Content note: Mentions of sex and specific kink acts. Relatively tame, but just a heads up!
As soon as I decided to devote February to the theme of sex, I knew I wanted to interview my friend and teacher, Binyamina Aisha. Binya is an incredible spiritual teacher (and many other things; official bio below), but we actually met when we were both involved with pretty hardcore Marxist groups in Chicago. Neither of us identify as Marxists anymore, but we’re both still radical, and she, more than most people I know, really embodies the definition of that term: she is always “grasping at the root”, getting deeper in the dark soil of things. I was most interested to talk to her about the connection between sexuality and spirituality, and specifically her views on kink as sacred (a view I also share).
Talking about kink in ways that nuance mainstream understandings of it feels very important. As I mentioned in the introduction to this series, BDSM practices have a long history of creating divisions among feminists. The earliest iteration of the Sex Wars included people like Andrea Dworkin who argued that pornography, BDSM, and in some cases, penetrative sex writ large, was abusive, harmful, or even always-already rape. On the other side were defenses of these practices as meaningful sites of agency, play, and connection between marginalized queer bodies in particular.
Interestingly, we didn’t talk about this head on at all, which I think is telling: Binya comes from Indigenous and spiritual traditions that are all at once outside of, ignored by, or manipulated by a lot of Western/Global North feminist discourses. The framework of “deviant” gender or sexuality doesn’t even make sense to some cultures because the norm within those communities is gender outside of binaries, sex outside of monogamy, and so on.
So, this isn’t a defense of kink through a mainstream feminist lens. It’s an exploration of sexuality from two people who not only think it’s tolerable to stray away from vanilla parameters, but that indeed it can be holy.
I’m eager for your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for being here. <3
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Binyamina Aisha is in service to the Mystery. She has been a ceremonialist, a birth and death worker, an ancestral living guide, and a teacher of the sensual experience for 20 years. They are devoted to the Holy Wilderness found in Land, Body, and Spirit. Binyamina guides alchemical online group journeys as well as transformative retreats and trainings in magical places. You can find them naked in the ocean, delightfully screaming into the void, and living barefoot adventures around the world.
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This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity
Raechel: So thank you, Binyamina, my dear friend. Longtime readers of the newsletter may recognize your name; I've certainly referenced you before. Because, as I do often in my writing, you know when I have ideas, or thoughts, or insights on things, they're always a product of either things I read or people in my life—and you have dramatically shaped the way I understand different parts of the world, particularly related to spirituality and ecology, and also sexuality, which we've had a lot of wonderful conversations about. So I'm so excited to have you here for Deviant February month.
Would you tell everybody a little bit about who you are and if you want to sort of incorporate, maybe, as part of that answer, give a little bit of background of your spiritual path, past and present, and then we'll dig into sex more explicitly.
Binyamina: Perfect, and so happy to be here. Thank you for those sweet reflections. I feel the same way about you. So my name is Binyamina. I am a Ritualist. I'm a birth worker, death worker. I work in the lands of landscape: plants, spirit and the body. And the way that I've come to this work is, I've been heavily, deeply immersed in a number of spiritual backgrounds as a multi-ethnic multi-religious person. So one aspect of that is my indigenous Colombian background, with what might be called more of an animist background: Nature, Deity focused and land focused. And then, on the other side, grew up in more of the esoteric realms of Islam. So I have these two very different threads that somehow have been moving together to create me as a weirdo. And it definitely is the way that I have navigated my life. And particularly the paradigm of all of these realms, combining, you know, the sexuality, ecology, spirituality. I got a deep dive into the components of those things. Someone recently said, ‘you talk a lot about weaving and threads and tapestries.’ I do that! So these are the threads that make me the tapestry that I am
R: Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for offering that background. So in addition to your lived experience…you just know a lot about different religions and religious and spiritual paths in general. We're not gonna have time for a full lecture on, like how every religion approaches sexuality, but do you think you could share, maybe, in your traditions …And I just know you have a lot of knowledge about how different faith traditions approach sexuality, so could you maybe just do some highlights?
