Tim's journal

I think it's somewhere closer to being socialized to divorce (heh) the idea of sexuality from the idea of marriage: all those old sitcom tropes about how the sex stops the minute you walk in the door after the honeymoon. (Semi-relatedly: I get highly weirded out when friends and colleagues discuss honeymoon plans but not wedding plans, likely for the same reason.) Whereas we're socialized to believe marriage is a foundation of family and home and other G-rated topics, we're also taught that the difference between dating/partnered and "just friends" is the sex. (Well, at least those of us who learned about this stuff before friends-with-benefits gained common usage.) Obviously this is highly problematic in and of itself, but that's a separate topic.

For my sake at least, I honestly haven't found a term that isn't bothersome to me in some way. I generally refer to tcdohl as my boyfriend, despite cringing at what I perceive to be the immaturity of that label. But "partner" feels like a business transaction, "significant other" takes too long to spit out and feels awkward in conversation, "SO" is shorter but still feels awkward, and yeah, not touching the rest of those descriptors with a borrowed, latex-wrapped pole. (Obligatory exception for your mom.)