A Tantra’ing of Queer Theory

It seems to me, the questioning of the subject, this ‘we’ or ‘I’, has never been taken seriously enough in Queer Theory, or to its natural conclusion of non-duality. Foucault brought into question the need for a subject behind action. Judith Butler extends this when she refers to no doer behind the deed. These reflect a far older tradition in non-dual thinking, where there is only one everything, especially prevalent in Eastern philosophy, as in some lineages of classical Tantra where one strove to transform and transcend the self.

Deleuze and Guattari emphasise that sexuality can only exists as a concept because of the idea of the subject. For them the ‘plane of immanence’ is the field across which the distinction between the inner and outer is drawn, and it is from this experience that the subject is formed. We do not start as subject, we start as experience over time (repetition and anticipation, ie, habit). Habit is the root of the subject; merely a synthesis over time. This reflects Sutra 2 of Patanjali’s The Yoga Sutras, from around 500 years B.C., where we need to unblock our repetitive patterns; giving a clear link between Eastern tradition and Queer Theory.

The apora (cul-de-sac) queer theory finds itself in by not addressing the subject seriously enough could so readily be closed, in my opinion, if queer theorists took a more inclusive approach to non-Western philosophies, especially those centred on non-duality. Kashmir Shaivism, for instance, also called Trika Tantra, posits that transcendence is only a steppingstone to come back into the here and now with new wisdom and insight. This would address the concern some queer theorists and activists have that no subject would mean there is no practical or political application. So, when Samual Clowes Huneke in his work ‘A Queer Theory of the State’ advocates for political engagement as a means to queer the state, the burning question for some would be ‘who would be doing the engagement?’

But that misses the point of Kashmir Shaivism’s drop of Bindu into the Heart (Awakening as a return journey) where we shift from the love of power to the power of love, undermining the whole premise of oppression. Here we come to recognise we live in this world before awakening, and we still live in this world after awakening. Judith Butler’s notion of performativity then would become a chosen practice driven not be the self (which creates identity) but by the Self (as an act of choosing to be chosen – the creative impulse), where our creative self-expression and spiritual self-fashioning (ascesis) becomes aligned to universal consciousness; Being is Shiva.

By definition, this can only ‘enrich our ways of being’, as Shiva, in Easter tradition, is universal consciousness. The great 10th century Eastern philosopher Abhinavagupta defines the Agamas (divine revelations) as the inner activity of Shiva through sadhana, through joyous creative activity. So, universal consciousness creating itself through repetitive practice. A practical implication of the Agamas is the principle of samata (equality); no one person or group owns agamic knowledge. Shiva is everywhere, and everything … no one is excluded. From a queer perspective this is a joyous thing to hear, an upholding of multiplicity, a recognition that there is no thing that is not also Shiva.

In the West, however, we tend to work through either / or scenarios, The duality of this or that, right or wrong, good or bad, in or out. Some would say we need to be ‘in’ the state to influence it. While others think to be ‘in’ is already to be complicit. Eastern philosophy is more comfortable with paradox; the absolute and the relative; the infinite and the finite; the spiritual and the worldly; the big picture and the detail; the in and the out; the two half-truths, where all truth statements are partial.

Bringing it all together

A tantra’ing of queer theory would necessitate working with paradox and partial truths, while taking the non-dual nature of ‘I’ more seriously; a multiplicity within oneness. This is difficult as it means separating our thinking from the thought that Oneness (the Absolute) acts like ‘us’, ie, we need to stop anthropomorphising ‘I’.

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