B: Sure I love it…So one of the things that I've seen is that there are these two realms of spirituality and sexuality intertwining. One is more of the more fluid, organic, open connection to sexuality. For example, in the indigenous tradition, I come from, where gender has always been fluid, where sexuality is fluid and open. Specifically, the tradition that I come from is not a monogamous tradition. So that's something that is not seen very often in the society we live in. And so, looking at more indigenous traditions across the globe, we see in general more expansiveness around certain realms of sex and gender.
And then there's this other realm that I love working into, not just because of my Muslim background, but in the realms of Christianity, in the realms of Judaism, there are crumbs, and it takes a little bit longer to unfold, but that they're definitely there. Maybe they have been, or will definitely have been oppressed and repressed, but are there nonetheless.
And so that's when I'm talking about, for example, the archetype of Lilith, you know, in the Torah, and we get to see Lilith as the succubus, we get to see Lilith as this man-devouring creature the we don't really get to hear about a lot in Jewish literature, but she's there. And then in Christianity…I'm really big into queering Jesus and queering Christianity in general. And we get to see the ways that there are tons of queer saints.
For example, there are a lot of different saints and deities within Christianity that have active sexual identities and practices and we don't get to hear that anymore because of the Church, but that exist.
And so part of the work that I love to do is to take these pieces that have been forgotten and really dive into them, and explore and bring in my more open and expansive and kind of like overt sexual connections with spirituality because of where I come from, and inviting people to dive in a little bit deeper.
R: If you're thinking about your sort of sexual biography, was there ever a period where you felt like you were trying to sort of repress certain aspects of your sexuality?
B: Sure that's a great question, you know. I think for a long time I was living within this paradox, and I now, at almost 40, have found really beautiful ways to hold that; when I was younger it definitely was more of a swinging from one side of the pendulum to the other and one of the things that I found was there was a period of time where I felt disconnected from my sexuality, because I couldn't reconcile it with the more traditional religious life that I was living.
I do enjoy subverting the binary of religious and spiritual, and I think it's important to note the structures and dogmas that do create rigidity and sometimes repression of sexuality. So during my time, for example, where I was very deeply a devout Muslim, my sexuality looked different, based on rules and dogma and regulations from the Scripture and from the tradition that I was living now—but at the same time I was also in a Taquacore band where we screamed about being queer, and we screamed about Kink, and so there's lots there! And my personal experience was during that time there were aspects of my sexuality that definitely were not safe to be out in the world or even safe to be expressed with my partner so it was almost like a returning back to my original innate self.
When I left the fold, as sometimes it's called, and I still very deeply carry a lot of my Muslim traditions with me— and have opened to softening that dogma, softening those binaries that are often within more structured religious practice— and then returning to something more fluid and more open, which is, which is where I am now, and where I am delighting in.
R: I appreciate the sort of tenderness you share with that, because I think there is a space for our sexuality [to be] a temporal, fluctuating thing. It will ebb and flow. It will change, depending on your partner or partners, and perhaps whatever other thing you're engaging in. It makes me think of the memes that are like “In my slut era but it’s like drinking water at 9 PM” or something. That’s something I’ve been thinking about recently; for a while I was someone who felt very urgently the need to practice active non-monogamy, and although I still sort of consider myself a non-monogamous person, since I've been doing sex work, I actually like, don't have a desire to have sexual relationships that aren't work —and I consider those different than sexual relationships outside of work—but yeah, now I don’t really want anything outside of my partnership. So it just ebbs and flows. And that was about work for me. And it was about a faith tradition for you. So I think that's really important to name that it doesn't have to be bad….But also to note that you're delighting in being able to express yourself in the ways that maybe feel most authentic or in alignment.
B: Yeah, and I think there's a really interesting like… If I were to revisit that time, what I would like to do is to be able to touch in more to like the erotic, kinky aspects of the repression that was happening. But you know I couldn't feel that at the time. I just wasn't in that space. But even looking back and like oh…even that was kind of hot. I can feel that the sexuality and you know the polarities of kink, and more of that erotic nature, were still there, even though they looked very different than what my life looks like now.
R: Yeah. Well, because that restriction is absolutely hot, like you were following rules! So that’s a good bridge because I want so much to talk about kink and D/s in particular with you.
Kind of anything you have to say about it. I don't know if I have anything more concrete than like: ‘Kink and Spirituality,’ Go.
