 Tantra: Sex the Honest Way Last One to... The Spiritual Spanker Missionary? |
by Katka Moore Hands up all those who want to know the key ingredient to sexual nirvana. How many of us want to experience an orgasm that singes your flesh with white hot intensity, that causes you to climax in continuous peaks for hours? Try being honest. Honesty is the path to sexual enlightenment and the way to tantric sex according to Canadian author Tim Ward, who stopped in town last week to plug his book, Arousing the Goddess. In it, Ward documents his own journey on the tantric path, courtesy of a spiritual sojourn to India and "Sabina," a flesh-and-blood German academic who a master of the orgasmic process. Tantric sex has been a hot buzz word in the North American press in this AIDS-addled decade. Pop journalists have promoted the ancient female-centred sex worship as a solution to tedious monogamy. "Tantric sex is coming at a good time for North Americans," says Ward. "It's just plain dangerous to have sex with as many people as you can. Instead of quantity, we now have to think of quality." It's a hard task for those of us weaned on Hollywood ideals of sex where a climax comes in five minutes, what Ward calls the Big Bang Theory. "Sex is a truly healing process when it is done fully. Society turns it into a perversion by making it something it isn't." Tantric sex may be getting more press time but that doesn't mean people are more educated about it. Most articles make vague references to exercises where a couple lies on their sides facing each other for a few hours and prepare for a thunderous body buzz 20 minutes later. The man is supposed to lie on his right side so air can travel better up his left nostril to the left, more feminine side of his brain -- whatever. Most articles are shameless plugs for manuals, books of mantras and videos will help you in your quest. Then how could Ward stumble upon his tantric awakening by pure chance? "There is so much in human culture that makes us shut ourselves out," says Ward. "Meditation is a way of unmasking who we really are." Ward says his first steps included acknowledging his true feelings and not feeling guilt because of it. At the beginning of his journey, Ward is typically reticent about his affair with Sabina. "Look, sure I want the sex, but I don't want the complications, the attachments, the guilt when it's time to go our separate ways. She's obviously adept at handling men, and to me that's most appealing. I won't have to worry about hurting her." Then, there was the unsightly matter of a past problem with premature ejaculation to clear up. He didn't truly have to fret too much over that one. Intercourse without an erection is a key component of tantric sex and it's often the block North Americans stumble on. Men, theoretically must store up their vital fluids rather than expending them in ejaculation. Instead, they absorb the fluids of his female partner's constant orgasms through their penis. This prolongs intercourse for sexual hours and should result in multiple body orgasms. Ward includes a nifty description of such an orgasm in his book: "Bursts of white light flashed behind my eyes. It scared me. I felt I was losing control of my body. I pulled Sabina up, then rolled over to lay on top of her, anxious to have an orgasm and get rid of the sensations. My head, hands, feet and belly felt on fire, the nerves incredibly sensitive to touch... My hips thrust down at her, desperate for release. Suddenly I realized my erection was gone. My penis lay limply against her while the sensations inside my skin seared white hot. I felt I was losing consciousness." Another way of thinking tantrically is just to concentrate on the emotions and senses going on inside you; not on the outside stimulus that's causing it. Instead of thinking of your friend's little finger, focus inwards on the ebb and flow of your own pleasure, accepting when you're bored and at what points you're truly horny. "In this culture, we're used to having out-of-body sex," Ward notes. Ward calls tantra is a way of transforming sex into a spiritual force so blinding, so powerful, it consumes all pleasure, all lust, all personality in its purifying fire." The sexual path is just a sliver of the options available to reach this essential oneness of self in tantra. Still, it sounds like the most fun. |
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