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by Loraine Hutchins
To Kirkridge - this church-based retreat center in the Poconos Mountains of Pennsylvania - came three blatant bisexuals: Jim Frazin from SF, Efrain Gonzalez from NYC and me from DC. We came one weekend last month to discuss, with 80 other folk, how our spiritual beliefs relate to our sexuality. Located right across the valley from the ominously looming Three Mile Island towers, Kirkridge is a place of natural beauty, of goldenrod-studded blue slopes and evergreen vistas where progressive church people have come to confer for over 40 years. Since the 60s there had been 4 other sexuality/spirituality conferences held before ours, but none since the AIDS epidemic began.
The conference was organized by Dr. Deborah Anapol and others. Editor
of Love Without Limits, (a great little book written in the voices
of people-who-love-more-than-one, committedly) she identifies as bi herself,
and runs IntiNet Resource Center, for those already in polyfidelitous
relationships or who want to network about them. Also helping organize the
event were Dr. Gerald Jud, founder of Shalom Mountain and Timshel retreat
centers, and Prof. Rustum Roy, who co
authored Honest Sex, a 1965 church-related sex ed handbook with his
wife Della. Robert Rimmer, author of The Harrad Experiment, a vastly
popular sixties book about sexual experimentation, spoke, as did Prof. Robert
Francouer, a married Catholic priest who's written sexuality texts and religious
essays.
Many of the church folk who attended are closeted in their home communities
and jobs; (not necessarily closeted as bis, although some are, but closeted
as people in various kinds of commited multiple relationships different form
the mainstream. A number were ordained ministers, pastoral counselors, religious
teachers, church officials.
What was most interesting to Jim, Efrain and me was finding ourselves in a group that, as Efrain said, "is supposed to hate and fear us," which was friendly and supportive instead. (A number even acknowledged looking to us as role models of where they want to be.)
We in the bi movement often talk about reaching more
heterosexually-identified bisexuals, and connecting with heterosexual allies,
about how we should do more organizing in "mainstream" communities. But actually
experiencing such breakthroughs is sadly still too rare. It was great to
get a different perspective than a queer one. For instance, some retreat
participants saw the lesbian/gay/bi movement ALREADY united, that bi inclusion
is a fait accompli, not an issue anymore. (Well, we know it's not, but it's
nice to hear outside perceptions of our progress, success!) There was also
an oft-expressed attitude of envy/admiration towards queers, by these
straight-identified people in multiple relationships. Many said gay liberation
is showing the way for other sexual minorities to come forth. Polyfidelitous
folk identify as a sexual minority because they acknowledge they pass as
monogamous in society and need to come out, to fight for their rights and
for alternative family forms to exist and be protected.
It was the first time I was in a mixed (straight/gay, male/female, Christian/pagan/Hindu/Jew/atheist) group where people talked thoughtfully and pragmatically about how to build coalitions to Fight the Right, AND to do it by linking spirituality to sexuality. Because of this it was a powerfully uplifting experience for me. I felt heard, understood and appreciated as I haven't in a long while.
That's hindsight though. Friday afternoon as we drove north into the mountains from DC, Jim and I were nervous. Would anyone come to our Bisensuality and Spirituality Focus group, would we find any other queers to connect with, would we be regarded as freaks? We pulled in around dinner time. Jim's first coming out was as a Jew. After the retreat leaders said grace in the dining hall, Jim made an announcement, to this group of mostly Christian strangers, that he'd brought sabbath candles and invited any Jews or interested non-Jews, over to our table to be present for the saying of the shabbat prayer. Ten people came over and thanked him afterwards. Hearing the ancient Hebrew words sent a chill through me and gave me courage to come out the next day as someone born-Christian who's now pagan.
Saturday morning part of the group rose before dawn (!) to do yoga in
the meadow as the sun rose. After breakfast and meditations each focus group
leader presented our topic so people could decide which to attend. I sat
with Jim -- listening to the other leaders talk about polyfidelity, family
forms in various cultures, sexual/social change since the 60s, deep ecology,
and how to counter national hysteria regarding sexuality -- and wondered
what to say. As I got up to speak I felt Sandra Bernhard's spirit with me
so I started with the title of her new book.
