Beyond Tantra: Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex (2 page)

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“The Tao’s principle is spontaneity.”

—Lao Tzu

The first time I ever heard the word ‘Tantra’ was in the early 1990s. One morning on my way to work I noticed a poster in the local bookshop advertising a Tantra course at the nearby course centre. I was intrigued. The poster indicated that the course was about ‘a new way of working with sexual energy’ but didn’t say much more than that, except to state that no intimate contact would take place during the workshop.

Out of curiosity, I decided to enter the bookshop and have a look in the Sexuality section for any books they might have on Tantra. I’d never even noticed that section of the shop before so I was rather surprised to see quite a few titles there. I soon realized that this was a whole area of knowledge I knew absolutely nothing about. Three books caught my eye: two smaller volumes by a Thai author of Chinese descent, by the name of Mantak Chia, and a larger tome by a French woman called Margo Anand. I proceeded to buy the books and then I headed out to work.

I often ate lunch at the course centre’s restaurant and so later that day at lunch time, over a bowl of soup, I asked my friends at the table if anyone knew anything about the course or was planning on going to it. A slightly embarrassed silence ensued and was finally broken by my friend John who said:

‘You do know you need to be a couple to go on the course?’

‘Oh, well, I guess that counts me out,’ I replied. ‘I can’t imagine Mieke being up for such a course!’

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Beyond Tantra – Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex Mieke and I had been married for over fifteen years at that point and I was pretty sure I knew what she would say if I asked her to go on a ‘sex’ workshop.

‘So why not find someone else?’ John asked.

I thought about this for a second. I then looked over at the table next to ours and saw an absolutely stunning young woman I had never seen before. She was obviously one of the centre’s course guests. John, true to form, saw me looking at the woman and quickly understood that here was an excellent chance to tease me.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Ask her.’

Well, I just didn’t have the nerve to ask a woman to whom I had never spoken before to attend a ‘sex’ workshop with me. On the other hand, I was quite interested in going to the workshop. I decided that the only solution was to ask for a volunteer. I screwed up my courage, stood up, banged a spoon on my glass to get the room’s attention and announced in a loud voice:

‘I’d like to do the Tantra course this weekend. I need to find a woman to go to it with me since I understand that you have to be a couple to attend. Is there anyone here who might be interested in going with me?’

The room went very quiet. All of a sudden the young woman that I had been looking at stood up, looked at me, and said:

‘I’d love to.’

John nearly choked on his soup!

I went over to the woman and introduced myself. Her name was Ruth and she was lively and outgoing. I immediately explained that this was a spur of the moment idea. I told her that I really did need to check with my partner first to make sure she was happy with the idea of my doing such a workshop with another woman even if, according to the poster, there was no intimate contact involved. That evening I told Mieke what had happened and asked her, with some nervousness, if it was OK for me to do the workshop together with the young woman. Much to my surprise she gave her blessing to the idea and told me to go and have fun. Mieke is an amazing woman!

The day of the course arrived and Ruth and I headed down to the ballroom of the large manor house in which it was being held. A German couple dressed in Indian clothing were running the course. After swearing us all to secrecy and confidentiality, they proceeded to set up a ‘Tantric’ atmosphere complete with incense, candles, cushions and Indian music. All the course participants were asked to wear colourful cloth wraps instead of our normal street clothes. For two days we learned about Tantric massage, the Yoni and the Vajra (Sanskrit names for the female and male sex organs respectively) and Shiva and Shakti (Indian deities). We danced and meditated. We did lots of gazing into each other’s eyes.

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Tantra Workshop

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At the end of it, I came away feeling a bit dazed. It seemed that in order to do this Tantra stuff I had to learn to become something I wasn’t. I’m not Indian and I certainly didn’t feel that I could suggest any of the things I had learned to Mieke. Somehow I just couldn’t imagine us dressing up as Shakti and Shiva and dancing for each other. I also felt very uncomfortable with how the workshop was run. At one point the women were asked to dance bare-breasted in front of the men. There was one woman who refused to do this. The course leaders tried to convince her that it was OK and that it was an important part of the course for her to do this. The woman became more and more upset and was finally allowed to do the dance with her top on. I did not like watching this pressure being applied as I felt they were not respecting her. Much later I discovered that this woman had been sexually abused as a child and was just not able to show herself nude in front of a group of people.

So, my first taste of Tantra left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I did enjoy some of the exercises, such as learning how to breathe in the same rhythm as your partner, and the massage techniques. However, I was left with the feeling that, in order to ‘do Tantra’, I would have to dress up in Indian clothes and pretend to be someone that I’m not. This, together with what I felt was a lack of consideration towards the participants from the workshop leaders, meant that I pretty much gave up on the idea of Tantra.

I didn’t throw the books out, however. When I got home, I had a quick glance through them. The Margo Anand book looked like it covered much the same territory as the workshop I had just attended. The Mantak Chia books didn’t make much sense to me as they talked about Sexual Qi (the Taoist term for ‘Sexual Life-Force Energy’), semen retention and other things which, at the time, I had no experience of and little interest in. I put them up on a shelf next to my other ‘introduction to’ type books where they gathered dust for the next eight years.

Oh, and what about lovely Ruth? I met her one last time a few months later in London. She told me she was off to Tunisia to live as the second (or was it the third?) wife of an Arab sheikh. She wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea. I had absolutely nothing to say when she asked my advice (quite unlike me!).

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To love someone deeply gives you strength, Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.

—Lao Tzu

Eight years later, my exploration of Sacred Sex started with re-reading those very same books I had bought before doing the Tantra workshop. This time it wasn’t curiosity that drove me; it was an urgent need to know.

Mieke and I had moved to Ireland and were working hard at setting up a new business. We were under a large amount of stress, as the business needed a lot of attention. Mieke, who was forty-four at the time, became more and more tired and run-down. One day she told me that she wasn’t feeling well at all. Her period had been unusually long and heavy and she was worried. I insisted that we go to see a doctor, much to her reluctance. Mieke has never liked going to doctors, and she took some convincing. But, in the end, she accepted that something was clearly not right and needed to be looked at.

When we arrived at the doctor’s, Mieke described her symptoms. The doctor immediately referred her to a gynaecologist. We went to the gynaecologist the next day and, after a brief consultation, he announced that he wanted to perform an exploratory ‘cleaning’ operation on her. When I questioned this I was treated with something approaching contempt and told offhandedly that this was standard procedure. He then took a blood test to check Mieke’s iron levels. When we phoned the following day, he told Mieke that the test showed that her iron levels were so low that she would have to take a course of iron supplements for three weeks before he could operate.