What should I have said?
Last week Jesse and I wend out to dinner with a co-worker of Jesse's and his wife. Um, the co-workers wife, not Jesse's. Anyway. They were very nice and we had a really good time with them. It's so rare that I get to go out with other adults so it was very nice for me. Mostly. Except for one part.
At one point the topic of my surrogacy came up and they were curious about it, asking lots of questions. I'm pretty used to that and at this point I figure I've heard just about everything anyone is going to ask. I guess I haven't heard it all though because after I told them that I was carrying the baby for a gay couple they proceeded to ask me which one was the woman in the relationship.
I'm ashamed to admit that my answer was not as good as it could have been. I blame this on the fact that I was so taken aback by the question that a good 50% of my brain had to be devoted to keeping my mouth from blurting out "Holy crap! There are still people out there that think like that!?!" I think I kind of mumbled something about neither of them being the woman but it was a cop out answer and I could have done a lot better.
I think what made it hard was that they question wasn't asked in a mean way. I mean, these were nice people asking an amazingly stupid question. I know that they weren't trying to be hateful but they just really had no idea about how ignorant and offensive that question was. If they had been rude about it I could have been rude right back and that wouldn't have been a problem for me. The problem for me came because I didn't know how to respond to such cheerful cluelessness.
How do you tell two very nice people "Wow, that's the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. Have you been out of the house in like, the last 20 years or so?"
Jen
9 comments:
Depending on my mood I either would have given a cheerfully patronising lecture about how most of the gay couples I know didn't really behave in stereotypically "masculine vs femenine" ways or just gone :
"Do you mean 'which one takes it up the ass?'"
Because I'm just than antagonistically vulgar some times.
David Sedaris said that the whole point of being homosexual men is precisely that there ISN'T a woman, that the definition of being in a homosexual relationship is that they are, in fact, BOTH MEN.
And I second Christopher's response. That would have shut them right up!
Heh, I would have gone the "well we've all got a bit of woman in us. The lesbians more than others." And then nodded nicely and told the woman her rack was looking especially fine that evening wink wink.
Then blame it on your hormones.
I don't know, there's so much fun you can have with folks like that.
And dude, we are SO going to Jaco Bay!
...wait... was she asking which one was the butchy one and which one was the femme one? it took me a while to infer that, as I was thinking and thinking, "aren't they both men?"
SERIOUSLY, SHE ASKED THAT?! what planet does she live on?!
I second caustic cupcake's sedaris reference. love it.
I'd probably go with Christopher's "are you asking which one takes it in the butt?" because...that is what they're asking, and it can't hurt to let them know how vulgar they're being.
Then again, I'm in a bad mood. The best response would probably be the Sedaris one, which would put them in their place without embarrassing them too much.
I love Christopher's response, but I can understand how difficult it could be when you don't want to be unnecessarily inciteful. Sad to think about the narrow-mindedness that still exists out there.
Dude. I would have burst out in laughter.
Wow... I would LOVE to have the guts to respond as Christopher suggested, but would have probably just shaken my head in the face of such ignorance. Good for you for keeping your cool.
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