"Love, love, love," I said "love knows no gender and yet sometimes,
quite often, I feel like a motherless child, a long long way from home, because
people are afraid of bisexuality and all sexuality in this society. People
say we bisexuals don't exist, that there is only really straight and gay,
no middle ground." I read Dajenya's "My Foundations" poem from Bi Any
Other Name, ended with a quote from Starhawk's bisexual love song to
the earth (her April 93 speech to us in DC), and turned it over to Jim Frazin
-- who talked about being Jewish working class and loving men as well as
women and coming out after he was over 40 and had lived in many parts of
the world. They embraced us, these straight people seeking the guts to defend
their own polyfidelity, these queers amongst them who'd started coming out
to us too.
Ryam Nearing (who runs PEP, another polyfidelity resource group in Hawaii) spoke, with Deborah, naming 4 different multiple relationship forms: (1) neotribal intimate networks, (2) polyfidelity, (3) open marriage, and (4) non-responsible forms like cheating. Catholic historian Robert Francoeur spoke about global networking efforts on sex education information and how he felt the emergence of women worldwide and a willingness to talk about issues of honesty, consent and abuse is now key. Ray Lawrence told us about false charges of abuse in certain day care centers cases in this country, particularly the Edenton Seven in North Carolina, and how it relates to a national hysteria around sex. Steve Toma spoke about the "resacrilizing of eros" through deep ecology - "realizing that we are not just humans on earth, we are the earth thinking about herself." Novelist Robert Rimmer, who's sold ten million books on sexuality topics, spoke about his publishing industry experiences and how a new generation is now discovering his books. (He has a new book called Sexual Sanity Now.) The Sandstone Experience, a Gay Talese book introduced by Rimmer, features a west coast alternative group marriage that existed during the 70s. He told us that Sandstone was conceived here at Kirkridge 25 years ago, a little known fact. (Rimmer is also now known for his porn film directories.) He commented that "the sexual revolution was really only a rebellion," and created a lot of "sick sex," praising Deborah and Ryam for being "the younger generation who're saner, who give me hope."
Rimmer left early and I didn't have a chance to tell him that his comment that he only reviewed lesbian porn, not male/male porn, disappointed me. A few attitudes expressed by participants defining their own relationships as "different from gay men's promiscuous, stranger sex," "not like swingers" bothered me, only because of how subjective these judgments can be. (And how hard it is to separate the erotiphobia and homophobia from them.) When I had a chance to speak about this Sunday morning I urged the group to talk more in positive terms, not stereotyping others negatively, and they agreed. It's hard. We anticipate attacks, particularly when we're contemplating going public with unpopular opinions. We try to choose language and political tactics accordingly. There was even discussion about whether we should use the words "sex" or "sexuality" at all in our public organizing. Fortunately, we decided to!
Sunday morning we divided into action-oriented task groups (naming,
infrastructure, database, education/research/media, coalition-building politics)
to work on different aspects of building a broad-based national spirit/sex
coalition. Deborah spoke about "bringing back a respect for eroticism in
the culture, that we need to build a sex and spirit movement that can meet
up with a new families movement based in grassroots and public policy organizing.
Our bisexual group proposed that the Body Sacred coalition form alliance
with the lesbian/gay/bisexual movement because:
(1)polyfidelitous folk
need
to support queer family freedom issues
(2) allies are needed in confronting
homophobia and biphobia and
(3) we all need to unite to lower barriers
to
polyfamily formation in general.
People spoke about how everyone saw The Nuclear Family in trouble, no longer viable as a sole form of social organization, that progressives must create a new broader paradigm within which many diverse people can live. Someone mentioned a Statement of Sexual Responsibilities and Rights drafted in the 70s and wanted to update it. People talked about the path of the embodied spirit, living spiritual life through the body, and of Annie Sprinkle's maxim about how our culture needs to make more time for good spirit/sex. One man said, "I was alienated from traditional religion. After I began relating to Goddess, I could finally relate to God."
Proposals were made to create more sex-positive multi-media educational efforts, launch a speakers bureau, target groups to build coalitions with, and make to institute this gathering as an annual event.
For further information contact www.lovemore.com: