Tantric Orgasm for Women (19 page)
Read Tantric Orgasm for Women Online
Authors: Diana Richardson
Tags: #Health & Fitness, #Sexuality, #Psychology, #Human Sexuality, #Self-Help, #Sexual Instruction, #Sexuality/Tantra
Sex and Parenthood
Over and above the actual birth experience and its impact on a woman’s sexual willingness, birth marks the significant transition from woman to mother. It is an experience of great energy expansion; with it a woman’s energy changes and becomes more feminine, receptive, and loving. The qualities of motherhood are instilled through the birth process. A total shift in consciousness occurs—love wells up from an inner source and flowers into an utter devotion to the well-being of this fragile new life. Woman becomes 100 percent present to the needs of her child. A natural absorption with the child makes her less accessible to man, and it may become impossible to tear herself away from tending to the baby to notice the needs of her partner. From a woman’s perspective it can seem an insurmountable effort at this time to open up to making love and to her man himself.
However, the love between a couple really needs to be nourished. Lavishing attentions on the child and excluding the man leads to the possibility of the man feeling unwanted, getting restless, and seeking “entertainment” elsewhere. It is well documented that, when a man is continually
refused sex by his woman-turned-mother in the early years of parenthood, his eyes will start to roam. When sex is not available at home, inevitably he will find alternative sources. Thus it happens frequently that a man will move on permanently to greener pastures, leaving a woman stranded, babe and all.
Given the innate male-female polarities, sex is more essential for the male; it is not as optional as it is for women. As passive pole, women do not really appreciate this important difference between the sexes. I remember a twenty-year-old mother recently telling me, with innocent girlish surprise on her face, that she had
no
idea that sex was so important to a man. This sharing followed a spate of arguments with her man over the issue of availability for sex, which had some frightening emotional touches to it.
Well, the simple truth is that sex is extremely important for a man. A mother must find a balance between the two, and understand that love between man and woman will sustain the love for the child and the harmony in the home.
A new mother is often overconcerned about a child’s physical needs and comfort, smothering the baby with attention instead of attending to the ambience surrounding the baby. As
mother
a woman has responsibility to her child and as
woman
she has responsibility to her man, the father of her child—an almost equal responsibility, if she wants her child to grow up in the ambience of love rather than conflict. And this is not to mention the responsibility of woman to
herself
to obtain nourishment and love and tenderness and so avoid the buildup of emotions. The love field that bonds and surrounds the parents is as vital a food to a young child as is the breast milk of the mother. Children are extremely sensitive to this; they draw on the nourishment love provides, and where there is an absence of harmony and lack of love there is a shrinking (due to fear) in the core of the child’s energy system. They become tense and wary, possibly restless and demanding, even if well fed and properly taken care of. If this unlovingness continues and the years accumulate, the children will grow up to be overly emotional and afraid and not as filled with love as they might otherwise have been.
Parents are not aware of this when they fight in front of their children. When a sensitive new life is engulfed by tensions and arguments, a defensive, contracting fear sets in and a child easily grows up learning to express herself with an emotional personality; thus problems in life and relating begin. Parents need to keep all evidence of their fights away from their children. They need to take responsibility for their states of emotionality, following the steps suggested in chapter 10, to prevent the toxic vibrations of emotionality from having an influence on a child. Children are exceptionally sensitive to the atmosphere between the parents for as long as they are living at home, which can be for seventeen years or more. Many parents have said that when they started to make love more often, after participating in my workshop, it had a positive impact on the children. The children became less demanding and more content in themselves, and the usual squabbles between the children diminished dramatically. Parents concern themselves with informing and educating their children in any number of ways, yet they often overlook the basic requirement of love in a family, the very glue that keeps a family together. Parents who make love and live a loving life as a consequence give the best possible preparation and education to their children.
Sex during and after Menopause
The final cycle through which all women pass, whether they have had a child or not, is menopause—the ceasing of monthly menstrual bleeding. Many women hold menstruation dear, as it represents their womanhood. Thus many a woman begins to dread menopause because it appears as a threat to her femininity and attractiveness.
