The Big Aiyah

mOoNcAkE dIaRiEs
In an article I read recently, in an Asian newspaper, a man and his wife sue another woman for the money she owed them when they sold her their matrimonial home. Doesn't sound too complicated until you read the nitty gritty details about their relationship. The man had a long standing extra-marital affair with the woman being sued. He'd been having the affair since 1981. 5 years later, she bears him a son and he begs his wife to let him take his son and his mistress home. His wife finally relents, taking pity on the child. His mistress bears him another child, this time a daughter, and they all live happily together under one roof. The lack of space however leads to the decision to sell their matrimonial home to his mistress at a discounted rate, and for the man and his wife to move out to another home close by.
Shortly after, the man discovers that his mistress is having an affair with another man. He is enraged, and hence decides to sue her for the extra 200 grand he could have profited from the sale of his matrimonial home.

Whether this case can hold up in court or not really isn't the point of this blog today. What I'm really interested in is how this whole affair came to process and take place especially in the eyes of the two women. From the wife's perspective, I simply cannot fathom what she must have gone through or thought to come to the decision to allow her husband to bring another woman into their matrimonial home. I don't want to get into the debate of morality, whether it was right or wrong because that is such a relativistic matter. On the one hand I want to say that she was extremely stupid, and weak (my feministic tendencies are playing out now). One should never have to take this kind of abuse or live this kind of life where you must tolerate your husband's sorry mistakes and sexual straying. On the other hand, I must conclude that this woman is extremely strong in her love for her husband, never doubting that he loves her, or that her love for him should wane. And that she must be extremely compassionate to have taken pity on the child of her husband's lover.

But then again, she is not the first woman to endure all this. Rita Marley, Bob Marley's widow brought up her children together along with Bob's 7 other children whom he had with other women. They stayed married until the day he died. Cindy Breakspeare, Bob's other greatest love affair, who was recently in one of those VH1 specials, also stayed faithful to Bob, even though they were never married. She says matter-of-factly that she knew there was never going to be the white picket fences, or anything conventional with her affair with Bob; still she loved him and all she wanted was to be with him, even if it meant defying convention. You could say, well it is Bob Marley, great reggae superstar of all time, but the man whose story I described earlier isn't. He's your ordinary Joe on the street. And I'm sure his is not the only story like this too.

We've come a long way in fighting for our "rights" as women, not to be abused nor discriminated against. We certainly have a greater say in this generation than we did years ago and are certainly closer to closing the equity gap between men and women. But on a very primal level, our definition of love and the way we frame our experiences with other people is altogether in a different paradigm than men. I won't sit here and berate the inequities of malehood or their lack of understanding because my point really isn't about our differences with the male species but that the social understanding of a woman and her conceptualization of love still hasn't changed. We still play the supporting role, we continue to be the glue that keeps families together, we still believe that love entails sacrifice and suffering and we're willing follow through that sacrifice.

In all these years, we have still not learned to be capitalistic or individualistic about our pursuit of happiness. Men have stood their ground and pursued whatever it is that ultimately makes them happy, leaving women to have to make that decision to either take it or leave it. You could say that this would never happen to you, but I guarantee you, if you're a woman, at least once in your life, you're going to have to make that decision.

In a recent relationship I was in, I found out that my significant other was in another relationship with another person in another country. He explained the dilemma he was in, that he loved two women at the same time and had no idea what to do. He further explicated that ours was not a conventional relationship and that it would never be conventional. He saw us going a long way, because we loved each other even though life had not meant for us to be conventional. "Transcendental" was the word he used to describe the relationship. He wanted our relationship to continue; he wanted to be with her. But he could not choose.

I had to choose. So did Rita Marley, so did Cindy Breakspeare, so did the woman in the story I described earlier. I don't know if it's because we are so weak that we've been left with the shitty choices, or if it's because we're strong enough to carry the burden of such responsibilities that women have naturally evolved to become the ones to do this. I'm not saying that we shouldn't continue to be the way that we are, or that we must radically change all this, because I'm sure many of us would not be here today were it not for the sacrifices and choices of women. But I should like to see the day, when a woman can bring another man home and say, honey, I can't choose between either of you, so we'll just all live together... Our love, after all, transcends all.

posted by mooncake @ 11:43 AM

cuddling is cool
im not surprised. people should do it more often.

i do. =)

the enforcer

posted by bernadette @ 3:27 PM

mOoNcAkE dIaRiEs
Oh, i forget, do visit his page: www.koolandthekang.com
Also has links to other NYC bloggers. Cute page.

posted by mooncake @ 3:22 PM

mOoNcAkE dIaRiEs

mooncake is back... from new york... Haven't written in a while but found the renewed inspiration from my trip to NY. Two reasons really... One: I met a fellow blogger in New York while dancing at PS1 Moma, and Two: what can I say, the city that never sleeps just does it for me.

NY is unbelievable. Within a year, the city has bounced back. Chinatown is unbelievably packed with tourists and locals alike, SoHo is bustling and consumerism thrives like never before. If one doesn't think about it, you wouldn't think to look at the skyline to miss the Twin Towers. The city is the same, and yet not the same. New York, when I first experienced it, living there 4 years ago, was full of grit, fast paced, and perhaps in one word, tough. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere else. Today, you can still feel that staccato and verbrato of the city, only to a different beat. It's the sense that we've made it in NY, we can make it through Sept 11th. What used to be the indivdualistic, single minded New Yorker is now one that understands the need for community and the bond of being a New Yorker, of belonging to the toughest city in the world.

I couldn't bring myself to visit Ground Zero. I used to live 2 blocks from World Trade Center on the corner of Broad St and Wall St. I used to take the E home from NYU and walk through the mall, glancing sideways at times to eye a cute yuppie or a pretty dress in the window. My bank used to be there. My roommate and I used to run through the rush hour crowds to Battery Park City training for the NY Marathon. It's now a cemetary, graveyard, no less. I felt it sacreligious to view it as a tourist. I just couldn't. I couldn't cry about it last year, but I couldn't help but feel a tear in my eye each time I saw an recruiting ad for FDNY. "We need heroes", reads the ad. And we all know why... because they lost so many.

But somehow or other, the city still finds reason to celebrate its survival. It celebrates not what's left behind but everything it is, was and still is to come.

posted by mooncake @ 6:15 PM

i LOVE cuddling. it surely doesn't surprise me that women readers prefer the cuddling over sex. we can discuss the whole nurturing aspect and gender role playing here but i'll digress: MOST women, in my honest opinion, prefer men or other women for that matter, with loving tendencies such as kissing and cuddling.

coincidentally, i'd like to share the fact that i will now miss being cuddled in the arms of someone who i question being in a relationship with but lives way down south. ;-) we met over a year ago in l.a. with my then boyfriend of 5 months (5 months = a long time in gay years). anyhow, it turns out that the world is indeed a small ass place where we know the same folks. everything is all good, we become friends. so fast forward to this past weekend where feelings have been established and hickeys have been branded on our necks. so we become more than just friends at this point but nonetheless good friends with one another; but it's the long distance aspect that we have yet to fully converse about if we are to question where we want out relationship to go.

i don't know if straight couples condone open-relationships, but i'm not at all willing to involve myself in such a relationship giving the fact that the only hinderance is the distance factor in my situation. i don't ever want to consider myself inadequate nor someone incapable of committing myself into a relationship (obviously if i'm not ready). he and i definitely need to have more open and honest dialogue about 'us' before i set sail toward some direction.

anyone out there who can give me some words of advise, relative story, anything????

posted by The Avenger @ 4:14 PM