There seems to be a running confusion here about the nature of bisexuality. I have seen it so far in two comments and it is likely in more. It generally seems to be along the lines of, "Bisexuals want multiple partners."
This is not the case! A bisexual person may fall in love with a person of either the same or the opposite gender. But this relationship is just as monogamous as one between two heterosexuals. However, when dating and pre-marriage, a bisexual person may end up dating both men and women over time before settling down with one person in the end, just like a homosexual/heterosexual person may date several people of the same/opposite gender over time before finding one with whom s/he wishes to continue in a closer relationship.
There is a word for a person who enters into a mutual relationship with more than two participants (who may be of any gender) total. This word is "polyamorous". We could discuss that separately, but we should take care not to confuse it with bisexuality. (Also, I do believe that we would be mostly in agreement on polyamory, so it would be a pretty uninteresting discussion.)
This is, alas, a common misconception, and I hope that I can help to clear it up.
While it may seem ridiculous or foolish to make and maintain these distinctions, they are vital to a good discussion. Because if we have different views as to what a word means, then we cannot properly communicate when we use that word. Also, to discuss something we must be able to either name or describe that 'something' during the discussion.
Comment of the Weekend
Sunday November 30, 2008
Categories: Comment of the Day, same sex marriage
Several commenters have questioned my inclusion of the "B" in GLBTQ, suggesting that bisexual persons don't fit under the monogamy that I endorse. But PSUdain clarifies on my behalf:
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About The New Christians
Tony Jones is the author of many books, including The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life. He is a leader in the emergent church movement and a renowned expert on postmodern theology and the American church landscape.
Find out more about Tony, his books, and his speaking schedule at his website.
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> whereas conservatives are concerned with offending God.
It's entertaining to see Biblical conservatives tie themselves into a twist trying to put polygamy (and by extension modern polyamory) in the same "unBiblical" category as gay marriage -- seeing as how the OT is chock full of righteous, Godly characters, from Job to Solomon, who had multiple wives.
And no, you can't posit (as I've seen done) that Solomon had only one "real" wife and the rest were mistresses, because the OT clearly states that he had both wives *and* mistresses (scads of them), with the two different words for each category.
And no, a conservative can't say this was limited to the Old Testament and "we're past that now," because (1) Then we could be past Leviticus too, hm? and (2) There are lines in the NT that imply polygamy was part of the normal background of life for the first Christians (i.e. that bishops should forego having more than one wife because it would take too much time away from being a good bishop.)
Daniel wrote: "The institution itself being a sort of civil pressure to encourage sexual acts to stay within the defined relationship, it would seem that polys would not be interested"
While the institution traditionally is thought of as intending to restrict sex to sanctioned relationships between specific people, sex isn't always a factor in either traditional marriage or poly families. Whether because of physical or psychic disabilities or difficulties, for instance, some people simply don't have sex - and not all sexless marriages are loveless. This is surely a small minority, but important to keep in mind.
In fact, for a relationship to work between a non-sexualized person and a sexualized person, if those labels make sense, a polyamorous relationship would be ideal.
Beyond the idea of non-sexualized persons, you might say polyamory is simply a modern take on the age-old phenomenon of open marriages. Whether a sexless marriage wishes to stay together out of a deeper soul bond and love, or out of mercenary reasons, allowing sexual relations to exist beyond the marriage-proper is often essential.
I think a big issue here is the confusion of sex and love. Sex can be an expression of love, and some may argue that it always should be, but it simply isn't always the case, just as sex isn't just for procreation.
:) this entire thread has put a smile on my face.
Doesn't bisexual by it's very name indicate promiscuity? And do bisexual people also want the right to marry? And if they are bisexual, does that mean that a bisexual should have the right to marry two people of either the same or opposite sex? This is getting very complicated. If being in love is the main critera for marriage, why can't three or four people who are genuinely in love marry or is that called polygamy and why shouldn't that be legal too if all the parties involved are truly in love?
So What happened to the discussion. It seems you posted a couple times, the other guy never did and then it just died away. I hope you guys pick the discussion back up, or really get the two way discussion going.
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