"Ambisexuality"
Peg Duthie
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cookeville, TN
25 September 2005

So many ways love has, none may appear
The bitter best, and none the sweetest worst.

Yesterday, my husband and I celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary by going skydiving. It had not been scheduled as a metaphorical comment of any kind -– it just happened to be a day trip to Georgia, organized by a friend who'd turned 40 back in July.

It was really nifty. I wasn't as scared as I'd expected to be, given that I happen to be utterly terrified of open, rail-less heights. I love skyscrapers, and I'm not scared of flying, but I don't like standing on ladders or scaffolding. I get hives when I think about log bridges two feet off the ground, and you'll probably never see me scaling the side of a building or a cliff. Several years ago, however, I promised myself to go skydiving if the chance presented itself, because so many people I knew of named it as something they would never, ever attempt, including a surprising number of seriously macho motorcycle riders.

As do many UUs, I have what could be called an inner Perversity Imp. It tends to roar out whenever some variety of "conventional wisdom" tells me that "everyone" is afraid of something, and that I should be too. I am frightened of many, many things, ranging from snakes with teeth to driving on I-24 during rush hour -- but, I tend to resist being told I should be afraid, whether it's of hell, heaven, the wrath of God, weapons of mass destruction, or jumping out of an airplane 14,0000 feet above a pasture. I don't mind being advised to be careful, but I have a fundamental, deep-seated objection to "Thou shalt not" theology, whether it shows up as "Thou shalt not question God" or "Thou shalt not challenge governing bodies." Framed in more positive terms, I believe in affirming and promoting the "free and responsible search for truth and meaning" not only as a principle but as a commandment. I believe it is imperative for us to enlarge each other's understanding of why we are here, and to help each other not be afraid of our possibilities. As we sang this earlier this morning,

Where is our holy writ? Where'er a human heart
a sacred torch of truth has lit, by inspiration taught.

All of that said, I have been terrified of delivering this sermon from the very moment I realized it needed to be written. Much of my dread has had to do both with who I am, and who I am not. I am not a trained or ordained minister. I am not a counselor. I am a woman in long-term, monogamous relationship with a man. I am a woman whose significant sexual interactions have been exclusively with men. However, I have fantasized about both females and males throughout my life, and I have kissed and flirted with intent both with ladies and gentlemen. I'm hoping for another fifty years or so for my marriage, but were something to end it, I could see myself in a significant relationship with either a woman or a man. It would very much depend on the person in question.

These details, in and of themselves, are probably more than you ever wanted to know about my love life. (At least, I hope they're more than you ever wanted to know about it.) They're certainly more than I consider seemly to share in most social settings, let alone in church. The problem, however, is that I cannot stand here in front of you -- or anyone else, anywhere -- and say, "I am a bisexual" and then comfortably assume I know what that phrase has just told you. To some of you, the term "bisexual" may mean, "a person who finds members of both sexes attractive." To some of you, the term may mean, "a person who has had relationships with both men and women." To many people, the term automatically suggests "indecisive" or "indiscriminate" –- or, put more crassly, "sleeps with lots of men and women at the same time."

I realized I would someday have to write this sermon about a year ago, when my home congregation began searching for its new minister (who is, incidentally, a terrific preacher. I strongly encourage you to hear her if you happen to be in Nashville). Anyway, part of the search process involved filling out confidential surveys indicating our preferences, and the survey encouraged us to be blunt about things that might be problematic either in terms of our own hangups or in how our minister might be perceived in the larger community. I was talking with somebody else at a workshop on "categorical thinking," and she mentioned being baffled at finding out there were members of First UU who'd indicated that they'd be fine with a gay or lesbian minister but uncomfortable with one who was bisexual.

The sad thing is, I didn't have to think at all about why that is. I told her right away, "People assume we're sluts." When I mentioned being bisexual to a former high school classmate, her immediate response was, "You're married? Stay that way!" When I mentioned this sermon to one of my skydiving companions, a gay man, just yesterday, he said, "The only difficulty I might see with a bisexual minister is the question of whether they'd be monogamous..."

To me, all of this makes as little sense as assuming all heterosexuals are monogamous, or for that matter, all gay men or all lesbians. However, because there is not a clear consensus on what the term "bisexual" truly indicates, I find myself balking every time I answer a survey with a question about my sexual orientation. To answer anything other "bisexual" feels like a lie, because I'm not quite straight –- I'm not exclusively interested in men –- and yet, as someone in a heterosexual relationship, I'm not countable amongst most lesbians, so I'm not quite a member of the gay community. But using what's left -- the term "bisexual" -- feels like playing with a mystery card, not knowing what I have in my hand, and not knowing whether I've given you something useful or something you can't wait to get rid of.

