"negates the procreative nature of sex while retaining only the unitive"
No, there is no unitive nature, either. There are no complementary parts to unite. What do lesbians try to unite, anyway?
=== No, there is no unitive nature, either. There are no complementary parts to unite. What do lesbians try to unite, anyway?
Of course there is. I don't for a moment believe the penis was ordered to the anus or that lesbian sex in any way approaches the Unitive that is penetration of a woman by a man.
But neither do I deny that, however disordered the sexual attraction may be, there sometimes exists precisely the same sort of tenderness, affection, love and desire between two people of the same sex causing them to wish to give themselves to each other and consume each other ... same, only vastly different, as heteros.
I know plenty of who've "married" privately though none of the really longterm couples I know ever felt the need to do so. (much like live-in heteros, these days, who don't mind riding the civil union bandwagon)
In fact, I was kinda taken aback listening to a young queen in our cast a couple weeks ago detailing the hots he had for a cute waiter. "I didn't see a ring or anything so I don't thing he was 'married' or anything." He used that obnoxious crimping of the forefingers into quotation marks as he said "married."
Sorta summed it up for me ... particularly where the Gay Pride, under-35 or so, contingent's concerned.
Face it ... most of them are the products of broken homes or open marriages anyway. Again, we can thank the heteros for demolishing the union such that homosexuals were in a position to claim equivalency in the first place.
Carpet samples?