Theoerotics … those that know (me) assume they know the answer, those that don’t, aquaintences sometimes ask, or smirk dismissively. Walking away making assumptions of the what, the how and the why. This blog has in the past adressed this topic and failed to uncover it’s dirty secrets. As this text will fail to uncover the naked truth, the quivering and pulsating core: the theoerotics, the ever undulating perichoresis of the divine and the world contained therein.
Theoeoritcs is Pirate Theology
When the commons is under threat by the powers that be (be that the church or the state), pirates rise to the challenge and hoist the Jolly Roger. Sexuality in general and eroticism in particular has long been under the control of the oppressive cis-heteronormativity so pervasive in both western and to some extent eastern culture. Sexuality and eroticism is part of what makes us human and therefore these spheres are per definition part of what makes up “the commons” of the human experience. The pirate theologian hoists the jolly roger and takes to the sea to take back by force, what has been asked and denied, time and time again, by the prevalent culture. Recapturing, reframing, and restoring sexuality and eroticism into the holy of holies, the innermost room of the carnal yet fully divine temple of the human body where it belongs.
Theoerotics is Queer Theology
Theology is at it’s most basic level words about god. Queer Theology then, is both queer persons talking about god and queer words about god. Queer made into a verb – queering, is a foundational aspect of queer theology: “Queering is about transgressing boundaries, the artificial borders that have been designed to separate people from one another based on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class and other axes of identity … By transgressing them, we disrupt those hierarchies and turn the world upside down.” Theoerotic does this right from the start as the name in it self ascribes eroticism to the theos, which is both shocking and upsetting to some entrenched in the pious, frugal cis-heteronormativity of the present. Marcella Althaus-Reid adds in her own sultry tones that the purpose of queer theology is to “shock people out of their complacency and help them see theology in a new light.” The theoerotic by it’s very nature transgresses the idea of holiness by taking the erotic and incarnating it in the holy of holies, the temple of the divine.
Theoerotics is Embodied Theopoetics
Theology often falls into the trap of becoming what Jack calls “theologics”, as if we could logic our way into the divine. Poetry is what happens when scientists run out of arguments, answers and ideas. Poetry is language better suited to describe the effemeral and the undescribable – the mystery of the divine. Augustine wrote that if you understand it – it is not god. This is why, in both the most progressive and to be fair some of the oldest most orthodox parts of Christianity, theopoetics has started to replace the theologics of systematic theology. Poetics is the language of the mystic, when cold hard logics fail and all we have is the whisper of a mystery, a vague sense of the lure calling us, an echo of a tribal memory of that which lies on the other side of the horizon – trancendent, yet somehow encompasses us and the world we live in – truly immanent. And when words fail, we paint, we sing wordless guttural song and we dance because that mystery that lives on the inside is to large to be contained, it beckons us to manifest, incarnate the mystery into lived experience. And this is where theopoetics fail to go the distance and theoerotics takes the last trembling step. Theoerotic is irreverent pirate theology turned queer then turned into theopoetics and incarnated into the erotic poetry of divine no/bodies hesitant and trembling with like parts fear and desire yet moved by eros. Bodies thrust into ecstatic rapture only to be embraced by wave after wave of divine pleasure and comfort.
Theoerotics is Theopoetics in drag
Theoretics is theopoetics embodied with a flamboyant and irreverant Yasss Qeeeen! bringing all of our Creativity, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent to the forefront. Drag-divinity Ru Paul famously said “We are born naked, the rest is drag!” Theoreotics embraces all of it. It being all the personas, masks and aspects that comprise the I. The personhood that we are and then dress it up with glitter rainbows and flamboyant, exaggerated and festive pomp. Everyone wakes up and puts on a persona before going out into the world. Knowingly or unknowingly we present our identity, our gender, our sexuality, our ethnicity, our race, our class and our beliefs. We incarnate who we believe that we are and what we believe in through ideological and theological vestments, and as importantly, signal it all by conforming or not comforming to the normativity of our culture in the layers we put on – our adornments, the status symbols of our time.
Theoerotics is dirty, chaotic and undisciplined fully depraved and fully divine
Without system or logics driven by desire: theoerotics can look chaotic, dangerous, messy, dirty, depraved, irreverant, undisciplined and it is all that. Still as bodies move dancing to an erratic rythm only heard by those who have ears the mystery of the divine unfolds in the undulations of the shared perichoresis. It is a divine dance, enjoyed at the margins by those who’s message like the Jolly Roger is: we are the dead – we have nothing to hide and nothing to loose. Yet we are fully alive, briming with the shechina and eros of the divine. Theoerotics like life cannot be contained by societal norm or theologics. It cannot be pushed into the square form of churchianity or even the yantras of tantric practice. It does not belong to a certain ideology or faith. It is a vocative – weak force calling us to remember that we are erotic beings driven by desire, to re/connect, to re/turn home to the ever-all-welcoming embrace of the divine.
Join the theoerotic dance ….
Join in – no matter what your true unique expression looks like. You are welcome here! Straight – homo – bi – pan – a – sexual, man – woman – non binary – trans, theist – atheist, monogamous – polyamourous – celibate or just undecided, regardless of color, creed or race, all are invited, welcomed, embraced, cherished and celebrated in this erotic dance and to share the tumutuous and sometimes confusing journey of life together.
Post a comment, connect on various social platforms or meet up in person to continue the conversation.
Ps. the pirate-queer-incarnated-dragged up-theopoetics of theoerotics include in its diverse expression all expressions including the asexual as eroticism in no way, shape or form demands the explicitly sexual, even as it allows and embraces it.
- Theoerotics!?
