Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century (14 page)

“Definitely.”

She began by thudding my back with a padded nightstick. It felt so good. I breathed and groaned and yelled out weeks of built-up pain and frustration. When I turned over, I felt a tight pain in my solar plexus as though some malevolent force had grabbed hold of all my power and was holding it hostage. Kate took a sharp, pointed talon (a long steel claw that extends from a ring worn on the finger to an inch beyond the fingertip) and started running it down my stomach. She started relatively lightly, as the talon was quite sharp. I kept asking her to press harder and harder. With each stroke I was opening up a bit more. Kate stayed right with me. She listened to me, gave me what I asked for, and, most important, made me feel safe. I knew she was focused only on me and that she had the technique to use the talon safely. I knew she would not do anything that would actually injure me, no matter how much I asked. I breathed and yelled and cried, and finally, as the talon nearly sliced me open, I felt my solar plexus burst open, releasing all the evil, black, psychic gunk I had been holding there. I cried and cried and then I laughed and laughed. I felt so high, so light, and so me again.

That was meeting the Resilient Edge of Resistance—psychically, emotionally, and physically. So, think about your own life: where you live, what you do for work, what your home life is like, and so forth. If you live in a sweet little cottage beside a lake in the woods, work at a fulfilling but low-pressure job, and have lots of time for family and friends and nature, your Resilient Edge of Resistance will be at a very different place at the end of a day than that of a person who works in a cubicle in a corporate office tower in midtown New York at a high-pressure job that frequently keeps them at their desk till 9 p.m. The person in New York is more likely to want and need a harder touch in order to crack through the armor they have built up to protect their hearts and other soft tender parts. Whether you generally like a hard touch or a soft touch, whether you like black leather or floaty sarongs, even if you change your sexual style on a daily basis, you can’t go wrong if you simply find your Resilient Edge of Resistance.

Perhaps you’re beginning to think,
Good grief, if I have to meditate and then practice new ways to breathe and touch, when will I ever have time for sex? There’s just not enough time!
I understand completely. I often fall into the there’s-never-enough-time trap, especially when I’ve got twice as many things to do as I have hours in which to do them. Time itself feels like a rare and precious resource that’s always just about to run dry. I also feel guilty about the time I “waste” when I sleep an extra hour. And I also fantasize about all the things I could accomplish if only there were a couple more hours in the day. It seems we’re all either falling behind or racing to catch up.

However, this does not have to be just one more self-help book you skim through and then leave on the shelf because you never had enough time to try any of the things you read. Tantra can be learned and practiced in the time you actually have.

But first, you need to understand that you do have
some
time. Time is not a fixed, inflexible commodity. If it were, each day would seem exactly the same length as the one before. We know that isn’t the case—some days feel endless while others zip by in an instant. Time is malleable. Time is part of us; it belongs to us; it’s something we have power to control. There is a good reason why we
feel
so powerless over time: we give so much of it away to everything and everyone else that there simply isn’t much left for ourselves. Consistently putting the things we “should” do and “must” do ahead of the things we “could” do and “want to” do is exhausting, depleting, depressing, and completely libido-dampening.

The media is full of reports of people in committed relationships who aren’t having sex. This is not the same old story of men who want more sex than their wives. Now, more and more wives are complaining that their husbands are the ones who don’t want sex. People often say their dearth of sexual activity is because they just don’t have time. But is that the truth? Is it really
time
that we are lacking?

The statement “I don’t have the time for sex” usually has little to do with time
or
sex. More often, it means “I’m tired,” or “I really need to work,” or “I’d really
rather
work.” It can mean “I want to spend more time with the children” or “I have spent way, way too much time with the children.” It often means “I need some time completely to myself—away from everything and everyone. I have nothing left to give.” Our desire
for sex (especially for partner sex) can be depleted by, among other things, anxiety, depression, antidepressants, lack of work, overwork, or even an obsession with our children. It’s not that we don’t have the time for sex, it’s just that other things seem more important, necessary, or enjoyable than sex. Ironically, sex is probably just the thing to alleviate the depression, exhaustion, anxiety, and obsession.

Instead of saying that we want more time for sex, I think we’d be more truthful saying that we want
better
time—time with no looming concerns or commitments. Many of us neither need nor want vast expanses of free time. Vast, empty periods of time can be daunting, especially when filled with long silences as we try to express our craving for sex or the kind of intimacy we experience through sex. One of the most effective tricks we use to avoid sex or intimacy is the excuse “I just don’t have time right now. Let’s talk about it later.”

How do we solve this time/sex/intimacy conundrum? We start small. We select small amounts of time and the kinds of sexual activities that can be exciting and satisfying in a short period of time. Please, don’t wait until there’s time for a five-hour Tantric ritual. You may never find those five hours. Don’t even wait until you are “in the mood.” There are sexy things you can do that will increase your desire. You can start practicing Tantra in whatever mood you are in. You only need twenty minutes.

