Bi Focus
News, views, and a little bit of dish! Tune in each month as Michael
Szymanski looks at what's going on in the big bi world.
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Are bisexuals inherently spiritual?
In the Native American and Pacific Islander traditions, the bisexual is
seen as the two-spirited shaman, the witch doctor, the healer. I'm a
reformed Catholic. I don't consider myself particularly
religious, but I do have a sense of spirituality. I left the church as
an
early teen, after the priest admonished those in our
South Florida church who didn't vote for the righteous Ronald Reagan,
and condemned homosexuals in the same breath. I told my dad that not
only would I never
get confirmed, I never wanted to go back to mass.
And although that almost got me kicked out of the house, I don't feel
that
the few years of Catholic school and the indoctrination I went through
as an
altar boy (wearing long dresses in front of all my friends), was
something
that helped make me a good person. The whacks on the knuckles by the
nuns and the
overly friendly priests who wore little or nothing under their robes did
teach
me discipline, duplicity, and skepticism.
So I'm spiritual perhaps, but not religious. It also happens that most
of the people I've met whom I would call
"spiritual" are also bisexual. That includes transgender and ultra-cool
pagan Gigi Wilbur Raven from Houston, the empowering Elias Faraje-Jones,
who
teaches in Washington, D.C., AIDS activist and drag performer Rev.
Geoffrey
Karen Dior, San Francisco grandmother and author Lani Ka'ahumanu, and
the beautiful Sharon Kane, who's been involved in the adult porn
industry for a quarter of a century. All spiritual, all bisexual.
And then there's Debra R. Kolodny, my friend from Washington, D.C., who
compiled 32 amazing bisexual essays from Buddhist, Hindu,
12-step, pagan, indigenous, Christian, and Jewish faiths in her
just-released
book Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith. After thinking
about it, she realized that a lot of the most spiritual people she
knows do happen to be bi. "I have not done a sampling ... but I have
come across thousands of bisexuals, and of the folks I know, I've found
many of them self-aware and self-actualized, and they draw strengths
from their spirituality."
About a third of the self-identified pagans in North America
also identify as bisexual, and that's a lot. And although most religions
have
only one image of god, gods and goddesses do seem to be cross-gendered
in some faiths.
I struggled so hard to remain Catholic despite
feeling like an outsider, so I was fascinated that Deb is still so
active as
a Jew. Where does she feel welcomed? She talks about Havdallah, a
ceremony where three candles are intersected
on holy Saturday. "I felt my whole life I was in that intersection,"
she says. "I'm a gender outlaw inside, and on the outside I'm having a
relationship with a man."
Being a labor management consultant, Deb often finds herself in the
middle, and that's not always an enviable position. She looks for ways
in which her
faith fits her bisexuality. For example, I'm fascinated by how she sees
Genesis as God creating Adam as an image of himself, then splitting one
human
being into a man and a woman. In the beginning, God was male and female,
and therefore God is
bigendered and intersexed.
Only two sentences in the Torah may be interpreted as homophobic. "What
they are against is the specific act of anal intercourse, not same-sex
love,"
says Deb, who works closely with rabbis, both Orthodox and not. "Many of
them
know that same-gender love can be quite passionate."
Very involved in her faith, as a leader and facilitator of the National
Religious Leadership Roundtable, Deb may upset some of her rabbi friends
by
suggesting that the story of Ruth bearing a child for Naomi could have
been a
triad relationship.
Some of us seem to reach for spiritual comfort more as we get older, and
in
reading Deb's book I was delighted to see personal stories from
activists I
know and respect, like Loraine Hutchins, Amanda Udis-Kessler, Lynn
Dobbs, and
Starhawk. Deb points out the piece by FTM priestess Raven Kaldera, which
details a fasting ceremony between three partners, and Rosefire's piece,
in which she talks about how she's never had a relationship with a
woman, is monogamous with a man,
and identifies as a bisexual who is celibate by choice.
Deb urges people like me, who have disassociated from our religions, to
seek out parts of our doctrines that we can relate to, and she
encourages religious leaders to make no assumptions about people's
sexual
orientations. Deb often gets questions from young people of faith who
have
nowhere to express their sexuality. In big cities there may be an MCC
church
to go to, but in a small town, it's a lot tougher.
I feel like I'm rediscovering a spiritual quest. I'm getting older
(nearing 40 -- agh!). Recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, I
feel the numbness creeping into my limbs and know that I must now slow
down. I've been to all kinds of churches, temples, even cults, but
rarely do I
feel accepted. Even some radical faeries don't like bisexuals.
But lately, no matter who says it, if they offer an "I'll pray for you,"
I'll take it. No questions asked.
P.S. Debra Kolodny is on a book-signing tour all over the country this
summer and
fall. You can find out where she's speaking at
www.geocities.com/rosefirerising/blest.
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