But this is true only when you look through conventional eyes. If a woman makes an attempt to step away from conditioned sex (with luck, early in her life, though it really is never too late to start), she receives a profound understanding of femininity and the real nature of sexual attraction. She knows it has nothing to do with outer appearance but with an ageless and powerful force residing within her. This brings a confidence and clarity way beyond the limiting concerns of the physical aging process. In fact, as you embrace tantric
sex more and more, you feel better and better about yourself and getting older holds no great anxiety. Of course, the body itself may manifest a few telling signs, but the spirit remains ever young. A woman who learns the art of tantra empowers herself to make love until the end of her days, if this is her wish, without need to give it up with menopause and then old age.
Many women report that penetration becomes extremely painful during menopause, and I have met women in workshops in a relationship crisis because of this. Some have been unable to have sex for several years because of this uncomfortable symptom. Adding to this problem can be a lack of lubrication often experienced during this phase of hormonal change. Conventional sex becomes impossible for many women during menopause. However, tantra offers us the possibility of soft penetration, from which an erection is able to grow, and women who have tried this say there is absolutely no pain. Suddenly new doors open through which lovemaking can enter again in all its glory.
In my experience of working with women in menopause I can report that a conscious approach in sex is of great benefit. Women who have commenced with a tantric approach during menopause say they very definitely notice a relaxation of many of the menopausal symptoms. Hot flashes, for
example, flow down to the ground as if a channel has been opened. Some of the emotional difficulties are also relieved. Unfortunately there is not enough research being done in this area; however, a body of evidence is bound to emerge as more and more women begin to embrace tantric principles.
Menopause marks the time of a great rise in creativity for a woman—now free from the bondage of her hormonal aspect (the biological expression of sex)—and she naturally moves into a more serene state of equilibrium. The difficult ups and downs that can come with menstruation are left behind. No monthly bleeding to deal with is a great liberation and not something to be feared as some kind of intrinsic loss. Instead, the continuum of love and lovemaking can now go on undisturbed by the monthly onset of ovulation and menstruation. And most of all, it is very liberating to no longer have to worry about birth control.
Tantric Inspiration
And this is my observation—that if grownups are a little more meditative, children imbibe the spirit very easily. They are so sensitive. They learn whatsoever is there in the atmosphere; they learn the vibe of it. They never bother about what you say. What you are—they always respect that. And they have a very deep perceptivity, a clarity, an intuitiveness. You may be smiling but they will immediately know that it is false, because your eyes will be saying something else—and more than that your whole body will be saying something else—that you are angry, that you are just pretending, that it is just a policy.
They may not be able to formulate it in so many words, but they immediately feel it. So never be untrue with children because they will immediately know it. And once a child comes to know that his parents are untrue, his whole trust is lost. That is his first trust in life, his very base, and if that is lost he will become a skeptic. Then he cannot trust anybody. He cannot trust life, he cannot trust God, because those things are very far away things. Even the father deceived, even the mother deceived; even they were not reliable, so what to say of anything else now?
Once a child learns . . . and every child is going to learn; it is impossible to deceive a child. There is no method discovered up to now on how to deceive a child. He simply knows where you are, who you are. It is intuitive, it has nothing to do with his intellect. In fact the more intellectual he will become, the more he will lose this intuitiveness, and he will not be able to see things as they are. Right now a child is immediate. He simply looks through and through. He looks at you and you are transparent. So never be deceptive.
Love him and allow him to be a little meditative and much is possible.
O
SHO, TRANSCRIBED TEACHINGS,
T
HE
P
ASSION FOR THE
I
MPOSSIBLE
Tantric Meditation
Radiating Love
It is advantageous to take some time to practice love on your own. Sit upright in a comfortable position, alone in your room for about thirty minutes. Close your eyes and bring your awareness to your heart/breasts, and feel yourself to be loving. Radiate love from your heart and imagine that you fill the whole room with your expanding love energy. Soon you will feel yourself vibrating with a new frequency. If you feel yourself swaying, as if you are a wave in the great ocean of love, allow it. Let your whole room be filled with love. Intentionally create vibrations of love energy around you, and you may start to feel that something around your body is changing. It can feel like a warmth rising around your body, like a deep orgasm. You will feel yourself becoming more alive. If you feel moved to dance or sing to express your love, allow it. Through meditating on love you are likely to experience that you are the source of love, and not—as you have always thought—that love comes from somebody else. When you are able to connect to the love within yourself, it is a preparation for transforming your lover into a person with the right receptivity for you.
