Options & Choices: Alternative Couples

I'm going to approach this unconventionally, so first off, let me assure you I believe in the Biblical definition of "being homosexual", which is quite clearly destructive. If I didn't know and understand what God is saying, however, I would definitely be bisexual myself.

The fundamental understanding this requires is that homosexuality is no worse than fornication (except to note more health risks and a few other physical dangers). But as far as the morality itself goes, no difference. A *lot* of people have trouble with or are surprised to think of it in those terms, but I believe the truth of it.

So "alternative sex" can be approached in two opposite ways: 1, as "just sex/just an activity/a feeling". There's a song that says "i do both jack and jane/they make me feel the same". In that sense, hopefully anybody can understand the general concept of bisexuality. But, again, that's just sex. Then there's that reasonable explanation from the movie Chasing Amy, where the character Amy describes it as "leaving her options open" or having "more opportunities available" if you're available to both sexes . Yep, true. But at essence, that's companionship she's talking about, not necessarily sex. Or rather, sex doesn't have to be brought into it. Because sex isn't *necessary* between 2 people of the same gender. It's not (forgive the phrase:) a call of nature. That's right, mating call. Homo-sex is a bastardized version of the real thing. Which sums up...

Viewpoint # 2, as just "two people connecting". I admit I'm not quite sure what the big deal with sex is. Sure, it's an amazing thing that utilizes amazing muscles and makes you feel several different sensations that nothing else can give you. It can be inspiring, somnolent, awakening, extravagant, comforting, and yet still be tangible. It's gratifying and connecting. Sure, I get that. But, I'm all into the overall picture and making your decisions based on that. Yes, consequences, preferences: all of that added up and put together and then finding a yes-or-no answer. I believe in living that way.

When it comes right down to it, sex is for breeding. Which is why I can say that sex is indeed fundamental. Because propagation is fundamental. But sex is also a physical manifestation of love. Not every kind of love, but a specific, committed love. And this certain brand of love -the romantic, sexual, passionate love (whatever you want to call it to differentiate)- isn't the single most important kind of love in the world. The verse doesn't say "...and the greatest of these is the love of a sexual partner", you see?

The truth is, there's a # 3. The siren call of anti-traditional paths. It's a sort of 'newer' kind of relationship with less rigid formation from sheer history, and you know what? I long for that myself. I think that nowadays relationships (normal, het relationships) are harder than they ever were. We have thousands of years of stereotypes and issues and misunderstandings to get past and work around. A marriage is not a simple endeavor (as vividly demonstrated by the wasteland of fallen marriages all around us).

Then for some, I'm sure it's the absence of men (or women; the opposite sex) that is attractive. I think the thing about this sort of relationship is that it is all of these different, contradictory things. That is the appeal in the very word, "ambiguous", and that's what homosexuality appears to be.

I wonder, also, if the desire can be for the opposite of "introducing sexual overtones to f/f interaction". Passionate vs. companionate, supposedly the two forms love can take. In psychology there is, I believe, a theory about that. (The Hatfield-Berscheid experiments? Three myths, two types of love.) "Passionate love encompasses tender sexual feelings, and the agony and ecstasy of emotions, while companionate is a deep, abiding affection." Your same sex as companion? The closest you can get -the intimate. If we're only talking the lesbian rather than the male gay side of things, perhaps women *do* prefer to keep sex a lesser factor. Perhaps a woman who is abandoning her most vital female organs to disuse understands the unimportance of a fertility act. (Then again, witches are all about fertility rites and I understand wiccans and lesbians are not immiscible. I'm not about to accept wiccan logic as sound, or logical, however.) Or perhaps it's easier, again if we're working within stereotypes and jumping obstacles, to blend the two in an unconventional relationship. If everything is irregular in the first place, you can't default to an old, tired way of doing things. The most used ways, after all, are almost invariably the wrong ones. But there are crooked paths and there are even more winding paths.

There's a lot of psychology to the layers of it, but in the end there's always a simple answer, a simple decision to make. The logic behind homosexuality is twisted at best, and apparently it's not acceptable to *understand* 'the gay thing' and all good Christians should just be satisfied with knowing 'God said it's wrong and that's enough'. That's perfectly agreeable with me as far as it goes, but that does *not* require disinterest, or a narrow mind, or a rejection of anything peripherally involved in the issue itself (as in treating both sexes equally in all things, the 'checking-out'-of included). I do think choosing homosexuality (at least after one is old enough to know what they're doing, to discount the environmentally influenced, which is becoming a bigger and bigger problem) can be a cry for validation, and I do think it takes a stronger person to get things correct in the more traditional relationship (to, say, find validation the ignored way). Because, after all, no one relationship is like another so what is tradition? But most fundamentally, what is anything without God, anyway? We've known for years without question just which side God is on. Being ambiguous with impunity can only take you so far.