My gay son and his partner are getting married. They plan to wear themed outfits. I support their union and their choices. They identify as male and wear traditional male garb. But secretly, I’ve dreamed that one of them, preferably my son, would wear the traditional white wedding gown that I wore. Its elegance contrasts sharply with their planned outfits. Should I share my desire?
The way she framed the question — "Should I share my desire?" — makes it sound creepily Oedipal. The fact that it's her old wedding dress makes it sound like she's inserting herself as the bride. The fact that she thinks gay men want to be — or seem like — women is presumptuous (and stupid). The idea that someone else's wedding is a place to act out your dreams is mundane but lamentable.
And why are we not told the theme of the "themed outfits"? We're told her old dress, by its elegance, is a sharp contrast, so what could this "theme" be? Is it just "traditional male garb"? Maybe this lady has drunk so deeply of the current cultural brew, that she thinks everything is a gender performance and so when 2 gay men go to their wedding they are only going "as" 2 men. They are 2 men in the guise of guys. And they might alternatively go as a man and a woman or a man and a man in drag.
Or maybe the lady is really, underneath it all, quite old fashioned, and her dream betrays the traditionalist's belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.
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A mother who makes her son's wedding all about her.
I am just curious how old her son was when she divorced and left her son without a father figure.
If I'm curious about anything in this, it's the size of a wedding dress that fit a young woman and will now fit a grown man.
Or maybe the lady is really, underneath it all, quite old fashioned, and her dream betrays the traditionalist's belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Makes this stand out: I support their union and their choices.
What "choices" is she referring to besides the outfits?
R/that happened
People get crazier every day. The Left celebrates insanity and is the home of crazy.
NE State Senator Megan Hunt claims her daughter is her son. The kid is 12-14. Last year, she brought the Unicameral to a near halt by filibustering every single bill with the idea that she could stop a bill that would prevent lunatic parents (like her) from trans-ing their minor children.
Well, she lost. But she still bitterly clings that her opponents are dead wrong. Her assertion? It is "creepy" to be obsessed with children's genitals. LOL.
We conservatives will never agree with today's Left.
Or maybe the letter is made up, as I suspect the vast majority of advice column letters are. Or maybe the son is gay because form the very first day she dreamed of a daughter and he's doing the best he could do. If he were born a decade or so later, maybe he would have been transitioned and the wedding gown would have been the choice. But I think this letter's purpose is to keep softening the ground of gender fluidity to show that man is unique among all animals.
What Achilles said at the top.
The letter doesn't specify whether the son was born a male.
I was disappointed in the reply--short and sensible. Why print such an absurd letter if not to have fun with the reply? I used to be a regular Dan Savage reader. This made me want to look him up and see if he's still going.
"should I share my desire?"
she just did.
>And why are we not told the theme of the "themed outfits"?<
I'm guessing that it's Furries.
The "insanity" tag is doing yeoman's work here.
"My mother made me a homosexual."
If I buy the materials, will she make me one too?
The Devouring Mother
"But secretly, I’ve dreamed that one of them, preferably my son, would wear the traditional white wedding gown that I wore. Its elegance contrasts sharply with their planned outfits. Should I share my desire?"
No, lady, you should hang your head in shame that you're partially responsible for this whole situation.
Or maybe she prayed for a daughter and God gave her a gay son.
From the blurb, it is not clear if she wants her son to wear a wedding gown similar to the one she wore or if she literally wants him to wear her wedding gown. It's ambiguous. Perhaps additional context would clarify.
In any case, it seems like transgender envy. If her son was 8 she would be pushing for crossdressing and puberty blockers as soon as he said he liked flowers or played with a doll for 5 minutes.
NTTIAWWT!
Yes do share your desires! Maybe he’ll wear the dress, and the mother-son dance would be epic!!
Transgender is transcending.
There's definitely something wrong with Mom. Dried up cat lady syndrome doesn't respect boundaries.
A condition known as Miss Havisham Syndrome By Proxy?
Dear NYT Advice Columnist has become the socially acceptable version of the Dear Penthouse Forum of old.
I'm laughing, imagining that she gets her...uh, desire...and that her son ends up clomping around like Robert Preston at the end of Victor Victoria.
The theme is crazy Moms.
Also, what Kate said. I'm figuring significant alterations.
I think we can deduce from the mother why her son is gay.
I think we can deduce from the mother why her son is gay.
Had her son been straight and married a woman, she would have offered the dress to the daughter-in-law.