That is why I've called this sermon "ambi-sexuality." I wish it were a real category, or that I could check off "it depends." Of course, this begs the question, do we actually know what any of us are saying when we use words such as "straight" or "queer"? I have a friend at First UU who makes a point of saying she is "in a lesbian relationship" instead of saying "I am a lesbian" because it's not just about biology. The relationship in question has lasted for over twenty years – it's as solid and true as any marriage I've seen, and they recently renewed their vows – so this wasn't someone splitting definitional hairs as an escape hatch. This is someone for whom the distinction matters – the distinction between what we say and what it actually says –- and, to this day, that conversation remains one of the best I've ever had during a UU coffee hour.

I joke a fair amount about typical and stereotypical UU behavior, including and especially about coffee hour. A fair number of people do, including Garrison Keillor and the Simpsons. At the same time, it's not so funny when, to borrow my choir director's phrase, people dismiss us as just the ACLU with hymns, or when I hear from friends in more traditional denominations that we're not really a church. I don't have easy answers for this; I've tried to come up with an elevator speech – a stock, "Unitarian Universalism in 15 seconds" answer – but what I always go back to is, "it depends." It depends on who I'm talking to, it depends on which UUs I'm talking about, and it depends on why I think they're asking. I do understand why elevator speeches are desirable, but I also frankly sympathize with Nicholas Watson's take on the whole endeavor. He said:

I cannot and won't learn to explain my beliefs in an elevator. If someone is sincerely interested, I'll take a few minutes to talk about it. But 30 seconds isn't enough and if you try to do it [to] your religion you will do it a disservice.

What does it mean when I say I'm a Unitarian Universalist? Do I speak for all UUs when I say I believe in one God and many paths? Of course not. Do I know what kind of a Christian someone is when they say, "I am a Christian"? Of course not. Have I convinced or reminded you how woefully inadequate labels and categories can be?

The question becomes, though, "so what?" How do we work with what we have? I think one of our challenges as UUs is use these labels and categories as starting tools -– that is, to highlight assumptions as assumptions, and to bear witness to actualities, including those are ambiguous or ambivalent. With sexual orientation, for instance, it means making sure that we look at other people and their relationships for what they specifically are, rather than accepting conventional wisdom at face value. It means sharing the stories you can, about yourself and about people you admire and love, both to challenge the plethora of myths and to help others develop the courage and self-knowledge to become the best of themselves. It means affirming the complexity of our truths – that sometimes "on the fence" is the only place matching the seat of our pants. It is harder for people to dismiss what they experience first-hand -– when they see gay parents with healthy children, for instance, or when Unitarian Universalists help them recover from a disaster or loss.

There is no telling who you may be helping simply by being present and paying attention. One of my lasting regrets about my ambisexuality is that one of my oldest friends didn't accept his identity as a homosexual man until well into twenties, and apparently had little idea how I would react when he finally came out. There were lots of other factors and issues, of course -– I don't know whether he would have come out any earlier had he known -– but still, it kills me, that he thought he had to fear whether I would accept or reject that part of their life, and that based on what he knew that that seemed like a reasonable fear. It kills me thinking of how much more fun he could have had-– make that, how much fun we could have had, had he known that he was safe, at least with this friend. In particular, I'm remembering a trip to the Stratford Theatre Festival, where we were both spent the entire first act of Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth ogling the same utterly gorgeous actor -- but my friend felt he couldn't say so. Later, the word he used for his silence was "agony" – and when I think of the conversations not had and the letters not sent —- a friendship on hold for half a year because of things at that time not spoken --the waste and the might-have-beens make me want to weep.

That is a key part of why bearing witness matters so very much to me. Waste makes me angry and full of sorrow; our lives on this world are so very short as it is. To be honest about who we love and what we believe is not always easy. There are times, in fact, it's neither wise nor productive to be open about these things, and I frankly, personally find emotional revelation far more terror-inducing than jumping out of a plane. But I have also been immeasurably rewarded by the blossoming of trust –- that, frustrating as the labels may be, and even though I often feel like a speaker without portfolio, to identify myself as a bisexual and to speak about my activities as a UU has sometimes turned out to be what someone else needed for courage or comfort, in order to share their stories about a former partner or to feel safe enough to ask heretical questions.

We are here to help each other to be brave, and to give each other such moments of grace. We are here to help each other be present and to make the most of our lives.  We are here to celebrate the gorgeous complexity of each other and of this world. Amen and alleluia.

Back to Peg's list of UU projects.