Confessions of an Omnidirectional Lover: Deconstructing My Sexuality

Am I queer?It’s a question I’ve wondered about for awhile, though maybe not in the way you might think.

The first inkling I had of my particular flavor of potential queerness (Schrödinger’s queerness?) came when I was only five years old.

I was in Sunday School, gathered with two girls who were best friends with each other — Lynne and Amber. This particular Sunday morning, I was sitting between them. Lynne was holding one of my hands, resting in her lap. And Amber was holding my other hand, resting in her lap.

I felt like I was in heaven. It felt sweet, wholesome, and right. I’m pretty sure we stayed this way throughout the entire felt-board Bible lesson.

Our Sunday School was team-taught by a woman and a man; I’ll never forget what happened after the lesson concluded.

The man put his hands on his knees, leaned in my face, smiled, and said:

“You know, you’re going to have to choose, eventually.”

And I remember thinking at the time: “Why?”

Leaving aside for a moment that this is a hell of a thing for an adult to say to a five-year-old, even then, the idea that I’d have to choose between the affection and companionship of two girls who clearly cared about each other and were enjoying me felt ludicrous.

Of course, this is the messaging I’d continue receiving growing up in Georgia, in the U.S. South, the ‘buckle of the Bible Belt.’ Evangelical Christians in the genre of faith I was raised in somehow ignored the messy, manifold witness of Scripture itself (what with its polygamist patriarchs and serial marriages culminating in twin New Covenant champions, Jesus and Paul, who ostensibly celebrated celibacy above all) in favor of a flattened 1950s-styled nuclear family with a paired dyad at the center, ‘forsaking all others’ becoming a social isolation chamber where other friends, loves, and community had no place.

I’d hear whispers of other possibilities over the years: realizing that alternative religious communities from Mormons to Shakers to the Oneida Community tried experiments in old-school polygamy, sublimated celibacy, or free-love as the elixir to immortality, respectively. In college when my roommate and I launched the proto emerging church Web directory ‘sites unseen,’ we fielded link submissions for ‘the best Jesus-infused websites you never knew about,’ including from a group called ‘Liberated Christians’ or some such thing, which included full-length PDF Christian polygamist romance novels! (We did not include it in our links list.) And my brothers in Christ on campus would sometimes acknowledge in hushed tones, like Nicodemus slipping in under the cloak of night, that they wished they could enjoy multiple loving, romantic relationships during our potentially-freest years of communal living and learning. But alas, it was probably ‘wrong.’ And besides, they didn’t want their girlfriends having these same freedoms.

Years passed. I courted, then married, my highschool sweetheart, who was and is amazing. (We recently divorced after a quarter-century, which I wrote about here.) We started married life amid a house church community where we practiced open, participatory gathering, women were equal to men, and — like the early church recorded in Acts — we sought to share all things in common. Well, *almost* all things!

Rejecting nuclear family norms by intentionally moving into neighborhoods together, throwing our arms around each other while singing, sharing so many meals and caring for each other in sickness and health, had an effect on me. Living a more genuinely tribal life outside of isolated nuclear family, white-picket-fence norms began to water seeds deep in my relational soil.

But tension and conflict was growing within me. I’d feel guilty sometimes for enjoying friendships that felt ‘too’ close — no physical lines were crossed, but my heart felt more open than the relationship structures and expectations of those around me seemed to allow for. I flourished in containers of loyalty, covenant, and commitment, but increasingly *sucked* at exclusivity. And I didn’t want to become good at walling off my heart, my body, or my life from others.

I remember thinking at the time: “Why?”

Years kept rolling on. Our beloved community dissolved, due to conflicting community visions within, as well as in our larger movement. I’d continue connecting with the wider emerging church ‘conversation.’ One day, a dear friend and colleague in that world told me I’d find some soul-solace in a book that had just come out: Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá. This pair of anthropological journalists summarized a compelling case that humanity, for most of our history as ‘prehistoric’ immediate-return foragers spanning hundreds of thousands of years, lived in a simpler relationship with the land and creatures around them, not yet stratifying into competing groups based on concentrations of wealth, violence, or gender privilege. Tribal band societies were by-and-large peace-loving, abundantly-grazing, pro-social beings who shared improvised shelter, freshly-gathered food… and love, sex, and bonding.

Sparks of recognition ignited in my heart and understanding. This more primordial, pro-social way of relating has always felt innate to my system — and quite resonant with the itinerant, lilies-of-the-field-venerating, convivial meal-sharing, touching-and-anointing-and-healing-each-other, reclining-and-laying-heads-on-each-other’s-chests Way of Jesus that I grew up learning about in Sunday School, but that folks in ‘big church’ seemed to have a difficult time integrating and living out.

And while it certainly isn’t for everyone in our contemporary world, I began to understand that enjoying multiple loving, romantic, intentional relationships, with the informed and joyful consent of all people involved, is just how I’m wired.

Alternative spiritual teacher and community organizer Morning Glory Ravenheart Zell (1948-2014) coined the term “polyamory” in her May 1990 Green Egg Magazine article, ‘A Bouquet of Lovers.’ It’s a Latin-Greek hybrid term meaning “loving many.”

Of course, we all love many — if we’re neighbors, siblings, parents, children, friends.

It’s part of being alive, even if our civilizational structures seemingly conspire to keep us increasingly tired and disconnected.

And for some of us…maybe your co-workers, neighbors, relatives, maybe even you… also have (or desire) a plurality of intimate partners or companions. Some of us are asexual; some of us are highly sexual. Polyamorous people come from all walks of life, all genders, races, sexual orientations…and faiths.