The Nonbinary Orientation of Somaesthetics

Abstract

To my lights, somaesthetics is already queer in its interdisciplinary orientation and pluralist mode of inquiry. It was from this theoretical position that inspired Shusterman himself to shed new light on pre-modern cultures of sexual arts in Ars Erotica and played a part in the performance art piece with Yann Toma called The Adventures of the Man in Gold. I want to explicate this basic queer orientation of somaesthetics by first developing from Sara Ahmed’s pioneer work in “queer phenomenology” with reference to Merleau-Ponty. I argue somaesthetics is more inclusive of the lived experience of queer bodies than Ahmed’s reconstruction allows. From there, I push the implications of queer somaesthetics through the idea of countersexuality to expose its radical, deviant potential.