Following their article on Tantra, this letter was sent to Men’s Health Magazine on 17 March 2000. It was never published.
The Editor, ‘Men’s Health’,
One reason why thousands of men and women support your magazine is the wonderful combination of irreverent humour and sound fact. So it is with some dismay that I read your article on Tantric sex (March 2000). Your readers should expect accuracy when it comes to sexual practices as well as working out and diet.
The first Tantric texts appeared 1500 years ago and the Buddha lived 2500 years ago. How your writer arrived at “Tantra started in India 4000 years ago by Buddhists” is beyond me. The phrase “her pleasure is tantamount” is not English. At least, we are not informed what exactly her pleasure is supposed to be equal to. Perhaps your writer meant ‘Tantra-mount’, which would at least be funny. More likely, she meant ‘paramount’. Even if this is a legitimate typo, the information is incorrect.
The honour due to the woman in Tantra is not the woman per se, but because she is acknowledged as a container of the cosmic feminine force. In this process, the man is due an equal amount of honour as the divine masculine force. In Tantra, both partners receive and give each other pleasure as an enactment of the great cosmic dance of the universe. The slightly amusing tone of the article does not excuse overlooking essential facts, especially when writing about human sexuality and the damage that wrong information can do.
Without guidance, anyone in a modern gym would be overwhelmed. Using the specialized equipment and machines incorrectly and doing advanced workouts when a person is unfit is not only stupid, it is dangerous. Unsupervised workouts for beginners would be irresponsible by those in charge. Yet that is what your Tantra article suggests.
Tantra is not about ‘having a bonk, only better’. It is a series of highly sophisticated and complex exercises that need to be learned and then slowly built up. Of course this is about sex, but not Playboy’s idea of it. Through training, we use our own incredibly complex and sophisticated bodies, directed by our own consciousness, to generate vast energy fields. Compare what a triathlete can accomplish with his body to an average couch surfer’s physical ability. Much has been written about the dangers of opening up the sexual energy channels in someone unable to contain the energy released. The dangers could include psychological breakdown and physical ill health. You cannot simply wire up 12v operating equipment to the mains without anticipating a burn up and melt down.
These are the legitimate cautions of the experts in advanced sexual techniques, developed over hundreds of years. They know exactly what they are talking about when they speak of orgasms (for men) lasting 15 minutes and longer, with intense energy flooding the body, and the effects of this on heart, breath and brain function. There is differentiated clitoral and deep vaginal stimulation, female ejaculation and the impact of this on a woman’s body and psychological tone. Or men having sex literally for over an hour each day for a week and not ejaculating once, hard-ons and the importance of soft-on penises, prostate health and all the wondrous positions that make up the power grids of the ‘sacred geometry’ of human bodies engaged in hard-core sexual activity.
It seems that your writer has had very little actual Tantric experience with a man. If you feel that you actually need a woman to write to tell men about the male experience of sex, at least choose someone with extensive first-hand experience. Her obsession with positions that stimulate the G-spot might be good news for women who need men to satisfy them and the stud mentality of the men that need to please them. But this has little to teach those men who are ready to move beyond performance anxiety into the authentic expression of their own potent sexual needs. The ironic miracle is that when men do find their own authentic sexual centre, their women feel truly loved and sexually are deeply satisfied as well.
A horse and cart will get you there and is great on the farm. If you want to travel any real distance, the ride is more fun in a turbocharged, aerodynamically designed and safe motor vehicle. In these times of satellite connectivity and virtual retinal display, get ready for sex in the 21st century. Hello tantra.
See more about kadeisha and the practice of conscious sexuality.