a newborn infant, without complaint, and with enormous reserves of patience and kindness, says (I paraphrase) “Let’s celebrate the fact that we’re both 100% committed to making our marriage work”. Lisa’s face falls, she is gutted. “How can you say that? You make it sound as if it’s hard work!” And she storms off, in tears.
Marriage is good for men, generally, family life and responsibility bring a contentment and stability that often eludes us when we are single. Women, however, thrive much better than men when they are single, for they are much better at supporting each other and talking through their problems, and are less prone to falling into the trap of isolating. But there is a paradox here; men, in my experience, don’t put relating as their primary or default way of being, they have to be coaxed into it, persuaded, invited. Men have to decide to relate, weighing up the consequences, the loss of freedom, and the potential hurt, and, once decided, then can go on and make their relationships work successfully. But it is something that has to be appreciated, or at least acknowledged: it is a step outside our default mode. Women tend to assume that being in relationship is a given, a natural way of being, and the intricate and subtly nuanced matrix of relationships that lesbians have with each other is testament to this.
But gay men and relationships? From the start of the dating game, when we go out to meet each other in pubs and clubs, research has shown that 70% of men in a male gay bar expect someone else to make the first move. It’s a statistic that makes it extremely different to develop basic dating skills, and going out on the scene becomes a confidence-eroding experience for many of us. That statistic is from London, but Dublin’s scene has become just as commercialized and sexualized as London. Most gay men that I meet are highly cynical about the prospect of having a meaningful relationship. Where there’s cynicism, there is disappointment at its root, and therefore an ideal that hasn’t been reached. It is this ideal that needs to be put under the spotlight; we need to start creating for ourselves a different ideal, that suits us, that is workable and within reach, not some thing absolutist and unattainable.
For those of us who are more highly sexed, the need for sex can be met in other ways, through direct encounters that are often highly pleasurable, but are not about relating in a dating or social sense. The internet dating sites for gay men in Ireland are littered with profiles lamenting the lack of decent relationship-oriented men. Obviously, seeing as there are so many, the problem is not about there being a lack of men wanting relationships, it must be about how we deal with that desire to relate. Bearing in mind that I haven’t lived in Ireland since 1993, I haven’t kept track of how Irish men meet each other for sex and dates on the internet here. I am discovering that we have taken to it with, ahem, gay abandon, and the sheer scale and variety of it surprises me.
For a man, marriage, or any committed relationship, cuts to the heart of the dilemma between his need for contentment and his need for pleasure. I am not saying that married life does not have its deep pleasures and thrills, and I’m not saying that a bachelor’s life is lacking in contentment or maturity. But at the point of commitment, a man entering into relationship is often abandoning something he holds dear. The word “decide” has as its root the word to kill, like homicide and suicide. One kills off an option, settles for one thing alone. However, the search for pleasure, as one contributor to a recent report on suicide in Ireland, (showing yet again that four times as many men commit suicide as women), is a perilous one, for the highs are invariably followed by lows. But in this increasingly materialistic society, it is more and more likely that depression and suicide will increase, paradoxically because we seek more and more pleasure.
In a way, I anticipate the advent of marriage between men as something that could save us from ourselves, or at least help us to think along lines other than hedonism. I’ve long believed in the need for men to get our act together in our own right, for our own sakes, and not (just) because women demand it of us, or because our bodies cave in due to drink or drugs or disease. I believe that when it is possible for men to marry each other, it will change our expectations of ourselves, and give us more choices. The nostalgia I have for the old days, for the Dublin gay and lesbian community in the eighties, is not about wishing I could turn the clock back and bring back draconian laws and seriously oppressive attitudes, but for the way we banded together to fight them. But like any old revolutionary lamenting the state of the world, post-revolution, it is not for me to control what people do with the freedoms they have won. Gay and bisexual men have organized themselves, in real and cyber worlds, around the pursuit of pleasure; instant self-gratification. As someone who is not averse to pleasure, I celebrate this. But for anything to be truly valuable, it has to be something that is freely chosen, with an awareness of its drawbacks. There has to be an alternative, or it can become oppressive, tyrannical even, and the shadow takes over - depression, the disappointment when one person can’t provide us with constant pleasure, the lack of opportunity or ability to discuss it properly with friends, the escape into drink or drugs in an attempt to replicate the excitement of multiple sexual encounters.
Trying to prioritise contentment and security in a relationship is extremely difficult when one is swimming against the fast-flowing ever-distracting current. For long-term relationships are about creating calm, still places for each other, creating a safe haven for each other, where one can let go of the need for constant stimulation and performance and thrill-seeking, and relax. There is no escape, or at least no escapism in marriage, and that requires a maturity and confidence and sense of personal responsibility, that can help create a deep sense of satisfaction. Women, in my experience, know all about this, know what to work for, how to create it. I’ve known many men who have been reluctantly drawn into relationships with women, through “accidental” pregnancies or other circumstances, (not least, the fact that sex, for totally heterosexual men, is far more difficult to find without entering into relationship), who have grown to realise the value of taking on responsibility, of making relationships work.
When, not if, marriage between men is introduced in this country, men will have the incentive to create a different set of social networks and support systems, with committed, long-term relationships as a goal. What’s most exciting to me is the prospect of what will happen to marriage itself. Monogamy, as an absolute prerequisite, will have to be re-examined, re-interpreted, in the light of the prevailing reality of most (gay) men’s lives. There are too many families and relationships that have broken up because of a zero-tolerance stance of one partner, to her or his partner’s infidelity. That, to me, is a shame. The more difficult road, but ultimately the more rewarding one, surely, is a relationship built on a mutual agreement to discuss everything, to negotiate everything, to create a unique bond of trust that suits each individual couple. Marriage between men will only work if men are honest with each other about sex. Judging by the number of men looking for “discreet” encounters online, we have a long way to go.
Perhaps nothing will change. Perhaps men will always seek pleasure when we can find it, or if we can get away with it, we will always be led by our dicks, there will always be men looking for secret extra-marital sex. Maybe my hopes that we can change are utopian. But without emotionally literate men marrying each other, and publicly demonstrating the benefits of another way of relating to the rest of us, we don’t really have a genuine choice. Marriage between men will, I believe, transform the way we relate to each other, by bringing an honesty and a real negotiation into relating, as opposed to the old shibboleths of fidelity, that are blind to the reality of many men’s lives. It is through honesty and transparency that marriage can be strengthened, made more flexible, more relevant to the twenty-first century. And that can only be a good thing, for all of us.