12
Tantric Orgasm and Same-Sex Partners
T
his letter came to me in e-mail form during the final days of completing this manuscript.
I happened upon your Web site while doing some investigation on tantric sex. I think you have an excellent Web site and especially found the excerpts from the book to be interesting and informative. However, I have a question related to tantric sex and everything I have read about it so far.
First, let me give you a bit of background. I have been in a relationship with a man for over fourteen years. We stopped having sex several years ago—not by my choice, but by his. He is not interested in sex and nothing I have done to try and change the situation has helped. He refuses to see a counselor or go to any workshops, and simply accepts the “fact” that he has a low sex drive. Even when we were having sex, it was infrequent and not very satisfactory, despite my attempts to try different techniques to get him interested. He assures me that his lack of drive has nothing to do with his love for me and I know he does not seek other partners.
A few years ago, I ended up—out of desperation—having an affair with another woman. It was not something I sought out necessarily, though I was vulnerable and had at times in my life felt attractions to women. What I discovered through this affair was that, for me, sex with a woman was much more pleasurable than I had ever experienced with a man. The reason was that it was not “goal oriented” sex and had more to do with sensual pleasure. Often, my female partner and I never had orgasms, but would make love for hours. Of course, I recognize that I could just as easily have had a female partner who had bought into the idea of sex being all about the orgasm. I think this is how we are socialized in Western cultures and therefore even lesbians buy into this view.
When I began reading about tantric sex, it brought to mind my affair and my feelings about lesbian sex. It seemed to me that two women are more likely to naturally practice a more tantric style of sex, because we are more sensual (and I know we could argue that this, too, is related to the way women are socialized). However, I noticed that there is very little written about homosexual sex as it pertains to tantric practices. It seems most of the reputable tantric Web sites are extremely heterosexually oriented. My attempts to find anything on tantric sex for lesbians lead me mostly to pornographic Web sites or to workshops for lesbians with nothing written on the topic. And, although I remain in my chaste, hetero-sexual relationship, I identify myself as bisexual and would like to see more balance. Is there a reason that most of the books are for heterosexuals? Is it related somehow to the spiritual origins of tantric practices that perhaps don’t allow for homosexual love? I am just curious—and I’m not sure you have the answers, but I am sure there are many gay and lesbian people out there wondering the same thing.
This is only one of several messages that I have received over the last few years asking me the same question: what about tantra and homosexuals? It is sometimes also asked during my heterosexual couple workshops, because most people have a homosexual sibling or friend. While I cannot say I have confirmed answers, I do have insights into how tantric principles can be applied between bodies of the same sex. My own tantric exploration
has been within the heterosexual sphere, although every hug I share with a person is a tantric moment, be it a man or woman.
For many of us, exploring sexuality with a same-sex partner is part of a progression of natural sexual development. Human sexuality makes its first appearance in an auto-erotic way, in the exploration of the pleasures of one’s own genitals in early childhood. This will usually change within a few years into a curiosity about the genitals of others of the same sex (homosexuality). There can also be a simultaneous interest in the genitals of the opposite sex, hence the ubiquitous “doctors and nurses” games that children create intentionally to explore each other’s genitals. The actual attraction to the opposite sex (heterosexuality) for the purposes of sexual intercourse comes as a later, third, phase.
Society frowns upon and discourages innocent sexual interaction between children in their search to know themselves. Part of this is because it often happens between siblings, due to their proximity to each other, and the fear is that it will foster incestuous relationships. When we as children are discovered while attempting to fulfil our sexual curiosity, we get
punished, made to feel we have done something wrong, made to feel guilty about the pleasure we have elicited from our genitals. If we manage to get away with it undiscovered, we nevertheless feel guilty for having done something secretly and therefore wrongly. Through fear of sex and lack of understanding of true sexuality, the sexual/life energy becomes repressed in each of us.
For some people, exploration with the same sex can extend into teenage years through the forced separation of the sexes, as in unisex boarding schools. Monasteries or other institutions that hold men and women apart will automatically encourage sexual exploration with the same sex. As the basic life force, sex is a drive that demands expression. What matters is whom you choose—or who is available—to consummate this expression with.
