Microstory 61: Grace

This is a microstory. You'll have to read it to find out what it's about.

In the universe of my canonical stories, most people identify as bisexual. The number of true monosexuals is to a very low extreme. And I say true monosexuals, because there is a not insignificant number of people belonging to a religious order called the Amadesins who all claim that sexuality is a choice, and that they all choose to be heterosexual. Amadesis is an amalgamation of Mormonism and Scientology, but also exhibits the absolute worst aspects of any and all other religions. The rest of society recognizes the difference between love, sex, and procreation. They understand that you can have one without the other two. With modern technology, even procreation is now possible without sex. Back in the day, homosexual relationships were slightly discouraged, but only to foster the increase in population. This led to a few still-standing traditions, along with the misguided Amadesin movement. In an opposite-sex relationship, the resulting child will usually inherit the surname of the father. This is because of earlier theories that children received more than half of their DNA from their mothers. The father being able to pass down his name was symbolic way of balancing out the contribution, and the practice remains to day for simplicity, and to have some kind of standard. Similarly, in the case of same-sex relationships, one caregiving parent will also be a genetic parent, while the other caregiver is not. The child will usually use the name of the non-genetic parent.

Because of the prevalence of bisexuality, the words boyfriend and girlfriend do not exist. Besides sounding juvenile and unsophisticated, it would never occur to society to use such gender-specific terms. Instead, they use gracer and gracie. These are technically opposites of each other, but are used interchangeably, and respectively mean “one who favors” and “one who is favored”. It’s possible to refer to someone who either favors you, or you favor, but with unreciprocated feelings (i.e. crushes). Clarifying language will be used for these situations. There is another reason for using these terms instead of limiting words like partner, companion, or significant other. They perceive romantic relationships to reside on the same spectrum as friendships; only to a higher degree. Even though emphasis was placed on population sustainability millennia ago, pairings solely for the purpose of propagating the species were never part of common practice. A marriage of two people who were not friends would have always been seen as strange. Arranged marriages did exist in some cultures, specifically Amadesis, but it was pretty taboo.