Conscious Quickies

Twenty minutes? What can you do with twenty minutes? Plenty.

* It was a twenty-minute lap dancing session with that cowboy that resulted in my mind-blowing flight through the cosmos.

* Even if you’re feeling too tired for sex, twenty minutes of selfloving can put you into a lovely, deep, peaceful sleep.

* In twenty minutes, you can easily give yourself an energy orgasm that will leave you emotionally and physically refreshed.

* Both the Exhilaration Meditation and Cathartic Meditation can be accomplished in twenty minutes.

Stop thinking in hours, days, and weekends, and start thinking twenty minutes. A week of juicy, twenty-minute conscious quickies once a day will add up to two and one-half hours of sex per week. By the way, if your partner does not want to participate in your conscious quickies, that’s okay. There are plenty of techniques that you can
practice alone. Remember, you are doing conscious quickies for
you
. You’re not trying to trick or trap your partner(s) into doing anything they really don’t want to do. However, you may find that your partner(s) are increasingly likely to join you if you are consistent and dedicated to your daily twenty minutes.

Think of sex as an art, like music or painting. Becoming accomplished in any art takes regular practice. Any music teacher will tell you that twenty minutes of practice every day is more effective than two and a half hours once a week. Why? Because the body is an instrument that responds well to steady, consistent repetition. Whether you want your body to dance a solo, play a sonata, or be capable of multiple full-body orgasms, you need the kind of practice that’s going to get you results. Unconsciously jerking off to a porn magazine certainly will not hurt you, but it won’t improve your technique or increase your capacity for more pleasure, either. The kind of practice I’m talking about is
conscious
practice. No matter how scattered your thoughts or how busy your life, you certainly can keep your attention focused on an erotic exercise for twenty minutes.

Your conscious quickies will open up all the pathways through which sexual energy flows in your body so you will become more aroused and erotically charged in less and less time. When you develop a steady sexual practice, you’ll look forward to the practice more and more. You may find yourself happily doing more than twenty minutes per day.

And when you are looking forward to sex and erotic pleasure, please remember that sex does not always have to be mind-blowing. It can be quiet and soft and comforting. It can be sad or angry or scary. Let go of any expectations or goals you may have regarding what you will “achieve” in your conscious quickies. Release your performance anxiety, don’t try to be perfect, learn to improvise, and experiment a little, even when you are not in the mood. Use your conscious quickies to tune your erotic instrument.

The exercises in this book are designed to help you increase your awareness, your energy, and your capacity for pleasure. They will help you to return to your natural state as a human
being
—as opposed to the human
doing
you may have become. Many, if not most, of the exercises can be done as conscious quickies: twenty-minute erotic adventures that you can have alone or with others. When you have more time, you’ll be able to weave your favorite exercises together into your own yummy ritual.

A word of caution: we’ve all been told a thousand times that to achieve a happier, more pleasure-filled life, we must begin by putting ourselves first. Well, that may be true, but with the pressures of work, family, school, children, parents, and partners, it can be difficult to find ourselves on our own priority list. Just think of your conscious quickies as twenty magical minutes that nourish you and still leave you with twenty-three hours and forty minutes to handle everything else. After you’ve spent twenty deeply conscious minutes pleasing yourself, the rest
will
be easier to handle.

Jwala, my first Tantra teacher,
is fond of asking her workshop participants to list ten qualities they would want in their ideal lover. She doesn’t mean physical qualities like big breasts or sculpted abs. The qualities she wants you to list are things like enthusiasm, kindness, or having a twisted sense of humor.

Try it if you like. Stop reading after the end of the next sentence, and make your own list. When you’ve finished, continue on to the next paragraph.

Read over your list. Does this person remind you of anyone you already know?

Chances are, you have done a pretty good job of describing yourself. Most people do. And that’s perfect. After all, you are the one love who will never leave you. You’ll always want sex when you do. You’ll always know exactly how to please you. And your parents would probably even approve of your choice.

So now that we know who your ideal lover is, let the romance begin! This chapter will show you how to activate and channel your sexual energy into all sorts of delightful orgasmic adventures. You’ll even enter the amazing world of breath and chakra orgasms—full-body orgasms you can achieve simply by breathing. You’ll get to try all sorts of new sensations as you discover what truly turns you on. Finally, you’ll take yourself out on a Tantric date.

Tantra for one is not simply what you do when you can’t get a date with someone else. Solo Tantra is the lifelong process of falling in love and staying in love with yourself—not just sexually, but also in respect, devotion, and compassion. Along the path, you may just discover that you’ve attracted one or more other delightful beings who love you just as much as you love yourself.