What has Tantra got to say about patriarchy?

Tantric principles can offer a really interesting lens within which to understand patriarchy. And it has to do with what happens when sexual energy can’t move up—when it’s blocked and penetrates out instead.

The Lingam and blocked energy

As I discussed earlier, the Lingam is an energetic representation of the penis. And although if you have a male body you are just as able to receive energy in the sacral chakra as to give energy—because men in love making are used to giving energy by penetrating in lovemaking—the Lingam tends to give energy rather than receive it: it tends to penetrate energetically rather than receive.

Now if we understand health to be a state wherein energy can circulate up and down the chakra system, and we know that trauma stops that energy from circulating, for many in male bodies, what happens is that the energy gets stuck in the lower chakra. It can’t move up. So it penetrates out. So instead of moving vertically, it moves horizontally. It pushes out energetically.

How this manifests

That can manifest in an uncomfortable feeling when you’re around someone with a male body—you’re feeling penetrated against your will, you’re feeling kind of uncomfortable even if they’re not doing anything.

But I think that penetrating energy, that penetrating Sexual Energy, can also manifest into material forms—into violence, into rape, into war, into domination.

A tantric perspective on patriarchy

So a tantric perspective on patriarchy would read the patriarchy as a manifestation of energy moving horizontally rather than vertically. So it’s pushing itself on other people, it’s breaking apart and breaking through in destructive ways—because it is not being used wisely: it is not circulating and it is not moving vertically.

So that is my take on Tantra and patriarchy.