IN DECEMBER OF last year, Miley Cyrus married long-term partner, Liam Hemsworth, and in a recent lengthy personal essay the singer considered the nuances of her relationship.
During an interview with Vanity Fair, the 26-year-old offered her thoughts on the union she shares with the Australian actor, and provided further insight by reading the essay she had written prior to the interview.
She wrote:
Being someone who takes such pride in individuality and freedom, and being a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, I’ve been inspired by redefining again what a relationship in this generation looks like.
Attempting to deconstruct certain ideas, she continued:
Sexuality and gender identity are completely separate from partnership. I wore a dress on my wedding day because I felt like it, I straightened my hair because I felt like it, but that doesn’t make me become some instantly “polite hetero lady.”
Over the course of her interview with Vanity Fair, Miley compared the concept of traditional marriage with the one she has with Liam.
“The reason that people get married sometimes can be old-fashioned, but I think the reason we got married isn’t old-fashioned – I actually think it’s kind of New Age,” she said.
“We’re redefining, to be f*cking frank, what it looks like for someone that’s a queer person like myself to be in a hetero relationship. A big part of my pride and my identity is being a queer person.”
What I preach is: People fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever. What I’m in love with exists on almost a spiritual level. It has nothing to do with sexuality.
Miley elaborated on this by asserting her stance on the role sexuality and gender plays in marriage.
“Relationships and partnerships in a new generation – I don’t think they have so much to do with sexuality or gender,” she said. “Sex is actually a small part, and gender is a very small, almost irrelevant part of relationships.”
