Get a Groove, Get a Grip

This story has shown up a few times in my inbox over the past couple of weeks, but I haven’t taken a moment to comment on it. In case you’ve been livnig under a rock for the past month or so, Terry McMillan is getting a divorce. And a decidedly ugly one at that.

Terry McMillan, writer extraordinaire, did not know her husband was gay. She didn’t know when she met the charming young man while vacationing in his native Jamaica in 1995. She didn’t know when she married him three years later and never suspected it.

He told her late last year. She filed for divorce in January, but she says she’d already been planning to divorce Jonathan Plummer because of other concerns, including his allegedly embezzling money

But how could she not know through six years of marriage that the inspiration for "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," her best-selling novel turned into a popular movie, was gay?

He wooed her and he fooled her, she says. "And I’m a hard woman to fool."

Now, he’s trying to get out of a prenuptial agreement and get a big chunk of her money, she says.

Plummer has denied knowing that he was gay when he married McMillan, a native of Port Huron.

 I read one of McMillian’s books several years ago. It was summer, and the film version of Waiting to Exhale was about to come out. I needed some beach erading, and figured I might as well join in the fun. That was the last McMillan book I read, mainly because — while entertaining — it didn’t do much for me. Turns out I don’t need to read her books, because he personal life — which has recently become so public — supplies more than enough drama.

 McMillan has whipped herself up into high dugeon, claming that Plummer knew he was gay before they married and asking "How do you not know you’re gay."

 Geez. Terry, you’re a smart lady, but clearly you need this explained to you simply and slowly. Here’s how.

I came out between the ages of 12 and 13, but since them I’ve learned that actually made me something of a prodigy. There are plenty of people who don’t come out until their 20s and 30s, and sometimes even later. Until then, they’re either in denial or the really don’t know.

 Here’s how it happens.

First, like we all do, you grow up in a homophobic society that constantly says you shouldn’t be gay. If you’re black and gay, that goes double.

Second, you grow up in a community with respected leaders like Rev. Wilson saying stuff like this.

“Lesbianism is about to take over our community. … I ain’t homophobic because everybody here got something wrong with him,” he said. “But … women falling down on another woman, strapping yourself up with something, it ain’t real. That thing ain’t got no feeling in it. It ain’t natural. Anytime somebody got to slap some grease on your behind and stick something in you, it’s something wrong with that. Your butt ain’t made for that.

“No wonder your behind is bleeding,” he said. “You can’t make no connection with a screw and another screw. The Bible says God made them male and female.”

And saying it with a whole congregation cheering him on. The message comes through loud and clear.

Third, I understand that Plummer is Jamaican, and that’s where you met him. It’s my understanding that the culture there is pretty homophobic (though perhaps no moreso than some African American communities). There’s Beanie Man, for example, whose lyrics glorify violence against gays. I understand he’s a pretty big star there.  I think it’s safe to say that in a place like that one has a better chance of survival if one doesn’t discover one’s homosexuality until much, much later.

So, it’s entirely possible that Plummer didn’t know he was gay at the time he and McMillan met and married. That doesn’t excuse some other stuff, and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t real heartbreak involved, but it at least sheds some light on whether there was any deception in the beginning.

Unfortunately, in the present atmosphere — where even Oprah is doing shows about men "on the down low" — it’s easy to demonize men (black men in this case) whose sexuality isn’t clearly defined even in their own minds, because of the reasons like those mentioned above. So, McMillian is likely to have a sympathetic and enthusiastic audience for her comments about her divorce, which sound to me like the kind of homophobic ranting quoted earlier in this post.

I know it’s awful, heartbreaking, and not a pleasant experience for anyone when a marriage disentigrates, but why make it any uglier — or any more public — than it has to be?

Terry, girl, exhale already.