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I watched the movie in an empy theatre…
…save myself and M. I saw myself in both the wife and the girlfriend; in the moment, it felt as if it were written for me alone. I admit I cried watching it (nobody around, what did I care?) because it represented one of my “might have been” lives, a la A Christmas Carol. If I’m honest, I’m happier where I am now. But, still, it seemed a nice story at the time. Still does.
Sometimes life does work out for the best.
First, the movie,
The story revolves round a polyamorous triad (poly in spirit, if not in name, with multiple adults that all loved each other and engaged romantically in various ways).
Professor Marston and his wife work at a university. He hires a student to be his assistant. They grow close and fall in love– only she falls in love with the wife, too, and the wife falls in love with her. The girl wants to run away, but instead they all decide to be together. She inspires the Wonder Woman comic. They are kinky, as well as poly. She gets pregnant and they move and raise the family together– until they are caught and the pressures cause them to split up. Only at his deathbed, do they once again come together.
A few sexy, kinky scenes make it into the film, notably with a golden lasso. But overall, it’s a love story. Not a kinky erotica.
And the response,
My disappointment at the lackluster response from the public aside, I know it impacted many within the polyamorous community. I suppose it seemed weird to most people. But it was powerful to those who related to the story. Actually, you know what? If you can’t at least comprehend how being the inspiration for a world wide phenemona about a sexy, bad ass, kinky, superhero AND be adored by not just one but TWO partners while getting to raise a loving family is AMAZING? Well, then I don’t know what to say, except I think the girlfriend’s love story is beyond enviable.
The family (all three have since passed on, the one died the year I was born, another when I was eight) insists there was no polyamorous triad. Of course my family, at least my parents, might well say the same about my own life. I am not exactly forthright about my romances. I literally brought a girlfriend to my extended family once and we shared a bed– but of course nothing could HAPPEN between us since we were both female, right?
I’m not here to dispute either claim (that of the family or the film director). This all happened eighty years ago. Who could know how someone felt, secretly, dusty decades past?
Whatever happened, I know this,
- The wife and the girlfriend were bisexual.
- They raised children.
- They lived together for forty years after Marston passed away.
- Marston extensively wrote and supported lesbian relationships, alongside the girlfriend.
- Wonder Woman comics are full of kinky, sexy, all women scenes.
So, what does it mean?
I don’t know if the movie was true or not.
I do know that relationships open up all the time, this way. Where it’s intended to be a casual fling, but then people fall in love. Maybe, just maybe, this really happened to these particularly interesting people. But, if it did not, well, it’s a movie and it’s just showing that this love story might be possible. Which is justification enough for sharing the story in the way it was presented.
When I first met M and his then wife, I thought this might be my own life (well, some of this is retrospective thinking, but this IS at least one vision I hoped for with the three of us). I remember a dream, well, a series of dreams in which she and I befriended each other. In the last dream, we were both at home and she walked out the front door ahead of me. She turned and smiled, the sun shining gold through her softly waving hair. And I felt warmed by her smile, as much as by the sunlight.
Movies are a possible answer to “What if?”
What if life had plopped me in the middle of that lovely triad? What if I’d stopped there, and so had they, and the three of us had happily raised our family together? How would I have felt being in the girlfriend postion, my whole life, rather than the “wife” position I am in now? How would I have handled things? How would I have grown differently?
Would I have been more steadfastly polyamorous, rather than wavering on whether I identify as polyamorous at all? I think I am…but I also think I’m something that isn’t any relationship structure at all, but just me.
What would it be like, co-parenting children with two biological parents that wanted nothing more than to do what is best for their children and make everyone happy to the best of their abilities? That sounds nice.
I wish I could speak to them, ask them about their lives. Find out the truth, because, oh, even the “lie” the story projected in the film is tantalizing! Perhaps it is the truth, but, of course, no script can perfectly capture the grittiness and beauty of true life. Even if they do a damn good job. I want to know more, and I never feel that way about a cinematic love story!
I wonder if this love story is as atypical as I imagine. Because it’s beautiful to me. Sure, their love had flaws and unnecessary pain- even in the movie. But, if anything, I think the film sugarcoated the difficulties of becoming a family. I think it’s usually harder than what people think it will be. But it’s worth it.