Spirited Loving: If You Want to Improve Your Lovemaking, Consider the Tantric Approach
If USA Today ever publishes a list of the Most Open-Minded American Cities, it's a good bet Nashville won't be cracking the top 50. A town where gay and lesbian city employees are denied protection from discrimination and where the jury is still out on evolution is not about to win any enlightenment awards. So Nashville might not seem a particularly ripe market for Tantric sexuality workshops. But that isn't stopping David Yarian and Sandi Anders, who provide just such a service right here in Music City. Before you get all hot and bothered and let the mental images run wild, though, you should know a few things about Tantric sex.
"First, let me tell you what it's not," David begins. "It's not orgies. It's not wild, out of control, irresponsible, kinky or over the edge. It's a meditative approach to sexuality. The two practitioners are using the breath to be fully in touch with themselves, and the energy around and inside their own bodies, and then circulating this energy between two people. It's sometimes called the yoga of sex. It's a very mindful approach."
David and Sandi know a thing or two about issues of sexuality, intimacy and the human psyche. David is a licensed clinical psychologist with extensive postgraduate training in marital and family therapy, as well as sex therapy. Sandi is a body-mind psychotherapist, yoga teacher and stress-reduction specialist.
In their Tantric sexuality workshops, David and Sandi are providing information for couples who want to explore Tantra as a means to improve their emotional and spiritual connection, as well as improving their individual selves. "The workshops do not involve sex or touching in the room," David explains. "We're giving instruction about practices -- breathing practices and other things. We give you tools to expand your sexual life. We're trying to make this accessible. It's not esoteric, you don't have to wear funny clothes, or speak Sanskrit or stand on your head."
According to David, the roots of Tantra go back to at least 1000 B.C. The first actual writings, called "Tantras," were produced around 800 A.D. One of the principles of Tantric philosophy is that sensory experience is all-important. "A lot of meditation is focused on the mind," David says, "and doesn't deal with the body as much. In Tantra, you are very much in your body. You are totally alive to everything that's coming through your senses -- touch, smell, perception, how it feels to be in your body. The goal is to maximize that.
"One of the things about Western sexuality, and our culture," David continues, "is that we're both sex-obsessed and sexually repressed, simultaneously. We think that intercourse -- genital penetration -- equals sex. And orgasm is how you measure that. So what you get is a sexuality where people are trying to get there and get off, pushing for the goal line. That's the opposite of what a Tantric approach would be, which is much more like massage, much more like meditation, getting wild yet serene. The goal is to learn how to relax in high states of arousal. So you get aroused, yet relaxed; then more aroused, yet relaxed; then even more aroused, yet relaxed -- as opposed to getting aroused and ejaculating.
"Tantric lovemaking can last a long time. Both men and women can be multiorgasmic. Orgasm is not the same as ejaculation. Sometimes I use surfing as a metaphor: a surfer catches a big wave and rides it, but he doesn't ride it all the way in; he gets off the wave, circles back and waits for the next wave, then rides that one but doesn't go all the way in. So it's like playing out there on the waves. And Tantric sex is playing at those high levels of arousal and hanging out there. To do that, you have to be very much in your body."
Tantra provides specific techniques that help to enhance this mindfulness and body awareness. "There are ways in which the breath is coordinated," David explains. "Sometimes both partners will be breathing in and out together, and sometimes one partner is breathing in while the other is breathing out. It's reciprocal. There's an interchange of energy.
"Part of the practice is taking the sexual feelings that arise in the pelvis and bringing that energy upward to connect it with the heart energy, and then ultimately to draw that energy all the way up to the top of the head. It can be hard to describe. It's a practice; it's something you learn."
David points out that Tantra is a very intentional process and thus doesn't depend so much on people being "in the mood." "If two people are Tantric partners," David says, "it's different from furtively trying to get your partner turned on because you're in the mood, or trying to read the signals if he or she is in the mood."
One of Tantra's fundaments is that sex, and other forms of pleasure, can be healing. "All of us, on some level, are sexually wounded," David says. "This culture is not easy on people. A lot of us grow up with touch deprivation. There's just a blank space in kids' education about sexuality in our culture. They learn about all these other parts of the world, but nothing about sexuality. I was talking to a couple a few years ago, and they were describing their sexual challenge. They put it like this: he learned about sex from porn; she learned about sex from Harlequin romances. Both of those are fiction."
While the demand locally for Tantric workshops hasn't been huge, David says it's increasing. Sting spoke about his own experiences with Tantric sexuality on Oprah several months ago, putting the topic a little more into the mainstream. And despite Nashville's conservative veneer, the proliferation of yoga studios, meditation groups and other practices with origins in non-Western traditions suggests that our city is gradually becoming more open to new experiences.
Regardless, David has plenty to keep him busy. "I'm a licensed psychologist, and I have a general psychotherapy practice. Probably about half my practice is couples, so I do a lot of sex therapy. I'm a certified sex therapist. What I do with Tantra is more educational. Sex therapy is about fixing stuff that's wrong. Tantric practice is about helping people go from good to great. It's about improving intimacy, and also about looking at sexuality as spiritual practice."
And while it may be a spiritual practice, David emphasizes that Tantra is not a religion, "though it may have started out as a religion many centuries ago. What we call 'Tantra' today is really an amalgam of some ancient practices as well as modern humanistic psychology."
One element of Tantra that might seem foreign at first to some novices is its nondualistic nature. Western culture tends to consider mind and body as two separate entities. "It goes way back. The Apostle Paul talked about the flesh and the spirit, dividing the world up into mind and body. That's another way in which Tantra might seem radical: there's not the question of trying to figure out if something is good or evil."
For those interested in reading about Tantra, David recommends The Art of Sexual Ecstasy: The Path of Sacred Sexuality for Western Lovers, by Margot Anand, and Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving, by Charles and Caroline Muir.
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