Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2001 Full-body-mega-kundalinigasm: ‘sacred’ sex and sexual politics KATH ALBURY, University of New South Wales How is it possible to undertake an academic inquiry into a movement whose credo is ‘make no judgements, make no comparisons and delete your need to understand’? (www.yoni.com/bcarellas/int1.html). How is it possible to discuss ‘sexual energy’ in terms which do not question the existence of that which cannot be seen? How much harder is it when one has already experienced the ‘look-ma-no-hands’ Breath and Energy Orgasm, and participated in Sacred Sex workshops? If cultural studies has not addressed self-help and self-development in great detail, perhaps it is because of the ambivalent ‘cultural’ relation to self-help and spirituality. After all, ‘deleting the need to understand’ is a tremendous relief for a mind and body otherwise professionally engaged in relentless judgement and comparison. I certainly can’t promise to create a denitive, anthropological or sociological denition of tantra (or the myriad of new age sacred sexualities based loosely on Taoist, tantric or other traditions). In a vast eld that has previously been the terrain of anthropologists, ethnographers or popular journalists, my intercession is necessarily a limited one. Rather than offering a linear history of the Westernization of tantric and Taoist practices, I am focusing largely on a the products and proponents of a particular ‘culture’ of sacred or ‘conscious’ sex. 1 This form (best known in Australia through the lms, performances and writings of ‘post-porn modernist’ Annie Sprinkle) is closely linked with organized gay, lesbian, feminist, S/M and other sexual and political sub-cultures which have developed in New York and San Francisco over the past two decades. Like these sub-cultures (and their parallels in Western capital cities such as Sydney), this contemporary practice of sacred sex reects certain political, ethical and personal challenges, which can be viewed in the framework of Foucauldian ‘technologies of the self’. Notably, queer/feminist ‘tantra’ foregrounds the political and cultural importance of celebrating intense physical pleasures, despite (or in response to) a broader environment of fear, violence, epidemic, and scapegoating of sexual ‘deviants’. Second-wave feminists and gay liberationists met what they saw normalizing modes of heterosexist ‘sexpertise’ with active campaigns which counter-politicized sexual knowledge and erotic pleasure. While the political foundations of sacred sex may (as I will explore) appear somewhat unsophisticated to the academic reader, they are quite radical in a popular context—that is, in comparison with other forms of mainstream sex advice and safer-sex education (for diverse feminist perspectives on the politics of sexual ‘how-tos’ see Altman, 1992; Calia, 1994; Dodson, 1987; Potts, 1998; Segal, 1994; Jeffreys, 1993; Vance, 1992). Queer/feminist tantra (or sacred sex) emphasizes practices which produce intense pleasures, while de-emphasizing conventional sex/gender roles. While it is entirely possible (and for some people, desirable) to incorporate traditional heterosexual givens ISSN 1030-4312 print/ISSN 1469-3666 online/01/020201-15 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1030431012005915 5