B: One of my favorite topics to talk about in the universe. I mean first, I truly believe that kink is one of the holiest experiences we can have in this animal body that we inhabit. And for me being able to surrender to this bigger thing is an ecstatic experience of rapture. I can so easily fall in love with the divine that I see in the partner that I am adoring. And I know you know I am very much always on the s of D/s, but I also know the other polar side of that is the adoration of the sub, of the person that's being of service. And for me it really is being able to see God in this other person.
I would definitely be classified more as being in a lifestyle D/s relationship which is not as common, and is definitely more controversial. But even in that experience that I have there is a divinity that I get to perform and enact that is just as important and deep and rich and holy as receiving communion, as, you know, reading religious scripture. And that is the way that I approach my love for God. If I can see God in the imperfect person that is in front of me, I'm happy, you know. That's like incredibly fulfilling
R: That's so beautiful. So for folks who aren’t in D/s community or for people who don't know much about it…Obviously there are like the horrible 50 Shades of Gray conceptions of ‘you're always being tied up and hit, and that's all that it is.’ And we've talked about how there are actually many, many ways to be in a D/s dynamic and sometimes impact isn't involved at all.
But I wonder since you just talked a lot about devotion, basically, which is a beautiful aspect of some D/s relationships, if we could talk about impact in the spiritual sense. Like, what does impact play offer as a conduit or vessel to spirit?
B: Mmm! So good. So for me, and I have said this before: receiving impact is receiving a holy communion from God. It is a space where we fully surrender to the sometimes painful experience of living. The fullest spectrum of a holy human being.
And so whether that is, you know, if you're getting choked or getting spanked, or hit, or whatever floats your boat, there is a letting go a handing over that happens, that we do not get to access in a lot of our regular waking life. And so it is a place of prayer, where we are handing our bodies over to the care of this other person, and we are handing over— as anyone who has been in subspace knows— we are also handing over our brains and our spirits. And that's a very tender and vulnerable thing.
And so when people outside of the kink world see these ways of playing as superficial or just performative, and nothing deeper, it makes me sad because it's really missing that piece of what happens when we split our bodies open to the holiness of love. And love can look so many different ways. It can be marrying one person for 60 years, and it could be at a play party getting punched in the face. And we really need to hold the entire spectrum of what that looks like.
So for me, especially in the places where mainstream society sees it as vapid, or is like missing some deeper presence and purpose, it's really important for me to share that those are often the places where I am feeling the most devoted and surrendered to the universe beyond the person that I'm playing with or engaging with; and I think that's one of the most beautiful places of subspace, right? Like we get to leave the frustrations, the distractions, the parts of our ego that are creating suffering, and surrender to the bigger thing, which is a practice of holiness
R: Absolutely. It's to me dramatically more profound than my experience with more traditional meditation, but like the sort of end results, feel very similar. So, yeah, obviously, I agree! That's really lovely.
So I'm thinking right now of the fact that you're also a trained Jungian psychotherapist. And the ways that people also talk about people who are involved in kink as damaged, always traumatized and we've had this conversation before— like maybe it's because of trauma, maybe it's not.
So we all know that Jung is problematic. But his theorizing around the shadow is really important.
So can you bring your expertise into this conversation and talk about this sort of either misconception, or maybe not misconception, that sometimes traumatized people actually do are drawn to this, and the sort of stakes of that? Or the ‘so what’ of that?
B: That's a great question. Yeah. I mean, I think I'll first say one of the issues that I have with Jungian analysis —I mean Jung was a very problematic person—but one of the issues that I have is this idea of complexes and the loaded negative connotations of someone having a complex. And so we see this pattern. This thread in someone's life that holds significant weight. And often, instead of revering that and honoring that, it is seen as this neurosis, this damaged part of the Psyche that has now created this polarization, that is, you know, blown out of proportion and runs this person's life. I mean that's a more dramatic example. For me, what gets lost is, I believe that we all have these threads of intense experience, and whether it's from trauma inflicted upon the body, whether it's from ancestral trauma, whether it's from past life trauma, like it there's so many realms that can be in those threads that may contribute to this kinky tapestry. And also, I think that that's perfect and fine to be there, and I get so upset when the idea of well, kink is from trauma and only traumatized people really get into kink. First of all, I mean, that's actually just not true, you know. I think that the shadow is repressed in so many people that if they actually were allowed space and permission to express themselves and allow the shadow to manifest, we would see a lot more kinky people right?
