It took a whole day to think of how to write this comment without disclosing private information but I was very moved by the lavender marriage piece. It might be better analysis to say that people in these marriages have chosen in the Esther Perel dichotomy 100% comfort and security instead of saying that they have made a brave statement in favor of queerness.
I am now sold on "Dancer from The Dance" but I emphatically have to read "Minor Black Figures" first which has been out for almost a whole year! I am floored that this book did not sell well but can only figure that people who were not hardcore Brandon Taylor substack readers did not understand why this particular story would be interesting.
I really loved your piece in the point and look forward to listening to the Holloran podcast. There was something pretty lavender marriage-adjacent a couple generations back (though it’s not entirely clear whether they both knew the other was a homosexual when they married) in my family. It produced two children and ended in the suicide of one of the parents with all the emotional wreckage that accompanies an act of that kind. Not a fan of that sort of thing!
!! Yeah, another thing that could have gone in this piece is the active support groups / networks for couples in MOMs or spouses of gay people who came out. The numbers of them are shocking and on the whole it is a very sad, depressing universe. Partly, I think, because of the people who try to painfully drag it out or "make it work" or "do it for the kids" when that's not really what they want; at the same time, lots of women and their gay ex-husbands become best friends/co-parents after. But it's a rather depressing index of our time that everyone is reporting on this fake internet trend while the sadly slow-changing reality persists.
It took a whole day to think of how to write this comment without disclosing private information but I was very moved by the lavender marriage piece. It might be better analysis to say that people in these marriages have chosen in the Esther Perel dichotomy 100% comfort and security instead of saying that they have made a brave statement in favor of queerness.
I am now sold on "Dancer from The Dance" but I emphatically have to read "Minor Black Figures" first which has been out for almost a whole year! I am floored that this book did not sell well but can only figure that people who were not hardcore Brandon Taylor substack readers did not understand why this particular story would be interesting.
I really loved your piece in the point and look forward to listening to the Holloran podcast. There was something pretty lavender marriage-adjacent a couple generations back (though it’s not entirely clear whether they both knew the other was a homosexual when they married) in my family. It produced two children and ended in the suicide of one of the parents with all the emotional wreckage that accompanies an act of that kind. Not a fan of that sort of thing!
!! Yeah, another thing that could have gone in this piece is the active support groups / networks for couples in MOMs or spouses of gay people who came out. The numbers of them are shocking and on the whole it is a very sad, depressing universe. Partly, I think, because of the people who try to painfully drag it out or "make it work" or "do it for the kids" when that's not really what they want; at the same time, lots of women and their gay ex-husbands become best friends/co-parents after. But it's a rather depressing index of our time that everyone is reporting on this fake internet trend while the sadly slow-changing reality persists.