Is this from the AITA section?
In hat case, the answer is yes.
Wince said...
"A condition known as Miss Havisham Syndrome By Proxy?"
+1
When Lefties talk about "being progressive" and "diversity", what they are really talking about is moving towards new and exotic ways of being disfunctional.
Decades ago i was housemates with a sports writer for a SF Bay area paper ( yes, real paper.) He was always telling tales about newsroom staff manipulating the advice columns, even writing their own queries as a contest to see who could get published with the best response.
So, salt is required here.
No word but bizarre describes this mom's sentiment.
Ah yes! And from America's "newspaper of record©" too. I'm so glad that professor Althouse reads the NYT in order to find out about these things so that the rest of us don't have to. The silly AWFULs sharing their homoerotic oedipal fantasies aren't really news anyway except for the decadent swells of metro NYC.
Gays gonna gay.
Maybe their mommies made them gay.
It's a thing...
So, I'm familiar with the term "bridezilla." Is there a similar term for a mother of the spouse-to-be? I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she's just being a whatever-that-is, a narcissist with an upcoming wedding, rather than anything retrograde or kinky or trans-envying. I suppose it's good that she thought to ask the question rather than charging ahead - but I'm making another assumption about that: that the response was, "No, it's inappropriate to insert yourself in this way. They've already said what they want and it doesn't involve a wedding dress."
But, two things: 1. Maybe my assumption about the response is wrong, and/or 2. Maybe she was asking out of her assumption that she'd get the answer she wants, a la Am I the A**hole,
Just another Mother-in-Law from Hell
"traditional male garb"
Maybe it's a Village People themed wedding.
Assuming that was a real mom writing that letter, I pity her son's husband. She's going to be the mother in law from hell.
Saw pictures of Don Lemon's recent gay wedding. He and his husband wore matching, but slightly different color velvet tuxedos, with the same flower on the lapel. Photos I saw were of them walking their chihuahuas down a NYC sidewalk.
In Jr. High we would have said "that's so gay"...and we were right.
Every butt loves a rub.
Ah, how cute- Howard's mom got a letter published.
What’s more fabulous than a groom wearing a lily-white dress? Initially gays fiercely resisted gay marriage because they feared the boring bourgeoisification of vibrant gay life, and who’s to say they were wrong about that?
It is no more ridiculous than wanting your daughter to wear your wedding gown! It is NOT your wedding - it is your child's. My guess is that she often talked about her beautiful dress or how lovely she looked in it and if her son had wanted to wear the dress - he knew it was there.
Rocco said...
When Lefties talk about "being progressive" and "diversity
interesting article in the Free Press by a NPR person (Uri Berliner), that bemoans the fact that NPR has gone Completely off the rails.. following "the north star" of "diversity".
It's https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust.
Uri says that "Back in 2011, although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large. Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal.
By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal..."
Concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None.
So on May 3, 2021, I presented the findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting. When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasn’t hostile. It was worse. It was met with profound indifference.
so, REMEMBER! diversity is Crucial! as long as EVERYONE THINKS EXACTLY THE SAME WAY
"I'd like my son to dress in drag at his wedding and I'm sharing this desire with the world" gives me the creeps in a way that lets me know the end really is nigh.
This could only be published in the NYT and be taken seriously.
So, is the whole transgender thing homophobia in disguise?
Blogger Linda said...
It is no more ridiculous than wanting your daughter to wear your wedding gown!
--
That's right. He should be able to pick whatever dress he likes.
A colored velvet tux?
Really?
"The planned deconstruction of the family in the name of homosexual liberation has already wrought untold misery among millions of men, women and children. The failure... to identify this agenda as a grave threat to human dignity leaves [Monday's declaration on human dignity issued by Cardinal Fernandez's office at the Holy See] ringing as hollow as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."
Go right ahead and ask. He's used to you. "Oh, Mom." Rolls eyes.
What the rest of us think. Well, the consensus among the women is her son wouldn't look good in the dress without major alterations and not then either; and the men flinch from thinking about it at all. It's a fake agony column matching itself with the news. My suggestion is that she should get one of those AI photo editors and by means of AI put him in the dress and send the pictures round to her friends so she gets diversity creds while he gets what he wants on the real day.
Commit everyone involved.
From the post:
"...maybe the lady is really, underneath it all, quite old fashioned, and her dream betrays the traditionalist's belief that marriage is between a man and a woman."
Or it's forced cross-dressing.
Could be worse, she could be a Furry.
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