Mailbag #3: Single Women/Meditation

Two of the letters about solo Tantra were from women, and both asked about vibrators.  I think I could have done a better, more complete job of answering them (sorry!), so I’ve rewritten and expanded on my answer for posting here:

I'm considered something of a radical pro-vibrator heretic in some circles because I refuse to condemn the use of vibrators during Tantric sex.  However, I do agree that it's a good idea for women to be cautious about using a vibrator during solo sex more than absolutely necessary, in part because a vibrator can get us used to reaching orgasm very quickly, a tempo that sex with a partner can't match.

Even if you have never managed to give yourself an orgasm manually, I urge you to give it a try and go as slowly as you can for as long as you can.  Your goal should be to s-t-r-e-t-c-h out the arousal phase as long as possible.

Mailbag #2: Tantra for Singles

One of the most common questions I have received from readers is from people who are currently single and want to get ready to learn Tantra with a partner.  Each time, I have added things to what has become my standard response, but I think this now covers most of the essentials:

Hi, ____.

I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I’ll try to answer any questions you have. If you have read this blog from the beginning, you know it’s a pretty complete course on learning Tantra, but it’s also very oriented toward couples. That's what I know, and it's what the people I interviewed know best.  

However, I did ask everyone I talked to about their experiences with things like meditation, sex, and orgasms before they learned Tantra, so I can say a bit about some things you can do now that will make the whole learning process easier when you do have a partner.

The best things single people can do to get ready to learn Tantra are: 

Mailbag #1: Tantra Videos / Stoned Tantra

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The Mystery and Magic of the Human Pair Bond

In my last post, I made a case that humans have (at least) three overlapping and competing attraction systems, and that there are styles of sex that are appropriate to each of the three. The key problem is that everyone starts out with lust and romance, but people who want to be in satisfying long-term relationships often aren’t able to make the transition to the kind of sex that can sustain a long-term relationship.

Lust, Romance, and Pair Bonding

You’ve now had a chance to read about four of the couples I interviewed.  I chose these couples to profile because they represent the range of differences I encountered fairly well.  (There was one obvious exception:  because I was also favoring the more reflective and articulate interviews, the couples I ended up choosing to describe for you were all college educated, and four of the eight individuals have at least a masters, whereas seven of the people I interviewed had some or no college.)

But as you read through this series of posts, you should have noticed a clear similarity:  all four of these couples are strongly devoted to each other.  In this, they are completely representative of all of the (now almost 60) couples I've interviewed.  To understand why, we need to take a step back and look at why this question even comes up.  Why aren’t humans, like many species, simply hardwired to be either monogamous or promiscuous?

Jack & Lita, Part 2: Tantra as Sacred Sex

Getting back to our interview with Jack and Lita...

Can you describe your usual Tantric experience?

Lita: [laughs] Oh, wow, I don’t know what’s typical! We keep mixing things up! Okay, let’s see… He flies home on Thursdays, so we have a Thursday-nighter when he gets back that’s usually just a basic body rub for him, something simple for me for a warm up, and then regular sex. It depends on how tired and sore he is.

On Friday night, we’re usually out at a restaurant, a concert, or a party or we go dancing or something like that, so we get home late-ish and don’t have time for much fancy stuff. Saturday is my biggest day at the dojo, so it’s my turn to get a good long massage before bed, but it’s usually just that, some drinks, a movie, and a cuddle, no sex, ‘cause we’re sort of saving up. Sunday, we head out to the shack, and I guess that’s what you mean by a Tantra experience, but it’s just sort of loosely woven into the whole day.

Jack & Lita: Male Orgasm and Ejaculation Control

I decided to introduce you to this next couple because my interview with them touched on two important questions:  How can couples manage if the two people feel very different about the spiritual or religious side of Tantra? And how important is the role of “sacredness” in what is often called “sacred sexuality”?

The other reason that I wanted to write up this interview for the blog is that Jack is the only man I talked to who had been able to go beyond the kegel clamp method for having multiple orgasms, to being able to trigger a complete orgasm without ejaculation by an act of will.  We’ll get to his account of what that learning process was like at the end of part one of this interview.

Cabot and Marla: Senior Tantra, Part 2

As we returned to the study, I asked Cabot & Marla to describe a typical Tantra experience.

Cabot: When we first came across Tantra, we were still really learning the basics of being better lovers. Marla has done yoga and ballroom for years, and she managed to convince me to take classes in both. In addition, we began to get quite serious about meditation. We worked on it on our own and with a local teacher, and of course Marla had been doing some basic meditation as part of yoga for years. But then we invested in a week-long meditation retreat at a Buddhist monastery in 2002, and I’m really glad we did. Among other things, everything I’ve read and heard about Tantra indicates that it’s sort of pointless to even try to learn Tantra if you don’t already have some degree of meditative control or mastery.

Cabot and Marla: Senior Tantra

Sexuality for seniors seems to be finally coming out from under the covers. Even ten years ago, this was mostly a subject for crude jokes, as if there were some kind of taboo on discussing it, but the boomers are getting up there in age, and as a generation they’re not used to being quiet about anything. Sex is no exception, and now that they are getting to be seniors, sex for seniors is suddenly a hot topic!

Hans & Anna: Young Love

To give you a better sense of how Tantra differs from one couple to another, I’m going to describe three more couples' experiences. Although the next two couples do happen to be among the youngest and oldest couples I interviewed, that’s not the only reason I chose them. As you will see, they are also different from each other and from Cammie and Don in a number of other ways.