the cook, her wife, the maid, and her lover*

I used to get really enraged when people would ask, of a same-sex couple, "which one is the man?" It presupposes a necessity of dominant-subordinate dynamics in a couple, and that masculine is necessarily dominant and yadda yadda, you know the story.

Loopy took pleasure for many years in teasing me about this. "Well, we do know who's the man around here after all," she would say, or words to that effect. I used to get angry at this until I realized that she thought that was hilarious. So I switched to "yeah, yeah, yeah." But I wasn't really happy about it.

. . .

So in one of her recent prelim-tantrums, Loopy said, "I can't be the cook and the maid all the time around here." When I pointed out that she was addressing the person who had that day vacuumed the house, pruned the lilac, done the grocery shopping, the laundry, and all the dishes, she relented and said, "Well, okay, the cook then. I can't be the cook all the time around here."

"What's wrong with being the cook?" I asked.

She paused and reflected. "Okay, I'll be the cook, you be the maid," she said cheerily, and went on to make dinner.

A few days later, when she went to start dinner, I asked if she minded making dinner again. "Nope, I'm the cook, you're the maid."

A blissful feeling of fulfillment washed over me. At last, roles we can agree on.

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*That's just the two of us, in case you were confused. I'm not sure how many distinct individuals are indicated by the original title.