3.10 How can a gay person practice tantra? Where is their kundalini?
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This article is from the Magick Tantra FAQ, by Tyagi Nagasiva nagasiva@luckymojo.com, Catherine Yronwode cat@luckymojo.com with numerous contributions by others.
3.10 How can a gay person practice tantra? Where is their kundalini?
Isn't it the case that for tantric experiences and sex magic
a male and a female are required?
Gay people can and do practice tantra yoga.
In the first place, kundalini energy is not a requisite
theoretical part of the composite and diverse systems of
Hindu and Buddhist tantra. (See section 3.7.7 of this FAQ)
In the second place, even among those tantrikas who use the
kundalini model of energy flow, kundalini's rising energy
currents are conceived as being the same in homosexuals,
bisexuals, heterosexuals, celibates, intersexes, and eunuchs.
Finally, the history of Hindu tantra yoga ritual artwork
contains many graphic examples of the ritualization of male
castration (severing of both the testicles and penis) as part
of an extreme devotionary act dedicated to Shakti in her
wrathful form of Kali. Ritual castration is not condoned by
the Indian government at the present time, but insofar as it
was admired, advocated, and institutionalized by certain
(minority) tantric gurus and their students in the past, it
is evident that a male practitioner's sexual orientation
and/or his capacity to function as a vaginal penetrant are
NOT relevant to his acceptance into certain schools of
tantra yoga. This information is not presented with the aim
of equating homosexuals with castrati, merely to indicate
that the penis-in-vagina coupling of heterosexual male and
female bodies is not central to all schools of tantric
teaching. (Ritual castration, by the way, was not limited to
Indian religious practice: male members of the Near Eastern
cult of Cybele also offered their genitals to their goddess;
likewise, ritual male castration made inroads into early
Christianity, although it was condemned as excessive during
the late Middle Ages.)
In folk magic, there is no barrier to any kind of homosexual
magical working. For instance, a spell formula such as
"Follow Me Boy" can be used interchangeably by heterosexual
women and gay men to attract a male lover.
Among hermetic and ceremonial sex magicians, opinions about
homosexuality are sharply divided. One famous bi-sexual
sex magician, Aleister Crowley, went so far as to declare
that homosexual rites were in many ways superior to
heterosexual workings, but he also claimed that lesbian
couples were incapable of sex magick at all, due to their
inability to produce sperm, which he believed was an
essential ingredient in the work.
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