For survival we are designed to reproduce, which makes heterosexuality the next step in human sexual expression. (There
is
a fourth stage, at which an exceptional individual fully transcends sex through having embraced its elements deeply and then lives in twenty-four-hour ecstasy.)
Many people in later years, especially women, will opt totally out of sex because it fails to satisfy. (For some men this is a less easy choice, hence the many perverse ways some men release their sexual frustrations.) Women easily become autosexual again, or they become asexual, avoiding their own genitals completely. Some women deliberately choose a same-sex partner or find themselves emerging with an attraction to their same sex. A couple of lesbian women have told me that they felt they were born lesbian and were never really interested in males at any time. In fact, they were attracted to other girls before they even knew what sexual attraction was. There can be many reasons for abstention, just as there can be for the homosexual option.
But as I see the situation at present, for countless generations now we have been without positive reflection of man’s and woman’s sexual potential and the love that is so created. This lack of example is due to the very misunderstanding of sex itself, the theme of earlier chapters. As things stand, in the absence of guidance or insight into sexual expression, it can be easier to avoid the challenge presented by the unknown opposite sex (a complex challenge, given the level of sexual misunderstanding). Instead one can choose either to abstain from sexual contact completely, or to stay with the same sex because that sex is known and understood, since it is also a part of oneself.
Awareness of Present Moment, Relaxation, Sensitivity
If I were to simply divide the tantric approach in half, there would be a) the essential aspect of the so-called present moment, and b) the essential aspect of bodies existing as equal and opposite forces. As far as the first aspect goes, any two people, homosexual or heterosexual, can be increasingly more present to each other, more in and down in the body and aware of themselves, and thus more sensitive to their partners, their children, their parents. The more physically close we are, as in the case of lovers, the greater the opportunity to practice awareness and create the present between us. For same-sex partners, as with heterosexuals, the tantric principles apply all the way.
Tantra tells us to be aware of what we do and how we do it, to unhook slowly from excitement and drift toward relaxation, to practice being here and now and not so pinpointed on a goal. The implication is that for
all
lovers the effort is toward
not
using the genitals solely for climax purposes. The attempt is still to retain the energy so that it can spread through the body and empower the body, and to avoid the repeated discharge of life energy. It continues to mean that love should be a meditation rather than an activity.
For any two people, eye contact—using receptive soft vision as described in chapter 2—will profoundly intensify the meeting, as will relaxing into orgasm, as discussed in detail in chapter 9. Slowing down in any or all movements will enhance the experience tremendously. Consciously breathing will expand your body energies beautifully. Kissing deeply with the lips adds intimacy and intensity. Any awareness, and the challenge that comes with it, creates a bond, a sense of a unifying force encompassing greater intimacy and love. This happens because awareness transforms sex into love. And love is what we are all longing to receive and to give. Presence, silence, stillness, the essence of meditation and relaxation
can be developed as a heart-opening link between any two people. Even a person alone will benefit from more inner awareness, more stillness and relaxation, meditation, less focus on the goal in any daily activities, less doing and more being in the here and now, enjoying the moment.
Opposite Polarities and Genital Correspondence
Many of the guidelines listed above can be used with equal effect by both heterosexual lovers and homosexual lovers. However, most of the guidelines for sexual intercourse pertain to heterosexuals and will therefore not apply. Nevertheless, the information can be of value in reconceiving how one goes about genital intercourse, and why. Heterosexual guidelines do not apply because of the sameness of the genitals in same-sex partners: the genitals do not correspond with each other and fit one into the other. The genitals are equal but they are not opposite; instead of a hand in a glove there is a glove and a glove, or a hand and a hand.
Tantra is based on the union of male and female aspects as equal and
opposite forces. Without the sexual organs corresponding there exists little possibility, as I see it, for the subtle exchange of organic sexual energies—where the penis in response to the vagina awakens the inner streamings in the bodies, the connection itself acting like a jump-start to a different dimension of the inner world. This opposition, attraction, and electro-magnetic interplay inherent to the penis and the vagina cannot function in the same way for homosexual couples. This is a disadvantage because the gay or lesbian couple is not able to just hang out and let the current run, as a heterosexual couple can do.
