Anger and Power Tantric Style

AASECT again!
There is so much here but much of it just doesn’t fit the model of Sacred Sexuality and Tantric philosophy, as I see it. It is more about the systematic model of breaking down and reconstructing the issues that concern, confuse and cause us grief about our relationships and sex. The issues that, for what ever reasons, keep us separate from our lover and partner. But we must live in relationship to others and we must relate to the world we live in and function in. The higher our functioning the better our lives will be.
Marty Klein, famous and prolific sex therapist that he is, held a workshop on Anger and Power in relationships. Power and Anger manifest in many different ways in all relationships but I’ll focus here on one of the ways it comes up in relationship to Tantra.
These kinds of issues come up in couples where one wants to take a Tantra workshop and the other can’t understand why, or sometimes even listen to the reasons, their partner wants to go. Though the one lover may be trying to charge the relationship up a bit, and cause transformation to occur, the other partner sees it as a direct attack on his or her sexual techniques, lovability or any other of a myriad of assaults on their integrity as a love and partner.
Tantra has been affiliated with saying ‘Yes’ to your lover and to life. That doesn’t mean that any particular ‘Yes’ is forever but it means that you are willing to stretch a bit to experience something your partner wants to try. If one partner, in any relationship, is the one who is always suggesting a new strategy, this can get very one-sided and become a ‘power’ play. If this happens in your relationship, any relationship in your life for that matter, try stretching to be the one who suggests a new adventure or path of learning and expanding. See what happens. Start slowly and relatively safely at first if this is foreign to you. Witness how you feel doing it – even thinking about doing it. Are you being straight-forward and clear in your telling? Are you fully behind yourself and what you are asking for? How does it fell in your ‘body’ right before and right after you ask? Witness how you handle yourself and applies this to next time so that you can learn how to be more assertive and yet gently powerful on your life and your relationships.
Life is relatively short. There may come a time in your life when you say to yourself “Why didn’t I stretch a little more? What would it have cost me? And what would I have gained?” You might want to apply this sooner than later. At first you won’t be good at it but I bet over time and with a patience from you partner you will get it and the both of you will soar with your new-found equanimity.

At the AASECT Conference

I’m at the national, annual AASECT (American Association of Sexuality Education, Counseling & Therapy). For years my colleagues and co-tantra educators separated themselves from this world of sex therapists and researchers. I was told that these conferences wouldn’t inform me or infuse me with anything; that folks here were straight and focused in their own worlds and couldn’t and wouldn’t come into mine. How not true!
There is a transformation going on in the world of science. Quantum physics dabbles in the circle that includes spirit now. And the world of sexual science is going there too. Fully a third of the workshops and talks had major components of spiritual enlightenment. The first two plenary sessions included the latest in women’s sexual research along with open and honest confirmation that spirit, healing and deep pleasure are what is the most important in finding one’s way in a sexually healthy lifestyle. Beverly Whipple, the pre-eminent researcher of women’s sexual response and brain activity, speaks these days of energy systems right along with pain and pleasure receptors. Gina Ogden is teaching transformative workshops based on the first ever survey investigating emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of sexuality as well as physical aspects of a whole-life system of ecstatic living. Healing the wounds we both carry in our minds and carry in our bodies has become a guiding principle here.
Gina’s workshop is a Goddess workshop in many ways. She uses the acronym ISIS for integrated sexuality into every aspect of life. Using the Native American model of the wheel she segments our sexual lives into Mental, Physical, Emotional, Spiritual and ‘Center’ in the middle of the circle to hold and integrate the other four. Sex is a whole-life experience. It informs all the rest of our life systems.
Debra Halfner is a Jewess by birth but is a minister now, a theologian and a sex therapist. She gave a plenary that interpreted bible passages that embrace sex and she calls for a reformation in how we hold and see sex in our lives. Sexuality as the expression of the Divine is available to us in spirit and in religion. We are originally ‘blessed’ through our birth from the ecstasy of sex. She is reminding us to remember this and she is calling for a reclaiming of our rights to pleasure from the narrow interpretation given by the Christian conservative Right.
More to come…

Mainstream meets Tantricas

I’m excited about my trip next week to Charlotte, North Carolina for the annual AASECT conference. AASECT stands for American Association of Sexuality Educators, Councilors and Therapists. This will be my third annual meeting with them.
As a Tantra and Kama Sutra educator I find the intersection between more traditional sex educators and therapists and the knowledge I have to be a very expansive area to explore. Understanding the research coming from the scientific community on sexuality, biology and neuroscience and then examining the research and experiential evidence in mind/body research is great food for thought, for my brain! I can look at things like the Chakra system, with its energy centers as metaphors for psychological phenomena, and see the direct correlation between the body’s nervous system and neuronal pathways. Our gut has the second largest ‘bundle’ of nerves next to our brains. It is said to be our second brain. Some scientists now believe that our whole body is our brain. This has immense implications.
Is it then true that we are what we eat and drink? Is where we live and work and play a part of our overall make-up? How about how happy we are? How much pleasure we experience? Or pain? A growing set of the scientific community understands that we are basically a bundle of nerves sending elaborate signals out via chemical messengers that control everything we do, think, act upon and believe. Because those chemicals we pump throughout our bodies can be influenced by what we ingest (in the extreme, think opiates, psychedelics, simple herbs and even more oxygen) we have not only the capacity to see God/Goddess but to feel a part of the great mystery of the universe. We have the capacity to inhale pheromones from our lover, to breathe differently to create a change in attitude or experience, to calm ourselves, to excite ourselves and so much more.
It’s said that we each use about 10% of our brain capacity. I’m not necessarily thinking about ‘thinking’, I’m curious about the other things we do with our brains. The things that have become rote behavior like the way we breathe or the way we treat anger or mindless eating patterns. With training anything is possible because we have a huge brain that can take a lot more input and mastery of thought and action. Simply employing it to be happier and more fulfilled might be a wonderful way to start increasing your brain capacity!
Think about offering your lover a unique experience of touch, erotic pleasure and surrender this weekend. Design an experience for them to increase their capacity for ‘Kama’- pleasure. You’ll be increasing the amount of brain they use too, so they won’t be able to refuse your offering of deep pleasure. It is hard to receive sometimes but in doing so you will be expanding your ability to be a more whole and complete human being.

Female Ejaculation - Do you do it?

In the early 1980's co-eds reported that about 10% of them ejaculated during sexual orgasm. A more current response has that number at more than 40%. This percentage even went up when the women were queried anonymously. I wonder if just knowing it is possible or once you've heard that other women do it is permission given to go for it yourself? Why has this number increased so rapidly?
Many women are still embarrassed by it and don't understand what they are experiencing. Female ejaculation happens in small quantities and larger quantities. It happens through G-spot stimulation and clitoral stimulation. It has been confirmed that strong PC muscles (do your Kegels gals!) strengthen the connection between stronger orgasms and ejaculation in both men and women.
I became an official ejaculator when it was mentored to me by Caroline Muir. We were filming with her and Charles many years ago a sequence for a film on female ejaculation. That night I tried imitating her sounds while in orgasm - deep, resonate tones from the belly - when all of a sudden I was gushing. I haven't stopped since. I just had to know it was possible and mentoring is a great way to learn, especially for such a topic!
Do you ejaculate? If you do, do you have any tips, suggestions, concerns or ideas for helping others or just commenting on what it is like for you and how you feel about it? I'd love to hear from you about any of these topics. email me!