Post-Sexuality: Between ACE Experience, Contemporary Spirituality, Kink Dissidences of Desire, and Technological Transcendence
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article develops a rigorous interdisciplinary framework for understanding post-sexuality as a contemporary reconfiguration of desire beyond sex as the central mediator of intimacy. Drawing from cyberpunk fiction—particularly Ghost in the Shell—ACE (asexual spectrum) identities, contemplative spirituality, kink/BDSM ritual practices, and phenomenological philosophy, the study proposes post-sexuality not as repression or absence of Eros, but as its transfiguration. Through textual analysis, comparative philosophy, and lived phenomenological reflection grounded in Shikantaza (Zen just-sitting practice), the article argues that desire can be decentered from teleology, identity, and possessive structures without disappearing. Libido, bodily excitation, and intimacy are shown to persist in redistributed, non-instrumental, and ethically relational forms. The framework integrates Western phenomenology (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Michel Henry), modern Japanese philosophy (Nishida Kitarō), and Zen non-dual practice to articulate what is termed non-dual Eros: erotic intensity experienced without appropriation, narrative, or goal-orientation. The analysis further situates ACE experience, spiritual sublimation, consensual kink practices, and digital imaginaries within a shared horizon of ethical interdependence, proposing post-sexuality as both a descriptive category and an emergent ethos in the post-organic era. Rather than constituting a new identity or normative program, post-sexuality functions as a phenomenological and ethical lens through which contemporary transformations of intimacy, embodiment, and technological mediation can be understood.
Author: Sangue Shi
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7128718037