With women couples, for example, where the overall polarity is feminine, there will be a meeting of two receptive genitals, negative with negative (vagina-vagina) and positive with positive (heart/breasts-heart/breasts) instead of vice versa, positive to negative, which completes the circuit. The absence of the tantric aspect of genital correspondence in homosexual sex requires a complete re-viewing of the genitals and how to use them in applying tantric principles to create higher states. The first shift is already mentioned in the previous section: a stepping away from stimulation and excitement to discover ways of containing the sexual energy and so inviting it to rise upward, not discharging it.
The same challenges of moving away from one’s sexual conditioning apply to homosexuals as to heterosexuals. Perhaps it might be more difficult, especially for gay men, to find a passive, more feminine way of being with each other’s genitals, instead of constantly seeking intensity of sensation. The problem with excessive stimulation is that it makes the genitals insensitive; they begin to lose their capacity to feel, and slowly nothing turns you on any more, the old tricks don’t seem to work. Then there is a need and desire for more and more stimulation, which in some cases can leave a person feeling quite numb to himself. The inner sensitivities have been blasted with an overdose of sensation. Sensitivity arises with awareness, so when we use our bodies insensitively to satisfy our sexual minds, we are closing ourselves down to our inner treasures. The guideline for any couple interested in tantra, homosexual or heterosexual, is always to seek sensitivity rather than sensation. Sensation dulls while sensitivity awakens inner sources of delight and pleasure.
The Auto-Ecstatic Individual
Having stated clearly the genital need of equal and opposite forces as essential to tantra, I remind you now that our basic inner set-up is bisexual. This is indeed the very foundation of tantra.
Each one of us contains male and female poles, which makes each individual
essentially auto-ecstatic. It seems rather obvious, then, that there has always
been and will always be a variety of sexual expressions among human beings. In
the homosexual connection, the inherent potential of the sexual situation is
limited, first because reproduction is not possible, and second because of the lack of alignment in polarity. But I am certain that the ultimate potential of the individual is not affected, because ultimately the source of orgasmic states lies within each person; it is an inner celebration of the male and female elements. So it becomes more a question of how we get there, how we awaken our inner ecstatic potential. In homosexuality and heterosexuality the routes are similar and at the same time diverse.
On my way to deliver the completed manuscript of this book to the publisher, I fortunately and unexpectedly met a friend who then sent me the following report about her experiences with sex.
A woman shares her experience:
“My entire life I have been bisexual. Sex used to be frustrating with both the sexes. This temporary fit of ecstasy left me almost always feeling empty afterward. So I was insatiable, a true nymphomaniac. Then many years ago I participated in a group with Diana—we called it ‘The Tantra Experiment.’ It changed my view and experience of sex completely. Here I was practicing how to
not
run with my hormones and lust, learning to relax into sex. Nothing really tantric was happening yet, but mysteriously it was the most fulfilling sex I had ever had. After that I was only interested in tantric lovemaking, which at that point only happened with men. When a woman crossed my path I would have a short fling, but I did not want to go back to what I called ‘doing’ sex.
“Everything changed when I met my female partner four years ago. To my great astonishment, the famous ‘circle of energy’ happened without genital penetration. A kiss or an embrace was enough to set off the silent implosion. My mind was like scrambled eggs. I could not comprehend it. It
shattered a lot of beliefs and ideas I had about male and female. After all, the male and female reside in every human being; it seemed that we both have integrated these polarities and can rest in the silence of being and heart. This is a total energetic penetration! Sometimes one of us is more in the ‘male,’ outgoing energy and the circling goes in one direction. Sometimes it goes in two directions at the same time. At times it is full on and at times not. One thing is that we cannot ‘do’ it. Maybe there are ways to direct the energy that we are not aware of yet. In my experience, the difference between tantra with the opposite sex and tantra with a same-sex partner is that with the opposite sex the genital penetration almost always allows for the circle of energy to happen, or at least more easily. At the same time, right now I am menopausal and there is not always enough sexual energy available to allow for the tantric orgasm. The ecstatic melting then happens purely in the heart.”