I hate to use the words "Barf Alert!" for a family, but they asked for it.
Posted on 10/24/2004 6:04:37 PM PDT by Cracker72
Ry Russo-Young, a 22-year-old filmmaker and performer, has a lot to explain, starting with her name. It's Ry, just Ry, not short for Ryan, or a misspelling of Ray, or a nickname someone gave her as a child or a pretension she took on in her teens. Ry is simply a name that her mothers liked the sound of when they named her, an act of creativity as novel and yet, to their minds, as natural as the conception of Ry herself, a feat that involved the sperm of a gay man, the egg of a lesbian in love and one very clean glass syringe.
Earlier this year, over dinner at a small restaurant in the West Village, a few blocks from where she was raised, Ry was offering me a short lecture that she has been called on to deliver dozens of times, politely solving the puzzle that is her family for other people. She was explaining her name, explaining her mothers' relationship, explaining her older sister, whose name, Cade, also demands clarification. She was explaining how it is that she has no father, and when pressed further -- after all, everyone has a father -- she raised her eyebrows, dark and thick and finely shaped, just a little. ''You mean who's my sperm donor?'' she asked. I apologized -- ''father'' can be a loaded word for children of lesbian mothers -- but she shrugged it off with a small wave of her hand, her dark red nails flashing by. ''It's O.K.,'' she said. ''I'm not fussy about stuff like that.''
Ry has long dark hair, a slightly breathy voice and a hint of a tough-girl, New York accent. Tall enough that she has presence by default, she's a natural performer, inclined to stacked heels and deep red lipstick. On the subject of her parents, she is particularly confident in the quality of her material, and she unpacked the details at a leisurely pace. As for her own sexuality, she's straight, which she said she knows with increasing certainty with each passing year. ''Yeah, you know, I made out with a girl in high school,'' she said. ''I get an A for effort.''
If she has volunteered to talk frankly to a stranger about her family life, not to mention her sex life, it's because Ry knows she's one of a relatively limited number of adults who were raised from birth by ''out'' gay parents (as opposed to a parent who revealed he or she was gay after marrying and having kids). As more and more gay men and lesbians feel comfortable coming out earlier in their lives and the possibility of legalized same-sex marriage appears to be gaining ground in select states, Ry's experience may represent the future of gay households. Already, the 2000 Census reported that some 150,000 same-sex couples had children in their homes. If the last three decades of the gay rights movement focused on sexual freedom and acceptance, the next three decades seem destined to continue the current battle for the right to marry and, by extension, the right to be a parent.
Of course, even without the benefit of legal protection, gay men and women have been raising children for long enough and in large-enough numbers that they've become an acknowledged part of their communities. Schools in places like Los Angeles and Boston mount displays of famous gay figures and make sure the library includes books like ''King and King,'' about a prince who marries a princess's brother. A well-worn anecdote circulates in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a progressive neighborhood, about two gay men who were concerned when a little boy teased their child for having no mommy -- only to discover later that the little boy in question had two mommies. The story is funny precisely because it points to an antiquated anxiety, a fear from another era running up against the startling reality of this one.
In some pockets of the country, the atmosphere is now sufficiently safe for the older kids of gay parents, kids like Ry, to start speaking plainly about their childhoods, seeking each other out for support or activism. But at the very moment when the cultural environment seems secure, the political environment has become hypersensitive. A central argument advanced against gay marriage is that gay relationships have a corrosive effect on the institution of the traditional family. In that context, the children of gay parents are not just aspiring filmmakers, or dropouts, or Phi Beta Kappas, or cross-dressers, or serial monogamists. They're also a form of evidence in the political debate. How do the children of gay parents turn out, when compared with the children of straight parents, in terms of eventual marital status, income, psychological well-being? If gay couples give birth, seek to adopt or become foster parents, what kind of adult members of society will they produce?
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I hate to use the words "Barf Alert!" for a family, but they asked for it.
Looks to me like a one-generational family. Who's your Daddy??
Where's dad? You know, the turkey baster. ;^)
They're a walking advertisement AGAINST what they're touting for. By no stretch of the imagination could any of them be considered even within shouting distance of "normal".
The photog, BTW, has made matters worse for them. He's using the Richard Avedon technique, only in color instead of black and white. Avedon could make ANYBODY look creepy and weird - in fact he gloried in it.
Perhaps some editorial comment from the photographer?
I think someone should run up and splash them with some soap and shampoo.
Unless you're rich or have an incredible personality to compensate, us ugly people have to settle.... (except me, my woman's a BABE! And I'm hideous-looking!)
Beastiality is only one short-step away!
How big is your Wallet?
Blech...And her hand is on her the other girl's breast for what reason?
Heh....;)
Her autobiography... "Snatcher In The Ry".
Anyone looking for a definition of "non sequitur"?
Two different Daddys. Both dead of AIDS.
Yes, that is what I thought as well. Everyone except Momma Young looks as if they need a shower and a shampoo in the worst possible way.
But it was a CLEAN turkey baster.
Sorry for the redundancy. This one deserves a double barf alert, anyway.
The one girl looks like Ricki lake.
So much for the mis-perception that gays are the beautiful people.
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