So it's like this idea that it's a small, tiny group and everyone else leads this vanilla, puritanical life is just not true. But, like you said, there's also this piece of ‘so what’? So what if kink gets to a way for traumatized bodies and psyches to facilitate healing? That does not take away from the sacredness of kink. In fact, it increases its potency in its purpose. So for me, if I see that clients or students, or whoever are experimenting and exploring with kink as a way to heal trauma, as a way to express the shadow, as a way to bring back the pieces that are fragmented I think that's a beautiful thing. And we see this conversation happening in all these realms, right? It's like, Oh, well only traumatize people do this, only traumatize people do that, and it's not acknowledging that maybe these tools are really great for trauma, and that can be a beautiful thing that's getting ignored and exiled, and apologized.
R: Absolutely. I just had this realization, thinking about all the sort of the panic we have, because it's just people that don't have to have a certification in kink to like enter the D/s relationship. And to think about trauma healing coming through just people without the need for sort of Western constructs of expertise or pathological, medical, industrial, complex sort of authority. Like, of course, people are afraid of trauma healing outside of something that feels more sort of safe or normative or capitalist, you know, Western culture-approved.
B: I love that, and something that I say often in classes is, you know, if we're looking at it from a place of trauma healing, kink is an incredibly accessible place of trauma healing. And that we get to explore it in ways that can be free. That can be with a lot of possibility and resource around us. And of course, that's different for every person, but it definitely isn't paying someone $200 an hour as an analyst once a week, and it and it definitely isn't, you know, buying into this capitalist idea of what health and healing is which often stifles and suffocates as much as it helps, so we get to see this as more of a grassroots ‘for the people by the people’ way of healing trauma.
R: Yeah absolutely. I suppose the exception to that is a professional dominatrix.
B: Absolutely! Please pay your sex workers and not your psychoanalysts.
[B & R laugh]
R: Exactly. So, given all that, of course this is not a risk-free practice. Do you have sort of safer practices? And I know that varies for parties or partners…there's gonna be a lot of different shifting, but are there things that you've told people you've worked with who are getting into it for the first time? Like things to watch out for or be mindful of, or any sort of tips and tricks for safer, harm reduced practice?
B: I love that. I think it's so important, because the less that that's talked about, the more people go in without an understanding of what can be safer. And then certain things happen. Pain happens. Trauma happens within that space, and then they leave, thinking that every part of kink is bad and harmful. Right? Which just reinforces the narrative that we have to hear every second of the day.
So one of the things that I'll say, as you mentioned, is that it's not risk free, and it's not necessarily safe, and that that doesn't have to be a bad thing. I'm always saying, in all of my classes— whether they're sexuality based or not— I can never promise a safe space. I would never be so irresponsible as to try and promise that to someone.
So I think first and foremost, just knowing going in that that is part of the landscape. That allows people to have more discernment around how deep they want to go, and with who.
And also: clear, direct communication with whoever you are involved with is essential, I think that there's often—whether it's a play party, or whether it's just like a fake Dom, right? Like someone who's just like wanting to just go right into whatever they want to do with you and bypass all the communication and making it sometimes seem like that's silly, let's just go into the scene or let's just go into whatever we're doing when, in fact, like someone that is a safer person, a more trustworthy partner to explore this with will want to take the time to talk about boundaries will want to take the time to communicate needs and desires. And so I think there's this way that we can bring in more of that conscious communication and sometimes in play circles it's seen as like nerdy or not cool to have those conversations and I really think we need to break that.
There needs to be radical honesty around what you're actually wanting and the other person may not be able to give it to you, and your boundaries may not be compatible, and I always tell people: do not accept crumbs. Like if it doesn't work with that person wait for another person. There are so many flavors of what so many people want. And if you have a deal breaker that the other person doesn't respect, that's great information, and something that you need to know before you actually start exploring with the person
R: Absolutely. Those are all so helpful, and really clearly and well said, thank you.
