by Will Moore, an ordinand at Westcott House and the author of the forthcoming book ‘Boys Will Be Boys, and Other Myths: Unravelling Biblical Masculinities’
Bisexuality is often forgotten in heated debates about sexuality. It turns common stagnant thinking on its head. It is the sexual orientation that doesn’t fit neat categories of gay and straight.
Traditionally, bisexuality has been considered as attraction to both men and women or, more recently to anyone on the gender spectrum. Being bisexual inherently resists simplistic classification. It is a balancing act with so many factors simultaneously at play, being lived out in a different shape by every individual.
This leads to many myths and misconceptions: bisexuals are ‘greedy’; bisexuals are ‘just going through a phase’; bisexuals ‘don’t really exist’. When bisexual people like me hear these ignorant bi-phobic phrases, we experience bi-erasure.
The Church of England’s principal authorised teaching document on sexuality, published in 1991, describes bisexuality as ‘ambiguous.’ It goes on to say ‘bisexual activity must always be wrong for this reason, if for no other, that it inevitably involves being unfaithful’. There is an assumption here that bisexual people cannot hold back their emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction and are always left unsatisfied. According to the Church of England, bisexuals experience greedy, lustful and uncontrollable sexual attraction.
Really? Just because bisexual people might have the capacity to fall in love with people of different genders, it does not mean that they are proportionally attracted to more people, or that they have more sexual desire that needs fulfilling. This teaching document paints bisexuals as immoral, adulterous beasts, challenging God’s creational order.
Surely the Church has moved on since 1991? Regrettably, not.
There has been some supplementary (but not authoritative) material since, most recently Living in Love and Faith, but this document, Issues in Human Sexuality, remains the official teaching of the Church of England. At this February’s General Synod, the Bishop of London was pressed on these paragraphs which derogatively address bisexuality. She dismissively responded that the document is ‘thirty years away’ from now. It may be, but as a new ordinand, I have, within the last year, had to assent to live within its guidelines.
Many, like me, will have agreed through gritted teeth, hurt by words that refer to people like us. As a bisexual man, I must assent to the premise that I am myself ‘ambiguous’ and will be ‘inevitably […] unfaithful’ for simply being who God created me to be. Further, by consenting to live like this, I am concurring with what follows. It recommends heterosexual marriage, abstinence, and even counselling as ‘guidance’ for bisexuals. These sound dangerously like conversion therapy, something that General Synod, as well as the British Government, has promised to ban. Ours is a tragic love story of dedication to the Church.
Could I, perhaps, as a bisexual, keep up appearances in the Church? After all, I am in a relationship with a woman. A priest told me in an early conversation about my calling that as an LGBTQ+ person in the Church I should be prepared to struggle. Whether that was an affectionate warning or a menacing threat, I am still unsure. But many months later, an official in the discernment process assured me that because I am ‘in a heterosexual relationship’ (which, of course, I am not, since I am still bisexual), my sexuality would be less of an issue. They seemed to think my sexual orientation drastically altered depending on whom I was dating.
Heterosexual people do not lose every ounce of attraction to others when they enter a relationship, and it is no different for bisexuals. At times I have painfully prayed to God to be either gay or straight, rather than something in-between. But my supposed ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ parts do not become compartmentalised, one erased and the other flourishing, depending on the gender of the person whom I am committing to.
For many years, I was worried about being in a relationship with a woman. Would I lose my self-identity as bisexual, as I would at least appear to conform to what the Church and heteronormative society required? Surely, I would be playing the act of a straight man, despite my bisexuality? Would I also forfeit my right to identify as bisexual within the LGBTQ+ community?
At the time, I thought that dating a woman was conforming, giving power and legitimacy to the traditional, often harmful, sexual ethics of the Church. I had unconsciously succumbed to myths about bisexuality that I had disapproved of for so long. I felt like I needed to be with a man in order to be truly fulfilled as an LGBTQ+ Christian. And, if that was the case, was I becoming the ‘ambiguous’ and ‘inevitably unfaithful’ person the Church told me I intrinsically was?
Eventually, I realised that simply being bisexual was anti-normative in itself. I was already muddying the waters by using such a label, whoever I might be dating. To be in a relationship with my partner who happens to be a woman, and yet still identify as bisexual, is just as disruptive to heteronormative hegemony. By looking straight but not actually being so, I wasn’t conforming. I was doing the opposite. It was liberation, not betrayal.
We humans live and love with our whole selves. We must acknowledge Christ’s calling in all of life. This means paying attention to the nuance and uniqueness of each individual. We can no longer assume that being heterosexual and cisgender are normative. God’s glorious creation of human sexuality is much more complex than that. The rainbow of life is broad and colourful. It includes bisexuals, pansexuals, asexuals, and more, along with those who are married, cohabiting, divorced, widowed, or single. There are so many voices that have not been heard. They may be considered messy and muddled, yet they are authentic expressions of genuine life experiences. Listening to them uncovers the breadth and diversity of God’s creation.
Too often, however, we overlook the uniqueness, even queerness, in every single person. The Church needs to acknowledge and appreciate all those balancing in the betwixt and between whose voices are lost.
After all, my story is one of balance. This can be difficult and painful and sometimes equilibrium isn’t achieved. As an ordinand, I come into the Church of England bursting with hope for the future, but still laden with the burden of wounds that our Church has inflicted, and still does, on many minorities. As a bisexual Christian, I balance what I really am with what the Church wants me to be.
All I can say is that I am here, a bisexual Christian who God made and called me to be, in the Church that I love. At times I have been ignored and insulted. I have felt detached from Christian communities. Even the institutional Church within which I am training for priesthood carries in high regard hurtful words about people like me.
But as bisexuals continue to live out our lives authentically, I hope we will increasingly be known and understood better – whether we are in relationship with someone of the same gender, a different gender, or no one at all. The more we are listened to, the more myths are dispelled. The better we are understood by our beloved Church, the less weighty the burden of balancing our bisexuality will feel.
To my fellow bisexual Christians: keep balancing and stay upright. Speak out, be heard, stay safe, and be brave. Your voice is important. God hears you and loves you. Soon, I pray, the Church will too.
Any thoughts?