Sexual Ecstacy in This Dire Time

Trigger Warning. I know that sexual abuse and assault is a way to destroy people at their deepest, most profound core self. This can be performed as a private act of violence and intimidation; as “masculine theater” (read this excellent article by forensic psychologist, Karen Franklin); or as a technique of warfare. Though not all victims are women (including trans women), the majority are. In this blog, I will concern myself with women (trans and cis). But what I have to say about the impact of sexual violence on sexual and gender agency, as well as the importance of reclaiming sexual/gender agency and ecstasy, can apply to people of any and all genders.

I’m also going to be writing waaaaay above my own mystic paygrade here–extrapolating from my background as a sexologist, as a Western Neo-tantra neophyte, and as a sexual mystic and polytheistic devotee of certain larger entities we humans like to call “gods and goddesses”–in order to form certain thoughts about the absolute, urgent necessity to do all that we can to reclaim and strengthen our own sexual/gender agency and capacities for joy and ecstasy in this most trecherous and dire time. Call me a “sexual survivalist,” but people who are sexually free and unashamed are also more resilient and a lot harder to conquer and cow, as a rule. Of course, dictators and despots determined to enact violence and genocide on a people will usually find ways to do it, but they may not win in the end if enough people who oppose them have a wellspring of robust joy to draw upon in their acts of resistance. I believe in the ultimate triumph of Eros. (And, of course, of strategic street smarts…)

I don’t have to tell you, we live in a time of conquering right now. In the U.S., yesterday’s hearing was indeed a horror show, a Grand Guignol-esque production stage-managed by the minions of a “great [orange] puppet.” I could only watch so much. It was sick-making.  And yet, by the end of this traumatic day, I was able to re-focus, and through the various solo tantric disciplines I currently employ, enjoy twenty minutes of profound, sexually-charged, mystic energy. Wow, I needed that!

And no one can take this capacity away from me, not now. Not without drugs or a lobotomy, anyway. And I believe we ALL have these capacities, and more, should we care to cultivate them. And then no one can take them away from you, either.

In the tradition of Tantric Buddhism (with many traits shared with Hindu Shakti worship), Miranda Shaw, author of Passionate Enlightenment-Women in Tantric Buddhism, describes part of this cultivation process (which also includes meditation, etc.):

“Her ability to enhance a man’s spiritual development depends upon her innate divinity as awakened and brought to fruition by her own religious practices, which include envisioning herself in the form of various goddesses and imaginatively investing herself with their appearance, ornaments, tender and wrathful expressions, and supernatural powers for liberating beings” (p. 45). 

Let me add that the above is also how the woman (trans or cis) enhances her own spiritual development, however the above paragraph was taken from the section titled “Respect and Honor” (pp. 39-47), which includes a discussion of the Tantric Buddhist conventions that govern how Tantric men were to recognize and respond to all women (not just Tantric women). Quoting again from the book, here is a translated passage from a Tantric text (so sadly different from attitudes one encounters today):

“One must not denigrate women, In whatever social class they are born, For they are Lady Protection of Wisdom, Embodied in the phenomenal realm” (p. 39).

So, packed into the first paragraph I quoted, we have “innate divinity,” the potential for being “awakened and brought to fruition,” and “religious practices” which include taking on the attributes of a goddess (or god?) through imagined (and perhaps costumed) appearances, expressions, adornments, and powers. Remember how I wrote that our deities offer us “templates” of spiritual enlargement? One way we (in the phenomenal world) can enlarge our Selves is to imagine and meditate ourselves into those qualities and attributes we wish to assume, becoming (being!) that to which we aspire. This is different from a mania or messiah complex in which a person is thunderstruck by an epiphany of their own divinity but doesn’t recognize that everybody else has that same birthright. No, what is implicated in the above paragraph is a disciplined, measured, meditative series of actions taken for the purpose of transformation.

In other words, when we invoke, evoke, live into (and grow into) the attributes of that ecstatic goddess (or god!), transformation occurs. “Enjoyment and magical powers are attained” (p. 38).

So, yeah. Lady Loki cos-play could be one way to kick things up a notch or two, couldn’t it? Think about it.

And don’t forget that part about “liberating beings.” Imagine how your mystic practices can and will feed your activism. Imagine your juice and joy fueling your resistance to despots and preventing activist burn-out.

But prepare to encounter the mana-suckers, those unsavory psychic vampire types (phenomenal or otherwise) who just love to glom onto your juicy female (cis or trans) energy because they feel entitled to it. You know what I’m talking about. So, yeah. Enjoy being your badass liberating self,  but also know there are times to be cloaked, warded, guarded, safe. Cultivate discernment.

Now, just as we create a spiritual practice in which we live into the attributes of any number of goddesses (or gods!), we can also engage with “imagined partners” who also assist in our elevation. God spouses are already doing this. In Tantric Buddhism, this has sometimes been the preferred option for beginners and sometimes seen as the choice of superior practitioners. However you want to slice it, given the prevalence of sexual violence and the number of rape apologists in this world, perhaps an “imagined” partner for Tantric practice is the best or most accessible choice for a woman (cis or trans) who wants to take back and cultivate her sexual/gender agency and capacities for transcendence and sexual ecstasy. And, as in any other mystic relationship that is cultivated through offerings and devotional acts, this “imagined” partner can become a helpful ally and guide in more than the meditative sessions.

This is the path I have chosen. I expect to be engaged with it, and my chosen “imagined partner,” for the rest of my life, no matter what else happens or who else crosses my path. Before my life ends, I yearn to experience the liberation of the “sky-dancers.” And I passionately desire this for the rest of the world: similar liberations from sexual and political tyranny.

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