1st Edition
Bisexuality, Religion and Spirituality Critical Perspectives
This book brings together the work of an international team of experts investigating the intersection of bisexuality, religion and spirituality. Drawing from disciplines such as sociology, psychology, theology, religious studies and literary studies, it critically examines, both theoretically and empirically, the lived experiences of bisexual people of diverse religious faiths and spiritualities, in the context of the UK, Canada, Lebanon, Turkey, Australia and the USA. As an important and insightful exploration of an under-researched and often misunderstood minority, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in sexuality, religion, spirituality and identity.
1. Bisexuality, Religion and Spirituality: Instigating a Dialogue
Alex Toft and Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip
2. Bisexuality, (Non)Religion and Spirituality in Canadian Young Adults
Heather Shipley and Pamela Dickey Young
3. Identifying as Young, Disabled and Bisexual within Evangelical Christianity: Abigail’s Story
Alex Toft and Anita Franklin
4. Bisexual Erasure and Religious Spaces: Experiences of Young Adults in the United Kingdom
Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip and Sarah-Jane Page
5. Ritual and Liminality: Bisexuality within Christianity and Paganism
Douglas Ezzy and Bronwyn Fielder
6. Negotiating Sexuality and Spirituality: The Lived Experiences of Bisexual Persons
Alex Toft
7. Ambiguities, Authenticity and Actualisation: Life Story Research with a Bisexual Christian
Chris Greenough
8. ‘Sweet Blasphemy’: Elif Shafak, Bisexuality and Sufism
Cheryl Stobie
9. Religion, Male Bisexuality and Sexual Risk in Lebanon
Ismaël Maatouk and Rusi Jaspal
10. Depression and Suicidality among Bisexual Christians
Carol A Shepherd
11. Bisexual Wellbeing: Impacts of Current Religion and Childhood Experiences
Margaret Robinson and Shayan Asadi
Biography
Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip is Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham, UK. His recent books include Sexual Identities: A Multi-faith Exploration of Young Adults (with Sarah-Jane Page), Cosmopolitan Dharma: Race, Sexuality, and Gender in British Buddhism (with Sharon Smith and Sally Munt), Understanding Young Buddhists: Living out Ethical Journeys (with Sarah-Jane Page), Critical Pedagogy, Sexuality Education, and Young People (with Fida Sanjakdar) and Intersecting Sexuality and Religion: Sociological Perspectives (with Sarah-Jane Page). He is currently writing, with Carl Ridler, a book provisionally entitled Intersecting and Contested Identities: Gay and Bisexual Arab Men in Everyday Life.
Alex Toft is a Research Fellow in the Nottingham Centre for Children, Young People and Families at Nottingham Trent University. His research focuses upon sexuality, gender, disability, spirituality and identity. His publications include Young, Disabled and LGBT+: Voices, Identities and Intersections (with Anita Franklin), and he has published in journals such as Sexualities and Journal of LGBT Youth. He has worked on projects funded by organisations such as the NSPCC and the Fundamental Rights Agency (EU), and recently received British Academy funding to conduct research exploring the negotiation of identity in the lives of young disabled LGBT+ people.
"The Editors of this volume bring together interdisciplinary voices to construct a vivid dialogue about bisexuality and religious identities and spaces. Not only are there wide-ranging disciplinary contributions from sociologists, psychologists, theologists, scholars of religion and literature, this volume brings together international work from UK, Canada, Lebanon, Turkey, Australia and the USA. Furthermore, as much previous research on the topic of bisexuality and religion has focussed solely on the sexuality’s intersection with Christian identities, there is an expansion of work in this book which encompasses Sufsm, Buddhism, Islam, Paganism, Judaism and non-religion into the conversation, broadening the scope of the field vastly"
-Samuel Lawton, Psychology of Sexualities Review