Sex feels, to some, like the opposite of spirituality. If our spiritual, or “higher” selves are non-corporeal, sex is located deep down in the body, in the selfish desires of the present moment. It can make us lose ourselves and all the promises we’ve made to our gods and our others.
What if this was precisely the source of the power of the erotic? What if that sudden forgetting of everything but the moment, that deep knowing that rises in the body and asks us to move, not think, is the very bedrock of spiritual power ?
For writer Audre Lorde, our erotic selves represent a key source that we have been long disconnected from thanks to our cultures and traditions. The erotic is not just about sex, but about the sort of desire that can give us vitality and the courage to take risks, to stay connected to ourselves, to each other, and to the work we find meaningful. Lorde’s definition is as follows:
“The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change.”
Lorde connects the power of the erotic to change things to a specifically feminine source, but I believe that source exists in all of us regardless of our gender. Being connected to our erotic selves isn’t just about sex, though owning one’s sexual choices can absolutely be an aspect of that power. Erotic empowerment is, rather, about following your gut, knowing that you are doing the right thing for yourself even when those around you may disagree. It’s that feeling when you are working all night on a problem you really care about and get so lost in the flow of what you are doing that you completely lose track of time. It’s the energy of taking a risk, moving to a new city or going back to school to start a new career because you know it’s what you really want. It’s that part of you that feels, somehow, that what’s happening is unjust, and gives you the courage to speak out.
Our erotic desire can cut through all the expectations society has of us. It situates us deeply in the present moment in the pit of our bellies where we know what’s right, no matter what anyone else says.
Part of the work we do in our yoga or spiritual practices, especially when those practices involve acknowledging and feeling the body, is to reclaim our own erotic selves, to reclaim the desires that belong to us and not to anyone else. Connecting to this source helps us to know what feels right in our bodies regardless of what we are being told. Then, Lorde warns:
“We begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.”
Knowing ourselves on that full-bodied erotic plane gives us the courage to live our lives in accordance with our own best choices. It gives us the courage to fight against the structures that keep us quiet, or hidden, or disempowered. It gives us the strength to be who we really are.