My brain is going a million places as usual with our conversations….Can you talk more about the link between your relationship to nature and ecology? Obviously, there's like a spiritual link for you. Where does sexuality also fit into that?
B: I think one of the things that happens in mainstream society that we live in, in the States, is that our connection to nature is not only completely disconnected for a lot of people, but it is sanitized to the point where we do not even have the capacity to connect with the dirty, messy, raw aspect of the natural world.
So it's like when we don't get to see that and honor that what happens is nature is this pristine thing over here, and sexuality is this dirty thing over here, and they never meet, and God forbid they even have anything to do with each other. Whereas in traditional, indigenous practices all over the world there is a connection to non-human realms that are sensual and sexual and messy.
And when we're talking about like the fecund nature of the earth, the ripeness of crops, when we're looking at flowers and we're looking at semen, right? It's like there is so much that is dripping with sexuality in the quote natural world, and a lot of people do not have an understanding, even just an awareness of that, because it's been so stripped from what nature looks like. And that’s not a coincidence that then our society completely destroys nature.
If we can make Other, if we can sanitize, if we can distance ourselves, then of course, there's more support for complete annihilation of this other thing.
One of the things that I always teach is that, first and foremost, we are an animal. We forget that we are an animal in these animal bodies, that fuck and piss and shit and throw up just like any other animal, and that the more we can connect to the raw sexual nature of this non-human world, the more we can respect it, the more we can commune with it, and the bigger our capacity from an individual to a collective level. The bigger our capacity for caring for it.
If we see ourselves as connected. One of the most exciting pieces is being able to touch into, for example, the gray area of consent with sex and animals right? And how that interacts with the gradient of consent in kink, in our sexual lives.
R: Yes.
B: And you know rot and death and decay, and how that can be a part of our sexual practices and places of violence and harm in the natural world that intersect with violence and harm within our own sexual bodies. And so the more that we can start to see that reflected outside of ourselves, also the deeper our inner work can be. So I think, being able to weave these threads together is incredibly important.And it's not being done enough. It's definitely being done more now, like, especially in the last couple of years. But even just the whole like ecosexual realm, is still something very taboo.
R: Yeah, for sure. Thank you for those reflections. This reminds me of things I've been reading more and more recently about, just like this notion of conservation by the state — surprise, surprise that is usually so fucked. They’re like, ‘let's like cordon off this forest, take it away from indigenous people, but like look, it's so pretty. Like ‘this natural park is so pretty, it's so clean.That's what nature's supposed to be.’
And actually, it's, you know, quite messy. This also relates to removing dead trees in forests, and I've heard people say, ‘You know, that's just partly because we've constructed like what ugly is and like we want to get rid of what's ugly.’ But actually, these are like homes for animals, and like, we don't need to get giant machinery to remove these homes.
B: That is the most heartbreaking thing you know. That is what nature looks like, that we control and repress nature to look puritanical, and that that is no coincidence, that then we do the same to our sexual bodies.
R: I think that's such a beautiful place to pause.
I'm sure people are as obsessed with you as I am with you now. So tell people like what else, what you're up to, and how they can be involved with your work.
B: I would love to. This has been so much fun. Thank you so much.
So right now I am going to start another round of Holy, which is a sexuality, spirituality, erotic body, ecological exploration that'll be three months, and we're starting in March.
A smaller fun thing I'm doing is Hydration Daddy. It's the only time that, like my incredibly sub self, will ever Daddy anyone so I'm taking advantage of the fun.But basically, you sign up per month, and I send you a kinky text to encourage you to drink water and hydrate yourself and care for yourself.
And then further down the line. I'm starting to open up a waitlist for a kink retreat that'll be doing in October, which will be in Costa Rica, and will really be a deep dive into the realms of holy kink work and how things like impact, adoration, degradation, all of the of the flavors of this beautiful realm can be embodied as holy practice.
R: Beautiful. I encourage everybody to go look for those things and be part of your classes, because they are incredible.
Thank you so much. I love you so dearly, and I'm incredibly grateful for all the gifts that you bring to the world with your wisdom.
B: It's been such a pleasure, such a pleasure. I love you.
this animal body.