If you hear someone use the word “partner” in casual conversation, you may be tempted to think that you have found someone queer nearby. Do not, under any circumstances, assume this. Statistically speaking, you have a greater than 87% chance that what you have found is a straight person attempting to demonstrate how queer-conscious they are around other liberal straight people.
Hetero people love using the word “partner” to describe their current boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse. Especially around non-hetero people. It signifies that they’re conscious of gay people – hey, they have a gay friend – and that they understand why “partner” is preferred, even over the word “spouse” if they’re married. It’s hip to be partnered. It’s inclusive. It’s gay. It’s cliché. And if there’s one thing hetero folks love above all else, it’s reproducing a cliché out of irony and/or ignorance.
Furthermore, the chance of a hetero using a non-ambiguous signifier to state the gender of their preferred love-mate within two sentences of using the word “partner” approaches unity: that is to say, it is practically guaranteed. To continue using “partner” without reference to a gender or non-ambiguous name would confuse the people the hetero individual is trying to impress by using the term. Both heterosexuals and queers will begin to think that the speaker may, in fact, be a non-heterosexual sodomite. This would go against a penultimate goal of heterosexuality: to appropriate and subsume queer culture so long as no one actually confuses a heterosexual for being queer.
Compare and contrast this behavior to the hetero use of the phrase, “…I’m not gay, but…” and the rising incidence of metrosexuality and kinky sex among heterosexual communities.
(image source: flickr)
