CW: Poetically Sexually Explicit, Pornography, Language, Fetishism
Contributor’s note: In this devotional, as we challenge the line of sacred and profane, I offer up poetry and narratives about finding sacredness in pornography. This topic will shut out some people as they enter with past trauma. I want to acknowledge the profanity in pornography. It can cause harm because of the warped views of gender, sexuality, and race, as well as economic, social, mental, and physical issues that derive from its consumption. I define sacredness as unveiling wholeness, and hold space for those whose wholeness is not unveiled through pornography.
Today’s Reading
“woke, o north wind,
and cum, o south wind!
blow upon my garden
that its fragrance may be #thicc.
let my beluvv cum to their garden,
and eat its choicest fruits.
~
i cum to my garden, my fam, my partner,
i gather my myrrh with my spice,
i eat my honeycomb with my honey,
i drink my wine with my milk.
~
eat, friends, draaank,
and be drunk with luvv”
–a gender-neutral, exXxtra reading of Song of Solomon 4:16-5:1
“Within the cultural imagination, Asian American men… are bottoms. …I wanted to feel like I could decide to be top or bottom, a privilege only afforded to white cis men. I didn’t want to feel like I’m buckling to expectations by bottoming, or defying them by topping.”
–Mitchell Kuga, “How Tumblr Porn Let Gay Asian Men Be More Than a Fetish”
| surf my surface as you send ripples at your touch. submerge your body in my water. let me surround you in my presence. my current pulls you in. swim into the depths of me. until you come back to shore. crashing waves coming over you. wanting more you dive into me. i am the sea. | | i am your earth to explore. my mountain is for you to climb. my cave is for you to hide. my soil is for you to plant. my clay is for you to shape. you are the epicenter of the movement in me. wherever you choose to take place in my presence. i want you to stand. i am the land.| | the way you look at me when you are underneath. i kiss your skin with sunshine and light up your bones with lightning. comets soar through your lips as i immerse your soul with raindrops. i cover your face in moonlight. my presence above you. the way you look at me. in your eyes. i am the sky.| | i hold in me. the sky. the land. the sea. three in one. my presence high above in the midst deep below. converging createdness. from the profane my sacredness. from the profane my wholeness. in one three. the sky. the land. the sea. in my touch in my hands. the whole world.| |
Sacred spaces are those where one faces their createdness, unveiling more of their wholeness. Exploring who I am as a sexual being is a space I frequent. Between unlearning purity culture, understanding my intersectionality, and hooking up with what’s-his-name-again, I engage with pornography. In Kuga’s Tumblr ban article, he emotes that watching queer Asian porn was a space where he was encouraged to define his sexual being. While some of my engagements have been profane, I encounter sacredness in pornography.
Dr. Joseph Goh, a member of the Emerging Queer Asian Pacific Islander Religion Scholars, writes in an article about gay men and porn consumption, “The viewing of pornographic material and recognition of their embodied responses to it become a method for both men to ‘talk to’ their sexualities… an honest, intimate, ongoing self-engagement and self-recognition…” (455). I resonate with these words because through watching queer Asian porn, I have come to ‘talk to’ my sexuality. In the past, conversations with my sexuality have been that only white, buff, cis-men are sexually worthy. This evolved into believing my Asian body can be worthy if I submitted to objectification by white men.
As I view a queer Asian body fuck another, I learn that I can desire myself, that I can be desired by others without objectification, and that I can fulfill my sexual desires. It is freeing to know I don’t have to play “aZn sub boiii” for sex and that my role in sex isn’t prescribed. I could be the sea, the land, the sky, the whole world. Like queer Asian bodies connecting, I can hold myself and be enough. In teaching me this, pornography unveils more of my wholeness. And that is sacred.
Reflection
Please think of places that are profane in your life, through which you’ve actually encountered moments of unveiling wholeness. How might these moments challenge our perceptions of what is sacred or profane?
Footnotes
https://www.out.com/news-opinion/2018/12/17/how-tumblr-porn-let-gay-asian-men-be-more-fetish
Goh, Joseph N. 2017. “Navigating sexual honesty: a qualitative study of the meaning- making of pornography consumption among gay-identifying Malaysian men” Porn Studies. 2017 VOL. 4, NO. 4, 447-462. Routledge.
