I do’t know if it’s necessarily these times. Another photographer and I drove to PA to shoot an old foundry. It caused quite the scandals in our respective workplaces. He’s married and I was in a long-term realtionship with someone too. At his workplace, they kept saying to him, in shocked and apalled tones “and your wife was okay with that???” and in my workplace, my boss kept asking “Soooo… how’d it go? What happened?” with all the youthful enthusiasm of a teenage boy whose friend had peeped into the girls’ locker room and was about to describe the scene to all.
When I said: “We spent 6 hours shooting. The property was surprisingly toxic, you don’t see that here. And it took us several more hours to get the grit out of our gear.”
He answered: “But what really happened?”
I replied: “We spent 6 hours shooting. It took us several more hours to get the grit out of our gear… and it will takes days to develop all the rolls I shot.”
Then he said: “Oo-ooh, I see!” in an extremely smarmy tone as if to say “Got it! you’re being discreet! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.”
I wanted to punch him.
I asked my mom if it was really naive for me to think that two adults could go on a business trip with not even the slightest inclination or thought of anything other than the job. It’s like people thought we were supposed to mess around.
Mom said: “No you’re not naive. People are stupid.” (Wise, my mom.)
When I was a few weeks old. My father had caused a scandal when an old female friend came to visit my parents. The three of them were going to attend a “Renaissance Dinner” together, but my mom was exhausted, I was still nursing, and she chose to stay home with Wee Crayons. The resulting scandal (much to my parents’ amusement) was widespread. My father’s colleagues were horrified and uncomfortable when he introduced them to “Julie.” I mean, how could he publicly introduce his affair while his wife was at home nursing his baby??? Disgraceful!
That was 31 years ago. So it’s not just “these times.” People have been stupid a lot onger than that. Nowadays, there’s just more recognition for GLBT relationships so the stupidity is flung around more diversely. Friends and acquaintances are fair game for lurid gossip.
These days, I only have problems with straight men hitting on my girlfriend and me when we’re out together. They don’t believe we’re a couple, they just think we’re rejecting them very rudely by claiming to be a lesbian pair. So they get really pissy and say that “we don’t have to pretend to be lesbians, a simple ‘no thanks’ would suffice! Hmph!” :rolleyes:
