'erotic activity, by dissolving the separate beings that participate in it, reveals their fundamental continuity, like the waves of a stormy sea'1 - georges bataille
all phenomenal reality is an illusion imposed by power on the eternal dao. the dao is not an essence, but a constant, indeterminate flow, without structure or meaning; it is not 'being', but a formless 'becoming'. it is this fluid surface upon which power inscribes social structure. power is precarious and flexible in its production and regulation of molecular constructs, but its overall effect is the establishment of larger static structures on the dao. this imposition of both molecular constructs and molar structures on the dao can be said to be a form of repression of the dao's flow.
this repression leads to suffering, particularly through power's production of the subject. once this subject is constructed as a cohesive structure on the formless dao, conscious suffering arises from within it as the illusion of being an impermeable, constant 'self' that is separate from continuous existence; to 'be' a discrete subject is to suffer. this subject is also subsumed into larger social structures, where it is 'formed, defined, and reproduced in accordance with the requirements of those structures'.2 the incentive of these structures is to maintain the subject, as they depend on it for their survival (the subject is the basis of the liberal state, the reproductive family unit and the market economy). this entrenchment makes escaping the construct of the subject extremely difficult.
however, as the foundation of these structures is an underlying fluidity, there are still momentary areas of precarity on the grid of power where potential lines of flight from the subject can be exploited. generally, these lines of flight can be said to be created by the death drive, which is itself generated by the tension between the fluidity of the dao and the static structures inscribed on it by power. this death drive is the entropic drive of the dao against the repression of its flow by power, the drive to destroy the subject. it manifests itself in transgressive desire, which, although necessarily determined by power just as much as sanctioned desire is, still carries subversive potential, as transgression is often destructive (of the self and others). power attempts to limit this destruction by sublimating desire into its own inscriptions, such as by redirecting it into the reproduction of the nuclear family apparatus, or by sedating it with pleasure-commodities (an increasingly dominant form of sublimation within developed capitalism). nonetheless, the death drive constantly threatens to disrupt these inscriptions with new 'mobile and transitory points of resistance'.3 'only stagnation ensures that creatures shall preserve their discontinuity, their isolation, that is. this discontinuity is a challenge to the pressure that is bound to abolish the barriers keeping separate individuals apart'.4 this pressure is the death drive. in order to alleviate the suffering of being a subject, we must reject the life drives - for survival, individuality, growth and reproduction - and embrace the death drive, with the aim of desubjectification: the total dissolution of the subject into the flow of the dao.
the subject is perhaps most precarious in bdsm, where the submissive/masochistic subject rejects the pleasure principle in favour of a jouissance that blurs pleasure and pain, and radically embraces the death drive. through a denial of its autonomy, and a physical violation of its bodily integrity, the submissive/masochistic subject is violently undermined. accompanied by intense sexual excitation, this act can potentially agitate the stability of the subject to such an extreme that the submissive/masochist's subjectivity can be entirely relinquished to the point of a moment of ecstasy, where the subject is temporarily fully dissolved into the dao. this kind of orgasmic mystical experience, analogous to death, is arguably the logical conclusion of the confluence of violence and sexuality:
existence itself is at stake in the transition from discontinuity to continuity. only violence can bring everything to a state of flux in this way . . . what does physical eroticism signify if not a violation of the very being of its practitioners? - a violation bordering on death, bordering on murder?5
the dominant/sadistic subject may be able to experience this desubjectification vicariously - 'the dissolution of the passive partner means one thing only: it is paving the way for a fusion where both are mingled, attaining at length the same degree of dissolution'.6 in this sense, bdsm, with its potential for mystical/limit-experience, can be a spiritual practice similar to meditation. it is a line of flight from the subject created by the death drive, and due to its extreme transgression, it can be a very effective method for achieving desubjectification and unity with the dao, as well as being a way towards a more general satisfaction that is arguably still possible from within the confines of subjectivity.
queerness only exists as formulated within patriarchy, as a unification of transgressive desires and practices into a cohesive Other, the perceived (and perhaps real) threat to reproductive civilisation (although increasingly, it has instead been inoculated and subsumed into liberal identity politics). however, 'queerness' still contains deeply subversive potential. our aim in embracing queerness is not to 'free' sexuality or gender from power, as they are constructs determined by power; 'sex' itself is not subversive: 'the notion of "sex" made it possible to group together, in an artificial unity, anatomical elements, biological functions, conducts, sensations, and pleasure'.7 while these molecular aspects of sex are also constructed by power, unlike the molar territory of 'sex', they have a potential to be rearranged and subverted, deterritorialising the static inscriptions of power on the dao. if queerness can be reappropriated and transformed into a process, rather than the molar construct it is commonly treated as, it can be highly effective at deterritorialisation, particularly due to its blurring of the interplay of masculinity and femininity, and, crucially, its redistribution of desire and penetration across the body (this is one of the many ways in which queerness and kink intersect), which threatens the stability of the body itself:
the construction of stable bodily contours relies upon fixed sites of corporeal permeability and impermeability. those sexual practices in both homosexual and heterosexual contexts that open surfaces and orifices to erotic signification or close down others effectively reinscribe the boundaries of the body along new cultural lines . . . the rites of passage that govern various bodily orifices presuppose a heterosexual construction of gendered exchange, positions, and erotic possibilities. the deregulation of such exchanges accordingly disrupts the very boundaries that determine what it is to be a body at all.8
broadly, the queer subject is a precarious territory on the field of power which can be reappropriated in order for it to be disintegrated, becoming 'a desire lacking nothing, a flux that overcomes barriers and codes, a name that no longer designates any ego whatever'.9
due to desubjectification's reliance on desire, which is inherently a negotiation with power, the process of desubjectification will always be precarious; the dissolution of the subject into the fluidity of the dao can only be temporary - 'we reach but don't grasp it'10 - and will inevitably be followed by the reterritorialisation of the subject into the inscriptions of power; resubjectification. nonetheless, this cycle still provides an experience of the unknowable fluidity beneath phenomenal reality, and can thus be deeply effective in alleviating some of the suffering of subjectivity.
the lines of flight we have described here make some use of dualities (such as masculinity and femininity, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism, etc.), which can be validly critiqued as essentialist and idealistic (dualities being some of the most elementary structures imposed on the dao), but we believe that this does not necessarily negate their pragmatic value if reappropriated, as long as we constantly acknowledge their underlying absurdity (that is, the discontinuity between their idealism and the formless dao they are imbued upon).
our aims in using bdsm and queerness to desubjectify are necessarily post-feminist, as feminism depends on the establishment of a stable female subject. defining this subject requires exclusion and essentialism, and maintaining it requires the illusion of impermeability. ultimately, this results in an incompatibility with penetration, which both symbolically and physically undermines the subject: andrea dworkin is right to claim that 'intercourse . . . has in it, as part of it, violation of boundaries, taking over, occupation, destruction of privacy',11 yet we embrace this. the preservation of this subject, even if it has liberatory intentions, only reinforces power and suffering, and is not even realistically achievable due to the death drive;
for inner and outer worlds to remain utterly distinct, the entire surface of the body would have to achieve an impossible impermeability. this sealing of its surfaces would constitute the seamless boundary of the subject; but this enclosure would invariably be exploded by precisely that excremental filth that it fears.12
ultimately, we do not mean for our rejection of the subject and embrace of the death drive to be purely defined by ressentiment. while we do believe in the inherent suffering of subjectivity, we also believe that there is beauty in the mystical experience of desubjectification, which we would not be able to access without first existing as subjects. our reappropriation of bdsm and queerness with the aim of desubjectification 'may well be a desire to die, but it is at the same time a desire to live to the limits of the possible and the impossible with ever-increasing intensity'.13 in this sense, rather than being defined by the suffering of our discontinuous existence, our embrace of bdsm and queerness can be a joyous affirmation of our fundamental continuity with the dao, even if we are separated from it by a superficial discontinuity.
notes
1. georges bataille, eroticism (penguin, 2001), p. 22.
2. judith butler, gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity (routledge, 2007), p. 3.
3. michel foucault, the history of sexuality, volume 1: the will to knowledge (penguin, 2020), p. 96.
4. bataille, eroticism, p. 101.
5. ibid., p. 17.
6. ibid.
7. foucault, the history of sexuality, volume 1, p. 154.
8. butler, gender trouble, pp. 180-181.
9. gille deleuze and félix guattari, anti-oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia (bloomsbury academic, 2013), p. 156.
10. laozi, dao de jing, trans. red pine (copper canyon press, 2009) p. 28.
11. andrea dworkin, intercourse (basic books, 2007), p. 156.
12. butler, gender trouble, p. 182.
13. bataille, eroticism, p. 239.